I had a general contractor boss who would giggle whenever I struggled to pin decking. When I couldn’t push nail to wood and hammer to nail in one sleek motion, he’d shout at me: Is the hammer fighting back?
He loved to tell me: “Don’t blame the hammer.” It became a rallying cry for all his advice to me. His point: I had to get more skilled, which meant both improving how I used tools and learning to pick the right tools for the job.
I think about this all the time now. Too often, we’re quick to dismiss a tool—an app, a process, or a framework—as “bad” when the real problem is a lack of skill or a mismatch between the tool and the task. Before blaming the hammer, ask: Am I using it well? And just as importantly: Is this the tool I actually need?
The tools we use are only as good as how we wield them.