This is my word to anyone that wants to achieve the furthest taken edge available today to mankind; open your views, take in the influence, don't deny it. Failure is knowledge, knowledge is power.
Hone your mind and body for the steel, every stroke you pull is done with commitment and full intention of what you are trying to accomplish. Never sit down and polish or sharpen without any thoughts beforehand.

Especially the last words are something that I constantly have to remind myself of. Many times you are tempted to make a knife sharper, so you sit down and start sharpening. But the process of sharpening is deliberate and time-consuming.
That's the first window for failure as a polisher, to start sharpening without a plan. There are no shortcuts to the perfect edge, and making a knife sharper without doing it from square one is impossible.