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

by Jeff Olson

Yet we live in a world where most everyone has come to expect instant this and instant that, and if we don’t get the results we’re after fast and faster, we quit. Get rich quick. The fast lane. One-click ordering. That fellow standing in front of the microwave muttering, “Hurry uuuup, hurry uuuup.…” We’ve come to expect fast results, to demand them—but fast, faster, fastest is a strategy that will eventually take you down the slight edge curve to the unhappy life. There’s a reason I titled an earlier chapter “Slow Down to Go Fast.” The Aesop fable was dead-on accurate: fast is not always optimal, and often does not win the race. Here’s how MIT professor Peter Senge put it in his business classic, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization: Virtually all natural systems, from ecosystems to animals to organizations, have intrinsically optimal rates of growth. The optimal rate is far less than the fastest possible growth. When growth becomes excessive—as it does in cancer—the system itself will seek to compensate by slowing down; perhaps putting the organization’s survival at risk in the process. You’ve seen all kinds of examples of things that grow too fast for their own good. The business that expanded too rapidly and then self-destructed. A rock star, movie star, star athlete, or star politician who became a shooting star and came crashing and burning down. The housing bubble of the mid-2000s—and where it ended up in the late 2000s. Going ...

Part of learning the slight edge is finding your own “intrinsically optimal rate of growth,” and it is always served best by a step-by-step approach of constant, never-ending improvement, which lays solid foundations and builds upon them over and over. The slight edge is your optimal rate of growth. Simple disciplines compounded over time. That’s how the tortoise won; that’s how you get to be a winner, too. Having said that, now let me ask this: what is the real point of the story of the tortoise and the hare? All together now: Slow and steady wins the race, right? But notice something here: the point is not that there’s any special virtue to moving slowly. There’s nothing inherently good about slowness, and it’s just as possible to move too slowly as to move too quickly. The key word in the Aesop moral is not “slow.” The key word here is steady. Steady wins the race. That’s the truth of it. Because steady is what taps into the power of the slight edge. The fable of the tortoise and the hare is really about the remarkable power of momentum. Newton’s second law of thermodynamics: a body at rest tends to stay at rest—and a body in motion tends to remain in motion. That’s why your activity is so important. Once you’re in motion, it’s easy to keep on keeping on. Once you stop, it’s hard to change from stop to go.

The power of momentum: steady wins the race. The power of completion: clear out your undones and incompletes. The power of reflection: facing the man or woman in the mirror. The power of celebration: catch yourself doing something

“Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.” —Charles Reade

Your habits come from your daily activities compounded over time. And your activities are the result of the choices you make in the moment. Your choices come from your habits of thought, which are the product of your thinking, which comes from the view you have of the world and your place in it—your philosophy. Which is why the key to your success, to mastering the slight edge through the long-term effect of your everyday habits of thought and action, is your philosophy.

Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, wrote this about the power of showing up: Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. Wait and watch and

The great Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver put it perfectly: In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.

Attitude creates actions create results create destiny. Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, has traveled the world studying the everyday living habits of people who are healthiest and live the longest of anyone on the planet. Of all the factors possibly influencing health, vitality, and longevity, Buettner and his team compiled a list of nine. These people (1) live an active life, (2) cultivate purpose and a reason to wake up every morning, (3) take time to de-stress (appreciation, prayer, etc.), (4) stop eating when they are 80 percent full, (5) eat a diet emphasizing vegetables, especially beans, (6) have moderate alcohol intake (especially dark red wine), (7) play an active role in a faith-based community, (8) place a strong emphasis on family, and (9) are part of like-minded social circles with similar habits. As Buettner points out, physiological factors like exercise and diet play a role—but not as big a role as you’d expect. A big part of it is factors that have to do with attitude, habits of behavior, and who they associate with. And while we’re talking about positivity, let me clear up a common misconception about positive outlook, right here and now. Cultivating positive outlook does not mean you are always happy. It does not mean life never gets you down. It does not mean you walk around with an idiotic grin on your face even when you’re hurting, and it doesn’t mean living in denial, ignoring th...

So when bad things are happening to you, embrace the funk. That, too, is cultivating positive outlook. When something is hard or difficult and adversity is at your front door, embrace it, because it will make you stronger and your life richer. You can’t know happiness unless you feel sadness. If you embrace it as part of the process, it can be life-altering. Life is going to get you down and the funk is going to get you. Embrace it and fight through it and know you are not alone. Take baby steps, remember all the slight edge allies you have, and know that there is a path out of the funk.

You don’t have to pay for your million-dollar dream with a million-dollar personal check. You can pay for it with … well, a penny a day. But you do need to understand what that penny is—and you do need to be willing to pay it. Whatever the dream, whatever the goal, there’s a price you’ll need to pay, and yes, that does mean giving up something. It may be something as simple as giving up a type of junk food you’re attached to, for the sake of your health; or something as subtle as giving up your right to be right, or your habit of exerting control over conversation for the sake of a relationship. It may mean giving up that bit of extra lazy-time sleep-in each morning to take time before work to write down three things you’re grateful for, do those sit-ups, and make yourself a decent breakfast instead of grabbing something colorful and tasty and poisonous on the go. It may mean the delayed gratification of postponing certain purchases or acquisitions, or letting go of some pleasures for the sake of the pursuit of a longer-term aim. As I

In fact, no matter what price you pay for success, the price for failure is brutal by comparison. It may take five years and 10,000 hours to put your success on track, but it takes a lifetime to fail.

Here are seven powerful, positive slight edge habits: Show up: be the frog who jumps off the lily pad. Show up consistently: keep showing up when others fade out. Cultivate a positive outlook: see the glass as overflowing. Be committed for the long haul: remember the 10,000-hour rule. Cultivate a burning desire backed by faith: not hoping or wishing—knowing. Be willing to pay the price: sometimes you have to quit the softball team. Practice slight edge integrity: do the things you’ve committed to doing, even when no one else is watching.

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a great respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” A whole stream of events … which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. That strikes me as an excellent description of how our German sales force came into being.

There are three simple, essential steps to achieving a goal: Write it down: give it a what (clear description) and a when (timeline). Look at it every day: keep it in your face; soak your subconscious in it. Start with a plan: make the plan simple. The point of the plan is not that it will get you there, but that it will get you started.

The modern business world has an expression for this mindset: “Assume nothing.” The Zen Buddhists call it “beginner’s mind.” It’s a mindset of humility and fresh inquiry, always looking for the most meaning and importance in the smallest things. I can’t think of a better or more eloquent way of expressing it than, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” No matter how great your aspirations, how tall the dream and great the leap it means, the eternally repeating truth of the slight edge is that it is always built of small, simple steps. Easy to do—and just as easy not to do. Don’t go too fast, and don’t be too proud to stop, look at your life, and tell yourself, “This is a football.” To the coach, the football was the single step that began the players’ thousand-mile journey. The football was Lombardi’s penny. Now it’s time to find yours. What one simple, single, easy-to-do activity can you do, day in and day out, that will have the greatest impact on your health, your happiness, your relationships, your personal development, your finances, your career, and your impact on the world? Earlier in this book

The first step to increasing your happiness is to understand what positive psychology research has been telling us for the past fifteen years: the most significant factors in your day-to-day, moment-to-moment level of happiness are not circumstantial. They’re not heredity. They’re not dictated by your genes or caused by outside events. The most significant factors in your happiness are your actions. What you do every day. You can break down the bulk of happiness research into three areas. Your happiness is affected by 1) your outlook, that is, how you choose to view the events and circumstances of your everyday life; 2) specific actions with positive impact—things like writing down three things your grateful for, or sending appreciative emails, doing random acts of kindness, practicing forgiveness, meditating, and exercising; and 3) where you put your time and energy, and especially investing more time into important relationships and personally meaningful pursuits.

In that great classic of personal development, As a Man Thinketh, James Allen put it this way: You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.

It’s no accident that our exploration of the slight edge began with the story of a penny doubled. The world of finance is one of the easiest places to see, objectively and logically, the power of the slight edge in action. As I said earlier, everyone thinks they know about the power of compound interest—but most don’t, not really. In fact, only about 5 percent really understand this power: the ones on the success curve side of the slight edge. Here’s another pithy bit of Vince Lombardi wisdom, and this one applies perfectly to personal finance: Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. If you have developed losing habits in your finances, it’s time to replace them with winning habits. Resolve to stop following that Parkinson’s Law lament: Whatever I have, I spend. Choose not to be part of the 95 percent. Treat your personal finances like the precious resource it is. Emulate the masters of slight edge economics described in The Millionaire Next Door. Be like my mom: live below your means. Set up a modest savings plan and stick to it. You probably have some concrete thoughts about this area already. Maybe you’ve been working this part out in the back of your mind ever since you read the story of the wealthy man and his two sons. Now’s the time to start putting some of your thoughts to paper, and sketch out an initial plan for realizing your financial dreams and goals.

Sigmund Freud was once asked what people need in order to be able to live a full and happy life. His reply was three words: “Lieben und arbeiten.” Love and work. Work is one of the most defining, overarching aspects of our lives. It molds and establishes nearly everything about our everyday existence; it is something we do practically every day and will do practically every day for most of our lives. When someone asks you, “What do you do?” what they are really asking is, “What is your work? What is your career?” Yet here is the sad irony of work in the world of the 95 percent: most people don’t love their work. A pretty good number, in fact, hate it.

What do I want my life to mean? This is the biggest area of all, because it includes all the others. But don’t let its size and scope intimidate you. After all, what we’re looking for here is simple, little things you can do every day—things that are easy to do. (Though also easy not to do.) The key is not to spend too much time on this. Do the thing, and you shall have the power. Go ahead: take a pencil in hand and sketch it out. Remember, it’s your life; what would you like it to mean?

Everything You Do is Important Toss a rock into a pond, and you’ll see ripples from its impact spreading out until they reach the opposite shore. The same thing happens in life. In most cases you never see those ripples. Clyde Share left this earth long before he had a chance to see the multiple successes that I’ve had the privilege of being involved with, but it’s Clyde’s ripples that built them. Everything you do is important. When you smile at a child and encourage him, or scold him and tell him he’s no good—in either case, you may see the splash it makes, and you may see the first or second ripple, but the impact goes far, far beyond what you see. You don’t see all the ripples.

Write out your goals and dreams, a simple starting plan, and a single daily discipline: For your health For your happiness For your relationships For your personal development For your finances For your career For your impact on the world