Inspiration from Ira Glass

Ira Glass is the host of a show on NPR called "This American Life". The show has just been made into a TV series and is about to debut on Showtime (which I don't have). I found this on YouTube and found it to be so inspiring that I want it tattooed across my back, or made into a giant which will serve as the back to an alter of creative encouragement.

Here's what he said:

"There is something that nobody tells beginners, and I really wish someone had told me this. All of us who do creative work get into it because we have good taste. You know what I mean? Like you want to make TV because you love TV, there’s stuff that you just love.

So you’ve got really good taste, and you get into this thing that I don’t even know how to describe, but it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple of years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, ok, it’s not that great, it’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, like you can tell that it’s still sort of crappy.

A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point they quit. And the thing that I would just like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Some of us can admit that to ourselves, and some of us are a little less able to admit that to ourselves. But we knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.

And, the thing that I would like to say is that everybody goes through that. And for you to go through that, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase, or you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase, you gotta know that it’s totally normal, and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story, whatever it’s going to be. Like you create the deadline. It’s best if you have somebody who’s waiting for work from you. Somebody who’s expecting it of you, even if it’s not somebody who pays you, but that you’re in a situation where you have to turn out the work.

Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you’re actually going to catch up and close that gap, and the work that you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.

In my case, I do a national radio show, right, like, I make my living at this and I’ve been making my living at this for a long time. We’ve won the Peabody award, won all sorts of prizes, 1.7 million people listen to our show, and they listen almost through the entire show, people love our show, this show that I make with my co-workers. I’m at a place where I’m done, I’ve mastered this thing. I gotta tell you, I took longer to figure out how to do this than anybody I’ve ever met. (Plays tape of himself reporting badly in his eighth year of broadcasting and comments.)

It takes a while, it’s going to take you a while, it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that. And you will be fierce, and you will be a warrior and you’re going to make things that you know in your heart aren’t as good as you want them to be, and you’ll just make one after another."

And you’re going to get better.

see the video