You may know that Taylor Swift is a creative and dramatic singer.

你可能知道霉霉是一个既有创意又有戏剧性的歌手。

You may know that she is also a songwriter.

你可能也知道她还是个写歌人。

But if you assume that all her commercial success came from herself, then you are wrong.

但你如果以为霉霉的商业成功完全是因为她自己，那你就错了。

There are a lot of people who've made great contribution to this icon's triumph.

她的辉煌，是很多人共同努力的结果。

And one of the most important ones of them all is Jack¹ Antonoff.

而这其中最重要的人之一，就是杰克·安托诺夫。

He is Taylor's producer and a musician himself.

他是霉霉的制作人，同时自己也是一个音乐人。

Don't get me wrong. Jack is not just a producer for Taylor Swift.

别搞错了，杰克并不是霉霉的“一个”制作人。

He is Taylor Swift's main producer.

他是霉霉的主要制作人。

2017 has been a fruitful year for him, because besides Taylor's new album Reputation he also produced quite a lot other eye-catching pop records like Lorde's Melodrama² and St. Vincent's Masseduction.

2017 年对他来说是硕果累累的一年，因为他不光为霉霉创作了新专辑 Reputation，同时还制作出了其他很多夺人眼球的流行音乐，例如洛德的 Melodrama 以及圣文森特的 Masseduction。

Being creative is not easy for anyone, even if it's someone as productive as Jack Antonoff that we're talking about.

想做个有创意的人并不是一件容易的事，这对谁来说都一样，即使是想杰克·安托诺夫这样高产的人也不例外。

And his advice is:

而他的建议是：

If it's too big, don't look at it.

如果目标太过远大，那就不要注视它。

“If, on January 1, 2017, someone laid out in front of me that I was going to make the Lorde record and the St. Vincent record and the stuff with Taylor Swift, I’d say I couldn’t do it.

“如果 2017 年的 1 月有人说我会给洛德、圣文森特还有霉霉做出这些大作，我肯定会说我做不到。

But I knew they were going to get done. You slowly chip away at it one day at a time and keep your head down.

但我当时知道这些事最终总肯定会被做出来。你所需要做的，就是每天都多做一点，闷头做就好了。

If it’s too big, don’t look at it.

如果目标太过远大，那就不要去注视它。

If you want to do something massive, don’t look at it, because all you’re going to see is why it won’t work.

如果你想完成一件大事，那就不要总是盯着它看，因为那样的话你只能看到做不到的理由。

The killer of productivity is reality.”

创造力的头号杀手，是现实。”

This is the advice that Antonoff shared.

以上就是安托诺夫的建议。

And by the way, the time he usually wakes up is between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m.

啊，对了，他通常起床的时间是中午 11 点到 12 点之间。

Right, he is not an early bird. And that's something to be despised by nearly all the success books.

是的，他并不是一个早起鸟。这是几乎所有成功学书籍里都在鄙视的。

But apparently³ he is teaching a lesson way more important than anything they taught in those books:

但是显然，他教会我们的东西，比这些书里的任何东西都重要得多：

Life is a mess. It's already hard even if someone gave you a plan to follow.

生活就是一团乱麻，即使已经有人给你订好了计划，你过得也不会轻松。

It's much harder if your job is to create something new.

而如果你的工作是创造新东西，那就更难了。

There is no shortcut⁴ for anything.

世上没有什么捷径可以走。

You just try everything you can and deal with it when something goes wrong.

你只能尽力尝试一切你能做到的东西，然后在出问题的时候硬着头皮去应对。