Garbage in, garbage out. Don’t waste your time watching TV, eating junk, reading useless stuff, consuming negative stories, and more. Winning the race is all about the pace. You have to keep moving or you will lose momentum and soon the whole race. It’s the tortoise and hare principal.

Darren Hardy is today’s preeminent Success Mentor having been a central business leader in the personal growth and success industry now for more than 20 years. He has led three success television networks producing over 1,000 TV shows featuring most every influential thought leader of our times. And for eight years Darren led the rebirth of SUCCESS Magazine as its publisher and founding editor. As stated - if this self-help thing is new to you, give it a go if you happen to have it lying around. If you don't, there are better books out there. Everyone tries to be Tony Robbins or Stephen Covey, so why not start with them. They won't feed you a magic "you don't have to do anything but wish for shiny stuff" pill. You'll have to do the work, but they're well worth a read. I love Awaken The Giant Within and Personal Power II (TR). Seven Habits by SC is also hard to beat. What is your entertainment vs. education ratio? The top 20% of people spend their time focused on education.

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This is a must-read book for success seekers. You want to know what it takes? You want to know what to do? It's all here. This is your operation manual for success." With momentum, you can continue succeeding with less work. It’s easy to keep things running once you have momentum. The result after 2 and a half years: The third friend is now obese, has got health problems and loses his job and wife. The second friend remains the same and now is more bitter than before. The first friend remains trim, has a happy relationship with his wife and gets a job promotion.

If you create goals for yourself that have friction with your values, you’re going to self-sabotage or feel guilty about your progress. For example, if your family is a high priority, but you set high financial goals for yourself then there is friction between those two goals. (Note: this is basically identity-based habits. You can’t have friction between your identity and your goals.) When you set a goal, most people ask, “What do I need to do to achieve your goal?” Instead, you should ask “Who do I need to become?” What are you willing to tolerate? If you tolerate people being late that is what you’ll get. If you tolerate earning less than what you’re worth, that’s what you’ll earn. (This is similar to Mark Manson’s idea of “what kind of pain do you want?” Except here it is applied to the negative forces in our life whereas he applies it to our goals and ambitions.)Design the life you want first and the business you want second. Most people choose a career before thinking about what kind of life they want to build. (Note: great idea. Even better idea might be to test lifestyles. Try one project in various “lives” and see which you enjoy most. Write a book (author), show a photo project in a gallery (photographer), etc.) Be patient. You’ve spent years repeating bad behaviors. It’s going to take years to build good ones. How to win--every time! The No. 1 strategy to achieve any goal and triumph over any competitor, even if they're smarter, more talented or more experienced.

It’s not big choices, but ones that you think don’t matter or count for much that derail us. You don’t consciously think about it, but these small decisions can really change things. The Compound effect is always in action be it finance, business, health, relationships or your spirituality. Ending the book with "if this helped you in any way whatsoever, give five copies to your friends", was just a bit too much.

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The hardest part of momentum is the beginning. But like pushing the merry-go-round on the playground… Once you get moving you can keep going very easily. Not sure where I got this one from, to be honest. Had it lying around, and decided it was a good book to practice a few new speed reading techniques on.

The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions. You cannot improve something until you measure it. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you. The Compound Effect summaryThe first step toward change is awareness. The best way to become aware is to measure. Writing it all down is key. Tony Robbins’ no man’s land concept is when you’re not really happy about your life, but you’re not unhappy enough to do anything about it. You want to avoid this complacency.