There’s a well-known story told about
two woodcutters named Leroy and Pete.
Both of them were from the same town. However, they were often at loggerheads over
who chopped more wood. So one bright fresh morning, they decide to hold a
wood cutting competition to determine a winner. The rules of the competition were
quite simple – whoever produces the most wood in a day wins.
The two
men headed towards the local forest where they took their positions and began chopping
away at warp speed. The sound of axes hitting wood echoed throughout the
forest, as both men matched each other stroke for stroke. An hour in no
sound could be heard coming from Leroy. Pete observing this assumed that Leroy
must be having a break and pressed on assuming that he now held the advantage.
It was
a full fifteen minutes before Pete heard any sound coming from Leroy’s
direction and it wasn’t long before both men could be heard cutting word in
sync. Pete was
starting to feel weary when the chopping from Leroy stopped once again. Feeling
motivated and smelling victory close by, Pete continued on, with a smile on his
face and a renewed spring in his stride.
This went on for the whole day. Every hour, Leroy
would stop chopping for fifteen minutes while Pete kept going relentlessly. So
when the competition ended, Pete was absolutely confident that he cut the most
wood and won the competition. But to his surprise, Leroy had actually cut down
more wood.
“How is
this even possible? How could you have chopped down more trees than me? I
heard you stop working every hour for fifteen minutes!”, exclaimed Pete. Leroy
replied, “Well, it’s really simple. Every time I stopped work, while you were
still chopping down trees, I was sharpening my axe. This enabled me to do much
more while expending far less energy.”
With
increased pressure in the workplace and life, many will find themselves putting
in the hours with diminishing returns. The secret is to sharpen your axe.
Finding the right balance between your physical, social, mental and spiritual
life.
- Physical: Eating well, sleeping well and exercising well.
- Social/Emotional: Having a good social life. Building meaningful connections with others.
- Mental: Learning something new, reading (books are your mentors), and writing.
- Spiritual: Expanding spiritual self through meditation, spending time relaxing in nature.
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