Invisible Output- Stacking the Wood

Stacking the Wood in the woodshed is something almost everyone has either experienced or understands the concept of.

You get a pile of wood.

You cut the wood.

You splice the wood.

You stack the wood in the woodshed.

Now you and your family get to be warm for the cold seasons.

At the end of the day, you have a measurable outcome of all your HARD WORK. The woodshed is now more stocked than when you started.

In the age of technology and networking, how many hours do we spend on creating content, reaching out, creating websites, marketing, and so on.

How does that work measure up? How much is in the wood shed at the end of days like that? I grew up stacking wood. I like it for the same reason I like to paint walls every so often. I know that I worked hard to complete the project. At the end of the project, I can tangibly see my results.

When we opened the business, I spent HOURS creating our materials, lots of time building relationships, going to networking events, building a website, designing the logo, ect. One could say all of this is "cutting and splicing and stacking" the wood. In terms of it showing up in the woodshed in that moment though.... Where is it? We weren’t open yet so we didn’t even have a woodshed! At the end of the day, I would know I did work but because it didn't have a direct measure of work done (work stacked in the shed) I sometimes worried, what was the point?

Today I realized.... It is like stacking invisible wood. All of the effort and energy to create those things. I was stacking wood. I just couldn't see it yet. I had to trust that it was there.

The opportunity here, is that one day, or even “one meeting” out cutting wood, may end up as a whole stack! You never know what one conversation, what one post, what one handout will create for someone and their circle of influence.

Imagine this for me, you go out to cut some wood. You get out the chainsaw and cut the big tree into sections and then take the big sections through the splicer to make the classic log ready for stacking.

Now imagine you are doing all this work but you can’t see it. You can feel the release of the chainsaw as you get through the whole cut and you can feel the weight of each log as you throw it into the pickup ready to take back to the woodshed. You get it all home and pile it up in the shed in nice neat rows. The only problem is, is that you cannot see it. The woodshed still looks the same as when you left that morning. Your heart sinks a little bit as you wonder what you accomplished today and already know you will be going out again tomorrow to collect more invisible wood. That you will have to stack and still you may never see it.

Feels kinda like a bummer right? - For me, I would be pretty confused if you brought me to the woodshed to show me how hard you worked today and I couldn’t see any progress. Except, you know, that you know, that you know, things happened and there is wood stacked in there. You just have no idea how much.

FRUSTRATING!

The cool thing about this though, is that one morning you wake up and go back to the woodshed and a few more logs have appeared seemingly overnight! How did those get there!? The fruits of your labor are now starting to appear. Some days you may go back and see an entire row! And some days, you may have people show up with a few logs to throw on the pile that you didn’t even ask for.

How cool is that possibility?!

Where can you take steps today to motivate yourself to stack invisible wood. Trusting that they will show up at the right time and in multitudes to provide. <3