Daily Inspiration Quote by Jay Duplass

Duplass isn’t offering a cute hustle slogan; he’s naming the quiet gatekeeping mechanism that most creatives internalize. “Permission” here is shorthand for the whole velvet-rope ecosystem: festivals, studios, agencies, critics, even the polite approval of peers. It’s the belief that legitimacy is something granted from above, after you’ve been vetted, improved, and finally deemed “ready.” Duplass is telling you that this system runs partly on your consent.

The line about “somebody to tell you you’re good enough” goes after a deeper trap: not just external rejection, but the way artists outsource their self-assessment to imagined judges. It’s insecurity dressed up as professionalism. By stripping the sentence down to blunt imperatives, he denies you room to negotiate with your fear. No qualifications, no timelines, no “once you’ve learned X.” Just motion.

Context matters. Duplass came up through the indie wave that treated constraints as a style: make something small, specific, and cheap enough that no one can stop you. The Duplass Brothers’ brand of filmmaking wasn’t built on permission; it was built on doing. So the intent isn’t naive optimism so much as a practical strategy for an industry where the official path is crowded, slow, and often arbitrary.

“Make your thing” lands because it’s possessive and personal. Not “make content,” not “build a brand.” Your thing: idiosyncratic, imperfect, and undeniably yours. That’s the point. The work itself becomes the credential.