No matter who or where you are you've used tools of some kind. You might be a carpenter, police officer, prostitute, sales person, school teacher, stay-at-home parent...it doesn't matter, you've used tools. It's tools that have helped the human species advance to where we are today and I've read that the first, or some of the earliest, tools were found to be over 3.3 million years old; it started with sticks and stones and now...let's just say we've come a long way.

---

---

People often think of hammers and screw drivers and other such things when they think of tools but realistically anything we use is a tool. Your phone, computer, car, note pad, shoes, watch, door handle, the door itself...everything we use to do something is essentially a tool. Into this category I place our bodies and minds and like any tool, we need to look after them.

I was thinking on this recently as I drove around hundreds of kilometres from home on a work trip, driving not flying as usual, and after several meetings. I was thinking about why I was so effective.

I'd pulled some tools out of my personal tool box, that is to say my brain, by way of skills and attributes I've gained throughout life, which helped me turn a situation that could have gone poorly towards a positive, even excellent, result and as I left I felt pretty good about it and thankful that I'd found, honed and stored some valuable tools over many years. I say those three things because they all need to happen in my opinion.

We need to be open to new things, concepts, processes, mindset, skills and so on (find them), and then we need to work to make them better, adapt them to our personal style and situations (hone them), and finally remember them (store them), to use when the time is right. I could add in, practice them, too because most skills a human possesses are perishable meaning they diminish over time if not used.

Would you leave a chainsaw out in the rain and snow to get rusty and fucked up then expect it to work well? I think not, and it's the same with your own personal skills, your mind and body.

---

I work on mine, I call it sharpening the saw, no matter whether they apply to my professional life or personal and also with the tool box itself, (my body), staying sharp and in good shape physically, mentally and emotionally means better results and that's what I'm always looking for, continual improvement; what about you?

What skills (tools) have you picked up along the way, how have they worked for you, how did (do) you keep them sharp and have you passed any along to others? If you're keen to get involved with a comment feel free to do so. It doesn't matter if you talk about skills (tools) you have used for professional or your personal life, the principles are the same.