Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great

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I have been very poor and I am now very rich. I am an optimist by nature. And I have the ability to write poetry and create the forest I am busy planting. Am I happy? No. Or, at least, only occasionally, when I am walking in the woods alone, or deeply ensconced in composing a difficult piece of verse, or sitting quietly with old friends over a bottle of wine. Or feeding a stray cat…I could do all those things without wealth.” The lesson? Always do right by those who depend on you, or it will take you so much longer to do what you should have done and enjoy success. Life Lessons and Why We Need Them After he spent some time traveling, though, he realized that achieving financial independence didn’t bring him lasting happiness. Instead, he found himself to be a bit bored, which lead him to the realization that the point of passive income wasn’t to quit working, but rather to have the ability to do meaningful work: My personal takeaway: Stop dreaming about doing out-of-this-world work. Success lies in doing simple things over a long period of time. Learn to chop wood, carry water. Success will eventually come. Notable Quotes: When I started I was like you. Every day I would chop wood and carry water. Like you I understood that someone had to do these things, but like you I wanted to move forward. Eventually I did. I read all of the scrolls, I met with Kings and and gave council. I became the Abbot. Now, I understand that the key to everything is that everything is ‘chopping wood and carrying water’ and that if one does everything mindfully then it is all the same.”

Exasperated, the young man asked how this was possible. “I have learned that the tighter you hold on, the less you hold.” And this is life’s lesson too. The more we struggle and panic while we try to do something, the less we accomplish.If a flow state tends to arise from spending time doing meaningful work and being around people you love, then we should all seek to maximize the time we can spend on these two things.

Alex Ikonn, a fairly well-known YouTuber, once shared in a video that he was able to create a mostly passive online business that gave him and his girlfriend complete freedom over their time, and yet they found that they weren’t happy with a lifestyle that involved sitting around all day with nothing to work on. A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

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If you can learn to own your fear, you will lead a life that’s under your control and not be controlled by anger, fear, and disappointment. The now famous speech by admiral William H. McRaven about making your bed is perhaps one of the best life lessons (via metaphor) that our modern age has seen. We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.” From an outside perspective it may seem that quitting my day job changed nothing – I still follow a similar Monday morning routine. However, I’ve experienced a massive change internally. I’m much happier on a daily basis. Focus on using your sport to develop more true mental toughness rather than being used by your sport by focusing on results that are outside your control”

Chop Wood Carry Water is one of those rare books you won’t find in the best-of reading lists. Few people will talk about it and even fewer will actually realize that such a gem exists. That’s why I’m so pleased I’ve found it. Or as the author writes, “Everyone wants to be great, until it’s time to do what greatness requires.” July 10, 2023: Amoila’s LIVE CHOP WOOD CARRY WATER workout @ 12PM ET / 9AM PT (BODi membership required)Those times when you are overwhelmed with work is exactly when you need to tend to your spiritual health. (I need to take this to heart more than anyone!) Conclusion Bad things happen all the time if we listen to our inner critic that constantly nags, “I’m not good at this.” After all, who wouldn’t abandon a project if someone followed them around all day criticizing everything they did? In the book How to Get Rich, Felix Dennis shared his personal tale of how he became one of the wealthiest men in England. Near the end of the book, he shares: All program materials will be available on BODi under the CHOP WOOD CARRY WATER “Program Materials” section. I once tweeted out that if you have the freedom to spend time doing these two things each day, you have everything you need in life: