For 76 years, the British Cycling team tried – and failed – to win the Tour de France.
The pattern seemed unbreakable.
Until 2012, when everything changed.
That year, a British cyclist won the Tour de France. Another took second place. And for good measure, the team claimed 8 gold medals at the London Olympics.
What triggered this remarkable transformation?
The answer traces back to 2002, when Dave Brailsford stepped in as the team’s performance director.
His secret weapon?
A theory he called “the one percent margin for improvement.”
Instead of chasing dramatic breakthroughs, Brailsford believed in the power of tiny gains compounded over time.
He adjusted seat ergonomics. Tested wheel weights. Refined athlete nutrition.
He hired a surgeon to teach proper hand-washing techniques to prevent illness. He even painted the maintenance floor white, to spot dust that might affect the gears.
He researched and tested mattresses and pillows to identify the most restful combinations, then transported these to hotels during team travels.
One of his athletes traveled everywhere with his own espresso maker, so he could brew the perfect cup before competition.
“Forget about perfection,” Brailsford told the Harvard Business Review. “Focus on progression.”
The results speak for themselves.
This principle of marginal gains isn’t just about cycling. It’s a blueprint for transformation in any area of life – especially our finances.
The Chess Strategy That Changed Everything
Wilhelm Steinitz’s story proves the power of small advantages.
Born the youngest of 13 children in a crowded apartment in 1830s Prague, Steinitz didn’t touch a chess piece until age 12.
Yet he became the first undisputed World Champion of Chess, and went on to dominate the game for 32 years — with an unbeaten winning streak from 1862 to 1894.
His secret? The same principle Brailsford would discover more than a century later.
“I was champion because I played on certain principles which neither my biggest rival nor anyone else of his time understood,” Steinitz wrote.
He called it “an accumulation of small advantages.” He became a prolific — and controversial — writer on chess theory, arguing that the accumulation of small advantages is essential to winning the game.
One Tweak a Week
Years ago, I created the One Percent Challenge.
The concept is simple: increase your savings rate by one percent. That’s $10 for every $1,000 you make.
- If you earn $5,000 monthly, save an extra $50
- If you earn $7,000 monthly, save an extra $70
- If you earn $9,000 monthly … you get the idea.
By “savings,” I mean anything that boosts your net worth:
- Extra payments towards a debt
- Stashing a down payment on a personal home or rental property
- Retirement contributions
At the start of 2025, I integrated this with the One Tweak a Week 2025 Challenge.
One Tweak a Week is a series of tiiiiiny tweaks to your finances. Each week brings a bite-sized to your finances — some so small they might make you laugh.
- Start with mindset — Define your “why.” This becomes your financial North Star.
- Optimize your daily life — check your tire pressure, add weather stripping, adjust your thermostat, take screenshots of grocery prices.
- Save an extra one percent every season — By the end of the year, you’ll save 4 percent more than you did on January 1st.
If you’re saving 10 percent of your income today, these tiny tweaks will boost you to a 14 percent savings rate by the time you pop the champagne on New Years 2026.
No drastic lifestyle changes required — just consistent weekly micro-refinements that compound over time.
There’s even a fancy name for this. It’s called the “aggregation of marginal gains.”
The theory is simple: don’t waste time hunting for that one big break. Instead, stack up small wins — they’ll compound into massive progress over time.
Ready to put this strategy into action? I’ve broken down the entire process into weekly bite-sized tweaks.
Snag the One Tweak a Week 2025 guide here — it’s free!
Want to geek out with other wealth-builders?
Join our community of … er … tweakers?? (Hmmm, that came out wrong. You know what I mean — we’re optimization nerds!) 🙃
The Steak and the Peas
You might be wondering:
Doesn’t this contradict the idea of focusing on “big wins”?
Shouldn’t we ignore the small stuff and concentrate on major moves? After all, our time and mental bandwidth are limited. Shouldn’t we focus on the 80/20 and leave the rest alone?
Brailsford himself struggled with this question. After dominating track cycling, his team initially faltered in road racing.
His revelation? “We had focused on the peas, not the steak.”
This brings us to a crucial distinction:
The power of one percent improvements — the aggregation of marginal gains — isn’t about obsessing over every minor detail.
It’s about identifying your core priorities – your “steak” – and then applying consistent, incremental improvements to those specific areas.
That’s why we start with “why.”
Think of it this way:
- Starting with WHY tells you WHAT to focus on
- The One Percent Principle shows you HOW to make progress
For Brailsford, winning the Tour de France was the steak.
It was the North Star.
His incremental improvements — such as having his team bring their own mattresses to hotels — were in service towards that hyper-specific North Star.
Other types of victories (team sponsorships, etc.) were the peas. These were incidental.
(So in this mixed metaphor, steak is your North Star. 🤔)
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This same framework can transform any strategic goal. Your North Star might be:
- Building a real estate portfolio that generates $10,000 monthly cash flow
- Growing a business to $1M in annual revenue
- Reaching financial independence so that you can pursue more fulfilling but lower-paying work
Whatever your steak (er, North Star) might be, the formula remains the same:
- Choose your “steak / star” – the few areas that truly matter to your vision
- Break down progress into incremental improvements
- Stack these small gains consistently
One percent might not sound like much.
But as the British Cycling team, Wilhelm Steinitz, and countless others have proven, it’s often the difference between staying stuck and becoming extraordinary.
Ready to start your own one percent journey? The transformation begins with a single step – or in this case, a single percent.
