Today, I spoke to Darren Hardy, who is the visionary force behind SUCCESS magazine as its Publisher and Editorial Director. He is the author of The Compound Effect. In this interview, Darren talks about the compound effect of success, why successful people can’t be good at everything, why it’s important to establish a routine, and more.
Why did you write The Compound Effect? And why now?
Well, to be very candid Dan, I wrote it because I was ticked off. Our current society has grown up with a microwave mentality expecting success and the results on effort to be immediate. Coupled with mass commercial marketing and in its competitive zeal has exaggerated their claims of overnight success appealing to our weakness of wanting immediate gratification. We are constantly bombarded with increasingly sensational claims to get rich, get fit, get younger, get sexier… all overnight with little effort for only three easy payments of $39.95.
These repetitive marketing messages have distorted our sense of what it really takes to succeed. Then those with the sincere interest in learning what it takes to be more successful continually get bamboozled, distracted, frustrated and disappointed when they don’t experience the results they are after. I was tired of watching it happen!
I wrote this book to return people to the basics—the truth and the core fundamentals of what it really takes to succeed. I wanted to clear the clutter, demystify the truth and tell it straight—with no fat or fluff included.
I have been part of the personal-development industry for 16 years, and as the publisher of SUCCESS magazine, I’ve seen and heard it all. There are 5,000 books produced every year in the personal-development and success space. To break through the noise of that sheer volume, so many “gurus” today have resorted to sensational claims of great “secrets” or “new scientific breakthroughs” and the like. It’s marketing gimmickry, and it does more harm than good for the people who are looking for real self-improvement answers.
The truth is, there are not 5,000 things one needs to do well to be successful. There are about a half-dozen things that need to be done well, 5,000 times over to be successful. This book brings clarity and focus to those half-dozen things and offers a specific and actionable plan on how to do them well. Master these fundamentals, repeat them consistently over an extended period of time, and the payoff will be extraordinary.
Why do people who are successful in one area of life often fail miserably in another area?
Mostly it is because people end up chasing the dreams and value systems defined by society, their peer group or their parents, instead of discovering and living in alignment to their own definition of what’s important to them in life. Having to live up to someone else’s expectations can become insatiable obsession that can cause an overemphasis in one area of life (usually financial, status, title, identity pursuits, etc) to the sacrifice of others (usually relationships, health, contribution, spirituality, etc).
“Identifying your true core motivation and values is essential to finding passion and life’s zest.”
In The Compound Effect I outline a process on how to unearth your core motivation, strengths and passions. Follow the process and you will discover some things about yourself that might surprise you!
You discuss the power of establishing success routines. Talk to us about why that is important and what are some of your routines?
The problem Dan is most people don’t turn knowledge or intention into action… and action that is made consistent. Some of our best intentions fail because we don’t have a system of execution. When it comes down to it, your new attitudes and behaviors must be incorporated into your monthly, weekly, and daily routines to affect any real, positive change.
A routine is something you do every day without fail, so that eventually, like brushing your teeth or putting on your seatbelt, you do it without conscious thought. If you look at anything you do that’s successful, you’ll see that you’ve probably developed a routine for it. These routines ease life’s stresses by making our actions automatic and effective. To reach new goals and develop new habits, it’s necessary to create new routines to support your objectives.
Let me give you a for instance, I was constantly being told I needed to stretch more. I would do it for a week or two then forget about it. It wasn’t until I inserted it into a predictable sequence of steps, ala routine, that I do every morning did it take hold. When I get out of bed the first thing I do is put on a pot of coffee. While the coffee is brewing I do a stretching routine that only lasts 8 minutes. By the time I am done the coffee is ready and I continue on with my morning routine sequence. In the book I reveal a lot more about my high-performance routines that has been responsible in helping me achieve much more in less time than many others.
You talk about how significant success stems from very small changes. How does that work?
Dan, you will remember from high-school physics class Newton’s First Law, also known as the Law of Inertia: Objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. For most people, it’s that first step that is the hardest. To take a step, even a small one requires someone to come to a decision. The small step is taking action on that decision. One there is forward motion, even if it is small, breaks the inertia and redirects the trajectory of all steps from that point forward.
Then we see one behavior change begets another. Someone decides to start jogging. They then don’t have time to hang out with co-workers after work drinking and eating fried appetizers. They join a running group and make new associations. Their energy is improved which makes them a better performer at the office and friskier with their spouse and more joyful for their kids… and the ripple effect continues to COMPOUND.
If the fundamentals of success are so simple, why doesn’t everyone have the wealth, health and relationships they desire?
That is the multi-million dollar question, isn’t it Dan? Well, what is easy to do is also easy not to do. The one thing successful people have in common with unsuccessful people is—they both hate to do what it takes to be successful. The difference is, successful people do them anyway.
The reality is the process of success is laborious, tedious, sometimes even boring. Becoming wealthy, influential, and world-class in your field is slow and arduous. As I mentioned before, Hollywood and commercial marketing will fool you into believing otherwise so it’s easy to get faked out.
If one learns and focuses on the core fundamentals of success and repeats them with discipline consistently, they will eventually incite the magic of The Compound Effect to catapult them into the stratosphere of extraordinary success and get the honor of their friends, family members, colleagues and neighbors calling them “lucky.”
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Darren Hardy is the visionary force behind SUCCESS magazine as its Publisher and Editorial Director. As a leader in the personal development industry, Darren is a product and embodiment of the principles he teaches. Darren as an entrepreneur was earning a six-figure income by age 18, more than a million a year by 24 and by age 27 was a self-made millionaire with a company doing more than $50 million in revenue. In his latest book, The Compound Effect, Darren reveals the core principles responsible for his success and the many super-achievers he interviews in SUCCESS. To learn more go to: www.TheCompoundEffect.com
