In this motivational monologue, certified high‑performance coach Sean Butner urges listeners to reclaim a craftsman’s mindset and pursue excellence in every aspect of life after a pandemic‑induced period of casualness. He defines a craftsman as someone who focuses on creating high‑quality outputs, whether in software, physical manufacturing, teaching, therapy, or personal relationships. Using a story about Steve Jobs painting a fence for his father, he illustrates how pride in unseen work fuels Apple’s renowned product quality. Sean shares his own experience treating code as a craft—continually learning, improving readability, and embracing self‑expression—despite feeling like an imposter among career programmers. He argues that viewing any profession as a craft drives continual improvement, which then spills over into personal life, relationships, and health. The talk concludes with a call to action: adopt a craftsman’s pride this week, experiment with higher standards in work and relationships, and share results for community support.
Chapters
Sam sa. Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to start your day. Great. Start your day with the coach. I am your certified high performance coach, Sean Butner. And this is the show where we help you start the day. Great. Start the day focused with intention on your life so that you can advance into your full potential. Now, today we're talking about craftsmanship and excellence because just kind of thinking about the last two years, and with the whole pandemic and everything getting a lot more casual as people are working from home, I wanted to talk about, like, we should start thinking about the things and outputs that we're putting out in the world again. We should think about doing those to the best of our ability. And you might say, hey, like, Sean, I'm a professional. I'm not a craftsman. I have an argument for you here in a second. If that's you, you might be thinking, well, you know, I am like a tradesperson. I create physical things in a factory and another type of context. And this is also a conversation for you because, you know, really, what is a craftsman? A craftsman, in my opinion, is someone that is focused on creating quality outputs. And as a sophomore engineer, it really served me in my career to think of the code that I was writing as a craft, as something I was continually getting better at. I was continually learning the nuances of. Of the industry. I was continually growing and getting to a higher level of quality, higher level of excellence, right? So that's how the two are related. So first off, you know, I'll say this idea of being a craftsman has actually helped create one of the largest companies in the world. And if you're thinking, you know, you could put your guest down in the comments below, but really, I'll just spill it now. Okay, so it's Apple, right? There's a story about Steve Jobs working or growing up in the South Bay Silicon Valley. And his dad said, hey, you have to go paint the fence, right? And he asked, like, why do we paint the inside of the fence when people only see the outside of the fence? And I'm probably butchering the story, but here's the general gist. And his dad said, well, you do it because you see it, right? You take pride in your work. You take pride in the things that you create, and you'll know what's on the other side. And that idea of going the extra mile to make something beautiful, to make something more perfect, to make something more complete is this idea of craftsmanship and that you can see that in Apple products, right? The outside aesthetic is usually pretty awesome. And if you go in, things are organized in a very aesthetically pleasing way because the engineers that work on the hardware know and you know, you might not bust open your laptop or your phone or your HomePod or ear pods or anything like that. But you know, you know, this whole idea that carries through the whole product of making it the best that you can, making it with excellence, you know, doing, making sure that all parts of the process are beautiful, are given the full effort, even if not everyone will see it, is the whole concept of craftsmanship and the power of it, right? So, you know, when I was in grad school for information systems, I took a course that talked about how things like business ethics and things of that nature. But what was really interesting, we did a section on, you know, as a technologist, as someone that does software or you know, just runs a business, that you're a craftsman of sorts and you should approach your work that way then kind of overlapping with, you know, job story. But it really served me into thinking every time I approached a coding project, I had a new set of things I had to fix or code. It was how do I make this human readable, how do I make this simpler but more effective? And that kind of stuff, maybe you can relate to that in your life. But it really helped me one push myself to learn more about, excuse me, coding about different coding languages, how they all play together, how they're different and all that kind of stuff. Especially coming from a background that wasn't specifically focused on software, that was a hobby, something I like talking about, something I was interested in or playing on the side, had a couple of coding courses in high school and in grad school. And that's launched my career in software, which is kind of bonkers, especially you kind of feel like an imposter in a group of people that study computer science and had really like dedicated their whole lives and knew a lot more nuance and a lot more about like deeper coding languages and stuff. But you can still bring your perspective to your craft. You know, it's a craft because it's also a self expression of you. So I think that's kind of another power of thinking of your profession as a craft, right? As something that you are continually improving because it carries into your own life. You know, if you want to be excellent at your work as a teacher, as a therapist, as a business owner, that's going to translate to when you're not in that context of work, you're going to want to be more excellent in your day to day life. You know, and I think again that it's time to get back to that. I think we've been coasting trying to figure out things for so long here in the pandemic that a lot of the vitriol, a lot of the anger that's out there is because people aren't, you know, focused on having that sense of pride in their work and a sense of purpose that can come to being, trying to be the most excellent craftsman you can possibly be. So that's what I got for you guys today. That's my thinking. That's how I'm starting to set up my week as I go into it. You know, I put on nice button up shirt for y', all, you know, trying to class it up a little bit here from the live casting station here in my room here. So that's it, guys. Like, what questions you have, what kind of excellence or craft can you bring to your job? Can you bring to your relationships? You know, Valentine's Day is getting close, so that's a lot on a lot more people's minds, you know, how can you be more excellent as a partner, as a parent, as, you know, a kid, you know, whatever, you know, wherever you are in your life, you know, how can you bring excellence to the relationships around you or your health or just how you're taking care of yourself? Right. I think knocking that up a notch will have a huge impact in your life. Adopting the I'm a craftsman I'm aiming for excellence in whatever I do will also help enrich your life. So give it a try this week and let me know what you're gonna try to be even more craftsman like in coming up and we'll cheer you on. Okay, that's it, guys. Thank you for being here. Thanks, Dave. I see man shirt and tie thing. So go out there, live with more joy, more personal growth, more impact in your communities and organizations. I'll see you guys on Wednesday, same time, same place. This is Sean Butner signing out.
