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

by Jeff Olson

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

I didn’t change who I was as much as I changed what I did.

As I said, all my life I had been no better than average at anything I’d done: average grades, average in athletics, average social skills. I knew that the only way I could ever become anybody was by working harder and being more persistent. If I wanted to have a prayer of a chance of getting on the team, I had to work harder in the practices. If I wanted to impress somebody in the social world, I had to work harder at it. If I was going to get good grades, I would have to study harder.

Except that it wasn’t. I didn’t know it yet, but just working harder doesn’t do it. If it did, then everyone who works hard would have made it. All you have to do is look around you and you can see that this isn’t the case. The world is chock full of people who are working their butts off—and still getting their butts kicked by circumstances.

The shift in my life began happening when I stopped taking it for granted that just because I was an average guy, that meant I was doomed to no more than average results.

Why? Well, you could say it’s because we sabotage ourselves, for all kinds of reasons. Our father was mean to us, so now we’re mean to ourselves. We’re conflicted, because society sends us mixed messages. We’ve fallen into a pattern of self-sabotage because for some reason we don’t feel we deserve success. And you know, maybe some of those things are true for you. Heck, maybe they’re all true. I have no idea, and truthfully, I don’t really care. Because none of that matters. The truth is, whatever other factors may or may not be there, the only reason we keep following this roller coaster of almost-success and nearly-failure, this sine wave of mediocrity, this curse of the average, is that we’re missing one simple point.

You could call these “little virtues” or “success habits.” I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge.

You have both a beach bum and a millionaire inside you, a potential failure and a potential success. We all do. What makes the difference in how things turn out? Actually, you do. The truth is, you have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.

The formula for success is quite simple: Double your rate of failure.

Your philosophy is your view of life, something beyond feelings and attitudes. Your philosophy drives your attitudes and feelings, which drive your actions.

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

There is a natural progression to everything in life: plant, cultivate, harvest.

Successful people fail their way to the top. Do the thing, and you shall have the power.

But the first frog only eyed his brother sadly. “There are no miracles in the life of a frog,” he croaked. “Farewell.” And he sank slowly out of sight.

In my mind, that’s just how things were. And it’s easy to assume that “just how things are” is how they’re always going to be.

Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. Simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time.

I realized that my past did not have to equal my future, and that with a slight change in activity and consistency, it was only a matter of time before I would reach my true destiny.

“perseverance is a great substitute for talent.”

It’s just a matter of mastering the mundane—of repeating simple little disciplines that, done consistently over time, will add up to the very biggest accomplishments. Of course, it’s just as easy not to. But that simple, seemingly insignificant error in judgment, compounded over time, will ruin your chances for success. You can count on it. That’s the choice you face every day, every hour: A simple, positive action, repeated over time. A simple error in judgment, repeated over time. So easy to do. So easy not to do.

And here’s how real success is built: by the time you get the feedback, the real work’s already done.

The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people are those who understand that the little choices they make matter, and because of that they choose to do things that seem to make no difference at all in the act of doing them, and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in.

Those little things that will make you successful in life, that will secure your health, your happiness, your fulfillment, your dreams, are simple, subtle, mundane things that nobody will see, nobody will applaud, nobody will even notice. They are those things that, at the time you do them, often feel like they make absolutely no difference.

Only 5 percent—1 in 20—achieve the level of success and fulfillment they hope for. The other 95 percent either fail or fall short. The only difference is the slight edge.

People don’t consistently do those simple things for three reasons: 1) while they’re easy to do, they are also easy not to do; 2) you don’t see any results at first; 3) they seem insignificant, like they don’t matter. But they do.

But life is not a clickable link.

No matter what you have done in your life up until today, no matter where you are and how far down you may have slid on the failure curve, you can start fresh, building a positive pattern of success, at any time. Including right now. But you need to have faith in the process, because you won’t see it happening at first.

Every decision you make is a slight edge decision.

But by putting time on your side, you’ve marshaled the forces of the slight edge. Your success becomes inevitable. You just need to stay in the process long enough to give it a chance to win.

The important point is to start on the path and to remember that no matter what has gone on before, you can begin fresh and new anytime you choose. You can start with a clean slate.

The problem is that most of us live with one foot planted firmly in the past and the other tucked timidly in the future—never in the moment.

you can’t find it in the past or the future, only right here, right now.

Ekhart Tolle’s modest little 1997 book on enlightenment, The Power of Now,

Difficult takes a little time; impossible takes just a little longer.

How many of those statements have you said to yourself? Have I got some sobering news for you: “some day” doesn’t exist, never has, and never will. There is no “some day.” There’s only today. When tomorrow comes, it will be another today; so will the next day. They all will. There is never anything but today.

No success is immediate, no collapse is sudden. They are both the result of the slight edge accruing momentum over time.

I knew I wasn’t necessarily the smartest person in the room, or the most talented, or the most intuitive. But even if I was surrounded by people who were more talented than I was, I knew I could surpass them just by consistently showing up and doing the work.

Achieving greatness—in anything—isn’t simply a matter of taking the steps that get you there. It’s also a matter of being willing to pay the price. And that price is responsibility.

I have made it a habit to be present with whomever I happen to be with. To take an interest in them and what is going on in their world, to ask questions, and most importantly to give encouragement for a job well done, to notice and comment on what is right, and not what is wrong. I do this even with strangers, sales clerks, waitstaff, and other people whom I come across during my daily activities. I’ll share a kind word or a smile with someone at the checkout line at the grocery store, and the next thing I know they are spilling out their hearts and telling me all about their personal lives—simply because I took an interest in them, even if just for a moment.

Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich would change your life, would you sit down and read it, cover to cover, today? Mind you, that’s a 256-page book, and those aren’t lightweight pages. Or another classic, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

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.

And while you’re adding a penny a day, let’s also imagine doing one equally simple thing every day in all the areas of your life that matter to you. Add one penny’s worth to your happiness, to your sense of self, to your friendships, your health, your studies, whatever skills and areas of knowledge you’re pursuing. In every area that’s important, you add one cent daily. How do you add one cent’s worth of happiness or knowledge? Here’s how: The word “cent” is short for centum, meaning one-hundredth. A penny is called a cent because it is one-hundredth, or 1 percent, of a dollar. So let’s say you add 1 percent of whatever value you want to achieve, in all these areas. By the end of a year, by adding 1 percent each day—pure addition, no compound interest—how much have you added? A total of 365 percent. In other words, times three-and-a-half.

Do you think you could improve yourself—your health, your happiness, your knowledge, your skills, your diet, your relationships, whatever area of life you want to look at—just 1 percent’s worth per day? That’s so slight an edge, you might not even know quite how to measure it. But if you did that again tomorrow, and the next day, and kept it up every day for the next year? Here’s what that looks like when it’s actually happening. The first day you’ll improve by a factor of 0.01, so little it will probably be impossible to notice. The second day, your improvement will be 0.02; the next day, 0.03. So little, still, that it’s almost invisible. Again, this is why people quit the gym, skip their assignments, and don’t bother with thank-you notes. What good is feeling 0.03 times slimmer or 0.03 times more fit? Why bother? Yet by pursuing that course and adding just one penny a day, by the end of the year you would be more than three times as fit, three times as happy, three times as knowledgeable, three times as skilled, three times the you, in just one year.

Every day, in every moment, you get to exercise choices that will determine whether or not you will become a great person, living a great life. Greatness is not something predetermined, predestined, or carved into your fate by forces beyond your control. Greatness is always in the moment of the decision. But you have to start with a penny.

It’s a Wonderful Life.

Little things, things that might seem like they have no power at all, can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes, they can even change the course of history.

What you do matters.

Greatness is not something predetermined, predestined, or carved into your fate by forces beyond your control. Greatness is always in the moment of the decision.

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.

The upper curve is the formula for success: a few simple disciplines, repeated every day. The lower curve is the formula for failure: a few simple errors in judgment, repeated every day.

The bad news is, all those 95 percenters are going to be yanking on you, sitting on you, naysaying and doomsaying on you, and doing their level best to pull you back down. Why? Because if you succeed, it reinforces the fact that they are not where they want to be. They know instinctively that there are only two ways to make their building the highest structure in town: build an even bigger one, or tear down all the others. Since the odds are against them building the big one, and since it takes just too darn long to start seeing any results, and since they are not at all aware of the slight edge, they’re going to take the path of least resistance and go into the demolition business.