​Chapter 3 of The Slight Edge is entitled “Is Time On Your Side?”  As you might have guessed, it is a function of how you use your time.  Olson starts by making the point will power is unlikely to get you to your destination. “Will power for most people is vastly overrated.  For most people, will power ends up looking and feeling like some sort of grim self-tyranny, and involves creating an elaborate, artificial reward and punishment system.”  I think that is about right for most people.

​The most powerful force you have to make the changes you want is time.  There are no instant results.  Your life does not get the same payoff as the climactic end of a two-hour movie.  Time is your greatest ally or greatest foe.  Per Olson, “If I stay on this road long enough, I’ll get the results I seek.  It is not a question of your mood or your feelings.  And it is not a question of will power.  It’s a question of simply knowing.”

​“The right choices you make today, compounded over time, will take you higher and higher up the success curve of this real-time movie called ‘your life.’  The wrong choices you make today, compounded over time, will absolutely, positively and inevitably take you down and out.”  You always have a choice of what to do and what not to do.  Your choices, for good or ill, will compound over time.

​Olson ends the chapter using the metaphor of flywheel starting at a standing still, slowly being moved into action, imperceptibly picking up speed over time, until it is moving at great speed under its own momentum.  I can’t do it justice so read the book.  I will vouch for the metaphor in another context.  When I got serious about marketing my law firm it required me to produce a ton of content for my firm’s website.  Writing books for the general public, long articles on our practice areas, and shooting tons of video does not happened overnight.  But I started down the path and kept adding to it bit by bit.  Initially, I didn’t notice any results.  Then I started noticing some results though I didn’t think the effort was worth the results, then it took on a life of its own.  Even when there have been lapses in content production, everything I did before kept working for me.  At worst, the marketing flywheel lost a little momentum, but it stayed in motion.  It also allowed me to get back into it and make it spin faster.

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Whether Newsom likes it or not, the pandemic is coming to an end in California.  I went to Trader Joe’s this week and noticed a pleasant change.  Their sign out front used to say masks are required in the store.  It changed to say masks are no longer required for fully vaccinated people and (my words) they are leaving to customers to act appropriately.  I’d say they are finished enforcing the mask mandate.

​I love John McWhorter.  TW: Nick Gillespie.

Weekly cuteness is the SP and OMWC story.

This week’s music.