Defining success
It's not about money, but about a building a life that brings you meaning, pleasure, and satisfaction
What does it mean to be a successful furniture maker? I’m always struck by the diversity of ways in which woodworkers answer this question, whether they earn their living from woodworking or pursue it as an avocation in their spare time. While I was a training to make furniture 40 years ago, my fellow students, all men, judged success competitively, comparing their work with that of others. Whose bridle joint fit the best? Whose blind dovetails? Harder joints were worth more. If candidates were equally matched in technical skill, speed became a factor in the accounting: Faster was always better. In fact, impressing others any way you could was generally better, so the cooler the tricks you could muster to wow the socks off your friends and others (the perfect sand-shaded shell inlay, the most convincing relief-carved rendition of a thick hemp rope, a seemingly-impossible confluence of curved, angled parts in a flawless fit), the more successful those others would likely consider you.