For Free

A few weeks back I was having breakfast with Bruce Benedict, the proprietor and creator of Cardiphonia.  Cardiphonia is a music label in the 21st century sense of the word, focused on helping upcoming artists in a niche space (sacred music).  Bruce is one of those guys that you can’t help but love watching.  He loves what he does, and is amazingly good at it.

We have been getting together to talk shop for a few months now, focusing on the challenges of starting and running your own thing.  Anyway, at this one particular breakfast we were talking about the success his label is having.  I asked a fairly innocuous question (or so I thought), which was “How does Cardiphonia make money from all of these artists and the music you write?”

His answer:  ”I don’t ever think about how to make money at it.  I just love doing it.  It’s my art.”

I wonder if being willing to do something for free because you can’t imagine not doing it is, in no small way, a prerequisite to being great at it.