Iron sharpens Iron.
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”
I’m not religious in any way, but there are proverbs and sayings from all religions that strike a note now and then.
This one struck a note for me for several reasons.
I first heard it in my immediate recovery period. Probably 3-4 months after getting home from the hospital.
The NFL and me
I have always been an interested observer in the NFL. I don’t follow it in extreme detail, but I’ve always been fascinated with the mentality of the elite players. Only 1.6% of college players make the NFL, and the average career length in the league is 3.3 years!
This is a brutal, attritional sport with no room for the uncommitted. It is an ‘always on’ business that requires players to perform at the very limit of their abilities each season.
In terms of abilities, this encompasses not only physical skills but also mental acuity. Money and success are motivators, of course, as is the young man coming up to take your position, but that drive to be at your best year after year is something to be admired.
In those moments, lying around between sleeping and trying to walk, I would watch documentaries on sports, particularly the NFL.
Videos of people training, putting in maximum effort, speaking about what drove them, helped me get up and out of bed.
In particular, there was a series, ‘America’s Game’ that I consumed. Each episode was about a Super Bowl-winning team and the story of that winning season. It is one of the great sports shows in my opinion.
The Raiders
The Oakland Raiders franchise, now based in Las Vegas, is one of the more recognisable organisations in US sports.
The Raiders were owned by a charismatic and single-minded man named Al Davis from 1972 up until his death in 2011.
Mr Davis was combative, disruptive and passionate about American football. Anti-establishment and driven by a ‘win at all costs' attitude.
In one episode of America’s Game, the Raiders were the team in question.
One scene explained how they adopted the phrase ‘Iron sharpens Iron’ in the gym and on the training field.
This phrase began to grow large in my head.
The proverb suggests that humans should lean on one another to grow, improve and develop.
There are mutual benefits to learning from someone else, but it also requires one side to yield to the other on occasion.
Training
For me, it conjured images of me lifting iron in the gym.
I had always been a fan of lifting weights, but over the years, it was something that came and went and usually took a back seat to socialising. So my gym work was sporadic at best.
Not anymore.
Iron sharpens Iron, and for me, that meant planning to get into a gym and lift some weight.
Screensaver on my phone
So I put the Iron Shapren's Iron message on my phone screensaver.
A reminder not just to get to the gym, but a reminder of when I couldn’t really do much, what in my head I set out to do.
What did I want to be in Life 2.0?
I wanted to be a stronger, more committed human.
Could I do it alone? I needed my team to help me. My wife, my friends, and even people I didn’t know at the gym.
No. I need support, but I also have to drive this myself. No one else is going to lift the weight or come up with the plan.
Putting this into practice in your life
You need to be the motivator.
You choose your course of action. - “I want to XYZ”
Commit. - “I will achieve XYZ”
Let others HELP you. Create a team around you. Who will be your support system?
A. Write down in short your goal or ambition - let your team validate this, get them to endorse your goal.
B. Open your mind to more knowledge. Open your mind to let others in.
C. Take the pressure off of yourself and let someone else help sharpen you.
Join a group. Find some commonality. Build a team ethos. “Who is on a similar journey to me?”
Visualise the end-state. Commit and don’t deviate.
We can improve ourselves physically and mentally.
Whether it's exercise, study, travel, or business.
Never say die.
Oli
