I was introduced to the book The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.  I began reading it yesterday morning while waiting for some work to be done on my wife’s car in the shop.  I am enjoying it and highly recommend it to you .  

I sent the following in an email to my team here at work.  Olson makes a great point on success, and I want to share it with you now.  

Jeff Olson shares that most people in life want to experience success but only around 5% actually do something to become successful.  According to Olson (and I agree with him), “success comes through simple, productive actions, repeated consistently over time.”  That is TRUE.

Here’s an example of that.  In the past 3 years, I’ve lost nearly 50 lbs.  I did not wake up the other day and BAM! those 50 lbs were mysteriously gone (wouldn’t that be great!?!).  No, here’s how that happened:

1. I decided to fight my diabetes by changing the way I ate.
2. I researched eating a LCHF (low carb/healthy fat) lifestyle.
3. Every day, I concentrated on reducing my carbs.  For me, I worked to keep my daily carbs to <100g
4. Every day, I used My Fitness Pal app to keep track of what I ate and how many carbs I consumed at each meal.
5. Every day, I stuck to my plan.

I didn’t intend to lose weight.  My goal was to reduce my blood sugar numbers – I was unhealthy!  But as a “side effect”, I was losing weight by focusing on reducing carbs every day.

Did you read that?  “every day”  My weight loss success was due to the “simple, productive actions, repeated consistently over time.”  I lost 30 lbs in less than 120 days earlier this year.  I’ve kept it off, too.

Here in your job, you can be successful. It will require daily disciplines that are easy to do.  Really, they are easy.  But just like trying to lose weight, disciplines are also easy not to do.  The choice is yours.

So here are 10 Core Commitments for you.  This is my challenge to you.  Work on these commitments every day at every opportunity.  There may be days when you don’t get to all 10, but if you make it a focus, I bet you’ll do more than you think.

10 Core Commitments

1. Follow-up (issue resolution, member service one step beyond)
2. Follow-through (keeping our promises)
3. Ask for the business (connect to our experts)
4. Be pleasant & professional (smile and use their name)
5. Ask for referrals (members who are “fans” will promote us – ask them!)
6. Communicate appropriately (in-person, on the phone, email, texts)
7. Add value (be helpful)
8. Use our resources (and apply what we’ve learned)
9. Take action now (to delay can mean losing)
10. Listen more (to get to the core of the issue)

Actively, Daily doing this will:

• Build our business
• Bring us success (and you personally!)
• Bring our members success
• Bring our co-workers success