Introduction to the Slight Edge
SUCCESS for Teens is based on the slight edge, a personal-development philosophy created by
the entrepreneur Jeff Olson. SUCCESS for Teens explains how the slight edge works in ways
that teens can relate to and understand, using the real-life experiences of their peers. In a nutshell,
the slight edge boils down to this:
You can create any life you want, no matter how difficult it may seem, but only by understanding
how small, positive steps make a difference over time. The things you do every single day—
things that don’t look like such a big deal or like they don’t even matter—do matter.
By understanding how small, positive actions compound over time, teens can begin to set
priorities, use their strengths, and make tangible changes in their lives.
SUCCESS for Teens is organized into eight chapters, each addressing a main principle of the
slight edge philosophy. Throughout, teens tell true stories about how they’ve used the slight edge
in their lives. Your goal is to use the stories in each chapter to engage teens in thinking about how
their peers define and achieve success, and how they can do the same in their lives.
Here is an overview of the book’s organization:
Chapter 1: Little Things Matter
Theme: The little things you do every day, whether positive or negative, will determine
the kind of life you lead.
Chapter 2: Attitude is Everything
Theme: Your actions are driven by what you most deeply believe about yourself and the
world.
Chapter 3 : Use the Moment
Theme: You can create a better future by spending less time in the past and taking action
in the present.
Chapter 4: Everything Starts with Small Steps
Theme: Every success in life, large or small, starts and continues with small steps.
Chapter 5: There’s No Such Thing as Failure
Theme: Success is built on failure because it helps you discover your strengths and
creates unexpected opportunities.
Chapter 6: Habits Are Powerful
Theme: Positive habits are powerful tools that can help you reach your full potential.
Chapter 7: You’re Always Learning
Theme: There’s no standing still in life, as you always have opportunities to learn
something new.
Chapter 8: You Can Make Your Dreams into Reality
Theme: By taking small, positive steps over time, you dreams can come true.
In each chapter we explain the main points covered, using examples from teens. We also provide
discussion prompts and activities to help young people reflect about what they’ve read and
actually apply it to real-life situations. We suggest you read and familiarize yourself with
SUCCESS for Teens and this guide before using the book with teens. Each teen should have a
personal copy of the book.
Chapter 1: Little Things Matter
Chapter Overview: The chapter introduces the foundation of the slight edge: Simple actions,
repeated over time, will determine the life you lead. This is the most basic point teens need to
remember because it’s the starting point for everything else that follows.
Point #1: Little Things Matter
Theme: When you face a choice, you can take a simple, positive action, or you can take a simple,
negative action. The little choices we make day by day have the power to compound over time
and determine the lives we lead.
Point #2: Knowing What to Do Isn’t the Same as Doing It
Theme: Knowing how to do something positive isn’t the same as actually doing it. That’s because
the little, positive things are also easy not to do, so a lot of people don’t do them.
Point #3: The Ripple Effect
Theme: When you do small, positive things, it increases the chances that other positive things will
happen to you. Your smallest actions affect you and the people around you, even when you don’t
see it or aren’t aware of it.
Point #4: Make the Right Choice at the Right Moment
Theme: However you define success, the slight edge basically means doing the right thing at the
right moment. That’s where it all starts, and that often takes a lot of courage.
Chapter 2: Attitude Is Everything
Overview: Your attitude determines both your simplest and most complicated actions—from the
way your carry yourself to the way you deal with hard times.
Point #5: Your Philosophy Is the Key
Theme: The key to how your life turns out is your ability to understand the source of your
attitude. And the source of your attitude is your philosophy—the way you see yourself and the
way you see the world.
Point #6: How You View Yourself Creates Your Life
Theme: Everyone has a philosophy, whether they know it or not. All philosophy means is your
view of life or your picture of how life operates. It means how you see things. Your philosophy is
what determines your attitudes and your actions, and your actions create your destiny.
Point #7: Change Yourself by Changing Your Philosophy
Theme: If you want to change what’s happening in your life, change your philosophy or how you
see things. When you do that, you’ll be able to take the steps that will lead you to the answers you
need. Changing how you see things is not some huge task, but comes down to taking small steps.
Point #8: What You Think Matters, Too
Theme: In addition to your actions, what you think determines who you are and what happens to
you. Your thoughts have the power to determine how you see yourself, other people, and the
world. Your thoughts have the power to determine your actions, behavior, and how others
respond to you. Your thoughts are directly linked to the type of person you become.
Chapter 3: Use the Moment
Overview: Using the moment means taking control of your life in the moment—right now, today.
It means not blaming the past or worrying about the future. The only time you have is the
present, because the past is gone and the future hasn’t happened yet.
Point #9: Your Circumstances Aren’t You
Theme: Your present circumstances may be affecting you, but they aren’t who you are. And they
don’t determine what you will someday be. There is still an invisible you, the person you will be
someday—maybe not tomorrow or next week, but someday.
Point #10: You Can’t Control What Happens, Only Your Reactions
Theme: You can’t control your circumstances. What you can control is how you react to your
circumstances and how you feel about yourself.
Point #11: When You Stop Blaming, You Take Back Your Power
Theme: Teens who are successful tend to take responsibility for who they are, where they are,
and everything that happens to them. Taking responsibility for what happens to you—even when
it hurts, even when it isn’t fair—it one of the most liberating things you can do.
Point #12: Someday Never Comes
Theme: You can’t change the past. You can change the future. But the only place you can change
the future is now. Give up the idea of taking action “someday.” “Someday” does not exist. It
never has and never will.
Chapter 4: Everything Starts with Small Steps
Overview: Every achievement, accomplishment, and success starts with a first step. That first
step can be hard to take. Yet one small step can lead to results you never imagined.
Point #13: The First Step Looks Harder Than It Is
Theme: Some people become afraid and don’t take the first step that could lead to success. But
they don’t chicken out because the first step is too hard—they chicken out because the first step
looks like it’s too hard.
Point #14: There’s No Such Thing as a Lucky Break
Theme: Another reason people don’t start taking small steps toward their goals is because they’re
waiting for a lucky break. Teens in your group are probably familiar with someone who’s hoping
to make it to the NBA or become a rap star, or who has some other unrealistic dream. The point
here is not to discourage dreaming, but to do away with the illusion that people achieve their
dreams through lucky breaks.
Point #15: Make the Steps as Small as You Can
Theme: When you find it hard to take steps toward a goal, break the task into the smallest
possible steps. That way it won’t look as scary. For example, if you want to write poetry, play a
musical instrument, or learn a new language, you can start by doing it 10 minutes a day. Ten
minutes a day of anything can have a huge impact on your life. If you start with small steps, you’
re more likely to stick with the task than avoid it.
Point #16: The Second Step Is Just As Important
Theme: The first step is key, but the second step is just as important. Lots of people take the first
step, don’t see any immediate success, and quit. How many people have the strength and courage
to take the second step?
Chapter 5: There’s No Such Thing As Failure
Overiew: This can be a hard point for teens (or anyone) to understand, but success is built on
failure. You have to fail to succeed. But we don’t get the message that failure can be a good thing.
More likely, we try to avoid it at all costs. And why not? Who likes to fail?
Point #17: Success Is Built on Failure
Theme: Success is a relative term, based on how we perceive and define it.
Point #18: It’s All in Our Heads
Theme: Failure doesn’t really exist, because it’s usually a prelude to—even a necessity for—
success.
Point #19: Failure Creates Unexpected Opportunities
Theme: Failure can help you discover positive parts of yourself you didn’t know about and create
new opportunities in your life that you never expected.
Point #20: Another Word for Learning
Theme: This section reinforces the point that setbacks in life are normal. Everyone experiences
them and has the capacity to learn from them. Failure shouldn’t be taken too personally—it’s best
to view it with a sense of optimism, even humor.
Chapter 6: Habits Are Powerful
Overview: This chapter focuses on habits, the simple things you do over and over again, day after
day. We often take habits for granted. After all, they’re habits—something you do without
thinking. It’s very easy to forget you have them. But, for better or worse, they run our lives.
Point #21: Habits Run Your Life
Theme: Habits have enormous power. In fact, habits are what run your life. Whether the habit is
good or bad, you know that to be true.
Point #22: Make Your Habits Serve You
Theme: Habits are tools that can help you grow and develop as a person. Instead of serving your
habits, make your habits serve you.
Point #23: Take Small Steps to Develop Good Habits
Theme: Lots of teens take small steps to replace bad habits with good ones. As you read their
suggestions, encourage your group to think of how they can use them in their lives.
Point #24: Don’t Give Up a Habit—Start a New One
Theme: It’s tough to get rid of a habit you don’t want. You can’t just wish a habit away. It’s a lot
easier to start a new habit. Eventually, the new habit becomes strong and replaces the old habit.
Chapter 7: You’re Always Learning
Overview: In life, no one is ever standing still. That’s because the world is constantly changing
and so are you. You’re always in motion. Your life is always going somewhere. You aren’t the
same person today that you were yesterday. You won’t be the same person tomorrow that you
are today. And you’re either on the path of continuous learning—or not on the path—whether you
realize it or not.
Point #25: The Earlier You Invest, the Greater the Reward
Theme: Your teen and young adult years are the time when you can begin molding yourself into
the person you want to be, letting time work for you and be on your side. It’s not that much
different from the principle of compound interest, or how money grows over time. The world of
money is one of the easiest places to see the power of investing early. This chapter will describe
how that works with money, and one goal should be to impress upon your group the importance
of having a financial plan and building savings. But financial success is not only about making
money. And that’s what the story on p. 99, “The Choice,” is about.
Point #26: Take Advantage of All Opportunities
Theme: Teens have many opportunities for continuous learning, including internships, jobs, and
summer programs.
Point #27: You Need a Team on Your Side
Theme: Everyone needs someone they can confide in, someone they can talk to about whatever
mountains they happen to be facing at the time. “Someone you can talk to” might mean a
professional counselor, but not necessarily. It might be an uncle, a grandparent, a teacher, a
school counselor, or a coach.
Point #28: Adjust Your Course Continually
Theme: Teens may think that being off course—losing sight of their goals and objectives—is
something to avoid at all costs. After all, if you’re off course, you’re failing, right? Not according
to the slight edge. When you drive a car, you’re constantly making tiny adjustments, correcting
the direction you’re heading every moment. Once you’ve learned to drive, that constant
adjustment of the steering wheel becomes so familiar that it’s second nature, and you probably
never think about it. But if you decided to hold the wheel in one place, you’d be off the road in
less than a minute.
The same is true in life.
Chapter 8: Make Your Dreams into Reality
Overview: Teens who achieve what they want in life do it by following a very specific recipe.
Perhaps they’re not even aware that they’ve taken specific steps, but everyone who has ever
created success in their lives, whether consciously or not, has followed more or less the same
process. The goal of Chapter 8 is for teens in your group to develop specific and tangible plans to
achieve success. There are four steps they need to follow. For any goal to come true:
• You must picture it vividly.
• You must look at it every day.
• You must have a plan to start with.
• You can’t quit on yourself.
Step #29: Picture It Vividly
The most important skill for creating success in anything is the skill of envisioning. Envisioning
means creating a picture of something that hasn’t actually happened yet, but making that picture
so vivid that it feels real. The reason this is so crucial is that your subconscious mind—
remember, that part that controls 99.99 percent of what unfolds in your life—needs a clear
picture of your destination. Once you have a clear, vivid picture imprinted in your mind, you’ll
find a route to get there. It doesn’t work the other way around—you don’t pick out roads that
look good and hope they’ll take
you to the right place. Destination has to come first. To create your dream life, you have to start
with some sort of vivid picture of where you’re headed. You start with the end in mind. The
workbook section on pp. 120-123 encourages teens to choose five dreams, make them as vivid
and as specific as possible, and set a specific time for accomplishing them.
Step #30: Look At It Every Day
Whether you stay on the path you want or get distracted and veer off is a question of how you’ve
programmed your subconscious mind. And one of the best ways to program yourself to stay on
the path is through repetition—by showing your subconscious your dreams every day. It’s the
same reason you want to keep yourself in the company of positive people: You need to avoid the
temptations that can lead you astray. The workbook section on pp. 124-125 encourages teens to
make a list of dream declarations that they can say to themselves every day.
Step #31: Start with a Plan
This step is about the necessity of making a plan. Read Xavier Reyes’ account on p. 125 about
how he set goals and then made plans to reach those goals. Make the point: A plan gives you a
place to begin. You need a plan in the same way you need a dollar to start a bank account. The
way you took your first baby step. The way you struggled to sound out the first sentence you
ever read. Without that dollar, that first wobbling step, or that first stumbling sentence, your
dream—no matter how deeply you want it—will never become reality. Don’t make the mistake of
thinking you need a perfect plan. There is no perfect plan. There can’t be, because a plan is not
the same as getting there—it’s only your starting point. If you put too much energy into trying to
make your plan perfect, you’re more likely to take all the life and joy out of doing it. The
workbook section on pp. 127-128 encourages teens to write out a specific plan for reaching each
of their dreams.
Step #32: Don’t Quit on Yourself
If you work every day toward your goals, it takes less energy to get started every day. And once
you’ve gotten started and you’re in a rhythm, it takes a whole lot less energy to keep yourself
going. There’s another reason a little every day is far better than a lot once a week. The daily
rhythm of habits starts to change you. As it becomes part of your routine, it becomes part of who
you are. That doesn’t happen with a once-in-a-while, all-out effort.
Today’s teens face innumerable challenges. Success University believes that our youth can better meet those challenges by using the principles of personal development enhancing skills like goal setting, goal achievement, dream building, self-motivation, self-efficacy, time management and creating a high self-esteem and sense of purpose. Success Universitywas founded to provide youth within inner-cities with quality education in the areas of personal development, financial literacy and entrepreneurism thru practical application as opposed to theoretic lecture. Our goal is to meet the students where they are, connect with them on a personal level and then assist them in their journey from the youth of today to the achievers and leaders of tomorrow. |
| Urban Kidpreneur Success University |
| President & CEO of Urban Kidpreneur |
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