The-Slight-Edge

140 The Slight Edge
Results Come Last
It is easy to be seduced by the promise of results. We live in a results-oriented
world, a culture that overwhelmingly measures the success of a course of action
by its results. Talk is cheap, after all—and what is it that really matters? Results.
The bottom line. Show me. Proof of the pudding’s in the eating, right?
But there is a problem here. There’s a flaw in this thinking. In fact, the flaw in
this thinking is so profound; ninety-five percent of all people’s efforts are ending
up as failure! And what is so remarkable is that this isn’t some deep, hidden,
subtle flaw. It’s so obvious, everyone ought to see it—but it’s so deeply ingrained
in our culture, nearly everyone is hypnotized into missing it.
Here is the flaw: How can you judge the course of action
you’re taking by its results, when its results come last?
The problem with focusing on results is simply that it doesn’t work. Having
your attention on your results is like driving your car by looking in the rearview
mirror. Your results live in the past, and like all things in the past, they belong there.
What you can do with your results is learn from them. Results are valuable
feedback. Let them help motivate and guide your tomorrows. But a focus on
results only takes you out of the present moment where the action really is.
What about your actions?
Many approaches to personal and professional development I have observed
go deeper than results by focusing instead on your actions as the place to bring
about positive change. That’s a logical place to start looking, but the problem is
that your actions are not the source of your success or failure.
Again, that’s why diets don’t work; they can’t. They’re doomed to fail
because most diets dictate what your actions should be. They don’t deal with
where your actions come from.
The only reliable, consistent way to control your attitudes—that control
your actions, which control your results—is to control your thoughts. And the
source of your thoughts is your philosophy. This is why the master entrepreneur
W. Clement Stone uttered these often-quoted words: “What the mind of man
can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve.”
Your philosophy is your paradigm, your view of the way life is. It is how
you say life works or doesn’t work, and determines everything about the course
of actions you’ll choose and keep choosing over time. Your philosophy
is the foundation upon which you build your life.
There is nothing more fundamental or essential.
Your philosophy is the source of your failure or success. It is the garden
in which your beliefs grow—and your beliefs lay the fertile groundwork for