Stonecutter Wisdom

The San Antonio Spurs have this quote hanging in their locker room:

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. – Jacob Riis

Our business had a lot in common with the stonecutter. Relationships take time to build and one poorly executed strike can ruin the whole thing. Markets take time to figure out which way they want to go next. Our own projects take planning, chiseling, and often play out over extended periods of time.

Like the Spurs, we have to keep in mind the reality of the stonecutter as we play our own games. I think I’ll be printing that quote out for my wall too.