The Five Elements: Element 5 Tools for Living. The Fifth Element of Life-as-a-Craft concerns itself with powerful instruments called tools. Tools are objects specifically designed to help us perform a particular task with a higher degree of performance ideally improving the quality of the finished work. Your life.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

The Five Elements: Element 4 – The Human Being. As wood is to the carpenter or clay to the potter, so is the Human Being to the practice of Life-as-a-Craft. A natural, uneven material, the Human Being requires very special handling. It is both fragile and resilient under the right conditions. You are the craftsperson of your unique life.  It is up to you to Make A Masterpiece of Your Life.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

The Five Elements: Element 3 - Family & Personal Finance. Scholars find that personal attitudes toward money developed in our childhood, have a significant effect on the well-being of the families we manage later in life.  Families and individuals must understand this and learn to achieve incremental excellence in this critical Element providing abundance of resources for family and personal growth.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

The Five Elements of Life-as-a-Craft: Element 2: Family Management is concerned with the smooth running of your home making it safe place for family members to live and grow. Like a Master craftsman’s workshop, the ’family workshop’ needs to be managed with clear guidelines if it is going to be successful. 

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

The Five Elements of Life-as-a-Craft: Element 1: Family Heritage covers a wide variety of topics. Who you are and who you become is greatly influenced by your connection to Family. It is the basis of who we first see ourselves to be. We begin our training here in life-as-a-craft.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

Life-as-a-Craft - Phase 4: Mentorship. The 20 year period from ages 65-85+ in the practice of life as a craft, during which the primary objective is to review and select masterworks, knowledge and skills development exercises to make available to those who would seek it, and to form an account of one’s practice of craftsmanship as a benchmark for future generations of practitioners.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

Life-as-a-Craft - Phase 3: Masterwork. The 20 year period from ages 45-65, when the Journeyman having practiced endurance, and distinguished oneself as a skilled practitioner in a variety of subjects within the Five Elements of life-as-a-craft, crosses the threshold into the Masterwork Phase of life-as-a-craft.  The time for practicing at a higher level of craftsmanship creating masterpieces of ’thought’.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

Life-as-a-Craft - Phase 2: Journeywork. The 20 year period from ages 25-45, when the skilled Journeyman having learned the foundations of life-as-a-craft as a young Apprentice, goes into the world to earn their way through their skills and the applied practice of craftsmanship. It is the time of endurance and learning to pace oneself to avoid the modern effects of ’burnout’ caused by wasting one’s energy in a race to nowhere.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

Life-as-a-Craft - Phase 1: Apprenticeship. The 12 year period beginning about age 12-14, up to age 24-25 when the young Apprentice learns to comprehend the nature of the raw materials of the craft-of-life and the skillful use of the tools of the craft. It has as much to do with learning “how to learn” as it does with “what to learn”.  

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com

Making a Masterpiece of Your Life is a framework of ’Five Elements’ organizing all the life-skill subjects you want to learn. An alternative to the trial and error of making it up as you go, ’flying blind by the seat of your pants’. The objective of life-as-a-craft, is to achieve incremental excellence in the subjects you choose to learn within each of the ’Five Elements’, across the ’Four Phases’ of your lifetime. Welcome to The Art & Science of Skillful Living through Craftsmanship.

Companion Resources: podcast.MyLifeMasterpiece.com