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

by Jeff Olson

Simple daily disciplines—little productive actions, repeated consistently over time—add up to the difference between failure and success.

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

The simple things that lead to success are all easy to do. But they’re also just as easy not to do.

What you do today matters. What you do every day matters.

The secret of time is simply this: time is the force that magnifies those little, almost imperceptible, seemingly insignificant things you do every day into something titanic and unstoppable.

You need to base your choices on your philosophy—on what you know, not what you see.

The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

Believing in the “big break” is worse than simply being futile.

“Be happy, and the reason will appear.” I love that.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”

Life is a curved construction; time is its builder, and choice its master architect.

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

People on the success curve live a life of responsibility.

Taking responsibility liberates you;

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”

“If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”

“Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.” But

Responsibility is declaring oneself as cause in the matter. It is a context from which to live one’s life.

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do: they take full responsibility for how the slight edge is working in their lives.

The word “want” has two meanings. It can mean you desire something; it can also mean you lack something.

We tend to desire what we lack, and lack what we desire.

You can gauge the limitations of a person’s life by the size of the problems that get him or her down.

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.