Olson, Jeff_Slight Edge Flashcards
Essential Points from Chapter 1
The same activities that take us from failure to survival would also take us from survival to success—if we would just keep doing them.
You already know how to do everything it would take to make you an outrageous success. All you have to do is keep doing the things that have gotten you this far.
You have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.
There is a beach bum and a millionaire inside each one of us. What makes the difference in how things turn out? You do.
Essential Points from Chapter 2
No matter how good the information is, it won’t do you any good unless you have the right catalyst that will let you apply it effectively.
Your philosophy creates your attitudes, which create your actions, which create your results, which create your life.
Successful people fail their way to the top. Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
The slight edge is the first ingredient, the catalyst you need that makes all the how-to’s work.
Essential Points from Chapter 3
Simple daily disciplines—little productive actions, repeated consistently over time—add up to the difference between failure and success.
The slight edge is relentless and cuts both ways: simple daily disciplines or simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time, make you or break you.
Without the slight edge, you can start with a million and lose it all. With the slight edge, you can start with a penny and accomplish anything you want.
Essential Points from Chapter 4
Only 5 percent—1 in 20—achieve the level of success and fulfillment they hope for. The other 95 percent either fail or fall short. The only difference is the slight edge.
The secret to the 5 percent’s success is always in mundane, easy things that anyone could do.
People don’t consistently do those simple things for three reasons: 1) while they’re easy to do, they are also easy not to do; 2) you don’t see any results at first; 3) they seem insignificant, like they don’t matter. But they do.
Essential Points from Chapter 5
Time is the force that magnifies those simple daily disciplines into massive success.
There is a natural progression to success: plant, cultivate, harvest—and the central step, cultivate, can only happen over the course of time.
No genuine success in life is instant. Life is not a clickable link.
To grasp how the slight edge works, you have to view your actions through the eyes of time.
Difficult takes a little time; impossible takes just a little longer.
Essential Points from Chapter 6
Quantum leaps do happen, but only as the end result of a lengthy, gradual buildup of consistently applied effort.
No success is immediate, no collapse is sudden. They are both the result of the slight edge accruing momentum over time.
Hoping for “the big break”—the breakthrough, the magic bullet—is not only futile, it’s dangerous, because it keeps you from taking the actions you need to create the results you want.
Essential Points from Chapter 7
Happiness is created by doing some simple, easy things, and doing them every day.
Success does not lead to happiness, it’s the other way around: more happiness creates more success.
Elevated levels of happiness create elevated levels of health, performance, social involvement, marital fulfillment, financial and career success, and longevity.
Greater happiness is key to making the slight edge work in your life.
Shawn Achor’s five happy habits:
Every morning write down three new things you’re grateful for.
Journal for two minutes a day about a positive experience from the past 24 hours.
Meditate daily for a few minutes.
At the start of every day, write an email to someone praising or thanking them.
Get fifteen minutes of simple cardio exercise a day.
Essential Points from Chapter 8
Everyone wants to know that they make a difference in the world—that their lives matter.
Greater success also creates a greater responsibility to share that success with others.
A single thoughtful, committed person can change the world.
We are all having a ripple effect on others; the question is, what kind of ripple effect, negative or positive, do we want to have?
Essential Points from Chapter 9
Great success often starts from a tiny beginning—but there has to be a beginning. You have to start somewhere. You have to do something.
If you add just 1 percent of anything—skill, knowledge, effort—per day, in a year it will have more than tripled. But you have to start with the 1 percent.
Greatness is not something predetermined, predestined, or carved into your fate by forces beyond your control
Essential Points from Chapter 10
Everything is always in motion. Every day, every moment, your life path is either curving upward, or curving downward.
Growing up we heard five times as many nos as yeses. Life has a downward pull.
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.
Essential Points from Chapter 11
Mastery begins the moment you step onto the path. Failure begins the moment you step off the path.
Wanting is uncomfortable, yet wanting is essential to winning.
There are two ways to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be: 1) you can let go of where you are and be drawn to your goal, or 2) you can let go of your goal, hit the snooze button, and stay where you are.
Chances are good that when you step out onto the path of mastery, you will step out alone.
Essential Points from Chapter 12
The wisest investment you can make is to invest in your own continuous learning and development.
Learning by studying and learning by doing—book smarts and street smarts—are the two essential pistons of the engine of learning.
On the path to a goal you will be off-course most of the time. Which means the only way to reach a goal is through constant and continuous course correction.
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.
Essential Points from Chapter 13
If you want to learn how to do something well, find someone who has mastered that skill and apprentice yourself.
Choose your heroes carefully: are they genuine role models you want to emulate?
Choose your associates: everything about your life will closely reflect the lives of your five closest friends.
Sometimes you need to let go and disassociate.
Form and use a mastermind: two minds are better than one, and five are even better.
Essential Points from Chapter 14
On the path of mastery you have four powerful allies:
The power of momentum: steady wins the race.
The power of completion: clear out your undones and incompletes.
The power of reflection: facing the man or woman in the mirror.
The power of celebration: catch yourself doing something right.
Essential Points from Chapter 15
There are two kinds of habits: those that serve you, and those that don’t.
You have choice over your habits through your choice of everyday actions.
The way to erase a bad habit is to replace it with a positive habit.
Here are seven powerful, positive slight edge habits:
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.
