Iron Sharpens Iron When Iron Shows Up

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

Whether you subscribe to the ESV, NIV, NKJV, or AMP translation of Proverbs 27:17, or whether you consider yourself a person of faith at all, this is one of those timeless phrases that universally clicks. The moment you hear it, the picture is vivid: two strong materials coming together to refine, reshape, and elevate one another.

We quote it in boardrooms, classrooms, sports huddles, and church pews; but somewhere along the way, we lost the actual mechanics of how sharpening works.

Sharpening requires FRICTION. It requires heat. It requires two hard surfaces pressing against each other until the dull edges are worn away.

Yet today, across our society, we are running from the very friction necessary to make us great. We stay silent in moments that demand candid feedback, telling ourselves that we are “being polite” or “respecting boundaries.” But there is nothing respectful about allowing the people in your circle to settle for mediocrity. Comfortability lowers the bar. Avoiding high standards isn’t respect, it is comfortable neglect.

I learned what real sharpening looked like in the 6th grade, thanks to a man named Coach John Gould.

Now, for context: the last time I was legally “small” was probably second grade. By the time I was eleven years old, I was 5’5″ and 185 pounds. I had thick legs and a competitive streak. My go-to strategy for making friends from 1st through 8th grade was I’d let kids talk about my size, challenge them to a race, beat them, and then we’d be friends. There were kids I knew were faster than me, but they never spoke ill towards me.

One day, Coach Gould pulled me, my brother, and his son aside, and with a completely straight face, he pointed told us we were going to be running Sunray Mountain for our workout today.

We didn’t know his son had already done this a couple times before.

He didn’t make up this workout out of thin air though; he had gotten it from a coaching buddy running one of the most dominant athletic facilities in Arizona. This trainer was teammates with Keyshawn Johnson and was almost a Ram, and his son was on his way to becoming an Under Armour All-American, a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year, and a top-10 national recruit.

It took this unbelievable talent that worked like you’ve never seen, about 12 minutes to run this circuit all out with no rest.

Coach Gould looked at us and set the benchmark: “The run doesn’t count unless you complete it in 16 minutes.”

I was terrified to say the least. Before we even reached the trail, I was crying, claiming I was sick, and trying to guilt Coach into letting me do 100 pushups instead because this had to be a punishment for something we did. But Coach Gould held the line. He looked at me and said words I’ll never forget:

“You will thank me someday for this. If you want to be great, you have to put in the work – and you won’t know what the work looks like if you aren’t surrounding yourself with the best.”

I ran Sunray Mountain almost weekly for the next two years and it took me at least six full months of sweat and failure just to break that 16-minute barrier for the first time. But today, I stand here knowing Coach Gould was right. He set a standard that defined my work ethic for the rest of my life.

Coach Gould taught me the foundational rule of mutual growth:

When you surround yourself with great, the harder you go, the quicker you’ll be sharpened.

Right now, many of us are functioning in passive isolation. We sit in the same offices, walk the same hallways, and attend the same meetings, yet we never actually interact on a meaningful level. We operate near each other without ever colliding.

And nowhere is this passive silence more damaging than in our financial lives and personal stewardship.

We will yell at our friends from the sidelines of a gym workout. We will hold our team accountable to quarterly sales quotas. But when it comes to financial literacy, wealth building, and long-term stewardship, we retreat behind closed doors. We go quiet out of fear, shame, or social etiquette.

How can we sharpen each other financially, professionally, or spiritually if no one is willing to bring their true reality to the table? How can we elevate our peers if we refuse to talk about the real numbers, our real goals, and the real standards required to serve God and our families with everything we’ve got?

The work is mandatory; but you will never know what the work truly looks like until you align yourself with high standards and hold the line for others.

If you truly want an “iron sharpens iron” community, it starts by changing how you show up:

1. Stop substituting proximity for community.
2. Trade polite comfort for high expectations (Love the Friction).
3. Break the silence.

Iron doesn’t sharpen in soft soil, and it certainly doesn’t sharpen in isolation; it takes peers who refuse to let you stay just as you are – and I can’t thank my peers enough for not just holding me accountable, but EXPECTING me to be better.

It’s time to stop running from the mountain. Set a God-sized financial goal and align it to what it’s going to do for the kingdom and attack it!

May God Bless you and yours!

Love and appreciate you. See you next week.

EJM