Everything Sucks in the Beginning

Summary by Krater

Adam Savage discusses strategies for encouraging beginning makers who struggle with slow progress and initial difficulties, drawing on advice from Pixar director Andrew Stanton and reflecting on his own decades of making.

From the video

Answers: How do you encourage someone who is just starting as a maker and struggling with progress?

• encouraging beginner makers
• dealing with early project struggles
• mental preparation for making
• machining vs casting and mold making
• managing personal expectations in craft

What it concludes

• The best acquisition of a skill happens when you actually want something that requires that skill, because it gives the result stakes.
• Everything sucks at the beginning of a project, and you have to travel through the suck to get to the good stuff.
• Preparing to build something three times takes the pressure off when the first attempt goes wrong.
• Men tend to take the vicissitudes of fate more personally than women when things go wrong in a project.
• Machining is the process Adam Savage is most comfortable with because it provides enough friction and structured steps to feel rewarding.