The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life [Paperback]

Jeff Olson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2005

Why is it that some people make dream after dream come true, while others just continue dreaming and spend their lives building dreams for someone else? One simple reason, those that are "successful" have found their SLIGHT EDGE! This book is not just another self-help, motivation tool of methods you must to learn in order to make it up the path of success. The Slight Edge simply shows you how to create powerful results from the simple daily activities of your life, by using tools that are already within you. And all you need to make that happen? Discover that "one" thing that will help you achieve that goal, realize a life-long dream or propel you up the ladder to success. Once you got it, then you will discover how your philosophy... creates your attitude... creates your actions... creates your results... creates YOUR LIFE! Plus, Jeff shares with you "the key" that will make all of the other self-help information you read, watch and hear actually work in your life!

Editorial Reviews

Review

We have an amazing team that was introduced to the Slight Edge 10 weeks ago. We have reviewed and instilled the principles given in the book three times a week for the past 10 weeks and have seen such growth in our group! Also, I would like for him to know that he has made a difference for me personally!! I have applied the Slight Edge and I know my life will never be the same!! By applying the information success in every area of my life is inevitable!! Thank you Jeff Olson!! I love it so much that everyone on my Christmas list is getting a copy of the book. It will be the best gift I ve ever given to my loved one!! --P. Barnett

Our company book club just finished The Slight Edge and really enjoyed it. Thanks so much! --C. Argeris

When I got a copy of the Slight Edge and read it, my life changed. I emailed over 100 Vice Presidents who work in the same company with me and shared my personal story of success with the Slight Edge. They began to order books and do trainings with their teams so I know that the sales are up on the book from my passion with Jeff's work. --P. Jarrett

About the Author

JEFF OLSON has built multimillion-dollar sales and marketing organizations, hosted seminars in every major city in the U.S. and has produced over 900 television programs with such personal development legends as Les Brown, Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy. Over the past twenty years, Jeff has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals achieve better levels of financial freedom and personal excellence.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Momentum Media (February 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967285550
• ISBN-13: 978-0967285559
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeff Olson has built multimillion-dollar sales and marketing organizations, hosted seminars in every major city in the U.S. and has produced over 900 television programs with such personal development legends as Les Brown, Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy. Over the past twenty years, Jeff has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals achieve better levels of financial freedom and personal excellence.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be a required school text book! April 6, 2007

By Zoombuggy

Format: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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Success is Built on Each Turn of the Flywheel November 9, 2009

By Thomas M. Loarie TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Simple advice February 16, 2011

By Grace Rostoker

Format:Paperback

read the glowing reviews of this book and had hopes of feeling similarly inspired by it, but it didn't have that much of an impact on me.

Jeff Olson offers some simple, sensible, helpful and constructive advice to his readers, and it's presented with friendly intent, but there is nothing new. The book starts off with the promise, not that we are going to discover new techniques for personal success, but that we will learn a new way to use the techniques we already have. I kept waiting for this 'new way' to be presented. Olson's basic premise is that small actions taken over time add up to big effects, and that taking some kind of action, however small, is better than doing nothing. Good advice, but not original. The book started to feel overlong quite early on, and I skimmed through the latter half because I felt I was reading the same information and ideas over and over again. Olson does make the point that making life changes involves paying a price - a fact that many self-development writers gloss over, and the most constructive bit of advice in the book, I feel.

A well-inentioned book that promises something different but takes a long time to say the same thing.