Sharpen the Saw

Key Points:

• Habit 7 is taking the time to sharpen the saw. It surrounds the other habits on the Seven Habits paradigm because it is the habit that makes all the others possible. 

Four Dimensions of Renewal

• Habit 7 is preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have- you. It's renewing the four dimensions of your nature- physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. 
• This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life- invest in ourselves, in the only investment we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw in all four ways.

Physical Dimension

• Caring for our physical body either in endurance, flexibility, and strength.

Spiritual Dimension

• Immersion in great literature or great music can provide a similar renewal of the spirit for some. If one's motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are a mailman, a hairdresser, an insurance salesman, a housewife- whatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less effectively.
• The idea is that when we take time to draw on the leadership center of our lives, what life is ultimately all about, it spreads like an umbrella over everything else. It renews us, it refreshes us, particularly if we reconnect to it.

Mental Dimension

• Education is a vital mental reward. Continuing education, continually honing and expanding your mind. Sometimes that involves the external discipline of the classroom or systematized study programs; more often it does not. Proactive people can figure out many, many ways to educate themselves. 
• "The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read." 

Social/Emotional Dimension

• This section fully involves our personal security. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values. A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
• "Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth."

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