“All of us who do creative work, we get into it — and we get into it because we have good taste. Do you know what I mean? You want to make TV because you love TV. You know what I mean? Because there’s stuff you love.  You’ve got really got good taste. And you get into this thing, that I don’t even know how to describe, but there’s this gap. That for the first couple of years that you’re making stuff and what you’re making, it’s really not that good. It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good. It has the 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. Your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. You know what I mean? Like, you can tell that it’s still sort of crappy? A lot of people don’t get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, quit. And the thing that I would just say to you, with all my heart, is that most people I know, who does interesting, creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short.

… But we knew it didn’t have this special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase, if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase.. You gotta know: it’s totally normal and the most important possible thing is to 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 that you’re going to finish one story.” — Ira Glass