It’s easy to live out a script and maintain a particular (personal and professional) trajectory. What I love about the idea of a true craftsman (a carpenter, web developer, glass blower, or what have you) is that they’ve made a conscious decision to commit to the work.

They know the work will not always be pleasant or immediately rewarding, but that it will always be important and worth doing. This mindset that exists in the successful craftsman and true artist, I think, is at odds with the cruise-control compliance that exists in many corporate automatons.

There is an art to solving problems with patience and curiosity that separates the greats from the generalists. This patience allows an artist to turn pro, and share their art with the world in a much more powerful way.