The-Slight-Edge

Faces of the Slight Edge 137
Over twenty years ago, authors Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson wrote,
“People who feel good about themselves produce good results.” The little book
in which these words appeared, The One Minute Manager, became one of the
decade’s most influential business books. Blanchard and Johnson coined what
has become one of the most well worn phrases in business: they urged managers
and business owners not to walk around trying to catch people doing something
wrong, but to “catch them doing something right,” and then acknowledge it on
the spot. They called this a “one minute praising.”
It’s easy to forget to catch yourself doing
something right.
If you have kids, chances are that you can still remember the moment
they took their first step. Chances are good that step got noticed and
celebrated, big time. And chances are even better that within a week, they
were walking around for hours a day and nobody even gave it a second
thought—including them.
I heard a story once about a woman who had reached a point in her early
fifties where she felt she was so badly starving for affection, she didn’t know if she
could continue in her marriage. She told her husband how she felt, and said that
for years, she had been unable to tell if he still loved her or not.
Her husband was genuinely perplexed. “But I told you I love you thirty
years ago,” he exclaimed. “Why would you think anything changed?” Poor man:
it had never occurred to him that it’s not enough to say, “I love you” one time. It’s
something that needs saying every day, and not only in words, but in actions, too,
especially those little, thoughtful things that say, “I’m thinking about you and I
care about you.”
It’s the Slight Edge power of reflection and acknowledgement—celebration.
Keep your Slight Edge activities, your right choices and incremental
successes, right out in the open where you can see them and celebrate them.
Remember that all the activity ever required to apply the Slight Edge for your
success is nothing but a series of baby steps. Trust the process. Acknowledge
those steps, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem at the time.
Is it easy to do? Yes. Easy not to do? Yes. If you don’t do it, will it destroy
you? No ... but that simple error in judgment, compounded over time, will ruin
your chances for success.
Make each successful right choice a celebration. You’ll be able to feel,
literally, those balance scales shifting in your favor. Nothing breeds success like
more success.