There’s something I’ve carried with me throughout my entire career:
Strive for perfection, and accept the results.
That doesn’t mean accepting poor work. It doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It means setting the bar as high as you possibly can, giving the work everything you have, and then understanding that we are human beings working with our hands.
I have another saying that I’ve used for years:
I do museum-grade work. From six feet away, it’s perfect. From six inches away, you can see I’m human—and that I tried my absolute best.
And I believe there’s something important in that.
When I was in school learning the craft, something was drilled into us: power tools remove material.
They get you close. They make us efficient. They do an incredible amount of work.
But the minute that piece hits the bench, everything changes.
Now it’s about accuracy.
It’s about patience.
It’s about working slowly and methodically. It’s about planning your next move and sometimes discovering that the material has a different plan for you.
No two cuts are exactly the same. No two pieces of wood are exactly the same. Grain changes. Conditions change. Your hand changes. Sometimes the work itself tells you what needs to happen next.
And that’s where craftsmanship begins.
Nobody gets to rush you at the bench.
Because rushing doesn’t make you faster.
I learned a long time ago that slow is fast, and fast is slow.
Take the extra minute to check the fit.
Take another shaving with the plane instead of trying to take three.
Look at the grain before you put the chisel to it.
Stop and think before making the cut you can’t put back.
Because that extra minute might save you an hour. It might save the piece. And sometimes it might save something you’ve already spent days creating.
As you gain experience, you absolutely become faster. But speed should be the result of mastery and repetition—not the objective of the work.
There is a big difference between working slowly and working deliberately.
A master craftsman might make something look effortless. What you don’t see are the thousands of hours that made those movements efficient. You don’t see the mistakes, the discoveries, the pieces that didn’t work, or all the times they stopped and asked themselves, Is this right?
That’s what eventually creates speed.
But even after all those years, when the work reaches the bench and accuracy matters, you slow down.
You pay attention.
You respect the material.
And you remember that you’re still human.
So strive for perfection.
Work deliberately.
Never let someone else’s urgency compromise your craftsmanship.
And when you’ve given the work everything you have, step back six feet, look at what you’ve created, and be proud of it.
Then, if you want to humble yourself, walk up to six inches.
You’ll probably find something.
And that’s okay.
It means it was made by a human being who cared enough to try for perfection.
