MM#87--The Slight Edge Habit Fundamentals

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. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. Way back in Mojo minute number 55. I introduced us to Jeff Olsen's incredible little book, The Slight Edge. Now, I must say, I have some very fond memories of this book, because way back, way, way back in 2009 is when I was given this book as a personal development reading book. And for me, the light came on. And since 2009, I have been devouring books and an incredible rate. But the slight edge still holds a special place in my heart, because after all, it was my first book. And also because it holds some great nuggets of wisdom, which we will talk about in these Mojo minutes. And one such nugget that we absolutely should talk about is your slight edge habits. So what are these slight edge habits? 

Well, as always, let's go to the book for a quote. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. You are capable of great things. I know this because I've observed the human condition. And every soul alive is a capable of great things. Most will never achieve them or experience them. But anyone can if they only understand how the process works. And then he list seven of these slight hedge slight edge habits. Number one, show up. Number two, show up consistently. Number three, show up consistently with a positive outlook. Number four be prepared for and committed to the long haul. Number five, cultivate a burning desire backed by faith. Number six, be willing to pay the price. And number seven, do the things you've committed to doing even when no one else is watching. Unquote. So there is an incredible list of seven simple things that we can do. And again, this quote comes from a chapter solely dedicated to cultivating these seven slight edge habits. And I encourage you to check out the book for more details. 

But real quick, let's do a recap of them. Number one show up. Now that's pretty easy enough. But sometimes we don't even do that right? We have to show up. Number two show up consistently. Now that makes even more sense, doesn't it. But we have to do that every day. Number one to give a good example, number two to build our confidence. And number three, that other people are counting on us whether we're part of a team in business, or we are part of a family. Other people are constantly depending on us, we have to play our role. So we have to show up consistently every day. Number three show up consistently with a positive outlook. Well, we did just talk about in previous Mojo minutes about how important our mindset is. So that's a that's a given. Number four, be prepared for and committed to the long haul. Now let me expand on this some. And this is a great little nugget within a nugget. Because how many of us find some new workout or some weight loss diet fad, or a new faith teaching or a new tool that will maximize our productivity? And we forget about our prior commitments? I know I do. I'm raising my hand right now. It's the shiny new object to distract our attention. But let's face So there's nothing new under the sun, no matter whether it's a workout, or a diet, or a teaching or a new tool, no matter anything. of that stuff, we have to be prepared and committed to the long haul. I know it's not popular these days, but life requires hard work for anything good to happen. Yes, I know, the government is handing out free money left and right. And that sounds attractive to most people, I get it. After all, who can beat free nobody can beat free. 

But let's face it, anything given to you? For free, you should suspect those motivations because almost nothing ever good comes from that. So let's not be fools, deep in our hearts, we know nothing is ever free. So let us be committed to doing that hard work and being prepared for the long haul. And let's continue with our list of the slight habit fundamentals. Number five, cultivate a burning desire backed by faith. Faith is super important these days. After all, we live in a post Christian world, whether your faith is Judaism, or Islam or Christianity or one of the Eastern religions, faith is still super important. We have to ask ourselves those deep questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What do I believe? Life is precious. This life is precious. In fact, it's too precious for us to not ask ourselves these deep questions. And as a good friend, I would tell another good friend, I care about you. So don't avoid these questions. Dig into these questions. Think about who you are, and what you really believe for all eternity. Because in the end, your answers in your beliefs, and your heart of hearts will really matter. That's super important stuff there. 

So back to our list. Number six, be willing to pay the price. Are you willing to pay the price? I know Boy, that's a tough question. For a lot of people these days. Some people only want to pay the price until it hurts. Others will pay the price until their life or their lifestyle depends on them going along to get along. And then they'll do whatever they please. Or whatever pleases the masses, or whatever is the popular thing to do. That's human nature. But how about you? What are you really committed to what do you really believe? And finally, in our list of The Slight Edge habit fundamentals. Number seven, do the things you've committed to doing even when no one else is watching? And this last question gets to your character. What do you do when no one else is watching? 

So in today's Mojo minute, let us cultivate these seven slight edge habits as they can help us to put so called meat or substance on our systems and processes that we've been talking about for the last couple weeks. And developing that flourishing life when we get our minds right, that mindset and then we build out our systems and processes. We can insert these seven slight hedge, slight edge habit fundamentals these habit fundies as I'm going to start calling them and then as Jeff Olson reminds us, that's when the magic starts to happen. Let's go back to our quote. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. You are capable of great things. I know this because I've observed the human condition and every soul alive is capable of great things. Most will never achieve them or experiencing experiencing experience them. But anyone can if they only understand how the process works. Unquote. Boy, so a lot of good wisdom there. Thank you. Jeff Olson, thank you for help, helping to explain how the process works. And now let us begin to cultivate these slight edge habit fundies. And as we go about our day today Let's go to work.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on