This hidden gem is the only self-improvement book you actually need
Eight years before Atomic Habits, there was a book you’ve likely never heard of that tread a lot of the same ground in a deeply effective way.
It’s one of my favourite self improvement books of all time, and the information contained within is probably all you actually need to make massive gains in every aspect of your life.
The self-help industy is saturated with ideas that I think really over-complicate the chase for success.
No, “The Secret” isn’t to wish for cheques to show up in the mail and then just sit on your butt every day (the author wrote his book in the aftermath of Rhonda Byrne’s wishful tome).
Getting up at 5 a.m. every day and taking cold showers won’t make you a millionaire.
You’re actually going to have to work.
The book I’m referring to, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, cuts through all the crap and gets down to the real “secret” to massive success: small actions taken daily over a long period of time.
As he aptly puts it: success is not doing 5,000 things. It’s doing half a dozen things really well, 5,000 times.
He explains how success is slow, arduous and sometimes boring. It takes discipline and commitment.
I regret to inform you there is no shortcut.
The power of compounding
You’ve heard of compound interest? Hardy applies the concept to every aspect of life, and offers plenty of effective metaphors to get his point across.
Consider the penny gambit. If someone were to offer you $3 million today or a penny that doubles in value every day for 30 days, which would you take?
A friend takes the $3 million, you opt for the penny. While you might look like a fool for most of the month as your friend begins his lavish new lifestyle, toward the end of the 30 days you see explosive, exponential growth the produces more than $10 milllion dollars.
Such is the power of compound interest, and compounding in general, which is the basis of Hardy’s book.
It works both ways, however.
In one example, he notes that if you make tiny, positive physical and mental changes every day — i.e. working out a few times a week, removing 100 calories from your diet per day, reading a personal development book for 30 minutes a night — as compared to a friend who makes tiny choices in the opposite direction (e.g. starting to have a couple beers after work, spending an extra hour in front of the TV every night), the difference in your lives may be almost imperceptible for many, many months.
Yet check in on the the differences between the two friends after three years and the difference will be massive.
It’s like the old quote attributed to the late, bestselling author Tom Clancy: “An overnight success is 10 years in the making.”
Big Mo
My favourite chapter of the book is about the power of momentum, or as Hardy calls it, Big Mo.
He asks the reader to think about when you used to ride a merry-go-round as a kid. Getting moving from inertia takes a lot of effort, but once you get going, momentum takes over and it takes much less pushing to get the same result.
Another example is when you’re using a hand pump to get water. You may need to pump a lot at the start to just get a few trickles of water, but once the vaccuum gets going, you get a flood with very little effort.
The only catch is that, if you stop pumping completely for a long period of time, it will once again take a ton of effort at the start to get going again.
I think of it like my regular routine of going to the gym.
If I make a habit of it, it becomes easy to get there and workouts are enjoyable instead of painful.
Stop going for three months, however, and it’ll be a lot more challenging to show up and generate the energy to have a good workout.
I’ve noticed the power of Big Mo with my writing, too.
I went hard in September by writing multiple times per day, almost every single day, while trying to establish myself. The consistency paid off.
Then, in October, I wrote 30% fewer articles while trying to get YouTube accounts set up and recording videos, yet my writing income increased by about 22%.
A worthwhile read
Hardy goes through his personal goal-setting and tracking methods, morning routines, etc., and he has a bunch more colourful examples of the power of compounding in business and athletics that I really enjoyed.
If you’re looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is definitely not the book for you.
If you’re motivated to make big changes in your life the only way it actually happens — hard work and consistency — I think you’ll find it really inspiring.
*I’ll throw in an affiliate link to the paperback here because it’s less than nine bucks and you may enjoy consuming it that way.
As with all self improvement books, I prefer the audio versions because they allow me to multitask, they’re frequently read by the authors and I find them more inspiring. The enthusiasm in Hardy’s narration, for example is infectious.
If you’re new to Audible, you can actually listen to this for free on a 30-day free trial using my affiliate link here. If you’re like me, however, you’ll quickly become obsessed with the convenience of audiobooks and be listening to stuff all the time.
OK, I hope you check this book out! I really do love it and I can attest to its effectiveness.
Big Mo has visited me big time over the past couple of months, and the satisfaction that comes with being consistent and picking up small wins every day is priceless!
This post is republished from my Medium publication.
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