Dr. David Lose: The Hard Work of Creativity

It's said that once, upon being asked to address a boys preparatory school on the nature of leadership, Winston Churchill offered a brief but valuable speech. "Boys, never give up. Never. Never. Never."

I thought of that when I watched this video illustrating part of an interview with Ira Glass, host of Public Radio International's This American Life. I've been a huge fan of Ira's for years. His quirky, humorous, generous, and tremendously insightful take on not just issues but life itself has been the heart and soul of This American Life, perhaps my favorite podcast for long drives.

In this part of the interview, Glass makes an observation that is as important as it is easy to overlook: our vision often far exceeds our ability. What to make of that? That it will take time - sometimes years - for your abilities to catch up with your dreams. The only solution? Work. Work, work, work, until after an incredible amount of practice you approach the place where you can execute your vision.

Also interesting was Ira's belief that our very discontent - the fact that we know what we're working on isn't very good yet - is a key ingredient to our eventual success. If we didn't realize our work was mediocre, we wouldn't strive to do better.

The video below is just a two minutes long. I hope you take time to watch it and let it encourage you to keep practicing whatever it is you love - music, being a parent, writing, art, leadership, graphic design, whatever - until you begin to approach your dream.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Taken with permission from David's blog, "...In the Meantime"