“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
-Abraham Lincoln
After reading this eye-opening inspiring quote, I became compelled to think what is my axe and how can I make it sharp? In 21st century, our mind is our axe, we all have this tool whether we use it or lose it. We all have different set of values, family tradition, education, profession, and guided by the the same axe called mind. To become worthy, effective and valuable, the first rule to win at life is how to use this axe effectively and differently compared to majority others.
The interesting thing about the mind is its usage which is essential in the beginning but later it can bring a lot more value in life.
“When our heart and mind move in opposite directions for any task randomly, progress is generally ceased, and chaos start to appear in our lives.”
If we are thinking only for the mundane daily work and admire to do all the time, then probably we are not sharpening our mind. Instead if we are reducing the miscellaneous items from our life by doing them less every day, then we are probably sharpening our axe. Doing less of the mundane stuff cleans the mindset to accommodate the mind sharpening process. This is a winning way to make our thinking sustainable. If we don’t make our thinking process sustainable, then we stop thinking differently and uniquely.
Greg McKeown, author of ‘Essentialism‘ says that keen thinking process is a mental habit, a kind of meditation that help us to select fewer but important things rather than many passing by shiny objects in life.
If our heart and mind both work at same time for any task, we enter into the pure zone of thinking, then unique decisions worth of value start to appear. Many new waves of thinking outside of comfort zone appears.
But if our heart and mind move in opposite directions for any task randomly, progress is generally ceased, and chaos start to appear in our lives. This is all about how we practice sharpening our axe, our mind.
“McDonald’s innovation is not a result of only epic thinking, but also an innovation from looking many boxes of thinking from a sharpened mind.”
Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of all time, carbonized and tested at least six thousand specimens of bamboo to find out a filament for his electric bulb. Just imagine what kind of axe that is required to test six thousand specimens with no guarantee that anyone would work. Thomas Edison’s mind and heart were continuously moving in one direction to test more things. The result of the continuous thinking process is that he found three out of six thousand working perfect for the purpose. This is the outcome of sharpened axe, the pure zone of thinking.
Few days ago, my daughter insisted me to go McDonald to eat. We went there and she ordered happy meal, she ordered happy meal because it comes with a toy. During my study I found that McDonald sells the highest number of toys in the world than any other toy company. It is McDonald, the king of the fast food that sells more toys when it serves happy meals for kids. What kind of unique thinking is working here?
McDonald, a famous global fast food company, is not only selling hamburger but also selling time before food. We all feel this when we enter in drive-through lane, but now selling more toys with food than any other toy company is astonishing in itself. Luc de Brabandere, the author of ‘Thinking in New Boxes‘ says “creative thinking is more than a matter of just thinking, it is not just thinking out of the box but looking to the many boxes where our answers ares.” McDonald’s innovation is not a result of only epic thinking, but also an innovation from looking many boxes of thinking from a sharpened mind. This is a lifestyle design for a kid, eat with a toy.
“Trust mainly comes from family, friends, and comfort, but intrinsic motivation comes from outside of that zone.”
Dr Lara Boyd, PhD, a professor of medicine in the university of British Columbia, says “our brain is not perfect, it grows, changes shape and size, and many neurons connect and disconnect all the times at all ages.” There is fascinating and eye opening Ted-Talk by Dr. Boyd titled’After watching this, your brain will not be the same‘. I recommend watching it to understand the power of our mind in our body. This little organ, an unseen weapon for us, depends on how we use it everyday. One man’s trash could be another person’s treasure is a popular slogan in our society and its essence is valued because of this tiny organ “our brain” reside and protected inside our two strong bones. When two persons think differently, they use their brain differently because they have their neuron’s connections different. As a result, one person pays money to throw garbage from house, but another person collects that garbage from each house and builds a strong business.
To be valuable, we should not be a person of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. The axe, our mind, teaches us to know the value of everything in life, if we practice properly and regularly. Valued thinking is guided mainly by motivation, not just by trust. Motivation is another tool to sharpen our axe, the brain.
Recent research shows that trust mainly comes from family, friends, and comfort, but intrinsic motivation comes from outside of that zone. If mind is driven by some kind of motivation, then it goes in a new direction and produces something new than usual.
“Tony Robbins: You are not what you read or get information always but what you do consistently with that information in private life.”
Our mind is designed to protect us. It cannot process everything naturally and especially hardly. If we give a very hard attention to it, it filters things. This is called focus. Focus makes a brain motivated which suffers a lot but shuts off noises and brings clarity. Napoleon Hill, a pioneer in motivational literature and author of classic book ‘Think and Grow Rich‘ believed that ultimately, power, fame, and success all are results of motivated brain.
Motivated brain is a key to produce anything rare and valuable in the world.
Unique and different thinking in individual is so powerful that it brings incredible joy to person’s life. We’re not responsible for the brain we were given, we’re responsible for maxing out what we were given during our birth.
The second rule to win at life is how to differentiate between urgent and important tasks. This is another area where most of us fail to recognize early in our life.
Let’s take a very simple example. We study heavily in school and college because we have a test immediately in the following week. We cram everything possible so that we can vomit on the test and secure the good grade.
What about reading after the test where we don’t have to attend the test, but we know it will lead us somewhere good in life?
Anything beyond instant gratification needs a clear motivation, otherwise we don’t do it because there is no immediate benefit behind it.
After studying Bill Gate’s life and recent personal story in ‘Source Code‘, I knew that he is an avid reader, he reads at least fifty books per year in average, that is typically one book per week. Gate is a graduate school drop out from Harvard University even though his SAT score was 1590 out of 1600. His first company Traf-O-Data before Microsoft remained unsuccessful.
Just imagine how many books he distilled up to now and used the nuggets from them to build the empire, Microsoft.
The picture is clear, these many books have helped him to learn how to see things far in life beyond the immediate gratification of A+ grade in school.
The same study and reading books can become either urgent or important depending on our priority in life.
It becomes urgent because we need to pass the test, get a good grade, and forget everything the whole life.
Or it can also become important and change our life without any test or grade in life. We become motivated to learn more in life by our own curriculum designed by our axe, the mind.
Remember Jim Rohn, the exceptional motivational speaker, he said “Formal education gives a living, but self-education gives a life.”
If we become able to differentiate urgent and important early in our career, we become extremely sharpened axe, generally called mastermind in the field.
The powerful lesson we have to learn from Tony Robbins, a motivational speaker and author of ‘The Holy Grail of Investing‘ is that you are not what you read or get information always but what you do consistently with that information in private life.
Conclusion
To win at life, what we do as a single motivated task is far more powerful than how many things we do in a day.
Mostly, we remain busy to avoid the most important task of the day because we are unable to distinguish between urgent and important tasks and always lag behind in life. This is the result of having a dull axe, untrained mind.
Remember, most of the important tasks in life are optional and have no due dates.
Sir Ken Robinson, author and professor, says that anything compulsory or urgent in life makes us poor, average, and mediocre but anything optional makes us creative, unique, and innovative. Robinson’s TedTalk ‘Do schools kill creativity?‘ has more than 25 million views.
Suffering is optional but that what separates us from everybody else and make us great.
Just keep in mind, everyone is interested in compulsory things, this is how we’ve been brought in to the society but very few people are interested and keenly interested in optional things. This is the only reason why Albert Einstein and Bill Gates are different from us.
By the way, I didn’t say anything about the genius Albert Einstein in the whole content, but he also got F in math test in school and probably math was compulsory at the time. Probably, he also messed up with urgent task by focusing too much on important task.
Sharpen your axe before to chop down a tree.
You got it, what it means.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
