I’m passionate about cutting firewood! For over 40 years I’ve toiled in the deep woods throughout the state of Virginia, logging, splitting and stacking this wonderful source of primitive heat. I’ve also picked up a few life lessons while harvesting this extremely labor-intensive natural resource. There is one lesson in particular I would like to share, and it was taught to me by a farm manager on a sweltering August day, many years ago, just a few miles outside Charlottesville, Virginia.
It was 2002, and Amanda and I had just moved to a gorgeous rental property, living in a converted 1820’s apple-packing house, perfectly placed on the side of a mountain on a sprawling 2300-acre farm in a town called Keswick. It was beautifully rustic, and had the look and feel of a European country cottage, complete with thick stone walls, planter boxes, and a large slate front porch. At one end of the house, in the kitchen, there was a cavernous open hearth that measured 4’x 4’. At the other end—an industrial-sized wood-burning stove, big enough to hold logs up to 30 inches long.
Of course, firewood was the main source of heat during the winters, and a massive amount of it was required to warm this old, drafty, stone house. (The annual quota was 5 cords—the equivalent to roughly 5 truckloads.) To prepare for the upcoming winters, I’d begin cutting, logging, splitting, and stacking timber from mid-August through late October.
This one year in particular, however, I’d started two weeks later than usual, and that’s where the hard lesson came in. To make up for lost time, I figured I’d tackle a massive old hickory in the woods about 15 minutes from the house. This one tree could yield at least half the firewood we needed for the entire year, and it had been struck by lightning the year before, so it was already dead, and perfectly-dry for burning.
Note: Hickory is a beautiful, odiferous, fine grained wood that is rugged and durable. In light of its unique density, it’s often fashioned into handles for tools such as rakes, shovels and axes.
On the morning of the big undertaking, I drank a huge cup of coffee and wolfed down a big breakfast that would give me the fortitude necessary to meet the challenge that awaited me. I gathered all the necessary tools: gloves, overalls, grappling bars, mauls, axes, fuel, and chain oil—sharpened and fueled my beloved chainsaw, and headed up the mountain, ready to confront the Towering Hickory Monster. Intimidating as it was, I’d acquired years of experience with chainsaws, and felt confident I’d knock this job out by noon at the latest.
The trunk of this tree was enormous; the distance from the base to the crown measured over 70 feet. I estimated cutting this behemoth into portable logs would take me about 2 hours, but the temperature was already 95 degrees at 9 am, and would be climbing rapidly, so I’d need to work quickly.
After 10 minutes of making strategic cuts with my 13 lb. saw, the ancient tree groaned and began breaking free from the stump, picking up speed on its way down, and ending in a crash that shook the ground and all the surrounding trees as it hit the earth.
I took a moment to marvel at the utter mass of this tree with its tangled, sprawling limbs, and noted the long trench where it had slammed into the dirt. Once again, I fired up the chainsaw, making my first crosscut into the trunk, and the sawdust quickly piled up under my feet, sticking to my sweat-drenched pant legs. 45 minutes of pain-staking, back-breaking, non-stop cutting crawled by…and I’d barely made a dent—cutting only 15 logs—and not even tackling the big limbs yet!
I was confounded! “What’s going on??!?? Here I am, in my early 30’s with YEARS of wood-cutting experience under my belt—I’m in the best physical shape of my entire life—and this tree is KICKING MY ASS!” With a pounding heart, thoroughly exhausted muscles, dripping from head to toe, and sweat soaked through my leather gloves…I had no choice but to sit down for a few minutes.
After a short break, during which I consumed a gallon of water, I was back at it for another 2 grueling hours in the punishing heat, pausing occasionally, but still pushing the chainsaw hard with not much to show for my effort. “This damn wood is so freaking dense!”
Dazed and defeated and utterly fatigued, I rested on a freshly-cut log, and stared at the dirt and sawdust all around me while the dappled sunlight beat down on my neck though the leaves of the nearby trees. With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to the fact that I’d woefully underestimated the size of this difficult task.
As I wallowed in self-pity and disappointment, I heard a familiar sound drifting up from the nearby farm road, and an old, green, diesel Ford truck came to a sputtering stop a few yards away from me. The driver’s door creaked open, and a gruff voice called out, “Are you just about done screwin’ around with that tree, Chris?” It was Woody, the farm manager—a tall, lanky, weathered-faced, no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth man, who spoke with a heavy North Carolina accent. “Son… Y’ never gonna get all that wood cut before dark. Y’ know why?? Cuz at the rate yer goin’…yer gonna keel over and DIE in this heat!” He strolled over to me as I sat lifelessly on the log, and shot me a crooked smirk. Then he reached into the back pocket of his worn and torn, Virginia red clay-stained overalls and casually pulled out a slim, 12-inch metallic object and dropped it at my feet. “Ya might wanna use this. It’s called a FILE, son. Have ya ever heard of a file?” He took a deep drag off the cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth, held my gaze for an uncomfortable 7 seconds, then turned and climbed back into his old green truck, and drove down the hill and out of sight.
I felt totally embarrassed! How did I miss this?
Here’s how: My single-minded obsession with conquering this beast, combined with my arrogant assumption that I knew exactly what I doing (based on decades of experience) resulted in nearly killing myself while chain-sawing a massive hickory for hours on end, and getting nowhere. I had, in fact, failed to implement one simple step that would’ve solved the problem before it had even shown itself: I needed to periodically sharpen my chainsaw. The dense hickory wood had been dulling my blades the entire day. It was so obvious!
Muttering some colorful words under my breath, I picked up the file and spent 5 minutes meticulously sharpening each tooth of the saw. I shook my head, grinning at my oversight, and went back to work, only this time, I took a break every 20 minutes to sharpen the saw. In about an hour’s time, the entire tree was done. And that was the lesson.
And how does this story apply to business? It illustrates an all-too common pitfall and blind spot: we take our classes, we earn our degrees, we get our certifications, we gain a fair amount of experience out in the field, and we forge ahead, fully-confident that we possess the necessary skills to do our jobs well. No question. And with that, there’s the notion that if you keep your head down, work your ass off, and don’t let up, your continued success is guaranteed. That’s rarely the case.
Ultimately, if you want to achieve optimal success in your career, if you want to be as efficient and effective as possible, you’ll need to continually “sharpen your tools” on a regular basis. No matter how much you think you know, no matter how successful you are, no matter how determined to meet a deadline, you need to make time for learning new methods and techniques pertinent to your profession. Whether it’s 15-20 minutes a day reading business development books, spending time with an experienced mentor or coach, or periodically signing up for a new certification or class—your continuing education is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.
Woody was a man of very few words, but his wisdom and expertise—(clocked in at 7 seconds) was the fastest education I’ve ever received!
