Whether you are an aspiring brewer or winemaker, or whether you work in the finance department, all of us who work in the craft beverage industry are doing creative work.

Some aspects may be more creative or artistically inspired than others, but the vast majority of us are here because we are passionate about the business we are in, the product we are making, and the culture it contributes to.

And like Ira Glass, we are storytellers.

There has been a passage quote of his that has been circulating social media for a few days, and I think it really speaks to our industry and to the craft beverage jobs community in many ways. You may be looking for a job in craft beverage, or you may be working your way up towards head brewer, but we all come here with killer taste; keep working hard, and your own career “gap” will start to shrink.

Ira (along with visual storyteller, Daniel Sax) explains it way better…

THE GAP by Ira Glass from Daniel Sax on Vimeo.

“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.”