The Slight Edge

It is a common perception that there is a big difference between people who are “average” and those who are very successful. The truth is that there is only a little difference between them.  This difference is called “The Slight Edge”.

There a lot of examples in everyday life that point out this fact.

Of course, from the movie Bull Durham and other references, we know the difference between a 250 average hitter in baseball and a 300 average hitter.  It is called the “Hall of Fame”!  But, for a batter with 500 at bats over the course of a season, it is only 25 more hits…or 1 a week. And, this 1 extra hit could be a seeing eye grounder or a squib hit off the end of the bat or a weak pop-up that falls just beyond the second baseman’s reach.

And, we are all familiar with the “photo-finish” picture of the finish of a horse race showing that one horse’s nose was a fraction of an inch ahead of the horse that came in second.  Although the winner wasn’t twice as fast, you can be sure the winner got twice the prize money of the second place horse. The winner may even have won six times as much money or even ten times as much. 

It is the same with people. A person who earns $60,000 a year does not work three times as hard as someone earning $20,000 a year. It is The Slight Edge that makes the difference.  For people, The Slight Edge is about the use of time and energy and intelligence to create and deliver products and services of perceived value. The Slight Edge is about productivity. It is about a focus on high payoff activities that are tied to the achievement of specific personal goals. 

Blog post by Joel Thigpen, Victory Lap Architect with The McGrail Group (www.mcgrailgroup.com); a leadership, productivity, membership development and performance improvement company located in Raleigh, NC, affiliated with Leadership Management International.   Acknowledgement: “Effective Personal Leadership” by Paul J. Meyer and LMI.