The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
the slight edge, turning simple disciplines into massive success. By Jeff Olsson. INTRODUCTION The missing ingredient. The shoeshine woman. I arrived at the Phoenix airport about 6 30 in the morning, having time before my plane left. I looked around to see if there was a place where I could get my shoes shined. There was hardly anybody in the airport. At that time of morning, I strolled around. Before long I found a shoeshine stand. It was open. Ah woman in her mid to late forties sat in one of the customers chairs absorbed in a paperback book. She was dressed in black stretch pants, a black apron and a white shirt. She seemed like a nice, solid person. I walked over to her stand. The woman greeted me warmly. She was friendly and happy. Not always an easy way to be before the sun comes up. I thought she got up, sat down her book first, carefully folding over the corner of the page she'd been reading, then took up the tools of her trade and pleasantly ushered me into the chair. Her stand was located right next to a service door through which a constant stream of maintenance men and janitors came and went. Got to be at work by seven, I guess as they passed by our shoeshine sand, every one of those men stopped in exchange greetings with woman. She knew them all by name, and they knew hers, too. It was clearer. They were all friends. She went to work on my shoes and we started talking. Her daughter, she told me, had just wanted cheerleading contest. Boy, was she proud of her. The girl was hoping to go to a cheerleading camp in Dallas. Tell you the truth, she confided, her voice dropping a little bit. I don't know how in the world I'm going to find the money to buy her the uniforms and plane ticket, let alone the camp tuition. And just a few minutes I sat with this woman. I learned a good deal about her life and about her. She loved her family and, for that matter, liked people in general. She made friends easily and was a natural born communicator. It was also clear that she enjoyed her work, and it's a good thing she does. I thought, because she'd been there shining shoes in that same spot for more than five years, I couldn't help but wonder what this woman's life would be like if she had taken a different path five years earlier. She was well spoken, carried herself well and was friendly and affable. With different clothes and a little attention to her hair, she could easily pass for a successful business person. I noticed the book she'd been reading. It was a popular novel, something to pass the time to survive, the stretches of occupational boredom by living vicariously and someone else's imagined romance. There was a little heap of them sitting dog eared by the wall. What if, instead of spending 10 or 15 minutes here and there, tucked in between customers, sinking into the pages of those forgettable novels, she had spent the last five years reading books that were genuinely life changing. What if that little stack of books included Napoleon Hill's Think and grow Rich Stephen Cove? Ease the Seven habits of Highly effective people or David Box. Smart women finish rich. Where would she be today?