A few years ago, I was listening to a Ryan Holiday podcast interview with a world class female cross-fitter who was recovering from a dislocated elbow injury encountered in her sport. As part of her recovery, she had been doing some reading and one of the books she was working through was The Slight Edge written by Jeff Olson. As a result of the podcast, I looked up the book, purchased a copy, and read it. The balance of this note is an attempt to distill the main takeaways I enjoyed from reading The Slight Edge.
Most of us live our lives with our foot either on the gas pedal or off. Pain pushes. When we’re struggling, we’re motivated to do things. However, once we are going a bit and keeping our head above water, most of us ease off and coast. We do just enough to get by and then take our foot off the gas and glide. Ultimately, we yo-yo our way along the road of life mostly acting to escape painful circumstances and never getting much past bare survival. High performers, those we see as successful, people who are thriving, keep their foot on the gas pedal with their daily efforts. They aren’t flooring it. It’s not an intense, unsustainable effort. They keep just enough pressure on the gas pedal to keep them moving towards their dreams.
This difference is what Jeff Olson calls The Slight Edge. It’s about “little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time yield very big results… Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time.” We don’t need big breaks, luck, genetics, connections, education, or resources. Olson writes, “The truth is, you have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.” There’s no step by step, cookie-cut recipe to follow to get to where you want to go. What you need is a belief that your actions matter and that doing the little things for a long time works. It’s not a secret set of steps. It’s actually doing, day in and day out, the things you know you should be doing. Progress follows persistent, patient pursuit of a proven program.
Performers are driven by embracing the boring, mundane steps that others don’t want to do. Olson writes, “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.” Yes, that’s right success is no more than W2D WOW or willing to do what others won’t. Olson observes, “there is a natural progression to everything in life: plant, cultivate, harvest.” We need to do our part before we can harvest. We get the fruits of our labors. No labor, no fruit. This is a universal law of growth in any field: food, health, wealth, fitness, business, and relationships. We must invest our energies, provide value, take care of the daily details, and only then after we’ve done our part reliably and repeatedly for years, may we receive benefits. This is the philosophy of The Slight Edge.
Olson asserts that we’re making choices constantly and our choices are binary. That is, everything we do is either helping us or hurting us. It’s either moving us forward, toward our goals, or it’s slowing us down. We’re either improving or deteriorating. We can’t be still. We’re constantly in motion. We’re also choosing the direction of our motion. As a result, we should be more conscious of our choices asking questions like does it help, does it serve. Even, if not especially, with the small, seemingly inconsequential choices, we should be viewing through this binary filter. The slight edge is about recognizing that choices that are easy to do are just as easy not to do. In this simplicity, these little choices done over and over are where our progress in life differentiates. An apple a day versus a cookie a day. On any given day, little difference results. However, over the course of years, one leads to health and the other to illness. Olson writes, “simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. Simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time. The choice is that simple.” “Most people don’t stick with the simple daily disciplines it takes to get where they want to go, because they don’t know how to look ahead far enough along the curve to see the results they are creating.” Olson points out that “you are making that choice, every day, every hour, and the impact of those choices—for better or worse—will spread out over the surface of your life…” A reader of the Slight Edge wrote “I also started to think before every decision. I would ask myself, ‘Is this decision going to help me or hurt me?’”
Do you save or do you spend?
Do you build or do you burn resources?
Do you create or do you consume?
Do you plant or do you deplete?
Each choice serves or stifles. What choice will you make?
Olson offers books like The Millionaire Next Door as an example of how wealth is built slowly through basic ideas. No genius, luck, big win, or in depth financial knowledge or acumen is required. Simply live within one’s means and invest prudently. Mastering the mundane is the way to wealth, health, and happiness. The power of patience is an incredibly strong force. Time is our friend, not the enemy. Consistency trumps intensity. Moderation is a superpower. Instead of spending ourselves into deeper debt, save a few dollars off every pay cheque. Instead of digging your own grave with your teeth, pause on that second trip to the buffet. “To do or not to do.” This is your choice. Every day. “Fundamentally, we all take pretty much the same actions every day. We eat, sleep, think, feel, talk, and listen. We have relationships and friendships. We each have twenty-four hours a day, 168 hours a week, and we each fill these hours one way or the other with a sequence of mundane little actions and tasks… The successful and unsuccessful both do the same basic things in their lives, day in and day out. Yet the things successful people do take them to the top, while the things unsuccessful people do take them down and out.”
Successful people connect their actions in the moment with the future whereas less successful people make decisions in the moment with what feels good now. You can pay now or pay later though it’s certain that the price is always greater later. Giving in to making the easy choice now is tempting because the consequence of that single choice isn’t huge. A cookie or an apple right now is little different. Both have similar calories. But done daily, the decision over time has big health impact. A cheat meal isn’t destructive. But eating a junk meal a day for years is. People don’t make good choices because they don’t see big benefits right now. They see the impact of these little choices as being insignificant and then take the easy, comfortable option in the moment. Successful people use discipline, dreams, and desire to connect today to tomorrow and stick to making small, simple decisions that serve today and tomorrow. Olson writes, “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.”
“Choose challenge over comfort and time will be your friend. If you choose comfort over challenge, then time will be the enemy,” writes Ryan Holiday in an email. Seth Godin concurs in a blog post titled Challenge Over Convenience about the curse of convenience. If it’s easy it isn’t valuable. If it’s hard, it likely helps. If you have to give up something in order to get it, it’s probably worth it. Convenient = easy. Easy = lazy. Lazy = little value. Therefore, choosing convenience, means being of little value. Choosing challenge means doing something that develops you, that makes you more useful, and of value to others.
“If I miss a day of practice, I know it. If I miss two days, my manager knows it. If I miss three days, my audience knows it.” Andre Previn, Pianist, conductor, and composer.
What we do every day matters far more than what we do every once in a while. Consistency beats intensity. It’s how the tortoise beat the hare, not with skill or strength, but with stamina. Steady, plodding pursuit. Boring is beautiful. Olson writes, “the slight edge is a very generous process. It requires only a miniscule contribution from you, and yet it offers you a gigantic return.” “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.” Time is your friend and not the enemy. Life’s not a race. You’re not in a rush. “The right choices and wrong choices you make at the moment will have little or no noticeable impact on how your day goes for you. Not tomorrow, nor the next day…. But it is exactly those same undramatic, seemingly insignificant actions that, when compounded over time, will dramatically affect how your life turns out.”
“Successful people form habits that feed their success, instead of habits that feed their failure.” The power of a proven process pursued patiently is incredible. “Success takes time, yes, more time than most people are willing to wait. But not as much as you’d think.” Our desire to look for and believe in shortcuts, hacks, big breaks, and guaranteed programs can be a problem because when we fail or give up on one of these our confidence in ourselves depletes. Additionally, putting off positive choices until tomorrow or some day doesn’t work as some day never comes. There’s only today. If you don’t care enough about making the modest effort today, you won’t care tomorrow. We have everything we need to make constructive change within ourselves right where we are in this moment. Your choices create change. The choices drive better behaviors. Nothing else. “Successful people have already grasped the truth that lottery players have not: success is not a random accident. Life is not a lottery.” “No success is immediate or instantaneous; no collapse sudden or precipitous. They are both products of the slight edge.” “No matter in what arena in life or work or play, the difference between winning and losing, that gap that separates success and failure, is so slight, so subtle, that most never see it.” “The only magic is … the power of daily actions compounded over time.” Our goal should be uncommon commitment to common goals. That is, boring is beautiful.
For most of us comfort trumps improvement. We long for the status quo. We want to feel good as opposed to be good. Olson writes, “Far more people have a strong desire to be happy than a strong desire to develop themselves to a fuller potential.” Happiness sounds like fun and personal development sounds like work. These are reasons why we choose the easy over the challenge in the moment. Until we internalize the value that doing little things daily has on our overall life satisfaction, we’re likely to pass on the positive progress available at the ends of our finger tips. Little things build into big things. If we view our lives as a get to instead of a have to, then the positive little things start to become easier to adopt.
An amazing violinist, Isaac Stern, was once celebrated by a fan after playing a concert. The fan enthused, “I’d give my life to play like you.” Stern responded coolly, “Lady, that I did.”
We’ve got to start somewhere with something. What are little efforts you could undertake today that you would continue to do day after day that, over time, would lead to progress? Olson writes, “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?” 1% a day of improvement leads to over 3.5 x improvement over a year. That’s massive over time. Even 1% per week or per month adds up. It’s not about doing more, it’s about doing a little, a lot. Time is your friend. “Greatness is always in the moment of the decision.” “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.” “Little things, things that might seem like they have no power at all, can make all the difference in the world.” “The slight edge shows up in the mundane little choices we make every day, not in some big dramatic moment… Those private, unseen, everyday moments are what determine the path your life will take. 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.”
“Time will be your friend or your enemy; it will promote you or expose you.” “The formula for success: a few simple disciplines, repeated every day… The formula for failure: a few simple errors in judgment, repeated every day.” “For things to change, you’ve got to change. For things to get better, you’ve got to get better.” “The predominant state of mind displayed by those people on the success curve is responsibility…. Taking responsibility liberates you… When you don’t take responsibility, you give away your power. When you retain full responsibility, you keep your life’s reins in your own hands.”
Our habits are simply actions we take with little to no thought. They are neutral. They can either serve or stifle. They can help or they can hurt. Our habits begin with a choice. We choose them. Have we consciously chosen ones that serve? A successful life follows the development of consciously crafted habits. Olson asks, “Which behaviors do you want to have take on a life of their own?” Remember, we choose our values and we do what we value so we should choose our values intentionally.
Olson asks, “What one simple, single, easy-to-do activity can you do, day in and day out, that will have the greatest impact on your health, your happiness, your relationships, your personal development, your finances, your career, and your impact on the world?” The goal is to pick something not just that you could do it, but that you will do it, daily. Choose something small. You can always make the commitment larger, but build the commitment first on something that may seem trivial. One page of reading, one push up, ten dollars saved off a pay cheque, one less dessert, one line or sentence of journaling, one glass of water when getting out of bed in the morning. One of these done each day won’t disrupt your day nor change your life in any meaningful way whether done or undone. If we create a chart with time on the X axis and progress on the Y axis, the line that reflects whether we do any of these things each day against the line where we don’t do them will look similar for days, weeks, and even months. However, over time, the two lines will slowly separate. The one reflecting doing the daily disciplines will trend ever so slightly upwards whereas the one reflecting not doing these disciplines will trend downwards. The separation builds as time progresses. Over the course of years, the destinations are polar opposites. Taking the path of daily disciplines leads us to the peaks of progress whereas the other leads to the depths of disappointment. Olson’s Slight Edge echoes the idea of the Capability Chasm and reinforces the Power of Patience and Little Things we’ve written about in past articles.
Jack Canfield in The Success Principles points out that some psychologists suggest up to 90% of our behaviors are habits. Much of our lives are run automatically. Whether it is as high as 90%, I don’t know, but it’s certain some percentage of our daily “do’s” are done by rote. Canfield writes, “Whatever habits you currently have established are producing your current level of results.” In other words, like Aristotle suggested, first we make our habits, then our habits make us. Are you consciously crafting habits that serve your goals? What little things could you do which, over time, would move you forward? What type of progress could you make in certain areas of your life if you took on a handful of small habits this year?
“Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge (The 30th President of the US). Pursue the path.
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier (best selling author).
Jack Canfield in The Success Principles introduces The Rule of 5. Every day do five specific things that will move you towards your desired future. An alternate to this we came up with is to turn our “to do” into “do two.” Either of these practices helps us focus on the long term. “What might you accomplish if you were to do a little bit—five things—every day for the next 40 years toward the accomplishment of your goal,” writes Canfield. The Slight Edge is about embracing the Pareto Principle. 80% of our results flow from 20% of our efforts. If we can find the right, high leverage efforts and invest our energies there, results follow in time.
The final chapters of The Slight Edge involve Olson offering suggestions from readers for setting goals. “Envisioning something simply means having the ability to create a vivid picture of something that hasn’t factually happened yet, and to make that picture so vivid that it feels real.” He considers it the most important part of goal setting. The more vivid and real the goal appears, the more of a pulling force it creates on your attention and actions. Write it down. Regularly review your goals. Take action, reflect, and adapt next actions. Pair these ideas with Mark Murphy’s HARD Goals. A reader offers, “I focused 100 percent on where I was going to be in five to ten years, looked at my goals every day and envisioned myself attaining them—and dedicated myself to consistent daily actions that would take me there.”
Summary:
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.”
“Successful people don’t look for shortcuts, nor do they hope for the ‘big break.’”
“Successful people never blame circumstances or other people; instead, they take full responsibility for their lives.”
“Successful people practice the daily disciplines that are assured to take them to their final destination.”
“Successful people go to work on their philosophy first, because they know it is the source of their attitudes, actions, results, and the quality of their lives.”
Olson suggests several habits to build. He suggests showing up as the starting point. If we can reliably present ourselves, we’re putting ourselves in a position to play and separating ourselves from the crowd. If we do this consistently, time is our friend.
From here, he offers having a positive outlook as being a good habit to build coupled with a long-term commitment. Invest in the process. Sign up for the journey.
Be willing to pay the price. It’s work, but it’s worth it. Discipline is maintenance that defers degradation. Eschew entropy with effort.
Practice Slight Edge integrity. How do you behave when no one is watching? What you do when no one else is around reveals your true character. Integrity is individual. Remember, you’re never alone, you’re always where you are with yourself. If you cut corners when alone, you are communicating to yourself the kind of person you are ok with being and becoming. Olson writes, “You are solely in charge of the steadily unfolding course of your life…You are a novelist, and the story you are inventing, with its rich plot and imaginative palette of distinct and believable characters, is your life. You are the screenwriter, director, and producer of an epic film, one that will run for years.”
