The key ideas

The Slight Edge

Jeff Olson, 2005

Why do the same people keep climbing up and then sliding back down? Jeff Olson went from beach bum to millionaire, lost everything and started over. His conclusion: success and failure are built from simple actions that are easy to do and just as easy not to do. You will see why you drop good things halfway and how to stay on the curve that goes up.

Who it is for

For anyone who keeps starting a new life on Monday and gives up by Wednesday. And for anyone who works hard but feels they are going in circles.

Anything that is easy to do is just as easy not to do.

Two Boys from the Same Street

Jeff Olson opens the book with the story of two friends from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They grew up on the same street, went to the same school, shared a room at college, and by high school both had a reputation as troublemakers. Their abilities were about the same. Then their paths split.

The first one dropped out of college and moved to Florida, to Daytona Beach. There he grew long blond curls, worked out on the beach and earned the nickname Gorgeous George, after a famous wrestler. He made his living mowing the grass on a golf course. The second one finished college with straight A's, graduated near the top of his business school class, then built several successful companies and became a millionaire. And here Olson makes a confession: they are the same person. Both friends are him.

Olson is an American entrepreneur who built several major sales and marketing companies. He published The Slight Edge in 2005, and in 2013, together with the writer John David Mann, he rewrote it from top to bottom, adding chapters on happiness and on how what we do affects other people. The core idea of the book is simple. There is no chasm of heroic feats and flashes of insight between success and failure. What separates them is simple daily actions that are easy to do and just as easy not to do. Olson calls the sum of those actions the slight edge.

Ahead of you: a tow truck hauling away a former millionaire's car, the roller coaster most people live on, a pond that is covered in a single day, and seven habits that keep you from sliding back down. And an answer to the question that haunted Olson on that golf course: why do some people play while others mow the grass for them?

Straight A's, a Corporation and a Tow Truck

The turning point came right there on the golf course. Olson was mowing the grass under a blazing sun, watching the wealthy club members ride by in their golf carts. Suddenly he asked himself: why are they out there playing while I am here working? Are they twenty times smarter than me, or do they work twenty times harder? He didn't think so. Olson later called this moment his day of disgust: the day you come face to face with your own life and decide it will not go on like this.

He packed his things into an old Dodge and drove back to New Mexico. At home he started working like a man possessed, and that same semester he got straight A's for the first time in his life. He went on to become one of the youngest managers of an international airport in the country, then spent five years as a manager at Texas Instruments. Finally he founded a solar energy company, though he knew almost nothing about solar energy. Within a couple of years it was one of the largest in America.

Then the tax laws changed, the industry collapsed, and his company went down with it. Olson lost everything and was left with debts he never expected to repay. One evening even his car was taken away. He calls that evening his night of despair.

This is where the central puzzle of the book hides. Hard work did not save him from the fall. Twelve years of effort, and he was back where he started, even lower. So the problem was not how much he worked. Olson did not find the answer in a flash of insight, as he had on the golf course. He sat down and calmly, step by step, worked out what he had been doing on the way up and what he had stopped doing afterwards.

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About the author

Jeff Olson is an American entrepreneur who has built several major sales and marketing companies and created hundreds of personal development TV programs. He wrote the revised edition of the book with the writer John David Mann.

All books by this author: Jeff Olson

Terms from the book

  • Emerson
  • Jordan
  • IBM
  • Edison
  • Mann
  • penny
  • Softball
  • Albuquerque
  • Watson
  • Ruth
  • Daytona Beach: A resort city in Florida, known for its beaches and for college spring break.
  • Gorgeous George: The nickname young Olson was given on the beach. It was borrowed from the American wrestler George Wagner, who performed under that name in the middle of the twentieth century.
  • wrestler: A performer in professional wrestling, a staged show in the form of a fight, where the outcome of each bout is planned in advance.
  • Texas Instruments: An American technology company based in Dallas, a major maker of electronics and semiconductors.
  • The People's Network: The company Olson founded after his solar business collapsed. It produced personal development TV programs.
  • home run: A hit in baseball that sends the ball out of the field of play, so the batter can run around all the bases.
  • strikeout: In baseball, a failed turn at bat: the batter fails three times to hit the ball properly and is out.
  • quantum leap: An image from the book, not a scientific term: the hope for one sudden breakthrough that changes everything at once.
  • Schweitzer: Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), physician, philosopher and musician, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • Achor: Shawn Achor, an American researcher and author of books on how happiness is linked to success at work.
  • ripple effect: An image from the book, not a scientific term: a person's small actions spread out to the people around them, like rings on water.
  • ten-thousand-hour rule: The popular idea that mastering a difficult skill takes about ten thousand hours of practice. The journalist Malcolm Gladwell made it famous; researchers consider it a simplification.

All terms

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