Fame
Sadly, there aren't many opportunities in the fame department, but that path isn't completely closed off. Besides becoming "that burly dude who works at the Renn fair" (hey, it's something), you could try to get some blacksmith street cred by entering and winning the World Championship Blacksmiths' Competition.
Just remind us...who won that last year? Yeah, that's right. We don't know either. And neither does anyone else.
If competition doesn't sound like it's up your alley, there are plenty of moderately well-known blacksmiths who you can try to model your career after. Philip Simmons, for example, produced over 600 assemblages throughout his life. His work is so popular that stories of his life have been told in books and documentaries. So yeah, just be that guy. Easy, right?
Then you've got good ol' Francis Whitaker, who was famously quoted as saying: "Iron has a strength that no material has and yet it has a capacity for being light, graceful, and beautiful. It has this capacity—but no desire. It will do nothing itself except resist you." This quote is slightly more popular than that of the blacksmith Joseph Stern, who said, "I like to hammer stuff." No one has really heard of Joseph.