"People who live on the success curve are pulled by the future," says Jeff Olson, "while those who dwell on the failure curve are pulled by the past." Olson, author of The Slight Edge, knows a thing or two about a thing or two. With seemingly little ego, he starts the book with the tales of what appear to be two very different men - one a goofball beach bum, the other a business titan. They're actually both him at different points in life and he holds nothing back in sharing tales of wild failures and amazing successes. Representing the world as 20 people, one of whom will do what it takes to enjoy roaring success while the other 19 often must slog their way through largely unfulfilling existences, he admonishes the reader to understand and appreciate the slight edge, which he says has nary a thing to do with heredity, dumb luck, or even karma for that matter. This slight edge, you see, is a powerful philosophy and force built on the concept of compound interest earned by behaving well every day. 

Accentuating the positive, we'll focus on the five-percenter type who's out in the world mastering the tiniest of behaviors that inevitably lead to optimal health and fulfillment. Believe it or not, it can start simply with the choice of words on Twitter. Olson cites a fascinating study through which we learn that there is a direct correlation between language and heart disease, derived from analyzing 80 million tweets worldwide. Common words used in communities with low incidences of heart attacks were fabulous, helpful, share, and forward; where there are high levels of health issues, you will likely see tweets with words like alone, mood, bored, and tired. Perhaps you've seen recent studies that suggest maintaining a positive outlook is as important to living a long life as diet and exercise. "You can't afford to have people around you who are consistently acting as a drag on your positive outlook," writes Olson. It may be time to change our language and for Pooh to finally fire Eeyore at Hundred Acre Wood, Inc.

Some further sobering news from a cited article: on average, only 10 people cry at a funeral. Worse yet? If the weather's bad, only about half of the folks who showed up at said services will head over to the burial. Olson spins these depressing stats thusly - given that only a handful of people are currently scheduled to weep when we exit, and should it rain on that given day perhaps some of these same folks will then drive straight home, why get hung up on little failures in life? Morbid as it sounds, the author is suggesting we picture our end-of-life services - there you are, big shot, dead as a doornail - and get over ourselves and our silly peccadillos. Call that difficult client. Stand up to that obnoxious boss. Stare down that horrible fear. After our demise, the world is going to move on, perhaps rapidly. If you subscribe to the advice of the author, time is ticking away and we'd be better off if we took more positive, slight edge action. Starting... now.

Good reading!

Chris Bond

Originally posted by Chris Bond on May 25, 2015 at 8:04pm