The Little Things: Why You Really Should Sweat the Small Stuff

by Andy Andrews

am about to take a belief you may have held for years—a common assumption about what is required to reach the top of your chosen profession or to live a successful life—and turn it upside down.

My name is Andy Andrews. I am a Noticer.

How many ideas are out there, waiting patiently for you to show up?

Harry Nilsson wrote a piece of music about the smallest number in the world. Three Dog Night recorded it as a single, and the song was a huge hit!

From 1967 to 1973, the UCLA men’s basketball team under John Wooden won a remarkable seven national championships in a row.

Never forget that, as a society, we put men on the moon before anyone thought to put wheels on luggage!

Here is the truth that average achievers never bother to consider: the advantage in any arena of life is earned far in advance of the moment one is required to perform.

Be sure you have the details covered. If you don’t take the time now to do it right, will you have the opportunity later to do it at all?

Britain and France. Napoleon and Wellington. The Battle at Waterloo will be remembered forever. It was a clash of nations. And the whole thing was decided by a fistful of nails.

You can always choose how you act, despite how you feel.

The uncomfortable truth is this: angry segments of society, no matter how great their numbers, always collapse, crushing the innocent along with the guilty under the weight of their anger.

don’t know of any other little thing that wields as much negative power as taking offense.

ONE In the scheme of life itself, things don’t get much smaller than an offense. We can choose to be offended. We can choose not to be offended. It really is that simple. Not necessarily easy. Simple. And always a choice that is completely within our control. We can choose to be upset, hold a grudge, squander time, waste energy, repel opportunity, stagnate professionally, and ruin lifelong relationships because of that choice. Or we can choose to grow up, laugh, shrug, forget it, and move on. We can choose not to allow the choices and actions of someone else to dictate our own.

TWO

Mature people understand that while they are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.

Because the majority actually allowed an incredibly intolerant group of people to bully and manipulate them into tolerating decisions and behavior they already knew were wrong.

THREE

Always remember that you have been created with a will that is stronger than your emotions. You can choose how you act, despite how you feel.

Yep, our whole societal focus on “feelings” as life’s most important factor is a dangerous lie.

They may swear that they care. They may have even convinced themselves that they do. But they don’t. The bottom-line truth is this: they only care how we act.

The bottom line is this: when it comes to whether or not you are offended, you are in total control. You can choose to take offense, or you can choose to take action. You can be offended, or you can be cheerful. You can examine your feelings, or you can examine the results of how you have treated people, who you have become, and what has been accomplished in the process.

An offense taken is such a little thing. But when hoarded and fed, an offense is a lot like an actual atomic bomb. The damage it causes—immediately and over time—is far, far greater than its initial size would lead you to believe.

The distance that exists between how and why is as vast as the chasm between earth and sky.

The same can be said about that little word why. There are two angles to the secret about this three-letter word.

The first angle dissecting the secret to why is WHEN.

We ask why when we don’t know the answer.

We stop asking why when the question has been answered.

We RARELY ask why when everything is going great!

The second angle to the secret is a corollary to the first. In other words, it’s the same, only different!

There they are at the bottom. Sleeping! We will represent them with the letter z.

Ds can do it.

Whatever “it” is, the Ts can do it—and they can teach it!

The Ls can DO it. They can TEACH it. And the Ls can LEAD it.

the Hs know HOW it all works!

the W is on the roof.

“Questions are good, and I’m glad you asked this one. All I have done, really, is to hit on a specific question of my own. I apply that question to everything I know. The question is, ‘WHY?’ That’s it. But the answers to that question that I have found over the years have made the difference in my life and businesses. Or let me say it this way: a lot of folks know HOW to harness principles in order to get certain results. Me? I’ve learned WHY the principles work as they do.”

“Almost” can be a dangerous concept. It allows exclusion, financial loss, even death. Do not be deceived. Almost to safety . . . is not safe. Almost straight . . . is not straight.

Small, strategic moves in the beginning of any endeavor yield massive growth down the road.

Your life’s compass responds to the same principles and yields the same measure of movement as the compass on a boat. Small moves can equal great gains. In fact, when small moves are repeated consistently over time, you’ll one day look up and realize you’ve traveled all the way from where you were to exactly where you always dreamed you’d be.

Yes, everything you do matters. But everything you don’t do matters just as much. Every little thing you do—or don’t do—steers life onto a slightly different course.

As little a thing as quitting can seem in the moment, it moves you in a direction and creates a mind-set that you can begin to see as normal.”

“Who gets to decide what’s impossible? If you run up against a situation that declares ‘there is no way,’ then all you have to do is hang in there until you find a way. Get it? You have to find a way . . . where there is no way.”

novel called The Traveler’s Gift.

The manuscript was a story about a man whose family was experiencing the toughest of times. This man, David Ponder, was able to travel back in time to seven different locations. In those places he met with seven historical figures who, at that moment, were experiencing the worst times in their own lives. Each of the seven people gave the man a written principle, and he came to understand that if he made the principles a part of his own life, everything about his future would change.

The Traveler’s Gift is now available in forty languages and has sold several million copies.

And now, a quick word from your mother: “If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too? Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Quite simply, we think logically to an incorrect conclusion.

By shining a light into the dusty corners of accepted thinking, new possibilities can be discovered, yielding different methods that quite often produce extraordinary—even astonishing—results.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.

Plato believed that the smallest building blocks of all matter were easily divided into four categories: fire, air, earth, and water.