There two kinds of professionals in this world: painters and sculptors.
Not necessarily in the traditional sense, but in how they approach their work.
Painters
Take a blank canvas and fill it. Their imaginations drive them to build, they are able to create something out of thin air. They imagine the colors, the shapes, and the depths of a finished piece of work even before they start. They know what their end-goal looks like and they add to a blank canvas to make their work come alive.
In today’s economy these might be engineers (traditional & tech), copywriters, chefs, or entrepreneurs that see an opportunity and start tinkering in their garage.
Sculptors
Start begin a block of granite, wood, or another element. Then they chip away at it to make it smooth in all the right places and sharp in others. Their work is not easy. It takes a real craftsman’s eye to see beauty locked inside a slab of plain.
The first thing that comes to mind here is a entrepreneur that has an idea, but doesn’t know how to make it come to life. Other professions might include managers or business owners that hire someone to build their website.
You’ve seen them both. You know who they are and you’ve come in contact with them. Many of the sculptors I have worked alongside don’t know what they want. Rather, “they know what they don’t want.”
Many times it’s my job to help those sculptors find out what it is they want. They can’t create out of thin air, but they can critique. They can’t build, but they can refine. They don’t have originality, yet they have taste (or so some of them think).
Painters sound like this
“Try it”
“Why not?”
“See where it leads us”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect”
“Nobody has done this before”
Sculptors sound like this
“I don’t like that”
“Change that color”
“Let’s move this here”
“Can you make that larger?”
“This isn’t what I pictured in my head”
Painters add. Sculptors remove.
But in order to remove, there has to be something from which to take away. The sculptors need the painters. Without them, they have nothing.
There is no shortage of people with ideas, and there’s something to say for simplifying an idea as a great sculptor can do. But if you can’t add, it’s hard to bring value. If all you do is take away, you’ll never be able to start from scratch.
Entrepreneurs see opportunities and they create. I challenge you to find a solopreneur that is a sculptor. There aren’t any, they all have painters helping.
This is not to say that sculptors are bad people or useless. I was a sculptor for a long time, and in some ways I still am. But we need to learn to create, not just take away.
When you know how to create, it helps you understand what can be taken away. It helps you know the struggles of the painter when you ask them to take something away from their work.
“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively”
– Dalai Lama XIV
On the other hand, many painters have the abilities to create, but don’t always have a vision for what to create. For example, I met with a guy that doesn’t know what he wants to do next in his career, but he has the abilities to create his future product(s). Skills without vision.
He’s been a sculptor for a long time, now he’s having to learn to paint. When you can do both, you’ve got an unfair advantage.
Not all sculptors have vision
And not all painters have the ability to create masterpieces.
The most successful companies are the ones that pair the painters with the sculptors most effectively. They will have the vision and the design of the sculptors paired with the engineering and creativity of the painters.
If you’re a painter, learn to simplify a piece of work – take something away.
If you’re a sculptor, learn to add value – create something.
See how the other side lives and you will take your craft to the next level.
Are you painter or a sculptor?
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Leave me a comment or chat with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear from you. Have a great week!
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