Blacksmith's Ancient Swords Illustrate Excellence

In his book Deep Work, author Cal Newport provides an example of excellence—a blacksmith from Wisconsin named Ric Furrer. Furrer specializes in ancient and medieval metalworking practices, which he painstakingly re-creates in his shop, Door County Forgeworks. A PBS documentary shows Furrer trying to re-create a Viking-era sword. He begins by using a fifteen-hundred-year-old ...