The Rhythm of Success by Jeff Olson

I can read a book like As A Man Thinketh, return it to my bookshelf, then come back a year later to read it again—and it feels like somebody sneaked into my room while I was sleeping and completely rewrote the book! Why? Because of the learning by doing I’ve gone through in the interim.

My experiences have changed my perspective. Now, when I read a particular passage or point the author makes, I understand it in a way I could not have possibly seen a year ago. And that in turn informs my behavior; now, when I go to engage in my activity of the next day, I can apply what I’ve learned from James Allen in a way that I would not have thought of even twenty-four hours ago.

Book smarts, street smarts. Learning by study, learning by doing. Read about it, apply it, see it in action; take that practical experience back to my reading, deepen my understanding, take that deeper understanding back to my activity…it’s a never-ending cycle, each aspect of learning feeding the other. Like climbing a ladder: right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.

Can you imagine trying to climb a ladder with only your right foot? The two work together. What’s more, they not only work better together, each amplifying the other, but the truth is, they really cannot work separately. At least not for long.

You can’t go to the top based purely on knowledge learned in study; you can’t go to the top purely through knowledge gleaned through action. The two have to work together. You study, and then you do activity.

The activity changes your frame of reference, and now you are in a place where you can learn more. Then you learn more, and it gives you more insight into what you experienced in your activity, so now you re-approach activity with more insight. And back and forth, it goes.

This back-and-forth rhythm is worth noting. It is the rhythm of success. This learning-and-doing sense of rhythm is something you learned even before you learned to walk, and it’s even more basic.

Psychologists have found crawling is one of the most important activities we ever accomplish, because it profoundly affects the brain and its capacity to learn. The right-hand-left-leg, left-hand-right-leg rhythm of alternation acts upon our nervous system like the surf upon the coastline, developing it, shaping it, and preparing it for all sorts of more sophisticated levels of learning and awareness later in life.

You’ve heard the expression, “Before you can walk, you have to crawl.” There is more profound truth to this than most of us ever realized. That alternating rhythm, and your capacity to coordinate the behavior of opposites, is a critical Slight Edge skill.

Remember, you can’t go to the top based purely on knowledge learned in study; you can’t go to the top purely through knowledge gleaned through action. The two must work together. It is the rhythm of success….

Create your success,
Jeff