The Slight Edge Flashcards
Van engine
People who make 20x more money are not working 20x harder or are 20x smarter than you. That would be impossible.
Drivers seat
An average person by any measure can achieve greatness. It is not reserved for naturally talented people. But hard work is not enough else everyone who worked hard would be successful.
Passenger seat
The thermostat rollercoaster. When faced with failure you do whatever you have to in order to eat. Then when you have food you go right back to the behaviors that made you starving Marvin.
Front row left
But the same activities that got you out of failure will take you to success, if continued. So that means you already know what you need to do in order to become a huge success.
Front Row Center
The actions for massive success are ‘simple daily disciplines’ or productive actions repeated daily over time.
Front row right
Success is success in joy, love, contentment, fulfillment, relationships, curiosity, fascination, passion, enthusiasm, excitement and accomplishment.
Back row left
“Do the thing, and you shall have the power”
Back row middle
A ton of self help info is out there telling how to do the things. But it doesn’t work for most people. The first ingredient of success is your philosophy or how you think about simple everyday things. This will lead you to the how-to’s.
Back row right
Diets don’t fail because we don’t know how to follow them. It’s because we don’t keep doing them.
Focusing on service or value-driven attitude is ‘what can I do to help you’
Monumental successes do not happen over night. Neither do monumental failures. It’s hundreds of good or bad actions.
Your philosophy creates you attitudes which creates your actions which creates your results which creates your life.
My mother never drank, never complained not once. She was always there for me no matter what.
The idea of compounding works both ways. Small positive actions lead to huge successes, but small negative actions lead to horrible outcomes.
Most people don’t stick with the simple daily disciplines, long enough to see the results they want
Every choice you make every hour of every day is either compounding you up or compounding you down
What is the successful person? Someone who has vibrant health, good friends, full of energy, curiosity, learning new things, and excited about life.
Can you be someone who is so genuinely engaged and plugged into life that you somehow make others feel better about themselves just being in your presence
Successful people aren’t mort, talented, hard-working, gifted, lucky or wanted more than anyone else. It’s just working our after hour day after day.
The things successful people do are not complicated or difficult. They just take practice. In fact they are mundane. You must master the mundane.
So why doesn’t everyone do the easy things needed for success? First, because they’re easy to do, means they are easy not to do. It takes no more effort to eat an apple, then to eat a bag of chips. We all have to make actions every day. They can be good actions or bad actions.
The difference of success and failure and taking action. Will take action every every day. It’s whether you take the right actions or the wrong ones.
The next reason people don’t take the right Monday actions is they don’t see the benefit. Giving up a three dollar energy drink and putting that money in savings makes no immediate difference on your finances.
If eating one cheeseburger killed you, nobody would do it. But everyone knows eating cheeseburgers over years. Will kill you.
If you read 10 pages of book, your life doesn’t improve. And if you don’t read 10 pages, your life doesn’t fall apart. But if you read 10 pages of a good book every day for the rest of your life, it absolutely will.
By the time you get the feedback, good or bad, the work has already been done
Chapter 5 Slow Down to Go Fast
Don’t expect overnight results
Will power doesn’t work. You have to master the power of time.
Time is the magnifier that takes your minuscule daily actions and returns grand rewards.
Consistently repeated daily actions + Time = Unconquerable results
Daily choices are boring and with no immediate positive feedback.
The métaphore of the scale that is completely tipped to the negative side. What happens when you add a weight to the positive side? Nothing. Several more weighs? Nothing. Slowly adding small weights every day over and over with no movement for years. Then it finally tips.
Successful people do whatever it takes to get the job done, even when they don’t feel like it.
If you want big results, then do the small things persistently and consistently well.
Chapter 6 Don’t fall for the Quantum Leap
Which is a life altering answer that changes things in 3 months
Some day I’ll get around to…
Someday never comes. Your ship never comes in. It’s already here. You already have the knowledge, ability; everything you need to achieve anything you want.
“Luck is when the constancy of preparedness eventually created opportunity.”
Any time you see what looks like a breakthrough it is ALWAYS the result of a long series of little things, done consistently over time.
No success is immediate; no collapse is sudden. Both are the result of the slight edge gaining momentum over time.
Chapter 7 The secret of happiness
A happy person: Never talk in negative terms, find the good in everything, make a practice of counting your blessings, do kind things for people.
Happiness Habits:
1. Write down three things you are greatful for each morning (new each day)
2. Journal for 2 min a day on a positive experience you had in the last 24 hrs. Use as much detail as possible.
3. Meditate daily.
4. Do a random act of kindness daily.
5. Exercise for 15 minutes
Chapter 8 The Ripple Effect
Growing up with the slight edge means believe ANYTHING is attainable if you consistently work toward it every day.
Away at college she started seeing the decisions other students made and the reasons behind them.
Morgan, we are all graced with a unique mix of talent, passion and vision. The purpose of life is to live them out to their fullest potential.
Chapter 9: Start with a Penny
You have to do SOMETHING. Not a quantum leap. But success doesn’t come out of thin air.
Walking 10 minutes is easy. Reading 10 pages is easy. But you have to do it. Even when you don’t see any benefit. You have to keep at it. Every day.
Every day, in every moment you get to exercise choices that will determine whether or not you will become a great person, living a great life.
Chapter 10 Living the Slight Edge
Greatness is the moment of decisions, and so is fate. Even the decision to scroll your phone instead of getting immediately out of bed.
All of the mundane, unseen everyday moments are what determines your life.
There are times when life seems like an even keel. But it’s an illusion. Everything curves; if you’re not increasing you’re decreasing
Remember that what’s uncomfortable now becomes comfortable later going up the curve and what’s comfortable now becomes uncomfortable later going down the curve
You are building tour, greater, happiness and fulfillment, or deeper unhappiness, and dissatisfaction. Your relationships are growing deeper and richer, or growing more stale and distant. 
Look at your happiness. Do you take time every day to notice the things you grateful for? Do you make a habit of looking at things in a positive flight? Do you practice savoring the moment and expressing your appreciation of others? Do you engage in activities that are meaningful to you that you do do because you want to not because you have to.
Just read on page 153 and 154
Chapter 11 Mastering the Slight Edge
Take an honest look at your Health are you building it with the way you eat exercise and take care of yourself
Take a look at your happiness
Take a look at your personal development. Are you learning about yourself in the world around you? Are you learning new skills and sharpening old ones are you becoming the more capable person?
Take a look at your relationships. Do you have meaningful exchanges and mutually enriching experiences, growing larger every year is your marriage, growing taller, fuller richer with each passing year.
Mastery is a journey of continuous improvement, learning, and refinement
The analogy of a baby learning to walk. Falling and failing far more than you, succeed, but never giving up until second nature.
There is learning through studying, learning through doing, and learning through modeling someone else.
Do you immediately brighten the room with your positive energy and excitement for life? Or dim the room with your depressing outlook on life?
Surround yourself with people who have an infectiously positive attitude and brighten the room with positive energy
Chapter 15. Cultivate slight edge habits.
Sow an act reap habit. Sow a habit reap a character. Sow a character rep a destiny.
Getting up early, can become a habit. So can whining, complaining and criticizing
Every habit begins with a choice over which you have complete control. Until it becomes automatic then you lose control. 
There are seven habits that you can work on every day.
Cultivate a burning desire, backed by belief
Show up: do something!
Be willing to pay the price: do the right thing; the critical task that needs to be done
Show up consistently: have the grit to do it every day
And do the things you’re committed to doing even when no one else is watching: hold yourself accountable to the standard
Be prepared for, and committed to the long-haul
Show up consistent with positive outlook
Habit number one. Take action don’t just think about taking action.
Habit number two. Be consistent. The action you were taking must be taken every single day.
Habit number three you have a positive outlook. Always remember the glasses not half full it’s overflowing.
Habit number five cultivate a burning desire with belief you can achieve it. This desire is what keeps you motivated to press forward when when adversity hits.
Habit number six be willing to pay the price. You have to be willing to do uncomfortable things to get the long-term success that you want. Whether that price is getting out of bed when you’re tired or looking like an idiot in front of other people. 
Habit number seven have slight edge integrity. No one knows if you’re cheating, only you. 
Have it number four. Be committed for the long-haul.
Chapter 16 Three steps to your dreams
Write down your goals
Read it every day
Start with a plan
You can train people in concepts; how to think and what kinds of actions have worked in the past. But you can’t blueprint the exact sequence of actions to take because every situation is different.
Chapter 17 living the slide edge
For each of the seven areas you need to do three things one what are your dreams for that area expressed as goals, specific, vivid, and with a timeline
To a simple plan to start
31 simple daily discipline that you will commit to doing each and every day from now on
Remember that every meal is a decision to be made
Happiness. Remember, the most significant factors in your happiness are your actions. What you do every day.
Happiness is a skill just like anything else. It’s something you can consciously intentionally do and work at.
Relationships. It’s the little things that count. The little gifts gestures kind words, five minutes from a busy day to drop everything and listen to news words of encouragement, believe in the other person listening.
Van roof
The times when you are successful and unsuccessful, you are the same peson. You don’t change. What you DO changes.
Marge Simpson hair do out the sunroof. Realize she is the same actor as Homer just without the do.
Van engine
Success or failure don’t happen overnight. The are both a long series of the right or wrong decisions.
Hear a horrible rattling in the engine. Open the hood to see oh of course it’s just a knight
Front bumper
People who make 20x more money are not working 20x harder or are 20x smarter than you. That would be impossible.
Nose dripping snot. You don’t have a tissue so you offer a page of the Times instead.
