MM#325--The Slight Edge of Success: Cultivating Daily Habits for a Flourishing Life

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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.

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Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

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Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute.

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We talked last time about the need to understand the planting, the cultivating and the harvesting phases of life.

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To everything there is a season, says the great book of Ecclesiastes.

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Says the great book of Ecclesiastes.

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Last time, when we were pulling nuggets of wisdom, we pulled some from my first love of books, the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

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I first read this book back in April 2009, and I have enjoyed it several times over since then.

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In today's nugget ofdom, let's talk about preparedness and the constancy of preparedness.

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In fact, let's grab our first pull quote right now to dig into this nugget.

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Let's go back to the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson because it's so good.

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Successful people have already grasped the truth that lottery players have not.

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Success is not a random accident.

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Life is not a lottery.

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There's a popular expression you've probably heard it luck is preparedness meeting opportunity.

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It's a handy idea, but it's not quite accurate.

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People who live by the slight edge understand how luck really works.

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It's not preparedness meeting opportunity, it's preparedness period, preparedness created by doing those simple, little constructive, positive actions.

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Over and over Luck is when that constancy of preparedness eventually creates opportunity.

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The one reason the slight edge is so widely ignored, unnoticed and undervalued is that our culture tends to worship the idea of the big break.

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We celebrate that dramatic discovery, the big break through that catapults the hero into a new place.

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In other words, we buy lottery tickets.

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In other words, we buy lottery tickets, the Big Break.

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We celebrate it as a culture, don't we?

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We even have a show titled the Big Break to further confuse the television watching masses.

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Everyone needs a big break, the Big Break.

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The hero on the journey finds the big break.

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But does that really happen in the real world?

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Do most successful people have a big break?

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Or, as I might suggest, were they preparing most of their lives for the big break?

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Does the college athlete have a big break when they're drafted into a professional sport, or was that a lot of preparation, a lot of hard work, sweat, rolling, athletic workouts and mental discipline throughout his or her life and upbringing?

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Is that preparation or a big break?

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Does the first-time business owner just fall into the business as the owner?

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Most times, I would suggest.

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Having called on many business owners over my lifetime, most have worked hard, most have prepared, most have spent a lot of time in preparation, so when the opportunity came, they were ready to take over the business.

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Before then they were studying, learning, reading, asking good questions, trying to better themselves as a person in the process.

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So preparedness, then, is a necessary step.

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Most successful people don't have a big break.

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Most successful people live by what Olson calls the slight edge, those simple, little constructive, positive actions done repeatedly, day after day, after monotonous day.

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And I love how Olson frames this.

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What does he say?

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Or how does he say it?

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I mean, here it is.

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Luck is when the constancy of preparedness eventually creates opportunity.

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Ah, that is so good.

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That is so true.

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In a culture that worships the big break like the lottery ticket, let us not worship the big breaker.

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Buy lottery tickets.

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I mean, you can buy lottery tickets if you want.

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There's nothing sinful about buying lottery tickets.

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Well, as long as you're not spending money you don't have, and buying lottery tickets with the money that you should be paying the mortgage on the house, that's gravely sinful.

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You will have jeopardized your soul on that one.

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But double check yourself and steer clear of that.

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But let's go back to the book for one last quote to drive home this point the truth of breakthroughs and lucky breaks is that, yes, they do happen, but they don't happen out of thin air.

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They're grown like a crop, planted, cultivated and ultimately harvest.

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The problem is, as I mentioned in the last chapter, that in our culture we are trained to think we can skip over the middle step and leap directly from plant to harvest.

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We even have a term for it.

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We call it a quantum leap.

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It's a complete and other myth.

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Ah, such good nuggets of wisdom.

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There's no quantum leaps, there's no lottery tickets, there's no skipping the usual steps into growing into a successful person.

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Steps into growing into a successful person.

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Your steps to be successful are grown slowly, they're planted, then they're cultivated and then they're ultimately harvest, and they're called the virtues.

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Let's cultivate all the virtues.

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There's four of them.

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The main four are prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude.

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These main four virtues, known as cardinal virtues.

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These virtues form that foundational framework for ethical behavior.

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They came from both classical philosophy and, ultimately, christian theology.

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We learn first this concept of virtues from the Greek philosopher Plato in his work the Republic, but then they were later expanded on by his student Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, ultimately being incorporated into Christian moral theology as the best way and the essential way, the vital way, to live a virtuous life, Live a virtuous life, and we learned this from the great philosophers, some of which we touched on in our Philosophy 101 series, mainly St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, but St Ambrose was a good one on teaching the virtues too.

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But we would all do well to learn the virtues, to practice the virtues and to live a virtuous life.

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So in today's Mojo Minute, let's do just that.

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Let's not be confused by the lottery tickets or the big breaks or all the distractions that life throws at us.

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The cardinal virtues, as they are commonly referred to, are the fast track to building a good life.

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They're called cardinal because cardo means hinge in Latin, meaning these are the prime movers in moving the soul and the body towards an exceptionally good life.

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All the other minor virtues fall under these big four, and again, the big four are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

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Let's learn, plant, cultivate and ultimately spend a lifetime harvesting these virtues in our life.

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Because when we do, when we do, my friends, we will be living a flourishing life.

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I guarantee it.

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Thank you for joining us.

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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.

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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on, thank you.

MM#325--The Slight Edge of Success: Cultivating Daily Habits for a Flourishing Life

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