The builder's yardstick: your life as the measure of all things

Image created by ChatGPT with DALL-E

A builder builds, and a builder can build many things: a product or service, a team, a company, an essay, a song, a friendship, a home, a family, a culture, a skillset. The builder’s mindset is a perspective, a set of premises, habits, and techniques, to enable and valorize a life built around the building of such things.

But the builder’s mindset is broader than any particular project. It’s broader even than a career of such projects. The builder’s mindset is, most widely, about bringing a builder’s perspective to life. It’s about building your life as a whole.

Here are two of the most common questions I get about the psychology of building:

• What if I’m not sure what I want to build? Does the builder’s mindset even apply to me?

• If I give up on my [startup / graduate degree / sport / marriage / other project that’s not bringing me value or joy], won’t that mean I failed as a builder?

The builder’s mindset, understood as applying to your life as a whole, …