The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness

The self-help genre is crowded with many titles on self-improvement, manifestation of dreams, and habit creation methods, but Olson’s approach to the genre situates The Slight Edge as essential reading without placing it in competition with other similar works. Olson frequently acknowledges the foundational works his ideas build upon and uses the self-help books written by others as a gateway to expand on his own ideas. He even goes so far as to compile a list of these influential works at the end and recommends them to the reader. Though Olson references many other works in The Slight Edge, he most heavily relies upon two: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Essay on Compensation” and Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Essay on Compensation” is a transcendentalist exploration of the concept of compensation. It begins with a poem and is followed by a long series of academic analysis and text, which is where Olson pulls many of Emerson’s quotes from throughout The Slight Edge. Most prominently, Olson quotes the line, “Do the thing, and you shall have the power” (“Essay on Compensation.” Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Virginia Commonwealth University, 1841).

Emerson’s analysis of labor and the laws of nature is directly applicable to Olson’s notion that continuous steady work is all a person needs to achieve their goals. If thoughtful action is taken regularly (in other words, if the slight edge is leveraged), then anything can be possible. Many have said a variation of this phrase, and Olson tips his head to these others, like Nike; however, the choice to posit his work alongside Emerson’s is intentional. It situates Olson’s book within a greater academic body of work and shows his awareness of influential thinkers and writers. Although The Slight Edge is written far more accessibly and less philosophically than Emerson’s essay, it does consistently draw upon the ideas in “Compensation” to validate and explore the concepts in the book.

Olson refers to many other works in the self-help genre, like Stephen Covey‘s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, to pay tribute to those who influenced his ideas and bolster his authority with his research into the genre. Most significant among these references is Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work. Olson states that Achor “is the happiness researcher and author [he’s] worked with the most” (Olson 112) and threads his ideas of positive habits with those presented by Achor’s work. In Chapter 7, for instance, he cites Achor’s “happy habits” twice as key to the secret of happiness, emphasizing the significance of Achor’s work within his own philosophies (Olson 116).

By showcasing the insights of others’ works in his book, Olson demonstrates his professionalism, positivity, and knowledge of the self-help genre. His acknowledgment of others’ ideas and ways of building upon them contextualizes The Slight Edge as a self-help book that builds a new concept from the best ideas Olson could gather from others. Olson carefully builds his own context within the self-help genre, which allows him to define his work and position it where he wants it within the genre.