Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be a required school text book!, April 6, 2007
This review is from: The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life (Paperback)
This is truly a book I would recommend to anyone...and the only reason I would ever recommend a book is if it's had significant, real personal impact on my life in practical ways...and this book has done just that. It's caused me to be more consciously aware of the slight edge when making small, seemingly insignificant decisions throughout the day.
Jeff doesn't necessarily offer up a new philosophy or idea in this book. But he uncovers the simple, eternal truths about success and failure, and he calls it the "slight edge": simplified disciplines (good or bad) compounded over time. This principle, which is true to everyone, everywhere, can be recognized and applied to EVERY area of life.
He explains how our society has been inundated with what he calls the "breakthrough mentality": how we expect success and completion to come easily and quickly. He breaks down the slight edge and how it affects your financial prosperity, health, relationships, etc. This book really causes you to look at your life, where you're at, how you got there, and the choices you can make daily to get to where you want to go.
I have read the book, I have listened to the audiobook. I will continue to refer back to it's principles.
Bottom Line: It's easy reading, it's practical, it's useful. It's not fluff or hype, but it's written by a realist who knows what it is to fail, and what it takes to succeed greatly. Not only would I recommend this to everyone (which I RARELY ever do for a book), but if I was in charge of things, I would make this a required text in high schools.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Manual for Success in everything in your life, March 5, 2007
This review is from: The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life (Paperback)
I've came in contact with this book through my part-time business opportunity since Jeff Olson is one of the owners of our parent company. What can I say first, except - WOW! This book teaches such a simple philosophy; yet that philosophy can effect everything in your life. If you apply the Slight Edge to your career, relationships, health, fitness or anything else in our life, you will succeed. Also, if you are failing in what ever area, the slight edge will explain to you why you are failing. As the book states, success and failure are both predictable. Read this book, or get the audio book and learn the simple philosophy of the slight edge.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Success is Built on Each Turn of the Flywheel, November 9, 2009
This review is from: The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life (Paperback)
Author Jeff Olson offers the secret to a successful life in his "The Slight Edge." This book centers on answering the questions, "Why are some people successful, and some people failures? What is the difference - really?
The book begins with three stories, of which I will share the one about the water hyacinth - a beautiful, delicate-looking little plant. The hyacinth is one of the most productive (successful) plants on earth; its reproductive rate astonishes botanists and ecologists. The method it prefers for colonizing a new area is to grow by doubling itself. One plant can multiply to cover an entire pond in thirty days.
The "Slight Edge" involves the flywheel effect which caused the hyacinth to multiply. Success is built on each turn of the flywheel which builds upon work done earlier, compounding the investment of effort. It doesn't come from nowhere; it can't be conjured up out of thin air. It comes from a very small, tiny beginning, and grows with time.
The secret ingredient to success is one's philosophy. What are the attitudes behind your actions? Your attitudes lead to actions which lead to results - creating your life. Olson provides a useful diagram of our actions and how their compounding interest leads to success or failure over time. The upper curve on the diagram is the formula for success: a few simple disciplines, repeated every day over time. The lower curve is the formula for failure: a few simple errors in judgment, repeated every day over time. The upper curve represents the one person out of twenty who follows the "Slight Edge." It's pure geometry, the geometry of effects over time. One can choose time will to be a friend or an enemy.
Each of us, every day and every hour, chooses which side of this curve we want to ride. "The Slight Edge" provides good guide on making the right choice, and a reminder that successful people form habits that feed their success, instead of habits that feed their failure.
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