Craft and Craftsmanship may be the most maligned and misunderstood concepts of the 21st century.

Which is strange, as we love to idolize craftsmanship. Wood chips fly and the camera pans slowly across the cluttered workshop as the artist bends over a worktable, lost in their work. We admire these individuals. They have a calm gravitas about them and seem to understand something about their place in the world that we can’t quite attain or grasp.

But it is not for us. Craftsmanship is for those strange souls who have endless hours to devote to these ancient, superficial arts. After all, how many lathed pepper shakers do we need?

We have our jobs.

Only many of us harbour a deep secret; our job is no longer enough. We yearn for deep and meaningful work.

“Whether you approach the activity of going deep from the perspective of neuroscience, psychology or lofty philosophy, these paths all seem to lead back to a connection between depth and meaning. It’s as if our species has evolved into one that flourishes in depth and wallows in shallowness.” — Cal Newport, Deep Work. Grand Central Publishing, 2016.

Continue reading [Full article on Medium.com]

Show Notes

A special episode where I discuss my reaction to the Holidays this year, my search for self-care and Season 2 of Taking the Leap!

I'm also excited to announce a sneak peak at the new podcast that I just launched with Jasmin Cheng called Here Be Dragons. We explore navigating life in the new economy without a 9 to 5 job.

You can learn more at: www.herebedragons.fm or on itunes.

Wishing you all the best in 2016!

The Music

Saccades by Kalabi from their The Bubble or the Spirit album.

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Taking the Leap! podcast by Sean Howard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I'm excited to announce the launch of Here Be Dragons. 

A weekly podcast with my dear friend Jasmin Cheng where we discuss navigating life in the new economy.

Each of us has left the corporate world and are trying to find our way. We share our bumps, bruises, insights and humorous stories every week.

You can play episode 2 with the player embedded below. In it, I learn just why I need a Chinese Mother.

I hope you will take a listen and join us on this journey. The next episode drops on Thursday.

You can learn more by visiting our site at www.herebedragons.fm

Building my email list has felt a lot like trying to turn lemons into avocados.

To say I really enjoyed Dave Conrey's latest book, The Gold is in the List, would be an understatement of the highest order. I devoured it and wanted more. 

So much of the list building literature is from people who have lists in the hundreds of thousands. Let's be honest. If these people walk into their bathroom to take a shit, people join their list. They are in a different place than those of us who are trying to get over that first hundred hurdle, or that first thousand.

So I was so happy to read a book that had practical and real advice for people just starting their lists or in their first year or two of building it. And I was even more excited to interview Dave about some of the things we can all take away and put into practice.

What next step will you take away and put into action in regards to your list building efforts? Or what questions do you still have? Comment below and let me know!

Playing with lines and direction.

This morning I set off into the pre-dawn darkness with my trusty sidekick (she who chases squirrels), my DSLR and an 85mm portrait lens.

I wanted to have only one lens and I wanted one unfamiliar to me for landscape work. This was about forcing a constraint that would allow me to see the everyday world I had grown so blind to. 

This is about finding ways to awaken wonder and feed my curiosity. Between client meetings, deadlines, to-do lists and the endless grind of everyday life, it is insanely critical that, as creators, we find a way to feed our curiosity.

I know because I had allowed the embers to become cold ash. It took a trip to Italy to re-awaken the spark and now I want to learn how to stoke these fires even when I'm not able to travel. 

A seagull soars out into the mist.

It's amazing how a different lens can show us a whole new world. And an 85mm is not that far away from a 50mm which I might actually use for some landscape work in some situations. 

The wide vistas quickly slipped away and I was searching for compressed lines and tight compositions. This was my third day at Ashbridges Bay and it had transformed once again. This time via a lovely fog and my awakening curiosity.

As I was leaving the park, I saw a young gentleman struggling along with a camera bag over his shoulder, a bulky tripod in his hands and dragging a rolling camera case. He was stopping frequently to adjust his grip and free the case from the mire.

I smiled as this young man was me not some time back. Dragging an entire studio of lenses and lighting gear into the wilderness, is it any wonder I quickly turned to leaving my gear at home?