read it and write down what you learn and implement it When I lived in La Jolla, California, I would regularly ride my bike two miles straight up Mount Soledad for exercise and a test of will. There are very few things you can do voluntarily that cause more pain and suffering than riding a bike up a steep mountain without stopping. There is a point at which you “hit the wall” and come face to face with your true inner character. Suddenly, all the projections and ideas you had about yourself are stripped away and you’re left with the naked truth. Your mind starts inventing all sorts of convenient alibis on why it’s okay to stop. It is then when you’re faced with one of life’s greatest questions: Do you push through the pain and continue on, or will you crack like a walnut and give up?

Running the Boston Marathon in 2018, Desiree “Des” Linden seriously thought about quitting the race. It was wet, raining, and the coldest temperature in thirty years. Des was certain she hadn’t drunk enough fluids and was afraid of getting cramps in her legs.

Des told fellow American Shalane Flanagan that she might drop out, so if she needed anything, like someone to block the wind for her, she better let her know soon before she quit.

Shalane nudged Des to tell her she needed to hit the bathroom. Des slowed with her and promised she wouldn’t quit until she helped her rejoin the lead pack when she returned.

Despite the freezing temperatures, even more rain, and running into the wind, Des helped Shalane get back to the front. That is when she realized that she was in third or fourth place. “I thought, ‘I probably shouldn’t drop out,’ so I kept going.… I felt miserable, and sometimes when you pick it up and just forget about how you’re feeling and just engage for a little bit, it can kind of turn everything around,” Des explained in a post-race interview.

Flanagan then tired, but Des kept pushing forward. But she still had to chase down Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia, the Dubai and Houston marathon winner. Mamitu had separated from the lead pack before the halfway mark and led by as much as 30 seconds.

Now alone, soaked to the bone, her legs beginning to cramp, and facing a headwind of 10 miles per hour, Des Linden finally passed Mamitu in the twenty-first mile, crossing the finish line in 2 hours, 39 minutes, 54 seconds, becoming the first American woman to win the Boston Marathon in thirty-three years.

In this chapter, I want to talk to you about those moments of truth and how the Compound Effect can help you break through to new and greater levels of success—faster than you imagined possible. When you’ve prepared, practiced, studied, and consistently put in the required effort, sooner or later you’ll be presented with your own moment of truth. In that moment, you will define who you are and who you are becoming. It is in those moments where growth and improvement live—when we either step forward or shrink back, when we climb to the top of the podium and seize the medal or we continue to applaud sullenly from the crowd for others’ victories.

We’ll also look at how you can consistently deliver more than people expect, compounding your good fortune even further.

Moments of Truth
“It’s supposed to be hard,” Des Linden told reporters after winning the Boston Marathon.

Just the year before, she had almost given up on running altogether. “I had no passion at all,” she told the host of the podcast Only A Game. Des was burned out, having a horrible experience at a race, and was afraid that her results would tarnish a sport she really loved.

Des didn’t run at all the month of August 2017, which is like Stephen Curry not stepping onto a basketball court, Aaron Rodgers not touching a football, or Serena Williams not picking up her racket for an entire month.

But then Des started running again, slowly at first, and soon rediscovered her love of running. “I love competing. I decided not to concentrate on my results and my approach was ‘Just go and try to beat some people.’” A few months later is when Des won her first major marathon in Boston.

When I was in real estate, I hit the wall several times a day. While driving to an expired listing property, after just getting pummeled by the last prospect, I’d start conjuring up all sorts of excuses to skip the sales call and head back to the office. While out canvassing a neighborhood, dogs would snarl at me or it looked like it might start to rain. I’d be in the midst of “money time” (5 to 9 p.m., cold-calling) and frequently get chewed out for interrupting someone’s dinner or favorite TV show. I was sure I needed to take a break to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water. But instead of quitting, every time I hit one of those mental and emotional walls, I recognized my competitors were facing the same challenges. I knew this was another moment when, if I kept going, I would gain strides ahead of them. These were the defining moments of success and progress. It wasn’t difficult, painful, or challenging when I was just running with the herd, just keeping up, but not really getting ahead. It’s not getting to the wall that counts. It’s what you do after you hit it that really matters.

Lou Holtz, the famous football coach, knew it was what you did after you did your best that created victories. In one game, his team was down 42-0 at halftime. During the half-time break, Lou showed his team a dramatic highlight reel of second efforts to block, tackle, and recover the ball. He then told the players they were not on his team because they could give their all on every play. Every player on every team does that. He said they were on his team because of their ability to make that critical extra effort on each play. It’s the extra effort after you have done your best that is the difference-maker. His team went on to win the game in the second half. That is how you win.

Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest fighters of all time, not only because of his speed and agility, but also because of his strategy. On October 30, 1974, Ali regained his heavyweight championship, besting George Foreman in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Almost no one, not even Ali’s longtime supporter Howard Cosell, believed the former champion had a chance of winning. Both Joe Frazier and Ken Norton had beaten Ali previously, and George Foreman had knocked both of them out in only the second round. Ali’s strategy? To take advantage of the younger champion’s weakness—his lack of staying power. Ali knew if he could get Foreman to his wall, he could then take the advantage. This is when Ali came up with the tactic later termed “Rope-a-Dope.” Ali would lean on the ropes, shielding his face, while Foreman threw hundreds of punches over seven rounds. By the eighth round, Foreman was exhausted. He was at his wall. It was then that Ali dropped Foreman with a combination at center ring.

Remember the conditions that Des Linden faced? At the starting line, temperatures were so cold that runners were given an extra bib to wear over their layers of clothing. There were gusts of wind up to 35 miles per hour. And without nice weather, the crowds that a lot of runners count on were thin and spread out. “It was so bad that it was comical,” Linden told Only A Game. “The rain is just jumping on you. You’re soaking wet after one minute out there. And we [had] a few hours ahead of us.”

But Des fought through the rain and the wind to break away from the pack of elite competition. She got to run past iconic landmarks like Fenway Park and Kenmore Square and finished soaked with pride. As difficult as the conditions were, that was Desiree’s day to triumph and win against all the odds.

When conditions are great, things are easy, there aren’t any distractions, no one is interrupting, temptations aren’t luring, and nothing is disturbing your stride. It’s not until situations are difficult, when problems come up and temptation is great, that you get to prove your worthiness for progress. As Jim Rohn would say, “Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”

When you hit the wall in your disciplines, routines, rhythms, and consistency, realize that’s when you are separating yourself from your old self, scaling that wall, and finding your more powerful, triumphant, and victorious self.

Multiplying Results
I have an exciting opportunity for you. We’ve talked about how simple disciplines and behaviors will compound over time, delivering amazingly powerful results for you. What if you could speed up the process and multiply your results? Would you be interested? I want to show you how a little bit more effort can exponentially increase your outcomes.

Let’s say you’re weight training and the program calls for you to do twelve repetitions of a certain weight. Now, if you do the twelve, you’re fulfilling the expectation of your program. Great job. Stay consistent, and ultimately, you will see this discipline compound into powerful results for you. Yet, if you get to twelve, even if you’ve hit your max, and you push out another three to five reps, your impact on that set will be multiplied several times. You won’t just add a few reps to the aggregate of your workout. No. Those reps done after you hit your max will multiply your results. You’ve pushed through the wall of your max. The previous reps only got you there. The real growth happens with what you do after you’re at the wall.

Arnold Schwarzenegger made famous a weight training method called “The Cheating Principle.” Arnold was a stickler for perfect technique. He contended that once you reached your maximum number of lifts in perfect form, adjusting your wrists or leaning back to recruit other muscles to assist the working muscles (cheating a little) would allow you to do five or six more reps, which would significantly improve the results of that set. You can also achieve this by having a workout partner who assists the last few reps you couldn’t have done on your own.

If you’re a runner, you know the experience. You reach the goal you set for yourself that day and you’re feeling the burn. You’re at your wall, but you go a little farther, a little longer. This “little longer” is really a massive expansion of your limits. You have multiplied the results of that single run.

Take the magic penny we talked about in Chapter 1, the one that doubles in value each day, showing you the result of small compounded actions. If you only doubled that penny one extra time per week during those same thirty-one days, the compounded penny would result in $171 million instead of $10 million. Again, just extra effort in four days and the result was many times greater. That is how the math of doing only a little bit more than expected works.

Viewing yourself as your toughest competitor is one of the best ways to multiply your results. Go above and beyond when you hit the wall. Another way to multiply your results is pushing past what other people expect of you—doing more than “enough.”

Beat the Expectations
Oprah is famous for using this principle—blasting beyond anyone’s expectations with her generosity and ability to live and work in a BIG way. Do you remember how she launched her nineteenth season? When it comes to Oprah, we knew to expect some fanfare… but she blew everyone away. That season opener was all the media or anyone else talked about for days afterward.

Let’s go back in time for a minute… The audience members were selected because their friends and family members had written in, saying each of them desperately needed a new car. Oprah opened the show by calling eleven people to the stage. She gave every one of them a car—a Pontiac G6. Then the real surprise: She surpassed everyone’s expectations when she distributed gift boxes to the rest of the audience, saying one of the boxes contained a key to the twelfth car. But when the audience, members opened their boxes, every one of them had a set of keys. She screamed, “Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!”

While this might be her most famous example, Oprah continues to go beyond our expectations in most everything she does. In other segments, Oprah surprised a twenty-year-old girl who had spent years in foster care and homeless shelters with a four-year college scholarship, a makeover, and $10,000 in clothes. And, she gave a family with eight foster children who were going to be kicked out of their house $130,000 to pay for and repair their home.

Now you might be saying, yeah, but she’s Oprah, of course she can do those things. But the truth is there are plenty of others in Oprah’s position—with the finances and the fame—who could do those things, but never venture into the realm of extraordinary. Oprah does. That’s what makes her Oprah. Take a lesson from her. You can do more than expected in every aspect of your life.

When it was time to propose to my wife, Georgia, I could have done what was expected and met with her father to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Instead, I decided to pay great respect to her father by preparing my speech in Portuguese (I got Georgia’s sister to translate what I wanted to say). He understood English well enough, but wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. The entire drive from San Diego to Los Angeles, I rehearsed the words. I walked through the door carrying flowers and treats and asked her dad to join us in the living room. Then I delivered my memorized speech. After a little future father-in-law grilling, he finally said, “Yes!”

But I didn’t stop there. On the way back, and over the next couple of days, I called each one of her FIVE brothers and also asked for their blessing to join the family. Some were easy to convince, others proceeded to have me “earn it.” The point is, she told me later that one of the most special aspects about how I proposed was how I had honored her dad and how I had called every one of her brothers (and had her sister teach me Portuguese). That made the act extra special. The result of that extra effort paid off exponentially.

Where in life can you do more than expected when you hit the wall? Or where can you go for “WOW”? It doesn’t take a lot more effort, but the little extra multiplies your results many times over. Whether you’re making calls, serving customers, recognizing your team, acknowledging your spouse, going for a run, bench-pressing, planning a date night, sharing time with your kids, whatever… What’s the little extra you can do that exceeds expectations and accelerates your results?

Do the Unexpected
I’m a contrarian by nature. Tell me what most people are doing and what’s popular, and I will typically do the opposite. If everyone is zigging, I’m gonna zag. To me, what’s popular is average, it’s what’s common. Common things deliver common results. The most popular restaurant is McDonald’s, the most popular drink is Coca-Cola, the most popular beer is Budweiser, the most popular wine is Franzia (yeah, the stuff that comes in a box!). Consume those “popular” things and you’ll be part of the common, average pack. But that’s ordinary. There’s nothing wrong with ordinary. I just prefer to shoot for extraordinary.

For instance, everyone sends Christmas cards. But, since everyone does, it doesn’t really have much emotional impact, in my opinion. So I choose to send Thanksgiving cards instead. How many Thanksgiving cards do you get? Exactly. It makes a statement. And instead of bulk-printed, computer-generated “best wishes” cards, I handwrite personal sentiments expressing how grateful I am for my relationship with that person and what he or she means to me—same effort, but a much greater impact.

Lady Gaga has built a career on doing the unexpected. In 2011, she claimed to have slept in an oversized translucent egg for seventy-two hours in order to have “creative, embryonic incubation.” And who can forget about the meat dress and snow boots she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards? Honestly, I don’t pay attention to celebrities and award shows, but even I knew about that one.

Lady Gaga has always been truly different and over the top—until she suddenly wasn’t. Starring in A Star Is Born alongside Bradley Cooper, she appeared stripped-down and vulnerable. Off-screen, she recorded an album with crooner legend Tony Bennett and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and mental health issues. And, most importantly, even though Lady Gaga’s pop persona continues to evolve and change, her artistry is consistent. She’s always making us say “wow,” and that extra effort gets us to pay attention to everything she does.

More often than not, the extra effort doesn’t cost that much more money or energy. When I was selling real estate, other agents would call on expired listings when they came up. Instead, I got in my car and showed up on the owners’ doorstep and hand-delivered a “SOLD” sign. “Take this,” I’d say when the owner opened the door. “You’ll need it if you hire me to take over this listing.” For the price it took to keep my gas tank full, I immediately and exponentially increased my chance of getting the listing.

A little while back, a friend of mine, Alex, was up for a big job. He lives in California and the job was in Boston. He was one of the final twelve candidates. They were going to interview local candidates in person and those out of the area via video conferencing. He called me, asking if I knew how to facilitate a web camera video conference.

“How badly do you want this job?” I asked him.

“It’s my dream job,” Alex told me. “It’s everything I’ve spent forty-five years preparing to do.”

“Then get on a plane and show up in person.” I said.

“No need,” Alex said, “They’re flying in the final three for a last interview.”

“Listen,” I told him. “If you want to be in that final three, you should separate yourself by doing the unexpected. Fly across the country on a moment’s notice and show up in person. That’s how you make a statement.”

If I set my sights on something, I’m going to ensure success by going all in and all out. I launch what I call “shock and awe” campaigns. During this same job hunt, I suggested Alex pull out all the stops—attack from every possible front and do it relentlessly.

“Research all the decision makers,” I told him. “Find out their interests, hobbies, kids’ hobbies, spouses’ hobbies, neighbors’ hobbies, etc. Send them books, articles, gifts, and other resources that you think they might like. Is this over the top? Heck, yes, that’s the point. They’ll know you’re trying to butter them up, but they’ll appreciate your gumption and creativity—you’ll certainly get their attention and most likely, their respect.” Then I continued: “Research all the people in the organization. Take that list and run it by your entire network to see if they know anyone who might know someone in this organization. Search every name against your LinkedIn database. Find a few people to connect with. Talk with them and ask them to put in a good word for you. Send them gifts, notes, and other things, and ask them to hand-deliver them to the decision makers. Phone, e-mail, text, tweet, Facebook, etc. them during the process.” Could this be overly aggressive? Heck, yes! But I was told early on by a mentor, “You may lose one out of five for being too aggressive… but you get the other four! You can’t be too aggressive.”

By the way, Alex did not take my advice, and he did not get the job. He didn’t even get to be in the final three. I can unequivocally say he was a far better choice than the person the organization hired, but Alex failed to make an impression, and it cost him his dream job.

A while back, I was on the board of a company that needed a congressman to sign off on a piece of legislation that affected whether this company could move forward on an important project. This guy wasn’t budging, not because of the actual issue, but because of a political axe he was grinding against others who publicly favored the issue. Instead of making any more futile appeals to sway him, I suggested we go above his head and talk to his boss—his wife.

We went through our network until one person led us to someone who was friends with his wife. We then waited for her outside following a church service she attended and had her friend introduce us. We explained our important case and cause, which was to build an after-school facility in an impoverished neighborhood that would affect the lives of hundreds of children if her husband would support it. Needless to say, he signed on by Tuesday that following week and the company got its project.

In our attention-deficit, propaganda-saturated society, sometimes doing the unexpected is required to get your voice heard. If you have a cause or ideal worthy of attention, do what it takes, even the unexpected, to make your case heard. Add a little audacity to your repertoire.

Do Better Than Expected
Find the line of expectation and then exceed it. Even when it comes to the small stuff—or maybe especially then. Whatever I think the dress standard is going to be for any event, for example, I always choose to go at least one step above it. When I am unsure of the attire, I always err on the side of dressing better than I suppose the occasion calls for. Simple, I know, but it’s just one way I try to meet the standard to always do and be better than expected.

When I keynote for large companies, I spend a considerable amount of time preparing—learning about their organization, products, markets, and their expectations for my talk. My goal is always to significantly surpass what they expect, and I do this through tireless preparation. Doing better than expected becomes a big part of your reputation. Your reputation for excellence multiplies your results in the marketplace many times over.

I did a project with entrepreneur superstar Marc Sparks. That is when I learned a very valuable philosophy. He always paid people, including his vendors and suppliers, a few days in advance of the contract commitment. I was always blown away when I received a check on the twenty-seventh of the month from him for next month’s payment. When I asked him about it, he said the obvious, “It’s the same money, but the surprise and goodwill it buys is immeasurable—why wouldn’t you?”

It is why I send the bonus checks to my A-Team via FedEx delivery. Their regular monthly compensation is electronically deposited into their accounts. But when we hit a bonus milestone, I have their bonus checks printed and then packaged, with a personal handwritten note from me, into a distinctive FedEx envelope and sent to their doorstep overnight. This way the whole family can share in and celebrate Mommy’s or Daddy’s achievements. As Marc said, “It’s the same money, but the surprise and goodwill it buys is immeasurable—why wouldn’t you?”

Nordstrom is famous for a similar standard. When it comes to customer service, they always strive to do better than expected. Nordstrom has been known to take back an item that a customer bought more than a year ago, without a receipt, and in some cases, purchased at a different store! Why would they do that? Because they know exceeding expectations builds trust and creates customer loyalty. As a result, Nordstrom has developed an extraordinary reputation that continues to attract attention. After all, I’m reminding you of it here. The multiplier keeps growing!

I challenge you to adopt these philosophies in your own life—in your daily habits, disciplines, and routines. Giving a little more time, energy, or thought to your efforts won’t only improve your results, it will multiply them. It takes very little extra to be EXTRAordinary. In all areas of your life, look for the multiplier opportunities where you can go a little further, push yourself a little harder, last a little longer, prepare a little better, and deliver a little bit more. Where can you do better and more than expected? When can you do the totally unexpected? Find as many opportunities for “WOW,” and the level and speed of your accomplishments will astonish you… and everyone else around you.