The dim fluorescent lights of a hospital flicker at 11PM, guiding the hand of a nurse as she plunges an IV into the arm of a patient. Her years of practice dull the impact of the needle so much that the patient doesn’t even wake from their slumber. She removes the small piece of tape she stuck to her gloved hand and fastens the needle to the patient's skin in one swift motion, a technique she learned from her mentor the better part of a decade ago.
At the same time, a guitar player miles away is retaking the stage of a crowded bar to begin his second set of the night. He looks at his set list and memorizes the next 3 songs the band is about to play so he can make the transitions as smooth as possible. As the drummer counts off the song, the guitarist feels the limberness of his fingers from warming up in the first set. He knows that he can take more liberties with this next song, and that he will command the crowd for those 30 seconds that he improvises his solo.
While the guitarist plays, a server is navigating through the crowd, a full tray with drinks in her right hand as she reaches for the check in her apron with her left hand. As she hands the check to the customer and wishes them farewell, she updates the checklist in her head: drop off table 21s drinks, get their food order, greet table 25 who just sat, check on table 23s food order. Years on the job have taught her that she must keep this list going at all times, or else she might forget something and have to deal with the wrath of her manager, or worse, the wrath of a customer. As she delivers the drinks, she calls out the name of each drink the customer ordered so that they can correct her if there is any mistake before taking a sip, a small trick she picked up after being chastised by that one customer 4 years ago, as well as the bartender for grabbing the wrong drink order.
While these professions are all vastly different from each other, they all follow the principles of craftsmanship. While craftsmanship is normally thought of as being exclusive to time-of-old artisans like potters, painters, and the like, craftsmanship envelops many professions still to this day. Instead of being pigeonholed to select professions, craftsmanship is within numerous professions because craftsmanship is a mindset instead of a career choice. A musician can be just as much of a craftsman as a doctor or lawyer. A server can equally be a craftsman in their trade as an electrician or a programmer. How is this possible, you might wonder, for an esteemed profession like a doctor or lawyer to be in the same league as someone who plays music or serves food. The answer is simple: a craftsman is not defined by their trade, but how they approach their trade.
To be a true craftsman, you must first find passion in your work. The phrase, “Find your passion,” gets tossed around a lot when professionals talk to students or job-seekers who are looking for joy in their work. The idea of “passion in your work” is almost sold as a pipe-dream where whatever you practice must bring you joy all the time. Spoiler: it won’t. No job or career will be fun ALL of the time. A craftsman doesn’t need constant joy in their profession, but they must have passion. To put it another way, they must have pride in what they practice.
A craftsman must have pride in what they do first and foremost to be considered a craftsman, and this is why the idea of craftsmanship transcends many career fields. Once you have pride in what you do, it is natural to have pride in what you do compared to others. If a craftsman prides themselves in their work, surely they will do it better than others around them, and if not, that should motivate them to be better. In my time as a server, I knew plenty of my fellow waitstaff that prided themselves on being able to hold down a 5-6 table section in the middle of a rush hour. Almost every (serious) musician I have met has compared their own playing to one of the greats as a source of inspiration to be better. I’m sure you have met someone in your career that prides themselves on being able to do a job faster, more efficiently, or with a higher quality than their peers. This mindset is the passion of a craftsman combined with the drive to improve.
As a craftsman matures, eventually they will find that the drive to improve does not only come from externally, but from within as well. When a craftsman feels confident in their own abilities, they will then choose to compare their talents with their past-self over their peers. This drive to improve for the sake of improving is the 3rd key part to being a craftsman. This is where the true “joy” that people associate with passion comes from: growing for the sake of growth. Anyone who works because they enjoy it has reached this point in their career and craftsmanship journey. From the programmer who works on open source projects in their free time, to the chief that volunteers to host and cook for the neighborhood 4th of July event, the craftsman now has risen to a level in their trade where work has become a joy, even through the ups and downs of the profession.
The final stage of a craftsman’s journey is to pass on their knowledge and help grow the next generation of craftsmen in their profession. This is the most magical stage of the craftsman’s journey because the craftsman has transcended to a level where their skills are no longer about themselves, but a community at large. As they attempt to bottle the joy that they have experienced in their trade and spread the gospel of their knowledge attained through years (or decades) of practice, the craftsman is humbled by knowing they aren’t as important in the process as the knowledge they have discovered along their journey. A teacher will reach a level where they want their students to surpass them, a thought that would have been alien to them in the beginning of their journey. This principle of craftsmanship is the most important because it is exponential in the knowledge and joy that it can produce. Anyone who teaches what they know can obtain this level of craftsmanship and the joy that teaching provides. In this way, any teacher, professor, or mentor is a craftsman in disguise, no matter the subject or trade.
While the principles of craftsmanship are daunting because of the work required, everyone should seek to be a craftsman in their profession. To quote the former president of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, “Nothing worth having comes easy.” In this regard, the principles of craftsmanship should drive all of us to become better than we once were in all aspects of our lives.
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