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

by Jeff Olson

The predominant state of mind displayed by those people on the failure curve is blame. The predominant state of mind displayed by those people on the success curve is responsibility.

Taking responsibility liberates you; in fact, it is perhaps the single most liberating thing there is. Even when it hurts, even when it doesn’t seem fair. When you don’t take responsibility, when you blame others, circumstances, fate, or chance, you give away your power.

Negative and difficult things happen to all of us; most of them are mostly or completely out of our control. It’s how we react, how we view those circumstances and conditions, that makes the difference between success and failure—and that is completely within our control. As the American naturalist John Burroughs put it, “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” Don’t complain about what you allow.

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.

You can’t change the past. You can change the future. Would you rather be influenced by something you can’t change, or by something you can?

People on the success curve live in responsibility. People on the failure curve live in blame. People on the success curve are pulled by the future. People on the failure curve are pulled by the past. No matter where you are, at any moment you can choose to step onto the success curve.

“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is the definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”

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.

The answer is as simple as it is sad: somewhere along the way, you lost faith. You became too grown-up to take baby steps, too sure you would never succeed to let yourself fail a few times first. You gave up on the universal truth that simple little disciplines, done again and again over time, would move the biggest mountains. You forgot what you used to know about the slight edge.

The first time you give up, it’s painful. The second time it’s still painful but now it feels a little familiar, and there is some comfort in familiarity: it is the silent sleepy comfort of carbon monoxide. And the more you give up, the easier and easier it gets, and the sleepier and sleepier you become to the wakefulness of genuine accomplishment … and success recedes ever further from your grasp. Can

Here’s an interesting thing: if putting voice to your fondest dreams can make you a little uncomfortable, it can also make everyone around you uncomfortable, too, and often far more so. Tell your five closest friends about your biggest ambition, and watch how many of them squirm. Why? Because showing them your want (desire) also makes them more acutely aware of their want (lack).

But remember, you have to go one direction or the other; you can’t stand still. The universe is curved, and everything is constantly changing. There are only two possibilities. Either you let go of where you are and get to where you could be, or you hang onto where you are and give up where you could be. You are either going for your dreams or giving up your dreams. Stretching for what you could be, or settling for what you are. There is simply no in-between. Remember, this is the slight edge—and doing nothing means going down. It’s your choice.

When you’re one out of twenty, you’re always going to be going in the opposite direction from the other nineteen.

The key to success is to identify those things that are eventually going to become self-evident before they are self-evident.

Do what the majority won’t dare to do. Risk being the one, not one of the nineteen. Will people criticize you? Of course. But have you ever seen a statue erected for a critic? We don’t build statues for the 95 percent. We build them for the 5 percent.

event where Jeff Olson shared the slight edge concept. He said it had served him well in life and then added, “I think it will do you well, too.” He shared how it is in the last 20 percent of the time we invest in a discipline that all the rewards come. I needed something to believe in, so that day I bought into his belief in the slight edge philosophy.

I’ll never forget those days of struggling—fall off track, get back on track, fall off track, get back on track. Realizing I was the project, I went to work on me. I read and applied what I learned. I went to work and I did my best. I applied long-term vision and delayed gratification. I knew that in order to be successful, I had to do what others were not willing do to themselves. If I became a success, it would be because of me. If I became a failure, it would be because of me. I couldn’t blame anyone, I wouldn’t and I didn’t. Was it easy? Not at all. Was it worth it? In a very big way.

Mastery begins the moment you step onto the path. Failure begins the moment you step off the path.

Chances are good that when you step out onto the path of mastery, you will step out alone.

But what if you add to your summer paperback pile some titles from John Maxwell, Jack Canfield, Zig Ziglar, or Jim Rohn? Or The Happiness Advantage, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Think and Grow Rich, and any of the hundreds and thousands of other inspirational, educational, empowering books out there?

Life is not a spectator sport; as a matter of fact, it’s a contact sport, and there are no practice sessions, and you’ve been in the game from day one. Life lives in the right-here, right-now. That’s why Emerson, who was an exceptionally well-educated man in the traditional book-smarts sense, advised, Do the thing, and you shall have the power.

If this machine, at the time one of the most sophisticated, expensive, and finely calibrated pieces of technology ever devised, was correcting its own off-course errors twenty-nine minutes out of every thirty, is it reasonable to expect that you could do better than that? Let’s say you were able to match an Apollo rocket’s degree of accuracy in the pursuit of your own goals: that would mean you’d be perfectly on target and on course no more than ten days in any given year. The next time you’re giving yourself a hard time because you feel like you’ve gotten off track, think about the Apollo program, and give yourself a break.

Would you like me to give you the formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.… You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure—or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success. On the other side of failure.

of The Happiness Advantage. Or to take a brisk twenty-minute walk around the park.

Once you know the slight edge, you know that in getting from point A to point B you’ll be off track most of the time. And you know that it’s the adjustments—those little, seemingly insignificant corrections in direction—that have the most power in your life.

book The Message of a Master, wrote

You return again and again to take the proper course—guided by what? By the picture in mind of the place you are headed for.

You make that choice moment to moment to moment—and keep making it, every month and every day, for the rest of your life. At first, it requires your constant awareness. In time, your internal gyroscope learns the drill so well that it becomes automatic. And what does or doesn’t become automatic will spell the difference between beach bum and millionaire, misery and joy, life on the failure curve or life on the success curve.

Forget wishing—it’s a matter of what you think, period. Because what you think, multiplied by action plus time, will create what you get. You, through the power of your own thoughts, are the most influential person in your life. Which means there is nobody more effective at undermining your success—and nobody more effective at supporting your success.

Most of your life—99.99 percent—is made up of things you do an automatic pilot. Which means it’s essential that you take charge of your automatic pilot’s training.

Each and every incomplete thing in your life or work exerts a draining force on you, sucking the energy of accomplishment and success out of you as surely as a vampire stealing your blood. Every incomplete promise, commitment, or agreement saps your strength because it blocks your momentum and chokes off your ability to move forward, progress, or improve. Incomplete things keep calling you back to the past to take care of them.

Be the frog who not only decides to jump off the lily pad but actually jumps. The world is rife with hesitation, the cornerstone of mediocrity.

That’s the way the world is. That’s why mediocrity prevails. That’s why 95 percent live on the failure curve, and only 5 percent on the success curve.

Four years later Amber graduated at the top of her business class by doing those two simple things: showing up, and being consistent. She wasn’t any better or smarter than any of the other kids. They were all the cream of the crop, top-notch students. But Amber had one distinct advantage the others didn’t: she had a philosophy that drove her to stay on course even when everyone else was doing the opposite. She showed up consistently and succeeded because she had a simple philosophy that she applied every day, rain or shine.

Plant, cultivate, harvest.

Early on in this book I said that just wanting something isn’t going to get it for you. And that’s true—but it doesn’t mean desire isn’t a necessary ingredient. We think of desire as a powerful force, because we often feel it so strongly. But the truth is, desire in itself is often a pretty fickle, weak thing. You want something, and then the feeling passes. Like an infant, we desire a shiny object, and then once it’s in our hands our attention is caught by something else, and the shiny object that was sought so earnestly moments ago now falls from our fingers unnoticed. Sometimes, though, desire gets deep down on the inside and starts to burn—and when it does it can burn for years. That’s the kind of desire that gets you up early and keeps you up late. It’s what keeps you motivated to press forward when adversity hits. A desire like that can move mountains and alter the course of rivers.

Actually, it’s not that dramatic. Your dreams may be big (in fact I hope they’re huge), but the steps you take to get there are always going to be small. Baby steps; easy to do. And the price you pay works the same way. 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.

As I’ve said, I was never more than average in athletic ability, but I was always pretty serious about my athletics. At one point I’d become part of a softball team. We had practiced long and hard and gotten pretty good, to the point where we were traveling and winning tournaments right and left. I don’t mind telling you, it was thrilling to be a part of. Until I reached a critical juncture. I hit a decision point where I’d suffered some major setbacks in business and lost everything, and I knew I had to get my career back on track. It was time to pick up the pieces of my life, regroup, and move on. I also knew I couldn’t do this without changing something: I had to pay a price. It was a difficult choice—but I walked away from our softball team.

My friends couldn’t believe it. “You’re quitting?!” And I said, “Hey you guys, you’re still my friends, I love you, but get another outfielder.” I had to take that time I was spending on softball and invest it elsewhere. I didn’t have to completely change my whole life, I just needed to redirect ten hours a week. I could have taken it from family time or work time, but wherever I took it from, it was going to have to come from somewhere. That was the price.

The price of neglect is much worse than the price of the discipline.

There are many definitions of integrity. Honesty. Truthfulness. Congruence between words and deeds. The aspect of integrity that is most applicable to the slight edge is this: what you do when no one is watching.

It’s in that moment’s decision, when nobody else is watching and no one will ever know, when your choice is so slight, so subtle, so insignificant … it’s at that moment that you find out whether or not you have slight edge integrity.

Slight edge integrity is one of the great secrets of entrepreneurial success. When you own your own business, there is no one telling you that you need to be at work or shouting in your ear to make sales calls. No one is there to make sure you are on top of your vendors and your books are up to date. This is all up to you now. You have no boss.

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.

For a goal to come true: You must make it specific, give it a deadline, and write it down. You must look at it every day. You must have a plan to start with.

Here is another application of Pareto’s Law: 80 percent of everything you do tends to get done in the last 20 percent of the time available. And that can end up being an insidious truth. Because if you don’t create a concrete deadline, that last 20 percent never seems to show up—and you’re always living in the 80 percent time saying, “Someday…”

Here is the amazing thing—and I’ve seen this happen so many times, yet it never ceases to fill me with awe: when you clearly, tangibly set your goals, life has a way of rearranging itself, setting in motion a series of events that you could never have predicted or planned, to get you there. If you just sit there and try to figure it out, it doesn’t happen. But when you surround yourself with the vivid expression of your tangible goals, your subconscious brain goes to work on it—and if you have the right philosophy, the philosophy of the slight edge, then you will come up with the right actions and keep repeating those actions … and a series of events will kick in, including circumstances you could never have dreamed of, that will take you there.

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!”

Everything you do, every decision you make, is either building your dream or building someone else’s dream. Every single thing you do is either leading you away from the masses—or leading you away with the masses. Every single thing you do is a slight edge decision.

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.