“The greatest gift you could ever give yourself is also the wisest business investment you could ever make. It is also the most critical step in accomplishing any challenging task, and is the one step without which all other success strategies, no matter how brilliant or time-tested, are doomed to fail. What is this mysterious gift? It is YOUR OWN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT. Investing in your own improvement, your own personal growth and betterment, is all things and more. Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” In other words, he would spend twice as much time working on himself as on the task itself.
What do most people do? They grab the axe, dull or not, and start whaling away at the tree. And if they aren’t making a major dent in the tree pretty soon, they quit–and probably mutter something about how it’s the tree’s fault! How you swing the axe, how hard, in what arc and with what rhythm on exactly what spot you hit the tree–all these are strategies that concern your actions, and they can all be measured, weighed and improved…but it starts with the axe itself. And the axe is you.”
This is an amazing excerpt from the book, “The Slight Edge”
