Sharpen Your Saw, What Does It Mean and Why Do You Need To?

Once upon a time, there was a young woodcutter, and he was sure he could cut more wood than any other woodcutter.  He came into a logging camp and asked, "who was the best woodcutter there?" Everyone agreed that it was this one older gentleman.   The young woodcutter said, "I can cut more wood than he can; I want his job." The foreman said, "Sure if you can cut more than he does, you deserve the job." So the older gentleman agreed to the challenge, and they decided that they would each go into the forest and cut down trees, and when the day ended, everyone could see who cut the most. They both went out into the woods, and you could hear the saws cutting.  But pretty soon, the older woodcutter stopped for a while, and when the younger one heard that, he thought, "I have this won, I don't need a break" That pattern repeated several times during the day, and by the end of the day the younger woodcutter was sure he won. Yet, when they measured the wood, the older woodcutter had cut significantly more wood.  The younger woodcutter was desolate.  He went up to the older woodcutter and asked how he could take those breaks and still win.  The older woodcutter shook his head and looked at the young man and said, "Sonny, I wasn't taking breaks; I was sharpening my saw."

Are You Sharpening Your Saw? Now you are thinking, what does that have to do with anything.  To succeed in life and management, you have to sharpen your saw. Sharpening your saw can come in several forms.  First is taking time for rest and relaxation.  If you keep diving yourself without the needed breaks, you may be successful in the short term, but you will burn out. A second form of sharpening your saw is working on improving your skills in different areas.  Most highly successful people are readers, and they buy out the time to read books that broaden their perspective.  I will link to several good books below that I have used to sharpen my saw. A third-way w to sharpen your saw is to make sure you get exercise regularly.  Spend a little time every day doing something to get the blood flowing. A fourth tool is meditation and planning.  When you spend a little time every day in silent contemplation, your mind will become sharper, and you may be surprised by the answers you find.

When Sharpening Your Saw – Start By Analyzing Yourself When you are trying to get better, you need to start by looking in the mirror and asking yourself, "where can I get better?" And don't focus on just one area; someone trying to get stronger doesn't only exercise one muscle; they have a routine to train their whole bodies. The same should be true of our skills; we want to improve in every area.  It is easy to get fixated on one challenge and fail to address other issues. One Tool To Help One process that I found helps me sharpen my saw was describe by Hal Elrod. He is a gentleman that has overcome significant adversity to triumph far beyond what event the experts thought possible.  He uses the label "The Miracle Morning."  I have found it helps me.  Here is a link to his book  The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8 AM) https://amzn.to/34ZOZqH   I also recommend Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't  by Simon Simek https://amzn.to/3n2Ku4T