The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness

by Jeff Olson

Greatness is always in the moment of the decision, and so is fate. The wealthy man’s gift to his sons, the wisdom to recognize the slight edge, shows up in the mundane little choices we make every day, not in some big dramatic moment with the orchestra swelling in crescendo behind us. And those private, unseen, everyday moments are what determine the path your life will take. Where you end up in life isn’t about whether you are a good or a bad person, or whether or not you are deserving, or your karma, or your circumstances. It’s dictated by the choices you make—especially the little ones. I know it doesn’t seem like it. It seems like you’re just choosing how to spend the next hour, not the next forty years. But you are choosing how you’ll spend the next forty years. The reason this is hard to see is that it looks like your actions move in a simple straight line. You write down three gratitudes, or you get ten more minutes of snooze time, do twenty push-ups or catch the bad news on TV. Either way, you end up in the same place, on the other side of the next ten minutes, right? Only you don’t. You end up in different places. Because your actions don’t move in a straight line. They curve.