I just finished reading The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success, by Jeff Olso. Copyright © 2005, so it’s an older book, but the content is evergreen.

The Slight Edge has 198 pages, with font size 11. So it was not a huge book.

Review of The Slight Edge on Amazon

3 out of 5 stars.

Useful message, but it could be narrowed down to a 500 word article

This is the message of the book:
“Small changes in your life, over time, can yield huge results.”
That’s is it!!! That’s the whole book extended to 2o0 pages.
The good thing is that when you read the same message over and over again for 2o0 pages, it does stick to your subconscious. The bad thing is that after page 5 reading the same message over and over again, it gets old fast.

I tried to get in touch with Jeff Olson to ask for an interview, but I didn’t get an answer.

The Slight Edge is portrayed as a philosophy of life. If you make simple little choices, they compound over time and thus they create a big impact in your life.

All the small actions are easy to do or easy not to do. For example, it’s easy to read 10 pages of a good book every day but it is even easier not to read those 10 pages. Compounded over a year, 10 pages is the equivalent of 3,650 pages a year or about 18 books a year.

The same concept is applied to fitness, to money, to vocational activities, to everything in our lives.

The alternative to the positive Slight Edge is the negative Slight Edge. If you use your credit card to buy consumer products with abandon, you will end up owing lots of money and thus your financial life will be hampered. If you eat a lot of high calories, processed food, you do a lot of damage to your body. If you never do any educational reading, your brain will become stagnant. And thus the small positive and negative actions get magnified over time.

Quantum Leaps are counterproductive

Mr. Olson emphasizes the benefit of focusing on small improvements as opposed to the “quantum leap,” the overnight transformations, the rapid progress, the get rich quick and with little effort, the loose weight in 30-day programs. They are marketing gimmicks that are unrealistic and unsustainable.

If you get the book as a gift or buy it at a second-hand store, go ahead and read it. But if you are going to go through the process of buying it, then, I don’t know. There are many other books written about the same subject, that they could be a better investment for your time and money.

My overall rating is three out of five.

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