Coffee Shop Connections
Coffee Shop Connections
Sharpening the Saw: Part 3 of The 7 Habits
Come join us on the 3rd part of our 3 part episode for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People written by Stephen Covey. The third part of this series we discuss sharpening the saw and everything that entails! Come grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea, a biscotti and enjoy the episode!
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Welcome back to Coffee Shop Connections. It's been a little bit. We have a great episode in store for you today, as Erin and I discuss reflecting on the new year and also just recapping what we've been going over the last year. So grab a cup of coffee biscotti and enjoy the episode. ["coffee Shop Connections"].
Erin:Welcome back to another episode of Coffee Shop Connections. I'm Erin here with my co-host, ashley, and it's been an eventful morning so far, just in some of the pre-chat that we've had, it's going to be a fun episode. We're doing the final installment of the seven habits of highly effective people. Sharpen the saw today. But before we get kicked into that, ashley, I think everyone wants to know how did you break your coffee pot this morning?
Ashley:Oh, for those of you who don't know, I broke my coffee pot this morning. This is the task of, I believe, multitasking and not having that coffee just yet and also having a toddler in your hands. So I go, I fill my coffee pot with the water, pour it in my coffee pot, get it good. Then I realize something is dripping and I didn't want to put the empty coffee pot on the saucer with water that's been dripping. So I go to turn around with the coffee pot in my hand to get a towel I also have the toddler in my other hand and I turn around and I probably could not do this again and I hit the corner of our island, right in the right spot, and I hear pop and I was like no. And I look and I'm like oh shoot, did it shatter everywhere? Just crack. It made the tiniest little, it made a hole. It was like a perfect hole and it cracked a little bit. So I had to pick up the glass. But anyways, I broke my coffee pot this morning.
Erin:So I'm drinking.
Ashley:Oh, I know, I was really, really upset because I need that coffee this morning and I was looking for a drink because I had a new bag of coffee that I actually really liked. And so now I'm drinking my tea from the mill. I'm drinking some cedar spices. The mill shout out Nebraska, lincoln, nebraska, you guys have the best tea. So I'm drinking some of that this morning and hoping up. I guess I'm going shopping for a coffee pot later on. This blistery day of negative five this morning, in case you were wondering how cold it is here, and that is not the real feel. The real feel is negative 20. Ooh, brutal, brutal. It would be one thing if it was snowing. It's not, it's just cold, just bitter cold. You can't even go play.
Ashley:Bitter cold. I was wondering why I'm so achy. I was like god everything hurts. It's because you're getting older, you can feel it coming, I can't even hold. I can feel it coming.
Erin:Can't even have my coffee to go with it.
Ashley:I know I can't just get in complain here with my tea.
Erin:But that tea is legit. So Ashley sent me a box from the mill in Nebraska, texas, of Pecan Pie, lincoln, nebraska, lincoln, nebraska. And I was going to have the mill coffee this morning, ashley, but then we had just enough of the other grinds from our Kodiak bag so I couldn't, I didn't want to mix it.
Ashley:Yeah, you can't mix.
Erin:So we're finishing that one up. But the cider spices, and you put it in some apple juice, which I never would have thought to mix tea into juice. But oh my gosh, it is so good. I made some yesterday after a day of shoveling because we didn't get more snow, but I had snow that I needed to clear, and how it warmed me right up, it made me so happy.
Ashley:That stuff is. I am literally counting down the days. Should we go back to Lincoln? I think we go back in a month and I'm like cannot wait. Yes.
Erin:I did look into their website millcoffeecom. They do ship and this is just us fangirling over this coffee and tea because, again, it's just so good, it's phenomenal.
Ashley:I'll say we found this coffee shop. We were there for the first round of the NCAA volleyball tournament with Bazoo and I think we went to the mill. We were there for like three days, I think. We went to the mill two or three times a day, which do not judge. Do not judge, it was cold. I need coffee and I like that's one of the things when we travel. We try out a local coffee shop, local flare, and we just fell in love. Oh, my goodness, like everything there was good, all their. I tried a bunch of different coffees, tried their tea. It's just phenomenal, their blood orange tea. Oh, I'll be ordering more of that. So, um, yeah, the mill, they shipped, we got it shipped and it made it to Alaska. And hey, it can make it.
Ashley:You can make it to you. It can make it to you. If you're in the area of Lincoln, go check it out.
Erin:That kind of brings us into Habit number seven from Franklin Covey's book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People the habit of daily self-renewal, Sharpen the saw.
Ashley:Sharpen the saw. Ooh, that daily self-renewal is so important. How do you really get yourself to be effectively focused and how do you sharpen that saw? So, Erin, take us away.
Erin:Yes, so what I love about this is the fact that it's kind of metaphorical. So they start off with this fable or story and it says suppose you're coming up to someone into the woods and they're working really hard to saw down a tree. Now, having tried to saw wood before, I can tell you one it wasn't a tree, it was a two by four, I think the hands and it was very hard, and especially when you're trying to get it going, the first start of it, oh, yeah.
Erin:And so you see someone working really hard trying to saw down this tree and then you go, oh, my gosh, like that looks exhausting. Yeah, I am, I've been working really hard at it. It's been like five hours. And you look at the saw and the saw is dull, right, because it's been that long. You're like, well, maybe you should sharpen it, maybe that would help you. And you're like, oh, I can't, I'm too busy. I like I just got to get this tree chopped down. But if you take the time to sharpen your saw and get it clean, you get a better cut Right. So the whole thought is is that everyone is busy, especially probably more now than when Covey wrote this book. Back when he wrote it, which I know was decades ago because I read it decades ago.
Ashley:I know I read it as a teen.
Erin:Yes, oh.
Ashley:God's been dead.
Erin:That would be decades Only two for those people who are wondering. Only two decades. But you know you get in that habit of being busy and you feel guilty of like I should be doing something else. I should like I need to do all the things to keep up with everybody, but if you don't take time for yourself, you're not going to be as effective to actually do the things that you want to do.
Ashley:Yeah, it's that. You know. People talk about that work, life, balance or, if you there's a new term right, that work is your life as well, because it's so entwined, sometimes depending on what industry you are. So how do you really find that balance? How do you fill your cup? You know, in therapy we talk about what's filling your cup. Is your cup overflowing? You know, how do you really look at those different aspects of your life to fill your pie? What do you want on your ingredients? What are those things that really make you feel good? Is it pineapple and ham I know I'm going to start debate there Is it pepperoni and jalapenos? I don't know.
Ashley:But one of the things that I really liked about one of the things that Stephen Covey says is Habit 7, is taking the time to sharpen the saw. By renewing the four dimensions of your nature physical, spiritual, mental and social and emotional you can work more quickly and effortlessly. If I could say words, that would be great. To do this, we must be proactive. This is a quadrant two important, but not urgent. So, quadrant two important, this is very important, but it's not urgent activity that must be acted on. It's the center of our circle of influence. We must do it for ourselves. And that's a quote from Stephen Covey, so he I really like the fact that he says it's the center of our circle, it's your balance, it puts you, it it's your balance, it's what makes you be able to do everything else good.
Ashley:So if you are not getting enough sleep, if you're not finding that recreation time to workout or exercise, if you're not finding that time to connect with others, you know, and others being like family, friends, activities, something that fills your cup, that gives you joy, everything else is gonna fall to the wayside. You're not gonna be a sharp. So you really need to figure those things to sharpen the saw. So what do you need to sharpen your saw? Figuratively, I guess, or literally, I don't know, my words are not working this morning coffee, I'm gonna sharpen my saw. I need a blade, I need some oil, I need some, I need all the tools that will help make saw do what it needs to do best. And so that's kind of the whole point. It wraps all the seven habits really nicely in a bow to say how do you really, what do you need to succeed? Like you can't go out the door without your wallet.
Erin:Not if you wanna buy something. Not if you wanna buy something Unless you meet some really nice people along the way, ashley, I know, laugh, cause there's a story to that one.
Ashley:You know you can't go to work without your laptop. You can't use your computer if you don't have the battery. There are different things that you can take away from this, but really it's all those things that make you you and brings your joy. Anything more to add to that.
Erin:Yeah. So I think, when I was thinking about this, one of the things that came back to me and this is not meant in a negative way, but when you get on the airplane and the flight attendant goes through their safety thing, it's like if you're traveling with young children, put your oxygen mask on before you put on your child's, or if you're traveling with someone who needs help, put your oxygen mask on first and then help the other person. And I remember hearing that in the newborn phase and because you're just exhausted, you're caring for another being, you have no sleep. You are in this throw of caring for this newborn and it's wonderful and I loved the newborn phase and the snuggly babies, the snuggles. It was just a slower pace and it was also exhausting, right. And so I remember someone passing that on to me, another mom just saying make sure you take care of yourself first, and so when I read this, it was like it took me back into that of you really do need to, especially the sleep element, the health element, the social-emotional element, and I love that he's broken out each of these into four different elements it's not one will not cure everything like only working out, like, yes, that may for some people.
Erin:Exercise is a huge component, I think, for a lot of people, because we know dopamine releases and doorfins release it gives you those feel-good chemicals. But I love that he also has taking time for spiritual, mental and social, emotional. And what I like about the spiritual concept of this is that it's value clarification, it's study, it's meditation, it's quiet thinking, it's reflection and it's a very quiet like non-active. You have to sit and be in it and think about it and that's hard for people to do. But it really goes right back down to your value system, which is connected to your vision, and so it's all connected in this thing. And so if you're not doing that one, that spiritual element, then you might get thrown off your values, you might get thrown off your vision, and then how are you going to be effective Exactly?
Ashley:And it all loops back to that, because if you're not taking the time to slow down, then you're not able to truly reflect. And reflection's hard for people because you know what that means. It's you and your thoughts, and we teach that a lot. It's like what is mindfulness? How do you sit? How do you meditate? What is your meditation? Is it journaling? Is it having something that gives you prompts? Is it listening to reflective music? Is it, if you're a religious person, is it going to church and doing what you do there? Is it, you know, fishing? Is it hunting? Is it something that really makes you sit in the quiet to really slow down that way of life?
Ashley:And another quote I really like that Stephen Covey says is we must never be too busy to take time to sharpen the saw. And I want that to sink in because I think there's a lot of times they know I'm too busy to do that or I'm too busy. I feel like if I'm going to sit and give myself 10 minutes just to slowly think or do something, I probably am thinking in my head oh, I should be doing other things, because this is for me and I'm not used to it. I got to get comfortable, being uncomfortable in the silence, and the skills that you can learn by taking that time.
Ashley:The spiritual lens and the meditation lens really ripples effects into everything else because it aligns to what you're doing. It teaches you how to be quiet, it teaches you how to meditate, which helps if you're, you know, in a high-pace world where you need to kind of reflect or manage your emotions. But it's really important because it's something we always feel guilty about. We can talk about guilt right, like if I'm going to take time to myself, similar to what Aaron said with Newborns. It's like how do I give myself time and not feel guilty about it? And this is part of it. It's sharpening that saw. It's part of the four quadrants of really taking care of yourself in order to effectively take care of others or take care of the things that you're working on.
Erin:It is and it's. It's interesting to me because there's such a dynamic of the active taking care of yourself with exercise and I feel like society values exercise so much and so it's like oh yeah, like you're going to go work out, that's great, that's so good for you. But if you say the same for meditation, you don't get that same reaction. They're like oh, are you okay? Do you need a break? Like I don't know.
Ashley:I just feel like there's more of a like a mental health stigma to it.
Erin:Yeah, but it's just as important, just as powerful, if not more so, than exercise. And if you're having trouble sitting down to meditate, I would recommend putting your phone down, walking outside maybe not today in the brutally cold. Maybe today would be a good day, as long as you layer of, wear appropriate clothing, but go outside and sit outside, because nature helps to calm and breathe and just focus on. What can you see, what can you feel, what can you hear?
Ashley:and focus on the sentences. Yeah, the five senses.
Erin:It's the coffee pot, ashley, you just words are really.
Ashley:I am struggling. I mean, this is kind of a normal thing, but this is really bad. Today he is not the same.
Erin:He is no, and the next part I was going to go into was he, because he has it broken down into the four segments. The mental, which is reading, visualizing, planning, is slightly different than your spiritual. So the mental aspect that could be part of continuing education what are you focused on that's going to spar you mentally? He mentions that as soon as you leave the formal discipline of school, a lot of us stop learning or focused on learning.
Erin:And there is definitely a time for me and I kind of wave back and forth of I get really into some of these books and leadership and development and reading for, like, mental growth. And then there's times where I'm like man, I'm just not going to do that and I can tell my own behavior of like oh, I get more excited when I've learned something new. It really kind of stems me and it gets me pumped and I like being able to share this and pass this information on with others. So if I move away from it, I don't recognize it until it's gone and then when I come back to it I recognize the jump or jolt of energy that I get from it.
Erin:And so I think it's also important to, as you do these activities, see and recognize the benefits of it, because then it'll want you to do it more. Right Goes back to the atomic habits, creating the habit of doing it. And then you get that little burst of doing it every time and it becomes more and more ingrained in your neuroscience.
Ashley:And you start doing it and you realize there's a reward to it. And the other thing about like the mental aspect of things is, if you're feeling stagnant, if you're feeling burnt out, this is a really good place to like recognize ooh, do I need to learn something new? Is this, do I need to pick something up, learn a new skill that has to do with my work, in order to sharpen that saw and to make me better. I know, like when I'm feeling burnt out oh my gosh, I kind of or I'm stuck with clients. Maybe I'm going to go back to reading something or looking at a training that I could pick up some new skills and that kind of rejuvenates me of going oh, I could use this and we can see more movement, or I can focus on something else.
Ashley:It's not just the monotony of the day to day. So I think that's a really important piece of the mental and that also helps you plan for the future. And it's all that visualization, putting it out into the universe and the ripple effect that that creates, because one little change of learning something could spark interest of something that puts you to getting that task done faster, sooner. You know, when you talk about, you know the wildly important goal.
Erin:I had a supervisor who I really liked, but some others would get frustrated because the advice was when you're struggling with something, the advice would be like well, I think you should read this book, or you should listen to this podcast, or you should read this article, and it would. She wouldn't give the answer, but she would give you a path of learning that you had to go down to figure out the answer. And it's like could you just other people be like, could you just tell me what you want me to do? And she wouldn't. She'd be like no, you need to learn and continue learning and develop yourself. But I really liked it because it again it fed that that element of it. But there is so much, especially now, today. It makes our lives busier, but there's so much information out there and accessible information.
Erin:I mean your fingertips you just have to do a Google search and you can be down a rabbit hole, for you know so long, so keep it focused. But you can find all the information that you need out there.
Ashley:Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. And it, like I said, some of these, the quadrants, can you know you can do two quadrants at once. There's that spiritual and physical aspect that people will do with yoga right. There's some mindfulness to it, there's some spiritual techniques, same thing like maybe your mindfulness meditation, spiritual stuff can lead into some of your continuing ed and it all just kind of goes back to how do you make your pizza pie whole again and all those different things.
Erin:Yeah, and then the last quadrant that we haven't talked about yet is the social, emotional Quadrant.
Erin:That's a good one it is, and I and again I think I've said this before I didn't recognize the importance of social connection until recently, and I've become bigger and bigger proponent of it, because I think it is Such a factor and I feel like people are beginning to recognize it more of the mental health aspect.
Erin:We've become so isolated and I think people are starting to see the negative impact of that and so starting to reconnect with others is really important. But Not only is it your connections with others getting out of the house, going, meeting someone for coffee, relationship building, connection, all of that which leads to its own stem of wound-win solutions and Figuring out other parts of it but it also, if you do it from a way of service so I volunteer at the schools, I volunteer for our rec center and Giving back some of my time in ways that I enjoy, but providing again a service to someone else it not only do I get to connect with others, but then I feel helpful and useful and it gives me purpose in it. You know it's added outside of just my job function, but it further creates that sense of purpose in life which again is really good for making you feel Like passionate about something right and sharpening that saw, oh.
Ashley:Yeah, and that purpose? I want to jump on the purpose, because having purpose is huge and we talk about mental health and One of the things we talk about with that purpose or this, the connection with others, is Social-emotional. Connection with others is, even if you're not feeling great and you're like I don't have the energy to do it, go to the coffee, go to the lunch. The act of doing it will release the hormones. The act of connecting with somebody will also do something within the brain To release the chemicals, to make you feel better. It's you may be like feeling it and all your being.
Ashley:I don't want to be here, but there is really good things that come from Connecting with others, especially in group setting. You get a group of people together. There's a different set of hormones that are released in the brain that really give you some positive reinforcements and positive reimbursements back In order to have your brain go. I want to do that again. And then it feeds that passion, it feeds that feel. It gives you those those outlets that you might have not realized that you needed.
Ashley:Like Aaron was talking about, volunteering and giving back, connecting with other people and talking things about that just aren't work, but it fills your passion, get with other people that you connect with, because it gives you an outlet, it gives you people to talk to, it gives you a sense of purpose, a sense of community. And and you know, covid good, good and bad that came out of that is that some people found the reconnection, some people Isolated, and now we have to reteach them to come back into the world. But you find your people and you figure out how to connect with them and that really helps, just being able to ground yourself and really go back to that vision of a sharpening your saw.
Erin:Absolutely, and there's so much conversation that comes and it's funny when you open yourself up to those connections and then you create new connections and you stumble across. I like to call it universe signs, but these synergies or these aha moments of you talking to someone and it just like stumbles upon this next step in your journey and it all connects and it all clicks and then you're on your way with whatever it was your towards your vision.
Ashley:It's, but ultimately, with sharpening your saw, it's filling up your cup, putting those extra ingredients on your pie, figuring out what makes you you in order to be able to Take care of the things that you need to take care of. Go through your value system how to really be good at what you're doing in your day-to-day, whether it's work, relationships, coming, the involvement, you name it.
Ashley:But if you want more information on that, obviously check out Stephen Covey's book of Seven habits of highly effective people. If you have Teenagers, there is the teenager version, which we both read seven habits of the highly effective teen, I believe. But for now, obviously, we help us figure out what you want to listen to, so please don't hesitate to drop a comment on our Instagram page or Shoot us a message and, as always, hope you enjoyed your coffee and a biscotti and enjoyed the episode.
