There is a popular bit of self-help advice that states, "Don't sweat the small stuff - and it's all small stuff." Well, like most pithy sayings, this statement is only half true. Yes, it's all small stuff. However, the simple truth is that the seemingly little things in life constitute the greatest danger to your dash. And unless you "sweat" the small stuff, you won't have any big stuff left.

The little things in life have an amazing way of turning into big things if you don't handle them early. They become like little cancers in your life. Sure, you can live just fine with one, two or even a hundred cancer cells in your body but when that number grows into the thousands or millions, you've got trouble. The same applies to the small cancers in your business, relationships, family and spiritual life.

For instance, let's suppose that you start to slack off in your business and allow your sales to decrease 5% one month. This won't kill you or put your family into the poor house. You might have to cut back on going out to dinner one weekend but you'll be fine. However, if you do that over the course of a year, you'll be making just half of what you were making a year earlier. Will this be a problem? You bet.

Now, tell me, when would be the best time to deal with this problem - after the first month or after the first year? Of course, the answer is after the first month. By "sweating the small stuff" now, you can save yourself a lot of heartache in the future. And the same thing applies to every other area of your life.

For example, when would be the best time to have a little heart-to-heart talk with your teenage son? After his grades have dropped from "As" to "Bs" or after he's been arrested for grand theft auto? And what about your spouse? When is the best time to have a talk about your marriage? Before or after they've hired an attorney and filed for divorce? Obviously, the best time to handle a problem is when it's still manageable; when it's small stuff.

This is fairly obvious but it bears repeating because most of our problems in life stem from small stuff that grows out of control. Take, for instance, America's current epidemic of obesity. According to one recent study, more than 44 million Americans are more than 30 pounds overweight. Do you think that these people gained their excess weight all at once? Of course not. In most cases, the weight gain was very gradual - 2-3 pounds each year over a decade or more. In a sense, their weight just crept up on them.

How could this happen? Well, it's actually very easy to understand. After all, if you were to gain 2 pounds in the next year, you would hardly notice it. Your clothes would still fit and you'd still look the same. Each year, your added weight would seem like no big deal. However, over the long term, you would go from healthy to obese. This same thing happens in so many different areas of life.

For instance, as a parent, you might slack up and let your child regularly stay up past their bedtimes. No big deal, right? After all, no one ever ended up as a failure just because they went to bed 15 minutes late. However, soon, you're letting the child skip chores and ignore homework. Before you know it, you have a monster on your hands. And we do the same thing in our marriages and in our businesses. We let little things slide until they turn into an avalanche.

In fact, my path to prison contained many seemingly insignificant shortcuts. I neglected to file a few forms with SEC in a timely manner. No big deal. The SEC gets millions of forms each year. They certainly can wait a few extra days to get mine. Then, I became involved in a few questionable business deals. No big deal. It's not like I do this type of thing all the time. As soon as I come out of this cash crunch, I'll get back to business as usual. Well, little by little, I found myself walking down a path that led to the ultimate dead end - three years away from my family while I sat in prison wondering "What went wrong?"

Fortunately, you don't have to experience this kind of devastation so long as you remember to sweat the small stuff. Sweat the small stuff with your children. Sweat the small stuff in your marriage. Sweat the small stuff in your business. And, most importantly, sweat the small stuff with yourself. It's the little things that will make the biggest difference in your dash.