The-Slight-Edge

You have to Start with a Penny 61
yourself—your health, your knowledge, your skills, your diet, your relationships,
whatever area of life you want to look at—just one percent?
Wait—before you answer that, let’s make it even smaller. What if you were
able to improve yourself, today, just three-tenths of one percent? That’s a 0.003
improvement—a very Slight Edge indeed. So slight, in fact, you might have a
hard time even knowing how to measure it.
Now, what if you did that again tomorrow, and the next day, and kept it up every
day for the next year? Remember, you’re not going to add up compound interest
this time, you’re just adding on another three-tenths of one percent each day.
Here’s what will happen. The first day you’ll improve by 0.003, so little it
will probably be impossible to notice. The second day, your improvement will be
0.006; the next day, 0.009, almost a full one percent. And by the end of the year,
you will have improved by one hundred percent.
Doubled.
You will be twice what you are today—twice as fit, twice as wealthy, twice
as skilled, twice as happy ... twice as whatever it is you’ve been working on, in
whatever areas you apply your daily three-tenths-percent
effort. Twice the you, in just one year!
If you give yourself a year to do it, you can become twice the person you
are today. Imagine having twice the net worth, twice the personal relationships,
twice the health. Making twice the positive impact on the world. Having twice as
much fun and enjoying twice the quality of life.
How could you possibly accomplish this? By trying twice as hard? Working
twice as many hours? Have double the positive attitude? No—by improving
three-tenths of one percent at a time.
Every day, in every moment, you get to exercise choices that will determine
whether or not you will become a great person, living a great life. Greatness is
not something predetermined, predestined or carved into your fate by forces
beyond your control. Greatness is always in the moment of
the decision.
But you have to start with a penny. And that’s the great and tragic irony of
it, the sad and terrible tale of the ninety-five percent: that little penny seems so
insignificant, so small, so silly ... why even bother to bend over and pick it up?
After all ...
Can you imagine walking into your bank to deposit a single penny into a
savings account? Can you imagine looking in your savings account, deposit box
or piggy bank, and finding a balance of $0.01? It might as well be a balance of