Work.

The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.

Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.

The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.  An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.  The artists in your life are gift-focused, and their tenacity has nothing at all to do with income or job security. Instead, it’s about finding a way to change you in a positive way, and to do it with a gift. There’s a strong streak of intellectual integrity involved in being a passionate artist. You don’t sell out, because selling out involves destroying the best of what you are.  I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.  Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.  Art is unique, new, and challenging to the status quo. It’s not decoration, it’s something that causes change.  Most of all, art involves labor. Not the labor of lifting a brush or typing a sentence, but the emotional labor of doing something difficult, taking a risk and extending yourself.

I call the process of doing your art, your "work."

Seth Godin