as a creative work.”^7
Mastery isn’t about straight As or the highest salary in
the company. It’s not even about being the most popular in
your field. It’s about understanding your potential and then
dedicating your life to pursuing that ideal. It means doing
your absolute best. Why? Because the craft deserves it,
because the calling requires it, and because maybe you’ll be
a better person for it. After all, this is the role of work in our
lives—not only as a means to make a living, but as a tool to
make us into who we were born to be.
We don’t often think about how what we do affects who
we are. Because a job is often just a job, it’s easy to believe
our activity doesn’t affect our identity. It’s true that you are
not what you do, but you can become what you practice.
And who are you practicing being at that job you hate,
cutting corners to get the job done? It’s time we reconnected
with a more modern understanding of mastery.
When I asked a successful musician how he went from
making an average income for an artist to becoming an
outlier in his industry, making a million dollars a year, his
answer surprised me. Did he write a hit song or get some
airplay on the radio? What was it that led to his skyrocketing
success? “I stopped trying to be famous,” he told me.
“What?” I said. “That’s it?” I didn’t understand. Weren’t
musicians supposed to be famous? Wasn’t that the whole