🌱Three Sentence description​

1. Your contribution to the world matters, express yourself to the world and watch how others interested in the work you put out engage with you

2. Being an expert in a field is not a criterion for sharing what you know in that field. As an amateur, you can connect with other amateurs and from there learn more along the way to being an expert in what you do

3. The whole point about showing your work is for others to see them and engage with you, do the same and when the opportunity comes to expand further, take it and share your work with a broader audience

 

💬 Top 3 Quotes

• The act of sharing is generosity - you’re putting something out there because you think it might be helpful or entertaining to someone on the other side of the screen.

• The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.

• Carving out a space for yourself online, somewhere you can express yourself and share your work, is still one of the best possible investments you can make with your time.” - Andy Baio

 

🧗🏾‍♀️ How I’ve Changed After Reading the Book

After reading this book, I got jolted out of my comfort zone into the reality of showing my work. I have always been a curator of ideas, knowledge, and interests but I’ve never gotten around to sharing it with the world. I guess it’s a bout of imposter syndrome there of feeling that what I have to share is not good enough. But reading his book gives me new insights: I don’t have to be an expert to share my work and put myself online.

 

👣Who Should Read It?

This book is life advice to virtually everybody who has always wanted to share a piece of themselves out there but has not summoned up the courage to. We all have stories to share, things to teach, and advice to give others who have no idea of the knowledge we carry, therefore, I recommend everyone to give this book a try and let themselves be inspired.

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📒Summary + Notes

A New Way of Operating

Times have changed and a new way of sharing ideas has evolved. People care about the behind the scene action, the works and the raw process that leads to the finished product. It is something people rarely see, but when they do. Instead of hoarding up their work and projects, they are open about what they are working on and sharing it with the world

Instead of wasting their time “networking,” they’re taking advantage of the network. By generously sharing their ideas and their knowledge, they often gain an audience that they can then leverage when they need it - for fellowship, feedback, or patronage.

 

01 - You Don’t Have to Be a Genius

Find a Scenius - The great artists, thinkers, curators, etc did not reside in their creativity bubble cooking up ideas and presenting them to the world, no. They were part of a group of other individuals, creatives to make up an “ecology of talent.”

 

The musician, Brian Eno refers to this as “scenius,” a unique way of thinking about creativity. Being a scenius does not mean that individual talent is washed off, it acknowledges that good work is not created in a preconceived bubble - a lone talent.

 

We can stop asking what others can do for us, and start asking what we can do for others.

 

Be an Amateur - Amateurs are not experts in their respective fields, yet they take chances, experiment and follow their instincts. Who knows? along the way, they may discover something different that can elevate their craft.

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Amateurs might lack formal training, but they’re all lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open, so that others can learn from their failures and successes.

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You can’t find your voice if you don’t use it - In this age, if you want your work to be discovered, it has to be online or else, it does not exist. We all have a voice, and we can use it by letting people know what we do and care about online.

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Read Obituaries - Obituaries aren’t about death, but a story of life. By reading obituaries of people who have come, worked the throngs of the world and passed, can inspire us and give us fresh perspectives to help us progress. And this gives us a guideline on what areas to follow and have the guts to put ourselves out there.

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02 - Think Process, not Product

A lot of people are so used to just seeing the outcome of work. They never see the side of the work you go through to produce the outcome.” - Michael Jackson

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By letting go of our ego’s and sharing our process, we allow for he possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move more of our product.

 

Become a documentarian of what you do - It may seem like we have nothing to show the nature of your work. There are people who would be interested in your work and that can only happen if you present your work. Be it a scrap of your thoughts, and document your process as time goes on. By doing so, it becomes clear and you can confidently share them with the world.

 

03 - Share Something Small Every Day

Send out a daily dispatch - Every day is one opportunity more to show your work to the world. From your documentation of your work, find a piece of the process that you can share. If you’re at the start of the project, share your influences and what’s inspiring you, if you’re in the middle share your methods or the progress of your work, and if you’ve just completed your work, show the final project, or what you’ve learnt from the process so far. And if you have many projects in the world, share a report on how they are influencing the world, through storytelling.

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The “So What?” test - Ask yourself ‘So What?’ every time you want to share a piece of information on the internet. If you are unsure about whether to share something, let it sit for 24 hours and come back to it. Ask yourself, “Is this helpful? Is it entertaining? Is it something I’d be comfortable with my boss or mother seeing?”

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Turn your flow into stock - A flow is a feed, a flow of ideas, tweets, posts, etc, and the more these are collected over time, the more they build up a stock. The bigger your stock gets, you can turn them into something more comprehensive such as a book

 

Your stock us best made by collecting, organizing, and expanding upon your flow

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Build a good (domain) name - If you are interested in sharing your work and expressing yourself, the best way is to create a space for yourself online. A place where you are the boss, you control, and no one can take it away from you, and most importantly, ‘a world headquarters where people can always find you.’

• A blog is an ideal place to turn your flow into stock

• Curate your website with your work, ideas, and things your care about

 

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work… and if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be it’s own currency. - William Burroughs

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04 - Open up your cabinet of curiosities

Don’t be a hoarder - We all have treasures, a collection of weird and wonderful things we’ve come across while going about our lives. This can be what inspires us, our thoughts, books we’ve read, the music we listen to, works we admire, people we follow and many more interesting things we fill our treasure chest with. Before we share our work with the world, we can share our interests in the work of others.

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Your influences are all worth sharing because they clue people in to who you are and what you do - sometimes even more than your own work

 

No guilty pleasures -

All it takes to uncover hidden gems is a clear eye, an open mind, and a willingness to search for inspiration in places other people aren’t willing or able to go.” [Therefore,] “being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things too.”

 

Credit is always due - Giving credit to the works of others in our work is worth it and the right thing to do.

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05 - Tell Good Stories

Work doesn’t speak for itself -

Because rarified exceptions aside, our audience is a human one, and humans want to connect. Personal stories can make the complex more tangible, spark associations, and offer entry into things that might otherwise leave one cold

 

Structure is everything - A good story structure is tidy, sturdy, and logical

 

06 - Teach What You Know

Share your trade secrets - The moment you learn something new, turn around and teach it to others. It can be:

• your reading list

• helpful reference materials

• video tutorials

 

07 - Don’t Turn into Human Spam

Shut up and listen - Listen to what others have to say, read their thoughts, and ideas and learn from them. No one wants to interact with someone who is self-centred and plain.

 

You want hearts, not eyeballs -

make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.

 

Don’t ever ask people to follow you. “Follow me back?” is the saddest question on the internet

 

The Vampire test - This is a simple test to know whom you should let in your life and whom you should part with. If after hanging out with someone and you feel depleted and drained, then they are a vampire. If you feel energized and sane, then you are not a vampire.

 

Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it - Derek Sivers

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Identify your fellow knuckleballers - These are your real people who share your interests, have similar missions, and people with whom you share a common respect

 

08 - Learn To Take a Punch

Don’t feed the trolls - At some point, you might need to consider turning off comments. Let people contact you directly, or let them copy your work to their spaces and talk about them as much as they like

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09 - Sell Out

Pass around the hat - When your audience grows and people are interested in the work you put out for free, you might eventually want to turn your audience into patrons.

 

Asking for money in return for your work is a leap you want to take only when you feel confident that you’re putting work into the world that you think is truly worth something

 

Make more work for yourself - Expand yourself and your audience. When an opportunity arises to do more, take it

 

10 - Stick Around

Go away so you can come back - Separate your work from your personal life, that way you can maintain a balance

 

Begin again -

Think of it as beginning again… Look for something new, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open. Document your progress and share as you go so that others can learn along with you. Show your work, and when the right people show up, pay close attention to them, because they’ll have a lot to show you.