I was listening to an episode of the Tim Ferris podcast where he was interviewing Adam Savage the other day and became struck with a point Savage made. He spoke about his early days of being an actor, and the difference between himself and the other actors. He essentially stated that he wanted to be an actor, but the others wanted to perform the craft of acting. He was not as interested in the craft of it all. This story really got me thinking about a lot of things in my own life. I thought about the craft versus the work of the things I have pursued.
I have rarely embraced the craft of things. I think this contributed to many of my failures. I wanted the product of the work, I did not want the process and the craft. Wanting the product of the work is a good thing, as is embracing the path. At times I did embrace the craft. In my career I have failed to embrace the craft at virtually every turn, in retrospect the only place I might have really embraced craftsmanship was lifting weights.
In lifting weights I have embraced the craft in a pure way. I enjoy almost every workout, it has become a great source of joy. I enjoy becoming better at exercises. I enjoy the practice of really dialing in my form. I indulge in hours and hours of reading, watching videos, and listening to podcasts around fitness. As I have gotten older, I enjoy all this even more and more. I am content in the knowledge that I may ever only apply 10% of the fitness knowledge I have gained. I enjoyed gaining muscle, and gaining strength, but these have not a huge focus for the last decade, I lifted because I was a lifter. I did the things around lifting, because I did them. This was all very easy to do. I enjoyed lifting, it is a really fun thing for many people.
Having seen what this looks like in my lifting, I have never seen the same craftsmanship and embrace in my career. The same kind of things, the same depth of experience has never happened for me in my career. My career has been dictated by the end goals, by impatience. I like to think I have worked hard, and tried to do things the right way in my career. I don’t believe there was some moral failing on my part. I was never as into things as I maybe should have been. A lot of people can succeed without embracing their craft and career, I don’t think I am one of those people. For me, I am at a place in life where the craft of things must be embraced more.
What does embracing the craft look like? There are a lot of things it means to me.
I must be patient. This is biggest thing for me. If I am not happy where things are at, then I want change now. This desire is fine, but I can’t let that desire for instant change to govern things as much as I have in the past.
I must pursue repetition.
I must pursue the craft daily if possible.
I must accept that I don’t always need to see the ROI immediately of everything. I must seek knowledge and skill for their own sake.
I must emotionally and mentally accept the craft.
Embracing the craft for me, must be a pursuit, I need to look for ways to embrace it more.
I must accept I must embrace the boring to get to the cool. The bigger the base the higher the pyramid can be.
For me when I embrace the craft of something the results are a lot better. I think we know in our hearts when we have really embraced something. This embrace creates results, peace, and more fun for me, and isn’t that what I want from everything?