Sharpen Your Axe
71. Sharpen your axe.
There once was an old man who was recognized as the greatest woodcutter who ever lived. In the history of woodcutting, he had never been beat. Then along came a new young buck to the scene. This young man was faster, bigger and stronger and was winning woodcutting competitions all over the land. To prove himself as the best, he had to beat the old man who had never been beat.
So the competition began and the young man cut wood with a reckless abandon. As he looked over to see how he was doing against the old man, he noticed many times that the old man often took breaks and during these breaks the old man was cutting no wood. So the young man, making sure he would be heralded as the best of all time, continued to chop away.
When the competition was over, the old man had won, cutting more wood than his younger competitor. The young man was confused so when he finally caught his breath, he went to talk with the old man and this is what he said. “I don’t understand. I am bigger, faster and stronger than you. On top of that I was working much harder than you during the whole competition, how did you beat me?”
The old man responded, “While you were doing all that work and looked puzzled as I sat at rest, that is the time I took to sharpen my axe.”
We have all heard the statement that it’s not only about working harder but you must work smarter. To achieve success you need to sometimes take a timeout and improve the aspects that can help improve yourself. This is maybe the best explanation of the system set forth in this book. Having a goal to be the best and have success is great. The will to be the best and have success is great. But you need sharp Tools to help your effort and desire to produce the results you are shooting for. This means sometimes you need to focus on the basics and take the time to work on the things you rely on to make you successful.
If you are finding no matter how hard you work and how many hours and how much effort you put in is not propelling you to the level you would expect for said effort, the problem may not be in the desire or effort; the problem may lie in that you have not taken the time to sharpen your axe. In other words, you need to get back to the things that successful people do. Reading, affirmations, goal setting, working on your headspace and the list goes on. Working on the things that will sharpen your effort will ensure that you reap more rewards from your effort.