Since compounding is the approach I use as an investor, a book titled “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy caught my attention so I downloaded it on my Kindle. Even better, Darren Hardy started
in business as a real estate agent in California, so it’s easy to adopt his ideas for our businesses. Today he is the editor of Success Magazine.
The idea behind his book is that our daily actions can be compounded into an amazing life. However, we have to plan these daily actions and ensure they will lead us where we want to go. We cannot haphazardly go through each day. We have to make specific actions that will compound over time and we have to put a great deal of thought into these daily actions.
This isn’t the case for most people. Most people go through each day following the same routine without thinking about compounding. From the book…
“The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. What’s most interesting about this process to me is that, even though the results are massive, the steps, in the moment, don’t feel significant.”
Think about how an investment compounds overtime if the income is reinvested into new income-producing assets. Imagine what would happen if you applied this compounding strategy to what you
do on a daily basis? Here’s the formula you can use to compound your actions into an amazing life from the book:
“Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE”
Darren wrote about how one small change in your daily routine can have a very large ripple effect throughout your entire life. The cool part is that you can compound this ripple effect by being consistent with the new daily action.
“Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something. Choices are at the root of every one of your results. Each choice starts a behavior that over time becomes a habit.”
This means to change our lives we must examine our daily actions under a microscope. The reason why is because these daily actions are compounding whether we realize it or not. Go to Darren’s website and click on the “Free Resources” tab at the top. Now look for a worksheet titled “The Weekly Rhythm Register.” Download this
worksheet and print it out.
I have started using this worksheet and have found it to be extremely helpful. On this worksheet, you can list the new actions you will take on a daily basis. More importantly, you can track each
day throughout the week to monitor if you’ve completed the new action, or not. Remember, the key is to compound these actions by being consistent. You cannot compound your money if you don’t reinvest the income generated on a consistent basis. The same thing applies with your daily actions.
NO CONSISTENCY = NO COMPOUNDING
This little worksheet will help you compound your daily actions because it helps you stay focused. You list the new daily habits you want to form and use this simple worksheet to track your progress. You can list actions you want to take on a daily basis and actions you want to take on a weekly basis. As an example, you can list actions for…
People in your life (parents/spouse/kids)
– have dinner with my family each night
– date night with spouse each week
Your health (exercise/vitamins/nutrition)
– Eat less than 50 grams of net carbohydrates
– 30 minutes of weight training/cardio
Your business (lead generation/conversion)
– Set one new client appointment each day
– Generate 10 new leads each day
– Test new lead-generation advertisement each week
– Test new lead-conversion script each week
Self improvement
– Complete the Weekly Rhythm Register each day
– Read inspirational book – 30 minutes a day
– Journal or summarize ideas/lessons learned – daily
What daily actions do you need to perform in order to achieve your goals? Work backwards and compound your daily actions into more income. The key is to be very strategic about
what you do on a daily basis. One of the most important sentences from Darren’s book is:
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
You won’t double your sales in 2012 if you don’t change something you do every day. You won’t be a better spouse if you don’t change something you do every day. You won’t be a better
parent if you don’t change something you do every day. You won’t lose weight and get in shape if you don’t change something you do every day.
So if you truly want to change your life, you’ve got to take this seriously. Read Darren’s book and print out his “Weekly Rhythm Register” and start using it to compound your daily actions into an awesome life.
2 replies to "How to Have An Awesome Life"
Progress, not Perfection!
This is a great blog post Rob. Thanks for writing about what you learned in the book. I’ll have to read it. – Calvin