Disclaimer: these are personal notes taken after and during my listening of the audiobook “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. My notes are organized following Ali Abdaal’s reading notes template. The notes were taken by and for myself, so you might lack some context sometimes. Read them if you’re interested in understanding my point of view of the book. If you’re interested solely in the content of the book, go and read it. That being said, enjoy.
The Book in 3 Sentences
Show work you like doing, you'll attract good opportunities and good people. They'll help you keep doing what you like to do.
You won't have to do too much self promotion if you are genuinely and wholeheartedly sharing things you love.
Engage with the community around your sources of interest and you'll find your tribe.
Impressions
Wow. This book! It really addresses so many excuses one could come up with when thinking about getting oneself out there. I'm blown away by how much it covers. And it does it in a blog post style that's easy to read.
What I particularly enjoy is that the author goes into topics I wouldn't have linked with blogging. For instance, he goes lengths to explain that putting oneself out there can attract opportunities, and good like-minded people, and it fuels your enthusiasm and helps you playing the game longer. He also mentions very good personal reasons and advantages that come up with having a blog, such as the benefits of documenting what you do, and the spirit of being a life long student.
All of that is also next to some valuable and down-to-earth life advice, which I'm always interested in.
This book, to me, is a permission slip to be wholeheartedly interested in something and an invitation to share it. And who knows what it can bring me, beyond personal satisfaction.
How I Discovered It
I've known about it for a while, but a recent video by Ali Abdaal made me buy it as an audiobook.
Who Should Read It?
Everyone interested in giving the best of themselves.
How the Book Changed Me
I'm now willing to put some of myself out there and see what'll happen.
Reading notes
1. You don't have to be a genius
Find a scenius
Creativity is an emergent property of a network (a scenius, contraction of genius and scene) of people interested in the same thing.
Being part of a scenius is about how we can contribute rather than how we can shine.
The internet is a bunch of virtual sceniuses where everyone can contribute.
Be an amateur
Amateurs have many advantages.
They're not pressured to excel all the time so they can experiment.
They're not afraid of making mistakes, even publicly.
Beginners can help other beginners sometimes better that masters.
Beginners can motivate other people to be beginners.
Define what you want to learn. Find a scenius. Write about what they don't write about. Embrace being an amateur. People will find you if you are genuine.
You can't find your voice if you don't use it.
Don't worry about finding your voice, it'll come if you're genuine.
Nowadays, if you don't show what you do online, it doesn't exist.
I'm not sure that I agree with that particular point. It's sad, and incorrect. It does exist, and it's beautiful in its own way and deserve the same consideration. Not all work is supposed to be shown.
Read obituaries
Memento mori
Being aware of one's own mortality is the best incentive to do the things that are worth doing.
2. Think process not product
Take people behind the scenes
Nowadays, people are interested in seeing how things are made
(just look at yourself)
You can decide how much you want to share, and how vulnerable you're willing to be
People want and will connect with the creator, and creators can also leverage that
People are interested in the behind the scenes because sometimes they want to participate to the scenius themselves
(just look at yourself)
Become a documentarian of what you do
Whatever you do, there's a way to make it presentable to your potential audience.
Document your work, if possible visually. It brings clarity and it is a measure of progress.
3. Share something small every day
Send out a daily dispatch
Overnight success is a legend. Good work takes time, but it's made out of small steps.
Showing your work takes the focus away from the final portfolio and mastered skill. It refocuses you on the daily steps.
Share your daily progress from the documentation pool you create on adequate social media platforms
Showing daily work can be a better showcase of your work than just a collection of finished products
What to share?
Beginning: share inspirations and influences
Middle: methods and progress
Finish: the final product and interactions of the product with the world
The So What test
Focus on daily updates and on your process. Don't start by thinking about books, conferences and online courses.
Only through reviewing your constant documentation can you identify patterns and build substantial content upon them. Then you can think about articles, books, courses, etc.
This reminds me of Steve Job’s quote in his Stanford speech : You can only connect the dots looking backwards.
Turn your flow into stock
Focus on daily updates and on your process. Don't start by thinking about books, conferences and online courses.
You can only connect the dots looking backwards. This quote from Steve Jobs also applies here. Only through reviewing your constant documentation can you identify patterns and build substantial content upon them. Then you can think about articles, books, courses, etc.
Build a good domain name
Have a blog
Your name = your domain name
Your website is your kingdom as opposed to social media where you don't control anything.
Focus on good work rather than fame and money. People will come naturally, and you won't be corrupted and compromised.
Stick with your website, don't jump on a shiny new platform and abandon the blog.
4. Open up your cabinet of curiosities
Don't be a hoarder
Share what you like, like in the 5 bullet Friday from Tim Ferriss. You're a curator.
Wow, I can actually do that, since I consume so much content online.
No guilty pleasures
Own what you like. We are rich of our diversity and differences.
You'll connect with people who like it.
Credit is always due
Give credit
Include this:
What the work is
Who made it
How they made it
When and how they made it
Why you're sharing it
Who recommended it to me
Use hyperlinks.
Don't share something if you can't credit it.
5. Tell good stories
Work doesn't speak for itself
The story around our work is incredibly important to connect with an audience
Humans want to connect, that'w why stories are so powerful
Our work already has a story around it, so we might as well embrace that fact
Learn storytelling
Structure is everything
Learn the structure of stories and apply it to your own story telling.
Structure : there's a problem, you try to solve the problem, and then resolution.
You can tell the stories you're in the middle of by leaving the end open.
Keep the audience in mind. Speak to them, respect their time and write well.
Talk about yourself at parties
Work on a short bio and on how you talk about your work.
Have an always ready bio in two sentences
Don't use adjectives. Own what you do.
6. Teach what you know
Share your trade secrets
Your trade secrets are conceptually simple but often hard to master
Teaching is not instant competition training
Teaching can bring you the following benefits
The audience might be more glad to buy your product knowing how hard it is to make
Teaching can be a competitive advantage
Teaching attracts more interest in your work and increases the audience's engagement with you story
Teaching and showing your work attracts people who are good or better than you at what you do and they'll teach you
Do's:
Make teaching informative, educational and promotional
Once you learn something, teach it to others.
Share your reading list.
Point to reference materials.
Create some tutorials and post them online.
Use pictures, words and video.
Take people step by step through part of your process
Make people better at something they want to be better at
7. Don't turn into human spam
Shut up an listen
First you give, than you get
Giving is, for instance, giving feedback, answering questions, chatting about stuff you love, connecting people together, noticing people.
Be interested in things, and connect about them. Engage with the community, act as a fan, ask for reading advice
If you want to be a writer, be a reader first
You want hearts, not eye balls
Don't play the numbers game. Having a good audience is the only things worth striving for, not the largest one.
Be genuine, don't do things because they'll get you somewhere. Do them because you love doing them. You'll attract the right kind of people.
If you want to be interested, you have to be interested. (I can testify for that. I get positive comments from people telling me that I'm super interesting, and charismatic and attractive and engaging when I explain something I love with the energy of that love)
Don't do "networking activities". Connections shouldn't be a goal, they're a byproduct.
The vampire test
Whatever brings you energy or enthusiasm, do it more (and put it in your calendar, like Tim Ferriss recommends in his video How to live a full life).
Whatever drains your energy or enthusiasm, don't do it anymore.
As a personal note, I think that doing daily, weekly, monthly, annual reviews of such things under a written and maybe formalized form is the most efficient way of doing it intently and consciously and effectively. Reviewing and acting on the discoveries made while reviewing (for instance in the bullet journal method).
Identify your fellow knuckleballers
Look for your knuckleballers, your tribe, your community
Take care of them
Meet them in real life, you won't regret it
What I get from this whole chapter is: be a good person, humble and helpful, generous and thoughtful, be the best you can like in real life and good things will come your way. Don't look for fame, money or numbers. Do what you like, you'll attract like-minded people. That’s simply good life advice.
8. Learn to take a punch
Let them take their best shot
Don't take criticism personally, you're not your work. Meditation helps, you're not the stories in your head.
The more criticism you encounter, the more you'll get used to it and realize its helpfulness.
You can and should protect whatever area of you or your work that is still too vulnerable to be shared.
The only good feedback comes from people who like you and your work. The rest is worthless, especially trolls.
Block people and get rid of bad comments. You can even turn the comments off at some point.
9. Sell out
Even the renaissance had to be funded
You can and should make money with your work.
Pass around the hat
Once the audience is there, turn them into patrons.
There are different ways to do it: donations, pre orders, selling products and services
Money in your bank account the only true measure of value of what you sell, just like Nat Eliasson says in this video.
Keep the price fair and the offer valuable.
Keep a mailing list because that business model works really well.
Treat your subscribers with respect.
Give things away freely on your website and ask for their address. Then, when you have something substantial to sell, do it with the mailing list.
Make more work for yourself
Don't worry about wether you're selling out or not. Just worry about taking advantage of the opportunities that will allow you to do more of the things you want to do.
Think bigger, embrace a challenge and change.
Pay it forward
If you get success, your priority is to give back. Help the people who helped you getting there.
At some point, you'll have to stop saying yes, and start saying no because there will be to much to do, and you need to focus on the important.
Regarding the specific problem of having too many emails, one solution is to hold "office hours", or AMAs.
10. Stick around
Don't quit your show
Basically, keep at it, keep going, don't give up.
Success comes with sticking around for long enough
Chain smoke
Past successes or failures are no indication of future performances
Engage chain smoking mode. Here's how to not loose momentum:
Don't take breaks between projects.
Get inspiration for coming projects by looking at things that could be improved in previous ones.
Have something planned to work on for the day you finish something.
Go away so you can come back
Take breaks. Long sabbaticals or regular non negotiable times during the day to disconnect from work
Use commute time to disconnect
Exercise, it has a great effect on the mind
Go out into nature, and cut off all electronics for a while
Don't start over, begin again
Don't stop learning, don't get comfortable in Mastery.
Sometimes, start over again, be an amateur again, you'll do better things.
Don't hesitate to get rid of old work, to make symbolic room for the next things.