Ira Glass on Being Creative

I came across an ingenuous and most entertaining YouTube video while surfing on Facebook.  It was shared by my pal Melinda Loh. It made me ask: “Who is Ira Glass?” and “what has he to do with creativity?”.  This below is the video I first saw “Ira Glass on Being Creative“.  It certainly is very creative!

 

This is the full text from the video above 🙂

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

~ Ira Glass ~

 

Who is Ira Glass?

After watching the video above, of course I had to do a bit of search and find for Ira Glass. Found some concise info at Ira Glass on wikipedia.

Basically Ira Glass is most famous for a radio show called This American Life (TAL), of which he is both host and producer. TAL started in 1995 and recently this year, they celebrated their 500th episode. (I have started watching some of these episodes at This American Life website and I can easily understand the charm, popularity of TAL radio shows).

Ira Glass himself is a very personable, charismatic, and charming man – as you can see in the video below. Even the facts of his life are interesting.

He was born to Jewish parents.  Dad (Barry Glass) was an accountant and mom  (Shirley Glass) was a psychologist and infidelity researcher.  In fact, New York Times called her “the godmother of infidelity research”.

Ira Glass is married to Anaheed Alani whose mom is a Christian and dad is a Muslim from Iraq.  All in all, a very interesting and beautiful mixed bag.

 

Interviewing Tips from Ira Glass

Just today I was listening to a video presentation by Yaro Starak.  One of the things that Yaro was talking about was the benefits (to your site) of interviewing other people and being interviewed in turn.

Yaro Starak is an Australian internet entrepreneur who is successful and a very helpful resource for bloggers interested in making money online.  He is one of my newly found heroes – one of the good guys with an honest approach.

So later in the day when I was doing a search and find on Ira Glass, I encountered a click of fortuitous synchronicity. There was an article over at Slate.com where Ira Glass was being interviewed about his successful interviewing style.

I hope the same synchronicity-click is happening for you coz here are the 3 quite illuminating interviews.

Oops .. sorry I can’t show you the interview videos here.  They are in flash format and flash is too hard to embed in WordPress.  Please refer to the Reference below for the videos & text articles at slate.com.  Or if you just want to watch the 3 videos, then they are compiled for you at Slate videos with Ira Glass.

Alternatively you can see part 3 of the interviews directly below.

 

Personal Note:

It may be strange to some of you, especially if you have read the About Me and About shCREDO page to see me posting this Ira Glass article on this site instead of at ClearlyHelena.com – which is more focussed on creativity; or on NetWebbing.com – which is more focussed on blogging, IT, & Web and how interviews could help you monetize your sites.

However after a bit of consideration, strange as it may seem, I have decided to post this Ira Glass post here at shCREDO.com – and as my first post (!) because I find something pleasingly holistic, generic, and educational in the Ira Glass interviews.  It covers creativity, business, and yet my main take on this and what I walk away with is this feeling of wholeness and a small glimpse into the psychology and spirit of the man, Ira Glass.

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