The alarm goes off at 6am. Without conscious thought your hand shoots out and hits snooze… A 10 minute reprieve. You tentatively slip a foot out from under the covers. You open one eye. Still dark out.

Now you face a choice: You could sit up, switch on the light and start grinding your brain into gear, prod your groggy grey matter to search out three things you’re grateful for so you can write them down. You could then fire up the machinery of tired legs, hips, and back to crane yourself out of bed and go do the 20 sit-ups you promised you’d do every day and then read 10 pages of a book.

When you said that, did you even mean Saturdays? Today is Saturday? You yawn. Or you could slip down under the sheets and catch some more Z’s. No, that’s lazy. Compromise, flip on the news. Catch up on that unfolding juicy political scandal, see what’s happening with the manhunt for the murderer of the week. You reach for the remote.

And you just set the direction your life will take.

The single most important thing about The Slight Edge is this: it’s already working, right now, either for you or against you. So don’t wait. Our hope that you will put in place something. Perhaps a financial plan for yourself so that you are constantly building equity. Some simple, daily, weekly or monthly discipline that over time will buy you your financial freedom.

Easy to do? Surprisingly so… Easy not to do? Tragically so.

This episode is sponsored by 99 Designs. For $20 off and $99 upgrade head to: www.99designs.com/whatyouwilllearn

The Slight Edge – by Jeff Olson Summary

The alarm goes off at 6am. Without conscious thought your hand shoots out and hits snooze… A 10 minute reprieve. You tentatively slip a foot out from under the covers. You open one eye. Still Dark out. Now you face a choice: You could sit up, switch on the light and start grinding your brain into gear, prod your groggy grey matter to search out three things you’re grateful for so you can write them down. You could then fire up the machinery of tired legs, hips, and back to crane yourself out of bed and go do the 20 sit-ups you promised you’d do every day and then read 10 pages of a book.

When you said that, did you even mean Saturdays? Today is Saturday? You yawn. Or you could slip down under the sheets and catch some more Z’s. No, that’s lazy. Compromise, flip on the news. Catch up on that unfolding juicy political scandal, see what’s happening with the manhunt for the murderer of the week. You reach for the remote.

And you just set the direction your life will take.

“Oh come on” you protest… Give us a break here! It’s one Saturday morning – a few minutes out of one Saturday morning! That hardly has life consequences”

But it does. Greatness is always in the moment of the decision. And so is fate. 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.

Where you end up in life isn’t about whether you are a good or bad person, whether or not you are deserving, or your karma, or your circumstances. It is dictated by the choices you make – especially the little ones. I know it doesn’t seem like it. It seems like you’re just choosing how to spend the next hour, not the next 40 years. But you are choosing how you’ll spend your next 40 years.

The cost of waiting

You’ve probably heard the story of compound interest before. In fact many times. What is the big deal about it all? Nothing… Unless you act on it.

The single most important thing about The Slight Edge is this: it’s already working, right now, either for you or against you. So don’t wait. Our hope that you will put in place something. Perhaps a financial plan for yourself so that you are constantly building equity. Some simple, daily, weekly or monthly discipline that over time will buy you your financial freedom.

Easy to do? Surprisingly so… Easy not to do? Tragically so.

The slight edge is relentless, it cuts both ways. Used productively it carries you up towards success. Used carelessly it pulls you towards failure. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. Simple errors in judgement, repeated consistently over time. Your choice is really that simple.

The lesson of compound interest shows the tremendous potential of something as seemingly powerless. About patience and the understanding that little steps compounded do make a difference. That the things you do every single day, the things that don’t look dramatic do matter. About having faith in the process of simple, positive actions, repeated over time – the faith that miracles do happen.

If you know when to trust the process and keep churning the cream. It was a lesson about the slight edge and how it can transform your life. It is the same choice we’re offered in every moment of our lives.

• A rich and growing circle of friends, or deepening loneliness and alienation
• Vibrant and abundant vitality, or progressively declining health
• Success or failure
• Happiness or misery
• Fulfillment or despair
• Millionaire or beach bum

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 like a thick blanket of waterlily..

What do the 5% do differently?

How many people do you know that you would call successful? Not necessarily financially, although it is something. But in all aspects of life, vibrant, healthy, plenty of good friends, full of energy and curiosity, always learning new things and are excited about life. Probably not many…

Lets  be honest, people are struggling to keep their heads above water. To keep from digging deeper and deeper into debt, to keep their health from slipping, to manage everything in their busy lives without stressing out, struggling to juggle friendships and everything else tugging away at them. Life feels like a race – with someone constantly moving the finish line further away.

Not for everyone of course. There are those for whom life somehow just seems to work. But they sure aren’t in the majority: probably about 1/20, or 5%.

The 5% don’t want success more than the others. They don’t wish, pray or envision for it more. The difference is the slight edge.

If you can learn to understand and apply the slight edge, your life will be filled with thousands of small seemingly insignificant actions, all of them simple, none of them mysterious or complex. In other words, you have to master the mundane.

So why doesn’t everyone do them?

They’re easy to do.

It is easy to save a few bucks a day… And easy not to. It’s easy to do 15 minutes of cardio a day.. Walk a brisk mile or two.. Truly easy to do. Or not to do. It may be easy to read 10 pages of The Magic of Thinking Big, and so easy not to d

We all take pretty similar actions each day. Sleep, eat, think, feel , talk and listen. We have relationships and friendships. We have 168 hours a week and if we fill these hours one way or another with a sequence of little actions and tasks.

We are all capable of being winners in life. And yes that includes you. Because the slight edge is always working. Working for you or against you. It is working now and always will be.

Everything you need to do to transform your life is easy to do. Easy to become health, fit, vibrant, financially independent. A simple positive action repeated over time. A simple error in judgement repeated over time. So easy to do. So easy not to do.

Answer: up or down….

Lets take an honest look at your health. What is your exercise, what are you eating, are you building a greater feeling of health vibrancy every day. Or is the balance decreasing.

Happiness

• Do you take time to look at the things you’re grateful for
• Do you practice savouring the moment and appreciating others

Friendships and close relationships

• Is the number of friends in your life, meaningful exchanges with people, mutually enriching events growing each year?

Personal development

• Are you learning more about yourself and the world around you, about how life works every day?

Finances

• Are you building assets and putting money into a long term plan that will create true financial freedom?
• Are you living within your means and investing income into a program that will build equity? Or borring out of credit?

Your career

• If your professional life growing every day? Are you moving along a path that is taking you towards greater accomplishments and fulfillment in your chosen occupation?

Impact on the  world

• What kind of impact are you having on the people around you?
• How will people remember you?

Life is not a practice session, there is no dress rehearsal. This is it. This is for real

The good news

The alarm goes off at 6am. Now you face a choice. And that is the good news, because every moment you have in life you face a choice. Where you are right now is poised in the present, with the past stretching far behind and future ahead.

At any moment in your life, you can choose to change which side of the curve you are on. All you need to do is choose to do the actions that will empower you. Step onto the upper curve. The path of success, and in time, you will put any area of your life on track and it might be in less time than you think.

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