Sharpening your axe

There is a good story written by Stephen Covey that I want to share:-

Once upon a time there were two men who lived in the same forest and decided to have a contest of chopping wood. The first man was in a good physical shape and very muscular. The second man was in good shape but smaller in stature and wiry.

They would chop wood all day and at the end of the day compare to see who had chopped the most wood.

The first man laughed to himself and thought that there was no way this wiry little man could beat him. So they began the contest.

Every 45 minutes the smaller man took a break and he seemed to just wander off somewhere.

The first man laughed again to himself and said “yep there’s no way this wiry little man is going to beat me.”

This happened several times during the day. At the end of the day the two men compared their piles of chopped wood and unbelievably enough the wiry little man had chopped twice as much wood as the physically fit man had.

He said “I don’t understand. Firstly, I’m twice your size and twice your strength! On top of that, every 45 minutes you rolled off and took a break or a nap or something. You must have cheated.”

The smaller man replied “I didn’t cheat. It was easy to beat you because every 45 minutes when you thought I was taking a break, I was out back sharpening my axe.”

I love this story because it always reminds me, how important it is to “sharpen your axe.”

To compete in Day to Day life it is important to persevere and for this one needs to update regularly.

We can compare it with the story where smaller man was sharpening his axe in regular interval breaks. One should sharpen his brain to work efficiently.

There is an underrated quote by Abraham Lincoln:

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”