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Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
The formula for success is quite simple: Double your rate of failure.
There is a natural progression to everything in life: plant, cultivate, harvest.
Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. Simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time. The choice is that simple.
a lesson about leverage, growth, and geometric progression. About the fact that the simple little actions you take today can look very different when you see how they play out over time.
That the things you do every single day, the things that don’t look dramatic, that don’t even look like they matter, do matter. That they not only make a difference—they make all the difference.
About having faith in the process of simple, positive actions repeated over time—the faith that miracles do happen, if you know when to trust the process and keep churning the cream.
Simple daily disciplines—little productive actions, repeated consistently over time—add up to the difference between failure and success. The slight edge is relentless and cuts both ways: simple daily disciplines or simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time, make you or break you. Without the slight edge, you can start with a million and lose it all. With the slight edge, you can start with a penny and accomplish anything you want.
“perseverance is a great substitute for talent.”
So while anyone could do these successful actions, most won’t, simply because it’s so easy to skip them.
When you get to the point where everyone else can see your results, tell you what good choices you’ve made, notice your good fortune, slap you on the back and tell you how lucky you are, the critical slight edge choices you made are ancient history. And chances are, at the time you actually made those choices, nobody noticed but you. And even you wouldn’t have noticed—unless you understood the power of the slight edge.
Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea; I rave no more ’gainst time or fate, For lo! my own shall come to me. —John Burroughs, Waiting
Ten Core Values. These included things like be real, be determined, pursue constant self-development, and dream big—and act on it daily. Among the ten, the principal value was this: Slow down to go fast. In other words: you want big results? Good—then do the little things. Just do them consistently and persistently.
“The difference between positive psychology and traditional psychology is that with traditional psychology the ambulance is at the bottom of the cliff and with positive psychology the ambulance is at the top of the cliff.”
I realized that my mom had been following every one of them for my whole life. She never talked in negative terms. She always found the good in everything. She made a regular practice of counting her blessings. She did kind things for people. She probably never used the words “practice positive perspective” in her life, but that’s what she did, every moment of every day.
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”
For years I’d taught that your philosophy determines your attitude, which determines your actions. And those actions are what produce your results. For people to get the results they wanted, they simply needed to do the right actions. That’s the how-to’s. But you’re not going to do the right actions, day in and day out, unless you have the right philosophy, in other words, unless you fully grasp the importance and the power of simple daily actions: the slight edge philosophy. Once you have the slight edge philosophy, then you have the key to how to do the hows.
Sit Lead
the right philosophy → the right attitude → the right actions
Sit lead
Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for.
Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours.
Meditate daily.
Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day.
Exercise for fifteen minutes daily.
Make more time for friends. Practice savoring the moment. Practice having a positive perspective. Put more energy into cultivating your relationships. Practice forgiveness. Engage in meaningful activities. Practice simple acts of giving.
Read at least ten pages of a good book daily.
One of the most compelling, universal human drives is the desire to feel that we make a difference—that because we were here, the world is a better place.
I can’t remember ever feeling really overwhelmed by anything I wanted to do, because I always knew that all it took was to break up that bigger goal up into pieces and then consistently work on those little chunks. And that helped me sort out the idea that all things were possible, that I could do anything I set my mind to do.
I want the world to be better because I was here. I want my life, my work, my family to mean something. If you are not making someone else’s life better you are wasting your time. Your life will only become better by helping make other lives better.
Through your everyday attention to those simple positive actions, your happy habits and daily disciplines, you don’t only have an impact on yourself, you are also having a powerful impact on everyone around you. You become a better relative, a better friend, a better business associate. A better father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt, uncle. You become a more positively contributing community member and a more influential thought leader, which in turn creates a spreading positive impact on the world around you and society at large.
We are all having a ripple effect of some sort already, whether or not we realize it. But if our moods go up and down and our actions are inconsistent, if we smile at people sometimes and walk past them stony-faced at others because we’re “having a bad day,” then our positive and negative impact may just cancel each other out, and the net effect may not add up to much. Worse, if we more consistently lean to the negative—always complaining, typically looking at the problems rather than the solutions, playing the role of critic and cynic—then we may be having a net negative ripple effect,
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But successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do—even when it doesn’t look like it makes any difference. And they do it long enough for the compounding effect to start to kick in.
What you do matters.
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.
People on the success curve live a life of responsibility. They take full responsibility for who they are, where they are, and everything that happens to them.
You’ve heard the expression, “Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.” But it’s not even a question of wishing: take care with what you think. Because what you think, multiplied by action plus time, will create what you get.
The people on the upper half of the slight edge curve are the cause of what happens in their lives. They view all the forces that brought them to this point—God, parents, teachers, childhood, circumstances, you name it—with gratitude and appreciation and without blame. And they view themselves as the cause for what comes next in their life.
Mastery is not some vaunted, lofty place that only the elite few ever inhabit. The pursuit of any aim, goal, or dream—personal, professional, spiritual, in any area—is a slight edge journey of continuous improvement, learning, and refinement. But mastery is not an exalted state that lies at the end of the path; it is a state of mind that lies at the very beginning. Mastery is in the act of setting your foot on the path, not in reaching its end.
So here you are, just completing your very first step. Now, you know that the big people you’ve been watching go around taking one step after another. You’ve watched them do it: right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot … so you try. You complete that first, tentative, epic-making step and get ready to swing into the next one, and then, crash.
It’s not hard to understand why so many people make that second choice. After all, when you’re standing here at point A, gazing off into the distance at point B, it’s easy to be intimidated by how far away it looks. People don’t even want to set foot on the path if they don’t think they can make it to the end. “Why even try? If the mountain’s that huge, why take the first step? I’ll probably never make it anyway.…”
How can you tell? One way is to go back to the business of future and past, responsibility and blame. When you and this particular friend get together, are your conversations about responsibility, big dreams, and bold initiatives? Or do they often seem to work their way around to blame or its cousins—envy, jealousy, resentment, and irritation?
Each time you do complete something, you get to move on with your luggage a little lighter and a bit more spring in your step.
You can find a slight edge buddy, a friend who also wants to harness the power of reflection, and schedule a little time together to debrief each other.
