When I was young and new to sales and marketing, I heard a story that has stayed with me all my life. It is about a Japanese Martial arts expert who lived long ago. I cannot give a source for the story or tell you if it is fact or urban myth the lesson it teaches for sales, for life, makes it worth telling again.
The story tells of a well-respected family in Japan who had always been leaders in martial arts, a samurai family. The eldest son of the new generation was very skilled and very proficient and very sure of his ability. He did things easily and always won when he fought.
Come the day of the national titles he went to fight with full confidence in his skills.
The fight though did not go as expected, he lost, he lost badly, he was humiliated, his family was shamed. He left the tournament and he left the city. He went to live in the forest, far from people.
When he was alone he came to understand that he needed to put aside his arrogance and begin again to learn his art from the basics. He found the tallest tree in the forest, bowed in respect, and then began to practice his punches and his kicks by hitting the tree.
The result of is work did not show on the tree but it showed in his hands and his feet. In the beginning, he suffered terribly.
Day after day, week after week, month after month he practiced kicking and punching the tree and lived by foraging in the forest. The tree showed a little flattening of the bark but the change was not in the tree, the change was in the hands and the feet that struck it. Raw knuckles hardened, calluses formed, muscle and bone toughened, technique improved till the warrior could strike the unyielding tree with strength and with power, again and again, and again.
Finally, the tree started to yield, the bark began to chip away from the pounding and, day after day, the training continued.
Eventually, as the months passed, the tree had been ring-barked and it died. When the last leaf fell from the tree the young man knelt and honored the tree and left the forest to return to the city. He trained for a time with other fighters to get the rhythms of sparing and he enrolled to fight in the national titles.
Not only did he destroy any fighter who stood before him on the day, he never lost another fight in his life.
Interesting story but what does it mean to us?
It means that we need more than our natural ability to be the best we can be.
In many ways, we are warriors ourselves when we go out to work. We are not fighting with our fists but using all our skills and abilities to achieve outcomes for our businesses and for our families.
Sometimes we have core activities that are part of our jobs and that just have to be done.
Sometimes there are two outcomes, we do the job but we also learn skills that we need; consistent work habits, handling rejection, earning to listen, building word and language skills so people understand us clearly.
We need to be mature in our manner and methods and that only comes from experience. Some things you just need to do over, and over, and over, and over.
So take this little story and stick it in the back of your mind. When you have a job that is long, and hard, and that seems thankless, then stop and look closer at it. See if it is going to make you stronger and more capable.
Is this work actually “punching the tree” for your profession and your life? It is bringing change in you and who you are?
Is doing such work with strength and consistency going to make you a warrior yourself, strong, experienced, and confident in your own life?
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