Sharpen your Axe

I was taking a tree root out of my garden recently; you can certainly wear yourself out swinging an axe. And what I discovered is that the job is so much easier and more effectively done if you use a sharp axe. Strangely, I would never think to prepare food in my kitchen without first sharpening my kitchen knives.

So what’s my tree root cutting skills (or lack of), and my cooking skills, got to do with you and your BNI chapter? Well, as it turns out, a fair amount. You see, I purchased my axe some years ago and have been using it, off and on, ever since. I swing it at mostly tree roots, now working up a good healthy sweat, as I’m having to use more and more effort, all because my axe was blunt.

And, I’ve noticed that, this is a lot like many BNI members. They attended the Member Success workshop as a new member and then maybe another skills workshop or two and that is it, they never go again. Done that!

But, like my axe, our business skills and our networking skills get ‘blunt’. We forget some of the things we know; while others we just stop doing and we don’t actually even know why.

So if you haven’t attended a workshop recently, say in the past three months, certainly if not in the past six months, I highly recommend that you attended a workshop soon. Doesn’t matter how many times you have completed the workshop before, just go along and sharpen your skills.

Because if you hone your skills, your results will improve, seemingly, without any extra effort.