To lift your work from a job to a craft, install the perception that no work is ordinary. I talked
about the janitor I met at the Johannesburg airport. He didn’t see himself as a janitor. He saw
himself as an ambassador, get this, an ambassador for South Africa.
His bathroom, his washroom, call it his WC, whatever you call it from wherever you are around the world. It was spotless. He was laughing. When I walked into the bathroom, he goes, “Welcome to my office.” You see, this man had installed a perception that all work has dignity.
I’ll repeat that again because it’s so fundamentally important. All work has dignity. All work is a chance for you to be creative. All work is a chance for you to lift up other human beings. All work is a chance for you to go to your edges and transcend your fears. All work is a chance
for you to become a stronger human being. Install the perception that your job is no longer a
job. It’s an opportunity for you this day to practice your craft. With that core belief that you install, you will start reading the books, going to the seminars, practicing a craft, because the great chess champion or the great cheese maker or the great shoemaker, they don’t just go to work. They don’t just show up.
The great Swiss watchmaker, it’s a craft. They study. They get a mentor. They become an apprentice and every day they just practice their craft. Day by day, the day slip into weeks, the months slip into years, and the tiny act of progress every day makes them masterful.