I grew up working in a family construction business in Central California. My Dad started " American Builders " in the early 1970 ' s and I started my first career in construction during Easter Visitation at age 13. The construction company was a diverse crew with colorful characters and divers who had colorful vocabularies. There was Dude, Larry, Larry, Gary, Dutch, Gerald Dilley, the Bratton Brothers, George, Duane, Bob, Dennis and Monte. They were carpenters, painters, plasterers, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, and more.
Bountiful were amazing crafts people. Some were the best in the region and it was superb to watch them scutwork. But I and got to see what happened when they were asked to donkeywork exterior their circle of knack, off their strengths path. Dude Ragsdale was a prodigy for a framing carpenter. If you put a finish hammer in his hand he was competent but not brilliant. If you asked him to salt mines unbefitting a homestead he midpoint came unglued.
I got to see a lot of great pains and I also got to see a lot of do overs. My dad was a utopian and as a result, concrete got torn out and re - poured. Roofs got torn off and re - installed. Paneling got replaced when it wasn ' t installed just right.
If you ' ve seen the Pixar film like Toy Story or Cars it might help you understand what I ' m about to share. In Toy Story, probably in most all animated films you find normally non - living objects coming alive. They become animated with personalities and live real lives like people. With my construction background it might not be too surprising that I sometime think about tools this way.
Now let me ask you a question. Have you ever used a tool for something other than what it was made for? Have you ever used a wrench as a hammer? Have you ever used a pair of pliers as a screwdriver? It works, sort of.
Actually it ' s more nuanced than this? Have you ever used a screwdriver that didn ' t match the slot of the screw? Usually the screw gets stripped. Have you ever used a wrench that didn ' t match a bolt head? Most of the time the bolt head gets rounded. In all of these cases, using a great tool to do the wrong job often leads to inefficient work, frustrating work, and work needing to be done over because it comes out poorly. If you want to be a craftsman in any of the trades, I learned very early that it ' s a huge advantage if you have just the right tool for each segment of a job. And not only is it important to match the correct tool to with the job at hand, it ' s just as important to have the correct tool " in category ". A slotted screwdriver works so much better when the size is just the right fit for the slot.
Here ' s something else to think about. Each of these tools had a manufacturer or maker. That manufacturer had a fairly precise job in mind when they manufactured each individual tool. The manufacturer never planned for a wrench to be used as hammer. When Henry F. Phillips invented the crosshead screw driver, he never planned for it to be used with a slotted screw.
I believe your life is exactly like that. I believe my life is exactly like that. You and I were both created to do a very specific kind of work that is as unique to you as your fingerprints. And the job you were designed to do is one that you are absolutely going to love. It ' s a job that you will be crazy good at almost based on natural talent alone. You were made to do it. It ' s a job you ' ll be insanely great at with experience, hard work and very focused development. And it ' s a job you ' ll be wildly successful at when you put yourself out in the marketplace delivering the unique contribution you were designed to make.
