
You know what’s killing your work right now? It’s not lack of talent or opportunity. It’s that you’re obsessed with the finish line when you should be falling in love with the race itself.
We’re builders by nature. Our brains literally evolved through the act of making things with our hands. For hundreds of thousands of years, we chipped away at stone, carved wood, constructed tools. That connection between mind and hand shaped who we became as a species. Scientists even gave us a name for it: homo faber, the animal that makes things.
Everything You Do Is Building Something
You might think this only applies if you’re working with hammers and wood. Wrong. Every single thing you do is construction work. Writing a book? You’re laying bricks in a cathedral of ideas. Starting a business? You’re a mason building something that will outlast you. Creating content? You’re crafting something with the same care a Viking shipbuilder used on those magnificent vessels that still take our breath away in museums today.
When I learned about those Viking ships at the Oslo Museum, I felt pure awe. Not because of what they represented, but because of the craftsmanship itself. Someone poured their soul into every joint, every curve, every detail. They weren’t thinking about Instagram followers or how many likes they’d get. They were building something beautiful because the process itself mattered.
The Process Is the Point
You’ve got this backwards if you’re fixated on results. The glory, the attention, the money, the social media validation? That’s all noise. What really matters is the slow, patient work of building something step by step with a clear image in your mind.
When you adopt the craftsman mindset, everything shifts. You become patient because you understand that quality takes time. You develop an eye for detail because every piece matters. You take pride in work that others might not even notice because you know it’s there.
Paul Graham, the guy who started Y Combinator, gets this completely. He talked about how coding isn’t just technical work. It’s craftsmanship. Creating beautiful, elegant code is like painting or building that Viking ship. The craftsmanship itself, that pursuit of making something excellent, is what led to his success. Not the other way around.
Why This Matters for You Right Now
Right now, there’s actually a movement of people rediscovering this truth. They’re going back to farms, building with their hands, creating physical things again. That’s beautiful and noble. But you don’t need to move to a ghost town or start farming to embrace this mindset.
Whatever you’re working on today, treat it like you’re building a cathedral. Whether it’s material or immaterial doesn’t matter. Are you raising a family? You’re a builder. Creating a social movement? Construction work. Making a film, writing code, starting a business? All of it is craftsmanship.
The magic happens when you stop caring about the end result and start caring about the making itself. When you fall in love with the process, when you take pride in the details that no one else will notice, when you build slowly and carefully with attention and care.
Your New Framework
From now on, use this metaphor for everything you do. You’re not just completing tasks or checking boxes. You’re a craftsman building something that will last. Every email you write, every conversation you have, every piece of work you produce is a brick in something larger.
The building is what you should love. Not the results, not the applause, not the money. The actual work of creating something beautiful with your own two hands (or mind, or voice, or whatever tools you have).
Stop chasing outcomes. Start building like your great great grandfather would have built a table. With care. With attention. With pride in the work itself. That’s when everything changes. That’s when you become someone who creates things worth remembering.
Your work is your craft. Treat it that way.
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