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The Slight Edge - Book summary

The Slight Edge is a philosophy, a new way of thinking. It helps us to make simple daily choices and take small actions, creating the compound effect to deliver the lives we desire. In this free version of The Slight Edge summary, we’ll outline how you can use just one simple, daily discipline and consistently apply the 7 Slight Edge principles to turn around any aspect of your life in just a few years.

We already have all the information about success that we need. The book is about applying that information in our daily lives, to consistently make the right daily choices – all of which add up to create massive outcomes in our lives.

The Slight Edge: An Overview

Our philosophies shape our attitudes, actions and results, which in turn shape our lives. The Slight Edge is a philosophy; it represents a way of thinking: what we know, how we hold that knowledge, and what we do.

The secret ingredient is straightforward: to do the small things over and over again until success kicks in. Most of these small things are extremely easy to do – such as choosing between a salad or a packet of French fries, saving a penny or spending a penny. Yet, compounded over time, they can produce massive results.

“Consistently repeated daily actions + time = unconquerable results”

The Slight Edge summary_overview

A penny, doubled every day, will grow to over $10 million in just one month. If you improved in an area by just 1% a day, you would have improved by 365% in 1 year. With each passing minute and each new choice that we make, the Slight Edge is at work – either for us or against us. Once you embrace this philosophy, you will know that if you do something long enough, you will get the results you want. But, if you make the small errors of judgement long enough, you will also suffer the consequences.

If It’s So Simple, Why Doesn’t Everyone Do It?

Unfortunately:

  • Things that are easy to do are just as easy not to do. Precisely because they are small decisions and actions, it won’t kill us immediately if we don’t do them today.
  • For the slight edge to work, you have to do something, and keep doing it until you succeed. You need to follow the Plant-Cultivate-Harvest cycleHowever, many people either expect something from nothing, or they want to go directly from plant to harvest.
  • The results are not immediately visible. The small activities are undramatic and seemingly insignificant. In a society that tends to worship breakthroughs and quantum leaps, it’s easy to give up or stop doing the small actions required to deliver results.

Two Life Paths

It has been scientifically established that space is curved. There are no such things as straight lines – everything, including your life, is curved. Your daily choices determine which curve you are on. If you are making the right choices every day, your life curve is on the upper half (which only 5% of people are on). If you are making simple errors in judgement daily, you are on the lower curve (where the majority of people are).

The Slight Edge is constantly at work; once you make a firm decision to step onto the upper curve and consistently apply the 7 Slight Edge principles, you can turn any area of your life around in a few years. In fact, genuine success in any one area of your life tends to spread to other areas.

Read more about your 2 Life Paths and the 7 Slight Edge Principles in our full 9-page The Slight Edge summary!

Applying The Slight Edge for Massive Success

Mastering Your Life

In the book, Olsen outlines several powerful ideas to help us embark on the road to mastery. Here’s an overview (do get more details from our full summary):

  • Closing the Gap: What it means to leverage the natural tension between Point A (where we are) and Point B (where we could be).
  • Harnessing the 5 Sources of Power: How to harness the 5 natural sources of power, including Momentum, Completion, Habit, Reflection and Celebration.

The Slight Edge summary_5 sources of power

  • Focusing on Philosophy, not Results. Why we should not focus on results (which = focusing on the past).
  • Continuous Learning. How to develop yourself continuously as a key element of the Slight Edge philosophy.
  • Turning your Dreams into Reality. How to set goals with 4 foundational steps [more details in the our complete 9 page summary].

Living the Slight Edge

Olsen also takes us through 5 key areas of our lives, including health, personal development, relationships, finances, and life in general. For each of these areas, list down the following:

  • My dreams for this area (be specific, vivid, with a deadline)
  • Price to pay
  • Plan to Start
  • One simple daily discipline

To get started, simply start by doing one daily discipline in each of these 5 areas. Review these factors daily, model successful people, and spend quality time with people who have achieved similar goals and dreams.

Getting the Most from The Slight Edge

In this article, we’ve briefly outlined some of the key insights and strategies you can use to achieve desired change. For more examples, details, and actionable tips to apply these strategies, do get our full book summary bundle which includes an infographic, 9-page text summary, and a 17-minute audio summary.

The Slight Edge summary - book summary bundle

The most powerful part of The Slight Edge is the simplicity and practicality of the philosophy. Olsen summarizes many big ideas we may already know, and shows how to apply them in simple, daily steps. The book is sobering yet uplifting at the same time, because it presents so clearly how we can shape our lives, there’s no longer any excuse not to.

Olsen shares many relatable stories and examples to help us understand the concepts in the book, including his own story – how he went from a beach bum to owning the 5th largest solar-air energy company in America, to losing everything and rebuilding from scratch again. Throughout the book, there are also numerous notes from people who shared how they have applied the Slight Edge in their lives.

Want to read the entire book? You can purchase the book here, or visit slightedge.org.

About the Author of The Slight Edge

The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success is written by Jeff Olson–one of the top network marketing authors and trainers in the industry. He has worked with many sales,  marketing, and distribution companies, building three different sales and distribution forces into multimillion dollar organizations from scratch, ultimately becoming CEO of one of them. He went on to start The People’s Network, one of the largest personal development training companies in the US, where he produced over 900 television programs around personal excellence in health, finances, relationships, and more. Jeff currently resides in Fort Lauderdale, FL, but spends time regularly in Dallas, TX, where his business is located.

The Slight Edge Quotes

“The things you do every day, the things that don’t look like they matter, do matter.”

“Here’s the problem: every action that is easy to do, is also easy not to do.”

“Simple little disciplines, done again and again over time, would move the biggest mountains.”

“You can measure the impact a person’s life has by the size of the problems he or she solves.”

“Gigantic funerals are held and great crowds, sometimes entire nations, mourn for those people who spent their lives not worrying about what others thought.”

Click here to download The Slight Edge book summary and infographic

3 Comments

  • Adam says:

    Can anyone tell me what the simple disciplines actually are please? The book just seems to constantly repeat the same ideas (great as they are) but is there actual concrete mention of what these things are meant to be? What are the simple daily routines?

    It’s like the guy tells you over and over how great they are, but never tells you WHAT they are…

    • Readingraphics says:

      Hey Adam, The Slight Edge is a philosophy, not a technique.

      The disciplines are whatever you define them to be, e.g. if healthy-eating is your goal, then the discipline could be as simple as choosing healthy snack (e.g. a fruit) over an unhealthy snack (e.g. fries or chips) each time. His key message is that the small things you do daily add up.

      Olsen doesn’t give you a fixed routine or set of disciplines, more of broad concepts. But, he does end the book with an exercise to think about the 5 areas of your life – health, personal development, relationships, finances, and life in general – this exercise is supposed to help you to define the daily discipline you are prepared to commit to, so you start taking action.

      Hope this helps!

  • Alain Guillot says:

    This book could have been a 500-word blog post. Many times less is more.

    This is the message of the book:
    “Small changes in your life, over time, can yield huge results.”
    That’s is it!!! That’s the whole book extended to 200 pages.
    The good thing is that when you read the same message over and over again for 200 pages, it does stick to your subconscious. The bad thing is that after page 5 reading the same message over and over again, it gets old fast.

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