Thoughts on Thursday: Sharpening the Axe is About Cadence, Not Compensation

TLDR: Sharpening the axe isn't one-time. It's rhythm. Come back to the beat, not to compensation. That's how you actually impact the people around you.

My good friend James reminded me of an old story in a coaches meeting last week. Two lumberjacks working in the forest. One chops continuously from dawn until dusk without pause, determined to outwork everyone around him. The other leaves every few hours, stops the work, sits down, and sharpens his axe.

By the end of the day, the second lumberjack has cut more wood.

We've heard the story. Most of us still choose the blunt axe.

And here's the part we miss: the mistake isn't taking breaks. It's returning and trying to repay them with intensity instead of returning to rhythm.

Coming back from the holidays, I felt the pull immediately. The pressure to compensate, to push harder, to "make up for lost time." The logic seems airtight: if I rested, surely now I can sprint. If I held back, now I can swing harder. More time away means more intensity on return, right?

Wrong.

The problem is that we treat sharpening the axe like a one-time withdrawal from the bank, when it's actually a rhythm, a cadence. My friend Mike talks about this too: cadence matters https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cadence-matters-mike-mendelson-wgntc). But sitting with it this past week, I've realized it's not just about consistency. It's about something deeper. It's about impact.

I thought of this with my daughter on a swing last week. If I started pushing harder, thinking I could make up for the time we hadn't spent playing, what would happen. More force, more height. But she didn't need a harder push. She needed the same push, over and over, at the right time. The rhythm is what makes the swing go. Not the compensation.

Compensation is ego. Cadence is craft.

Compensation is trying to prove you didn't fall behind. Cadence is accepting that progress is built on return, not repayment. Compensation is a debt you create. Cadence is a rhythm you trust.

Here's what I'm learning: I can't hold back a swing and expect it to go faster or higher just because I release it later. A pendulum dropped from the same height will swing at the same speed whether you hold it for ten seconds or ten days. Delaying the swing doesn't add force. It just adds pressure. Stored intention doesn't become momentum. It becomes debt.

So what actually matters? Showing up to the rhythm. Not the intensity. Not the compensation. Not trying to make up for the past. Just: can I find the cadence and stay with it?

Some days that's a sprint. Some days it's a pause. Some days it's sharpening the axe. The rhythm itself is the work. The work isn't about breaking the rhythm, it's about honouring it.

Here's a new rule I'm trying to introduce. Never "make up" work. Only "resume" work.

That's true in building, and it's true in coaching. Athletes don't get better by "making up" missed sessions with punishment. They get better by returning to the plan. The best programs don't spike effort out of guilt, they protect rhythm. They understand that a player who returns to the beat, present and connected, becomes better than one who's chasing a debt.

And that's what Loop Athlete is built on. Not extracting more effort. But helping athletes find their internal rhythm so they can show up fully to themselves and their teammates. It's a tool for connection, not extraction. For players to understand their own cycles, when they're sharp, when they need to reset, when they're ready to go and reflect on why. That's development.

Right now, that beat sounds like showing up at the United Soccer Coaches convention, not scrambling to close deals or prove something, but to listen. To learn where coaching is headed. To understand where coaches are struggling to connect with players and mentor them better.

I'm there for Loop, yes. But I'm really there for coaching. I've spent years in this space, and I see the gap: coaches who care deeply about their players but don't have tools to help them understand their own rhythm, their own patterns, how to show up consistently. That's what I'm trying to solve, not extraction, but connection. Not one harder push, but the right rhythm, sustained.

To watch how Loop lands in the hands of people actually doing this work. To absorb what people really need. To pay attention to the questions they ask after the demo, that's the real product roadmap. And beyond Loop, it's about understanding how I can serve the coaching community better. Where the real leverage is.

This is sharpening the axe too. The external learning. The environmental experience. The reminder that you can't build for impact from a depleted tank. The break wasn't a sacrifice to the grind, it was choosing presence with family. That's the whole point. Coming back isn't about catching up. It's about being ready to serve my community better.

When you're in the convention hall talking to coaches, when you're watching how athletes engage with something you built, when you're learning from conversations you didn't expect, that's not time away from work. That's the axe being sharpened by friction with the real world. That's understanding the actual levers you can pull to help young people develop.

So I'm doing both. I'm staying with the cadence. And I'm showing up, even when part of me wants to hunker down and push harder, because honouring the rhythm means knowing when to swing and knowing when to sharpen. Knowing when to rest and knowing when to open yourself to what's actually happening around you.

The work isn't swinging harder. It's coming back to the beat, before your ego turns rest into debt. It's listening instead of proving. It's impact over intensity.

That's the only return worth making.