The Craftsman And The Entrepreneur
The craftsman is feeling fed up.
You see, this craftsman has a very good friend from childhood. They grew up together in the same town, became inseparable during their younger years, and have stayed in touch ever since. Their close connection has endured despite their very different career trajectories into adulthood.
Upon finishing high school, the craftsman pursued his passion and became a renowned sculptor. Meanwhile, his friend studied business, became an entrepreneur and now runs a company which imports and sells drills.
The entrepreneur has been doing pretty well for himself lately. So well, in fact, that he has just moved into a bigger house. It has a spare bedroom, a huge kitchen, and a swimming pool.
The craftsman knows that he ought to feel pleased for his old chum’s success. But try as he might, the craftsman simply cannot suppress his own envy.
As a sculptor, the craftsman spends his days toiling with furrowed brow to create works of magnificent beauty. Every one of his pieces is a labor of love, and he is lavishly praised by the critics for the work he creates. The craftsman knows down to his bones that what he produces is quality.
The craftsman is a perfectionist. It is a matter of pride that he would never put his name to anything that didn’t live up to his own high standards. It is this very perfectionism which explains why he is such an excellent sculptor.
But Beauty Doesn’t Always Pay
The trouble is, dazzling though his sculptures are, they only earn barely enough money for the craftsman to scrape by. Meanwhile, his entrepreneur friend has been making a fortune. Mass-produced drills may not be “beautiful”, but they are effective in drilling holes in walls.
Still, it doesn’t seem fair to the sculptor that his friend earns so well for an activity which seems so… mundane.
The craftsman can’t really blame anyone — least of all the entrepreneur! But it still seems somehow wrong. So all the craftsman can do is shake his fist at the universe and lament the unfairness of it all.
For his part, the entrepreneur doesn’t gain any pleasure from seeing his lifelong friend struggle. The entrepreneur would like to offer a few words of advice, but he does not. He already knows that the craftsman does not want to hear what he has to say.
To the entrepreneur, the craftsman’s problem is rather obvious: the craftsman is working in the business, instead of on it. So long as this continues, the craftsman will never be able to build an operation which can scale. Entrepreneurs ultimately have greater earning potential, because they build systems and organizations which are bigger than themselves.
The entrepreneur would not have been able to afford the bigger home if he were working in the drill factory. He gets other people to make the drills, so that he can spend his time on sales and marketing. Every time he secures a new order, he simply gets more drills to be manufactured, and makes more money — without more time or effort required on his part.
If the entrepreneur were in the craftsman’s shoes, he would immediately stop sculpting stones and hire others to do that work. Then, the craftsman-turned-businessman would be able to focus on finding buyers for the finished goods, and pocket the margin. Eventually, he might even be able to move into a mansion next door to the drill-selling entrepreneur.
But no. The entrepreneur knows better than tell the sculptor that he should stop sculpting.
The Craftsman Wants, And Needs, To “Do The Work”
The craftsman’s dilemma is this: he is envious of the entrepreneur’s income, but he would become unhappy if he were to spend all his time doing the kinds of tasks the entrepreneur performs. The craftsman’s joy comes from the act of doing his craft.
The writer writes, the pianist plays piano, and the computer programmer writes code… and the sculptor chisels.
Building systems is a totally different type of work to this kind of “craftsman” work. It is why so many craftsmen feel such resistance to the idea of becoming an entrepreneur. They don’t want to be a salesperson, or a manager of staff. It would mean their day would become filled with activities which are different from their craft. And that’s not how they want to spend their life.
Besides, a real craftsman cannot systematize their craft. The craftsman’s mastery has come from dedication to countless hours of practice across many years. Mozart couldn’t produce ten times more Mozart-quality compositions by hiring ten other composers. Mozart was only “Mozart” because he embraced being a craftsman and never tried to be an entrepreneur. He spent his time composing, not on building systems.
All of this said, the craftsman still has a problem. How can he become more successful, without giving up his passion for sculpting?
What The Craftsman Can Learn From Entrepreneurs
- Learn from the entrepreneur and build systems. Though the craftsman doesn’t want to stop sculpting, he can still build routine into his daily schedule in order to maximize his creative output — forming a system, of sorts, around himself. The craftsman can also outsource low-value tasks (sweeping the floors, ordering supplies, etc.), so that he has more time to do more of the sort of work which he feels he was put on the Earth to do.
- Learn to providing value in different ways. As an example, certain crafts lend themselves to being sold more than once. An author can sell thousands of copies of their books, without having to write it again every time. And while the sculptor must create every piece individually, perhaps it could be possible to also sell framed pictures of his work to supplement his income while still spending the bulk of his time doing what he loves.
- Redefine what “success” is. Our society often focuses on financial success, but this is not the only (or even the best) form of success. Yes, the craftsman might need to live in a smaller house. But he can take comfort from the fact that most entrepreneurs eventually grow bored of their businesses, and can feel even trapped by them.
No lesser person than Michael E. Gerber (author of The E-Myth, one of the world’s best-known books on entrepreneurship) encouraged readers to ask this question.
“What would you like to be able to say about your life after it’s too late to do anything about it?”
Whichever path you are pursuing, it is always a good idea to reflect upon what success really means to you.
How do you want to spend your days? What would give you the most satisfaction?
The craftsman gets to spend all day doing what he loves. Can there really be any higher aspiration than this?
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