10. Living the slight edge building habits that stick

Today we discuss Living the slight edge. We discuss:

• “There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to possess it.” - Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich
•   “Give me 6 hours to cut down a tree and I’ll spend the first 4 sharpening the ax.” Abraham Lincoln
•  Cultivate Slight Edge Habits
•  Happy Habits
•  It becomes automatic. 
•   The slight edge and your health. 
• The slight edge and your happiness.
•  Happiness is like health there are concrete steps you need to take to make it happen.

Transcript

There are four frogs on the Lily pad. One decides to jump off how many frogs are left on their little pad. If you said four, you're correct. If he said three-year math skills are pretty good, but what happened was he just decided to jump off. He didn't jump off. You're the scene to stop the minds group podcast.

I'm your host, Kathy Owen certified fitness trainer and mindset coach since 2002. Transforming lives in magic fashion. Teaching stop the mind screw process today. We're talking about living the slight edge or part two of this slight edge series.

Part of living the slight edge is knowing exactly what you want. And in thinking grow rich, Napoleon hill talks about a definite chief aim and he says, there's one quality, which one must possess to win. And that is definiteness of purpose. The knowledge of what one once and the burning desire to possess it.

So knowing what you want is imperative.

You can gauge the limitations of a person's life by the size of the problems that get him or her down. You can measure the impact of the life of a person by the size of the problems he or she saw. The size of your income will be determined by the size of the problems you solve.

My mentor is Jasmine star. She is a, an entrepreneur and a public speaker and an awesome motivator. She is a true entrepreneur and she works hard despite her challenges. I mean, her beginning story is so awesome and inspiring. She wanted to become a photographer without a camera. She also just recently in the last couple of years, adopted a daughter in a long, hard battle, but you never heard her really talk about it or complain about it.

She still gets up and does the thing and moves forward. So like you say, you can gauge the limitations of a person's life by the size of the problems that get him or her down.

Mastery begins. The moment you step onto the path, failure begins the moment you step off of the path. Remember that curve that the slight edge talked about in the first episode, it's a straight line and there's a curve that goes up and a curve that goes down and the curve that goes up is going to success.

And the curve that goes down. Is going to failure. Those who dwell on the failure curve are in the past. Those who dwell in the success curve or in the future, those at the top take responsibility and live sometimes out of their comfort zone. Hey, this is more than sometimes usually successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to.

The last 20% of the time, we invest in a discipline that all the rewards come, that is the slight edge philosophy. The last 20% of the time we invest in a discipline is when all the rewards come most won't stick to the last 20% of the time they give up before they get. What do you want wanting is uncomfortable yet?

Wanting is essential to winning. There are two ways of closing that gap between where you are and where you want to be. Number one, let go of where you are and be drawn to your goal. Number two, like go of the goal, hit the snooze button and stay where you are. You know, I'm a person who loves to sleep and I still get up early and hit the gym or work on my business.

And it's just part of getting to where I want to be. I'm drawn to the goal I have set in my mind, and that is also a success in fitness and health and wellness and something. I adamantly teach. So you've got to know what exactly you want and what is the goal? Chances are good that when you step onto out onto the path of mastery, you will step out alone.

Yes is true. Give me six hours to cut down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the ax, Abraham. What did he mean by that? He was been most of the time sharpening the ax. Why? Because it doesn't matter how strong you are. Adult acts will not cut down a tree, prepare, spend time and study and get the body ready to the mindset is important.

Also, you've got to get your mindset ready. Otherwise you'll just take on a project after project never getting one single thing, complete hem, blame it on ADHD. I've seen it happen so many times

when learning experience changes your perspective. Have you ever read a book and gone back and re-read it. Maybe a year later, a couple years later, and it seems to have changed. What changed was you on the path to your goal? You will be off course most of the time, which means the only way to reach the goal is through constant and continuous course correction.

Most of your life, 99.9% of it is made up of things you do on autopilot. It is essential to take charge of your autopilots training.

What do the people you surround yourself with look like? What are your conversations sound like? You know, successful people, talk responsibility, big dreams, and bold initiatives, Jasmine, and any true entrepreneur for that matter dream. Take big responsibility and make bold initiatives. Those on the other hand, who live on the failure curve, they live in blame with envy, resentment, jealousy, and irritation.

This is what I love about Jasmine. She never, I never hear her blame anybody. I never hear her be jealous of anybody. Express resentment or even irritation for that matter, she just picks it up and goes on. That blame game that I was talking about, the ADHD. I know several entrepreneurs who blame ADHD. They get all these great ideas because that is an entrepreneur to entrepreneur has a great idea, but they go from one idea to another idea, to another idea, and they blame it on ADHD with.

Is a form of perfection. It's also a form of resistance. Go listen to my episode on resistance and you will see that you just say that word and it is resistance. It is imperative to create a mastermind, no two minds ever come together without creating a third invisible intangible force, like into a third.

Choose your heroes carefully. Are they genuine role models you want to emulate? I've had other business coaches in the past and I look at their behaviors and I look at their sales tactics and they are not people I want to emulate. And. I've also had coaches reach out to me online and also make me feel bad.

And that's just not somebody I want to be as a role model because that's not how I operate Jews. Your associates carefully. Everything about your life will closely reflect the lives of the five people you associate with. Sometimes you need to let go of. And disassociate, slow and steady wins the race.

Imagine walking in the morning for 20 minutes, taking a 20 minute walk break at lunch, and then exercising for 20 minutes in your home gym. Now, imagine that doing that every day for a week, how would you feel at the end of the week? Probably pretty good. Now imagine if you did 140 minutes, more than two hours or walk in the morning and 140 minute workout in the gym and that afternoon then did nothing for the next six days.

I see this happen. So. People want to get on that bandwagon of getting healthy and getting fit. So they go all out and they do it all at one time. Whereas if you broke it up in slight times, it would be more easy to maintain as a simple schedule. And you're going to see it in January, which is right around the corner.

I've been in a gym for many, many years, and January is probably the worst year of all. Except for business, but what's sad is those people join and they stick with it for a couple of weeks and then they're gone because they've done too hard. You know, it's easy to stay active, but it's also easy not to that is such a common thread in the book.

The site. And if you stop it, won't kill you today. But that simple error in judgment compounded over time will destroy the getting of any goal you are after. Give yourself something to work towards constantly. Yes. That's why it's imperative to have definiteness of purpose. Get this each and every incomplete thing in your life or work exerts a draining force on you sucking the energy of accomplishment or success out of you as surely as a vampire stealing your blood.

Oh my gosh. Incomplete things. Keep calling you back to the past to take care of them. Where is the past on this success? Failure curve. Oh, yes. Remember my ADHD people. They are living in that. That's why they blame ADHD because they have this energy that's draining them. Sometimes that list of incomplete things can get overwhelming.

That is a slight edge too, but it's working against you simply find that first initial step that you can tell. Sometimes all you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough. That's a quote from art Williams, just give 15 minutes a day to completing something every day, contemplate journal and ask yourself these slight edge questions daily and each area of my life.

What are the critical. Simple little things that are easy to do and easy not to do. Did I do them? Did I move forward? Did I ride the success curve? The thing about a habit is it becomes automatic. Those three words lie. One of the great underestimated under appreciated misunderstood secrets of the slight edge.

It becomes automatic, the power of habit, intentional habits, good habits exist. We just take them for granted. Here's some slight edge habits we could all benefit from intentionally doing habit. Number one, show up. There are four frogs on the Lily pad. One decides to jump off how many frogs are left on the Lily pad.

If he said four you're correct. Have you said three-year math skills are pretty good, but what happened was he just decided to jump off? He didn't jump off. It's like that tri story with Tony Robbins, where he says, tells this client, she goes, I'm trying, I'm trying to get my goal. And he goes, okay, try to move that table.

And she looks at him funny and he goes, no, try to move that table. You can't just say, I'm going to try. You have to do, as Yoda says, there's either do or do not. How many frogs are on the Lily pad, be the frog that not only decides to jump off, but actually does it do the thing and you shall have the. Yeah, wait, watch and work and don't give up habit.

Number two, be consistent. Woody Allen said 80% of success is just showing up. Jeff. The author of the slight edge says he ads every day. You know, there was a time during the pandemic. I quit exercising and I started having these headaches in the morning and they were due to hormone imbalances because I do balance hormones through exercise.

Yes, it is possible. I studied it in my continuing education and fitness and yes, it is possible. And also what happens when you do consistently exercise or you take your heart rate up and bring it down, you get good feeling hormones like endorphins and things like that. And they're not hormones. I know they're brain chemicals, but yes, they do have the good ones that happen when you exercise.

Like I teach. So I got back up, started a new worky new workout routine and got consistent habit. Number three, cultivate, a positive outlook, Marcial Losada did some research on business team. People who consistently practice seeing opportunities instead of problems, focus on the best in the situation.

Instead of the worst who notice people's better qualities and look past their weaker ones are happier, more creative, earn more money, have more friendships, have better immune response, less heart disease and strokes live longer and are more successful in their careers. Attitude creates. Actions actions create results, results.

Create your destiny. Cultivating a positive outlook does not mean you are always happy, bad things happen. Bad things happen. Nobody leads a charmed in vulnerable life. Life is ebb and flow. Everything curves. Everything curves when bad things happen. Embrace that funk. That too is cultivating a positive outlook.

It's not toxic positivity habit. Number four, be committed for the long haul plant cultivate harvest habit. Number four, be committed for the long run. Plant comma, cultivate comma harvest. Many times that comma between cultivate and harvest is a long one. And this is when most give up, you know, only five out of a hundred live the slight edge.

So that's when most give up is when that comma between cultivate and harvest is a long one. Look at Jasmine star and her success. She doesn't give up, she got gritty. She put a comma right there. She didn't even have a camera remember, and she became one of the best photographers in the world. Wedding photographers.

That is. Habit number five, cultivate a burning desire backed by faith. Oh my gosh. You hear me talk about this all the time. Faith, faith, over fear. If what you desire is so big so far away, but it is backed by faith of the slight edge actions. You are setting yourself up for success. Remember, slight edge actions are the little things that you do.

Or the little things that you don't do talk about doing things when others think that won't even work. Oh, that's powerful habit. Number six, be willing to pay the price. The price of neglect is much worse than the price of discipline. Oh, I see this happen so many times and this is why I'm even recording this because.

As a fitness trainer, so many, so many neglect their health until the last minute it's easy to do, but the discipline of doing the damn thing is also easy to do, be willing to pay the price. You know, the price of neglect is much worse than the price of discipline. So put in the work and it's easy to do.

If you do it in slow, small, slight steps, habit, number seven, practice, slight edge integrity. I love this one. What is integrity? Integrity is what you do when no one is looking in Matthew McConaughey, Facebook green lights, or in one of his interviews before GreenLights or heard him tell this story. He was a young.

Guy in college. And he was at one of his fraternity brothers rooms and he found this book called the greatest salesman in the world by Augman Dino. Funny, that book is one of the books that Jeff Olson recommends to read as a positive book to keep you inspired. But he saw this book in his, his friend's dorm room and or fraternity house or something like that.

And there were other books there too, like Playboy and penthouse, and they just didn't intrigue him for some reason at the moment. So he took this book and the author of the book says to read, you know, I guess 45 minutes a day or something like that. And Matthew made the commitment to do this. And one night he was at a party and he'd been buzzing and having a good time and hit, he remembered he had to go home, read that book before midnight.

And it was like 10 30, 11 o'clock at night or something like that. I don't know. It may have been even later, but I know he went home and made his way home to read, like he was committed to reading. He was practicing slight edge integrity. Oh, it would have been easy not to do, and probably nothing would have happened, but he committed to doing it.

And that is slight edge integrity that is doing what needs to be done when nobody's looking sight edge integrity is one of the greatest secrets of inter entrepreneurial success. I can see, I can commit to that. I can vouch for that 100%. So many of my friends, my family, they don't understand what I'm doing.

They don't know. It's hard to explain. It's a very lonely world, but I commit to do it. I commit to doing it because that is my integrity. That's my responsibility. I have no one to blame. All right, the slight edge and your health, your health is your wealth. And it's the most important thing you probably can do every single day is to focus on your health and do the small steps for your house and perform the slight edge for you.

The most important choice day by day and hour by hour is whether to let your eating and physical activity build your fondest dreams or dig your grave. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but it's so freaking true when in good physical health, we think more clearly we get more accomplished and we feel better about everything.

That is why I do what I do. Not only on my own part, but I teach what I do. What are your dreams for health? Be specific vivid and with a timeline. Remember the three steps to your dream. Number two is plan to start. And number three, what is one simple daily discipline you can do and build on that? This episode today is brought to you by the silver wellness academy, where I teach all things, mindset and fitness.

Your health is your wealth, and we will soon discuss this very thing. Get free tips on fitness and mindset by signing up here today@wwwdotcathyowen.com backslash fitness and that's K a T H E O w E n.com. Backslash fitness. Hope to see you there, the slight edge and your happiness. Once you start practicing daily disciplines that increase your health, you'll find it feeds every aspect of self-improvement.

You're trying to implement happiness is like health. There are concrete steps you need to take to make it happen. Happiness is affected by number one, your outlook. Number two specific actions with positive impact, always practice gratitude. And number three, where you put your time and your energy, that can be social media.

Is it affecting your outlook? And our, the impact is the impact positive. Think about that. The slight edge in your relationships here is the iconic truth of human existence. No matter how great our accomplishments it is. Ultimately other people who give them meaning your relationships like your health is built up or torn down in the subtlest of ways.

The little things count, tiny thoughts and gestures that are easy to do. And tragically easy not to do that is something I like to consider too. Cause it, you know, it's the little things that count the small things, texting that loved one, telling them you're thinking about them, reaching out to a friend when you see that they're doing.

Those little things count and they're easy to do. And like he says, they're tragically easy not to do James Allen says, and as a man thicket, you will become as small as your controlling desire or as great as your dominant aspiration. Listen to audios. That's a powerful tool. Listen to podcasts. Listen to books.

He talks about reading 10 pages of a good book every day to build upon that, how we use our downtime to help us. It's easy to do, but easy not to do, you know, that's why I started this podcast because it's something that you can easily do while you're multitasking while you're looking at other things, instead of just doing the dishes.

You're adding something to it. That is very powerful. It's easy to do. And it's also easy not to do. Winning is a habit, unfortunately. So is losing when it comes to your finances, stop spending, whatever you make live below your means one simple daily distance. In your career, your impact, everything you do is so important.

Even the little things it causes. What I love to talk about is a ripple effect that ripple effect will go out. And it also comes back to you. I wrote a blog post on it and I'll put a link in the description here. It's one of my most popular Pinterest blogs and. There is such a thing as a ripple effect, positive and negative, do one simple daily discipline and all of these areas of your life and your health and your happiness in your relationships and personal development and your finances and your career and the impact that you make on your, in the world.

One small step that Fords your success in all those areas. This episode comes at a great time because it's right before new year's, it's a great time to start planning for this for the new year, make a habit of doing some sort of daily review review. Your days every day. Journal, use a coach, sign up for coaching with me.

Or have a friend hold you accountable. You're just going to be that much more successful. If you do that, spend high quality time with people who have achieved goals and dream similar dreams to you. Model success from mentors, teachers, and allies, and do it daily, weekly, and monthly.

I can tell you it will transform your life. In magic fashion. That's my episode for today. I hope you liked it. Be sure to share it with somebody who can benefit from this. And until next time, I'll see you next time. Peace out and nonsense.