MM175 - Sharpen your Skills

Recently Paul sharpened some knives. What does it take to sharpen a blade? How does that translate to your own personal skills? Are you ready for a sharper life?

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[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello, welcome back to Morning Mindset. I'm your host Paul Markel, in case you didn’t figure that out by now. I'm sure that most of you have and if you have been with us. For a while now, we've actually only been doing this show for. What about 8 months now, maybe 9? I don't know. I'd look at the calendar, but we're all the way up to episode number 175 that's crazy.

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But thank you for being with us and thank you for sharing this show with other people for telling other people about it for leaving reviews on iTunes or whatever it is that you listen to your favorite podcast on. I truly appreciate that and if you have not if you've been listening. More than a week and you have not left a review.

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I'm going to ask you to please do that because it does matter and other people do pay attention, and that's how other people will find out about the show is from people just like you leaving reviews recently as in a couple of days ago. I broke out the knife sharpening kit, and I sharpen some kitchen knives and I show up at some scissors I sharpen some fingernail and toenail clippers.

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Yes, do you guys know that you can re-sharpen toenail and fingernail clippers and how your puts it out there? Like what I just I just throw them out when they get dull and I buy new ones when you actually don't have to do that. You can re-sharpen them and it's not that hard to sharpen my pocket knife and a couple of things occurred to me number one.

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It's sad to me that youths of today the use of today that young people are being raised and many of them have no idea how to hone the edge of a pocket knife or scissors or anything a kitchen knife. They don't know how to sharpen knives, and how we go about sharpening knives does he if you are skilled at Knife Sharpening at blade sharpening you understand that in order to sharpen a blade the steel of a knife.

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You have to hone that steel against something that is actually harder than the steel. Most people when they think of Steel, they think you know, the man of steel and iron man, you think well steel is the hardest thing, steel is harder than anything because it's steel actually that's not true. There are things that are harder than the steel the stones whether they're white or gray or brown or whatever.

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The color of the stone happens to be is actually harder than the steel of the blade, and when you in order to sharpen a knife what you're actually doing and I said many of you may know this but unfortunately many may not what you're doing is you are removing your shaving off your honing off super fine pieces of metal now, it's not like a file.

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You're not trying to grind the blade because if you grind it if you take off too much you'll ruin it. You'll ruin The Cutting Edge and you also have to maintain consistency of the angle. That's one of the reasons that people are unable to sharpen knives very well is because they don't understand not only do you have to drag the knife over the stone or you have to drag the stone over the blade you have to hold it at a very precise and consistent angle and if you do that.

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If you hold two consistency, if you maintain your consistency a consistent angle and if you work against something that is harder than the steel of the knife. What do you have you end up with a razor-sharp edge something that is very useful a Dull Knife is not very useful. You may be thinking.

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Yeah, I've got a dull knife in my kitchen we use it for prying and so on so forth, but the fact the matter the reality of it is that the sharpest knives are the most useful tools and the and the sharpest knives actually sharp knives are safer than dull knives because you don't have to apply as much. Sold tension to get the same effect the dough life.

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You're putting a lot of muscle into it and what happens we slip and we have accidents and so forth whereas with a sharp knife. You don't need to do that, and you say okay Paul. This is morning, mine said, what does that have to do with me?  Think about your skills, whatever skill it is that you're trying to achieve or you're trying to maintain or you're trying to improve.

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Whether it's a musical skill or whether it's a physical skill whether it's a skill at work or at play or what have you.  How do we improve and how do we sharpen our skills? Do we sharpen our skills by doing that, which is easy. For instance, do we sharpen a knife by rubbing the steel against something that is softer than the blade itself?

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You said well, obviously no Paul that because if you if you rub the knife edge against something that's soft softer than steel. That doesn't make it stronger. It doesn't it doesn't hone it right. It doesn't sharpen it as a matter of fact, what would you say that cardboard is softer than steel like yeah, duh, of course.

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If you are a person who is into knives or blades or edges or whatever one of the worst things you can do for your knife edge is to constantly cut cardboard. That's why in factories and plants and Manufacturing facilities whenever they have designated box cutters to cut cardboard because they can throw those blades away and replace them very easily.

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He says "Huh? So what you're telling me is that if I constantly cut something that's softer than my knife like cardboard. I'm going to actually dull the edge, not going to make it sharper. But if I want to sharpen it, I need to put it against something hard." That is exactly how it works with your own skills and abilities.

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If you want to sharpen your skills you need to do something. You need to put your skills against something that is difficult against something that is hard against something that's harder than your skills currently are.  When I was involved in the martial arts many many many years ago. It was explained to me as it is in as a young colored belt.

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I don't know if I was blue or green or whatever, but I was you know, relatively new they said that you don't get better your fighting skills. Do not get better by fighting people who are less skilled or softer than your skills actually only improve when you fight, and when I'm talking about fighting I'm talking about martial arts.

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Whether it's Judo or Jiu-Jitsu or karate or whatever. So that's why the green belts and purple belts and so forth. That's why they spar with red belts and black belts and brown belts because that's how they get better. You don't get better. By doing something that's easy or by fighting someone.

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That's that's less skilled than you if you want to sharpen your blade you have to take on hard and difficult challenges. If you want to sharpen your skills you need to take on difficult challenges, and what's the other part of sharpening a knife consistency? That's right. You have to hold that blade at a consistent angle and drag it against something that is harder than it is in order to make it sharp.

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If you hope to have sharp skills in your life. You need to maintain consistency in your practice in your training in your dedication. If you're all over the map sometimes yes sometimes no sometimes maybe I don't know if I want to do this or not. You're never going to sharpen your blade. You're never going to sharpen your skills.

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You never going to have sharp skills by doing things that are easy and inconsistent. So just like sharpening a knife. If you want to sharpen your own personal skills, whatever those skills. Maybe you need to do something that is you need to challenge yourself do something that is harder. Put your skills up against something hard something difficult something.

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That is well not easy, and also make sure that you are maintaining consistency as if you're all over the board. You're never going to get sharp skills. Alright, ladies and gentlemen that is it for today. Thank you very much for listening to Morning Mindset. Thank you for sharing it with other people. I am your host Paul Markel and I'll talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.