There’s a Chinese proverb about the pursuit of enlightenment.
A student comes to his master and asks: What does it take to be the best?
The master’s answer: Chop wood, carry water. Do the most basic things. Do them with excellence. That’s it.
I’ve held onto that for a long time. Because I’ve watched it play out over and over in careers, in sales, in life and it’s always the same story. The mentors in my life weren’t just natural anomalies. They just did the basics longer and with more intentional focus than everyone else is willing to.
So I say: “Before results, chop wood, carry water.”
How does this play out:
- The grind. Everyone starts figuring out what the basics even looks like. Dial within 5 minutes of getting in the office. Loop on objections. Learn the competitive landscape. Win the first 10 seconds of every call. You’re building a skill set and your results don’t show it yet.
- The gap. Effort is up. Motivation is growing but results still haven’t moved the way you expected. This is where I’ve watched the most people walk away. They stop doing the little things and call them pointless. Their focus and intensity slip (even if it’s slight). They haven’t earned it yet and they quit right before they do.
- The compound. Results start climbing faster than your effort. The person who said “not ready yet” four months ago? Now it’s the easiest call you’ll ever make. That conversion rate is way higher because you did the hard thing when no one was watching. Your consistency begins to show up and payoff in bigger and bigger ways.
That gap between Phase 2 and Phase 3 is where careers are built. It’s where the people who become genuinely impressive separate from the people who were just trying it out. The ones who stay consistent, who keep chopping wood when the results aren’t there yet, those are the people who eventually launch.
And here’s what nobody tells you about Phase 3: the basics don’t go away. You don’t earn your way out of them. You just get rewarded more for having done them long enough that they start to compound. The effort doesn’t have to grow exponentially. The results do.
So my advice is the same: Before results. chop wood, carry water. After results, chop wood, carry water.
Where are you in the three phases right now and are you still doing the little things?
Brock Baker
