The 500-fold Sword

I remember watching a scene in a Martial Arts movie (which one I can't remember.) The hero is a master of the katana, the Japanese sword. His girlfriend, while he is sleeping, pulls the sword out of its scabbard, and starts messing around with it. He wakes up because of the sound of the sword. She takes a couple of swings at him with it, like she's playing with a toy. He gets her to stop and to hold the sword still, sharpened edge up. He takes a conveniently located silk scarf and drops the scarf from a foot or so above the sword. The scarf lands on the blade, and is sliced neatly through. The point: this is one sharp sword. It is not a toy.

My point: that kind of sharpness takes a long time to create.

Believe it or not, I went to a Technical High School. Two reasons: they had the best College preparation curriculum in Buffalo, AND, in 1964, they had their own computer. Because it was a Tech School, I had to take one tech course per semester, and one was the heat treatment of metals.

I don't remember a lot of this stuff - it was almost 40 years ago - I do remember annealing furnaces, and annealing metal. This process involves heating the metal red hot, to burn off impurities, pounding the crap out of the metal, making it into a thin sheet, then folding the metal onto itself, and pounding it back into the shape you are looking for. Then, you plunge it into sand or water, to lock the molecules into their new place. You'd do this several times, and the layered steel became much stronger and suppler with all the pounding and folding, heating and cooling. It was also the only way to get the metal to hold an edge.

So, what's all this have to do with business, with life and with katkanas?

Here's how a katana is made: the sword maker, who has studied under another sword maker, takes a steel blank and heats it, pounds it out, folds it over, and pounds it some more. Then, it's plunged into sand or water. Done once or twice, and theoretically the sword is annealed, and capable of taking an edge. Now, here is the point: the master then heats, pounds, folds and pounds the sword a total of 500 or more times! And that's just for a standard sword. If the sword is meant for a master, a sensei, it might be "folded" twice that many times.

Needless to say, you don't buy a sword like that in a knife store. Instead, you re-mortgage your house.

The work we propose at The Phoenix Centre is like making a real katana. We are suggesting a process of fire and pounding and folding. 500 times.

Often, businesses expect instantaneous change. We also expect it in our personal lives. Witness the plethora of self-help books on the market. As opposed, say, to my book, Living Life in Growing Orbits. My book requires the discipline of one year of daily exercises. Most people bail after a month or so. They bail because they haven't the focus to stay with something like re-focusing their lives - they want it now, not a year from now.

Most companies, most people, want to buy an ersatz katana at the chef's knife store. Their thinking? "Oh hell. It didn't cost that much. If it breaks, I'll just buy another."

The problem with this approach is that there is no investment in the process, no ownership, no real cost.

In Feudal Japan, a good sword might cost a samurai a year's wages. Or more. The samurai judged this to be a good deal, as the mettle of his sword would determine whether he lived or died. Before it was ever used, that sword had occupied the sword maker for months, and had required a year's work from new owner for a year. An amazing commitment, before it was ever used.

Are you willing to live by the culture of your employer? If not, are you willing to invest years of your life to anneal your company - so that the product you produce is "a 500-fold sword?" If not, why are you there?

Or, if you have decided that your work is not your vocation - if you are there to earn money to support your vocation - what are you devoting your life to? What is your 500-fold sword?

And before you answer too quickly, who is your master? Who has taught you (who is still teaching you?) the skills of the sword? How long was your apprenticeship? How long have you cleaned the shop, done the grunt work, sat at the feet of the master sword maker?

Do you see yourself as a student, as a work in progress? Are you willing to work slowly to anneal the metal that is your work, your life? Or do you think that the hard work is not worth it? That, when the heat goes up and the sweat begins to pour, it must be time to leave?

Or, have you skipped the apprenticeship altogether? Do you think that if your dinner is ready in 5 minutes in the microwave, there ought to also be an instant 500-fold sword? (Just add water and stir.) No sense going to school, finding a master, studying and perfecting your craft, if you can pick up a copy of "How to be a Sword Maker in 5 Easy Steps" at the local bookstore, after all.

Or, have you created many, many 500-fold swords, swords that have stood the test of time, so as to be able to demonstrate your skill?

Or do you flit from this to that, never landing, in the end being a master of nothing? Have other masters acknowledged your mastery, or are you simply a master in your own mind?

Have you paid the price? Will you willingly pay it, again and again, over years and years, in the service of your craft? Do you seek adulation, or mastery?

Hard questions. But the world is flooded with swords that break when stressed. The 500-fold sword sings, then slices through.

Your choice.

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