

Ira Glass on the secret of success - ColinWright
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/22/ira-glass-on-the-secret-of-success/

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mechanical_fish
I don't recommend this over the version that's been on YouTube for a long
time:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY>

The kinetic typography gives me a headache, possibly because nobody should be
forced to read text that is _jiggling around_ at _Ira Glass's speaking speed_.
It is also redundant, obviously. Ira Glass is one of the world's most famous
narrators; we can understand him just fine.

It's also necessarily abridged, and while I agree that they captured some of
the best sentences in the clip, there's more to a work of art than just its
topic sentence. (Woody Allen: "I took a speed reading course and read _War and
Peace_ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.") In this case, it's a shame to
leave out the part where Glass pulls out a tape of his younger self to show
how awful his work used to be.

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yakshaving
I went to design school at one of the most well renown schools of Design in
the country. We learned a lot in a very compressed amount of time, and I was
consistently impressed with the raw intelligence of my colleagues.

But the _single thing_ that I noticed differentiated people who were break-out
"all stars" were people who weren't afraid to fail and kept pushing boundaries
week after week of crits (critiques). Learning how to give and take critique
is an essential part of any sort of creative process, but the prerequisite to
evaluation and refinement is the act of raw creation.

A favorite story of mine from a product design professor:

An elementary school pottery class was split into two groups. The first group
was told that they'd be graded on the volume of the ceramic pots they created.
The second group was told they'd be graded on the sheer aesthetic qualities of
only one ceramic pot throughout the course of the semester.

Semester after semester, the 1st group (graded on volume) would inevitably
have the most aesthetically pleasing ceramic pot in the group.

Iterating and more importantly, having the right mindset to learn from those
iterations is pivotal to succeeding.

~~~
the_cat_kittles
That is a great story. Reminds me of The Onion's method for coming up with
headlines- they just make an enormous amount and filter until they have the
best.

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r0s
Comedian Steve Martin has great insight in his auto-biography. I can't find my
copy or an excerpt, but it's something to this effect:

>"If you don’t saturate your life in a single quest, you’ll dilute your focus
to a point where becoming outstanding becomes out of reach."

He emphasizes dedication and tenacity, which lends a lot more credit to his
often quoted line:

>"Be so good they can't ignore you".

~~~
Helianthus
The other takeaway I like from Steve Martin is the idea that it's easy to be
great some of the time but hard to be good reliably. You can have 'on' nights,
but it's handling your off nights that makes a professional.

dang, now I need to figure out where I read this.

edit: ah, found it.

>It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is
clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical. Like lucky cards in
poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be
good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable
circumstances.

[https://eebatou.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/5-creativity-
tips-f...](https://eebatou.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/5-creativity-tips-from-
steve-martin/)

~~~
wallflower
Related - my friends were discussing the difference between professional
bowlers and the really good amateur bowlers. One of theme bowled averaging
160s/170s. An amateur bowler can bowl in the 200s on their home lane but a
professional bowler can bowl on the road, in any condition - any oiling
pattern. Yes, they have many bowling balls (for the conditions) but the
professionals can perform in any situation.

And, that is kind of the difference, between the rash of amateur coders and
professional coders. Amateur coders (it is great that some of them have never
code before) get a thrill from just writing something (the proverbial Hello,
World or more) while professional coders can code in the context of a larger
system and integrate that code. To code when the conditions aren't so great
(e.g. deadlines, pressure, existing architecture).

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kreek
In my free time I produce electronic music. I was just browsing DJ Lucky
Date's YouTube channel and thinking "man he has put in a lot time". In the
last six months or so he has blown up, but the work is there for all to see.

Edit: the link for those interested
<http://www.youtube.com/user/luckydatevideos>

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arrel
It's hard to agree with this as vigorously as I want. Every year I look back
at where I was the year before and realize I was _terrible_ back then, and
when I look back at today in twelve months I'll realize that what I'm working
on right now is not nearly as good as it will be then.

To anyone frustrated with their own mediocre work, keep going! You will be so
much better next year.

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verelo
This aligns with some feelings that have been brewing up inside of me for a
while. I feel like any work, as long as it is real work (not just wasting
time) is valuable...and the harder you try the better it gets, the hard you
try the luckier you get...luck and good work is a good start to the
combination required for success.

I dont think it matters if you're a writer, software developer,
mechanic...anything...time makes you better and the key is to not give up when
you dont see the light at the end of the tunnel...have a little faith that its
just around the bend.

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stevenbrianhall
I try to watch this video about once a month. It never ceases to relevant to
my life and work, I just wish I had seen it ten years ago when I was first
starting.

Thanks for the reminder this month!

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karolist
tl/dr "do a lot of work even as you might feel it's not up to your
expectations but persevere and it'll get better it's normal".

I dunno, tl as in too long doesn't feel appropriate here, I was surprised by
the lack of content actually.

