- [Joey] This video is a collaboration
with Beautiful Science.
Be sure to check out their incredible channel
after the video.
So if you're like most people,
you've had a vision of your potential future self.
The more successful, better groomed,
richer, happier version of yourself.
But you've probably also wondered if you can actually
become this person
or if this person is just a figment
of your reckless imagination.
Because sometimes the contrast between who you are
and who you want to be seems so stark.
You wonder if this idea of your potential
is even attainable
or is it just an instrument of false hope
like a carrot to a mule.
After all, while some few people really do achieve
their dreams and change the world,
the vast majority of others don't.
They don't even come close.
So what's the difference between these two types of people
and how can not let our dreams be dreams
and actually become the person we think about
when the word potential is thrown around?
Author Jeff Olsen suggests that there is a reliable tactic
you can use for achieving success,
whatever that may mean to you.
There is a surefire way to make massive progress
in any area of your life
and it's not as hard as you might think.
So here it goes.
Everyone who has ever been successful
understood this thing called the slight edge.
They may not have called it the slight edge
but the slight edge was without contention
the main factor in them achieving success.
So how does it work?
Okay, so say you had a ridiculously rich uncle
who is feeling really generous one day
and he said to you "Kevin my boy, I'll give you two options.
"Either I give you one million dollars cash right now
"and you can walk out the door a millionaire
"or I give you a single penny, one cent
"and I will double it every day for a month."
That accent was all over the place.
Which option would you choose?
Gut instinct tells you option one
but if we do some simple math,
option one gives you one million dollars.
That's pretty simple math
but if you had the patience and perseverance
to stick it out for 30 days,
option two gives you $5,386,709.12.
Over five times the value of option one which is weird
because with option two,
for the vast majority of those days,
this money doubling seems like a waste of time.
After 20 days of doubling,
you would have only had a little over $5,000.
At that point, if you were Kevin,
you definitely would have thought you screwed up big time.
But by sticking with it, dramatic change happens.
So here's another example.
Sure you can hit the gym really hard one day,
like the best, heaviest workout of your life.
Just straight barbaric.
And afterwards, you do everything right.
You have a giant, protein-rich meal
and a long, restful night's sleep.
But unfortunately, even after all that,
you won't see any results.
Visually, you'll be just as big as you were before you went.
In fact if you were to skip the gym that day altogether,
in the grand scheme of things,
it wouldn't really make a difference.
If you asked a friend how you looked
before and after your workout,
assuming there is no such thing as being swol,
they'd say you looked the exact same.
That's because you don't get to have huge muscles
by going to the gym harder than everyone else
that one time you're motivated enough to go to the gym.
You get to have huge muscles by just showing up to the gym
every single day for a long period of time.
So the slight edge can all be boiled down to this.
Success is not the result of doing difficult,
extraordinary things
but rather the result of doing unremarkable,
relatively easy to do things every single day
over a long period of time.
Maybe you wanna write a book.
If that's the case, then you shouldn't think about it
in terms of somehow possessing the massive inspiration
to crank out 200 brilliant pages of literature
because you already know that's never gonna happen.
If you wanna write a book,
write half a page and then be done for the day.
Then when you wake up the next morning,
finish that page and take a break.
Make writing half a page into a simple daily habit
and it will eventually turn into a well oiled machine
that will easily take you to your goal.
By casually showing up ever single morning
to write a relatively easy amount of words,
after a year's time, you will have written 182.5 pages.
That's a book!
And you did it with hardly any strain.
And that's because writing half a page is easy,
something you're actually likely to do.
But when leveraged by time,
half a page turns into a book.
45 minutes at the gym turns into a beach body.
30 minutes of practicing guitar
turns into "Holy (beep) Fred, I didn't know
"you're such a good musician."
So if you wanna achieve massive progress in your life
in any particular area,
break it down into a tiny, little action.
Something easy, so easy that you're actually likely to do it
but make sure to do it every single day
because as easy it is to do,
it's just as easy not to do.
And doing it or not doing it is the difference
between a life of success and one of mediocrity
later down the road.
- So I'm in a really small town in northern Saskatchewan
called Buffalo Narrows.
Don't know if you guys have heard of it
but anyways, I just wanted to say that
if you enjoyed this video,
go on over to Chris's channel, "It's a Beautiful Science."
The link is in the description of the video
and go subscribe to his channel because I think
he's super underrated.
He did a great job animating this video
so thank you very much, Chris.
If you like videos like these, hit that Subscribe button.
Hit that Like button in order to improve the rankings
and so that this video shows up
and helps some people out.
But yeah, hope you enjoyed the video.
A little bit of a different style this time
but I'm gonna continue to experiment on this channel forever
So (laughs), if you wanna hop along for the ride,
hit that Subscribe button.
Catch you on the next video
and see you on the Facebook group guys.
Have a great day.