Let's start off with a story about the beach bum and a millionaire. We have two
guys that grew up together as best friends, went to school together and did
almost everything together, and we're considered almost identical with their
character and personality. In fact they were almost identical in every way! Every
way except one! Which was that different paths they took and where they have led.
The first friend dropped out of college started lifting weights, chased girls, and
became a beach bum. Eventually he became frustrated, unhappy and started business
for himself, but at the end, the business failed and he lost everything. On the
other hand his friend graduated from college as an A student, he went to
business school, later got recruited in a firm and then went on to create string
of entrepreneurial ventures each one more successful than the last and the
end result is he became a millionaire. Honestly I felt like this story was
quite sad for the beach bum but surprisingly there's a twist in the
story. The millionaire still stays in contact every day with his childhood
friend aka the beach bum. You might be thinking, how can a millionaire still be
in close touch with a broke beach bum? That kind of doesn't make any sense! And
I say you're right! It doesn't. Especially that the story supposedly happened.
Sounds like a bunch of fairy tale doesn't it? Well except one last detail
of the story. The reason they're both still in contact today is because they
are one and the same person and that person is Jeff Olson, the author of this
book, the slight edge. Jeff Olson said he was a frustrated beach bum that was
never anything but average. Average at school. Average at sports. Average in
social skills. He said the only reason I made the
transformation from there to the here is that somewhere
along the way I had the good fortune of being exposed to the slight edge. And
this is what the book is all about. Essentially our philosophies shape our
attitudes, actions, and result, 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 of the slight edge is quite
straightforward and that is to do the small things over and over again until
success kicks in. Picture it like this. Most of these small things you do every
day are extremely easy to do such as choosing between a salad or a packet of
french fries, saving a penny or spending a penny. Keep this in mind. Doing
something can be easy to do at the same time
easy not to do. Yeah eating french fries in one day isn't going to immediately
affect your health, but if you add time to the equation, eating it every day will
affect you and this is what we call the compounding effect. With each passing
minute and each new choice we make the slight edge is at work either for us or
against us. There's a story about a wealthy man that was nearing the end of
his days. He summoned his twin sons and told him before he died, I am leaving you
both a gift. I'm giving you each a purse to finance yourself. What goes in each
purse is your choice. He takes out 1 million dollars cash and the other palm
was a shiny copper penny. He said, I offer the same choice to you both. This million
dollars or the single penny. You could take the million dollars right now use
it however you want. The penny however if you leave it untouched, my Butler has
instructions to double the contents of your purse as long as it is under
his care. Long story short, one of them chose the
million dollars and the other one chose the penny. The first twin laughed at his
brother who chose the penny and told him he was a fool for picking that. He ended
up keeping the penny despite his brothers discouragement. Fast forward, end
of the story was the boy who chose the million dollars ended up broke and in
greater dept. However the boy who chose the penny, he was surprised to find out
that if you double a penny every day it will grow to over ten million dollars in
just one month. Even though this story is only a fable, it teaches an extremely
valuable lesson of the true power of the compound effect.
Like I said, adding time to the equation with each passing minute and each new
choice that we make the slight edge will work either for us or against us. Once
you embrace this 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 judgment long enough,
you will also suffer the consequences. Again things are easy to do just as
things are easy not to do. Precisely because there are small decisions and
actions. It wouldn't kill us immediately if you don't do them today. For the
slight edge to work, you'll have to do something and keep doing it until you
succeed! You need to follow the plant-cultivate-harvest cycle. Farmers
understand this very well. However many people either expect something from
nothing or they want to go directly from plant to harvest. If their mindset is
like that, they're more likely to quit because the results are not immediately
visible. Just imagine a farmer that plants a seed and gives up the next week
because it doesn't sprout a plant with fruits. Sounds kind of ridiculous right?
The small activities needed to be done for reaching our goals can be undramatic
and seemingly insignificant when you look at it in a small time frame. 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. For
example look at YouTube! I've been this YouTube channel and let me tell you,
yes it's a ton of work to reach to the next subscribers milestone. At times, it
feels like it takes too long to reach those upper numbers, yet I know making a
small yet significant step towards my goal will compound over time which will
sooner or later yield results. Just like growing any business can feel
discouraging when progress feels slow but did you know that an average
climbing time to the top of Mount Everest takes about two months? That's
because most of the climbers time is being spent at the base of the mountain
for they trying to adjust to the oxygen level and the dangerous weather conditions. The
ones that make it to the top were the ones that didn't quit and kept with a
plan every day to reach their ultimate dream. All right that is all for now
Thank you so much for watching! Personally this book review was helped a
lot with the use of audible! Since at times when I can't always read I have
the help of audible which I'm able to continue my progress with any book! I can
listen anywhere which is awesome because in many situations when I can't read
like when I'm driving or when I'm exercising. I say definitely check it out!
I'll leave a link in the description down below where you can try a
completely free 30-day free trial and keep any two audiobooks even if you
decide to cancel the subscription you'll not have a penny spent. As always
subscribe if you haven't already and click that Bell notification so I can
annoy you about a new video! Thanks once again and I'll see you guys later!