One of the best things that happened to me this year was stumbling upon a Youtube video by a Dr. Ali Abidaal, with the clickbaity title, 15 Books to Read in 2021. I have watched videos on this topic amounting to the thousands with a cumulative runtime of 200 hours or thereabouts 🤞🏾. These videos only sparsely help me. Honestly, I probably only end up reading fewer than 5% of the books recommended to me by Youtubers and yet I fall for these titles all time. The overwhelming majority of the books I eventually turn open form some part of the bibliography of my most recent or treasured reads.
Once I start on a topic, I descend into a rabbit hole, digging deeper and deeper, until I encounter and ignore another Youtuber’s recommendation list. I’ll only change subject matter after conversations with my closest and smartest friends. So one day on my YT homepage, Dr. Ali’s video appeared, with the perfect title. The thumbnail was a picture of Ali adorned with glasses, his gaze directed towards the heavens and book titles hovering over his head as if to adduce a knowledge forcefield about him. You already know I was gobbling that ish up! Click.
I watched from start to finish, as one does, and what captured me was not the recommendations per se, rather it was how well he expressed himself. So, I dug a little deeper. I visited the channel and clicked around until I found this. The title alone is just the kind of clickbait the engineers at Alphabet have come to know I like so much from all the snooping they do on me. Enter, Show Your Work!
The time that elapsed between my watching Ali’s video and launching my website was under 3 hours. I remember I paused the video at about 4 minutes in and bought a domain, built my website and hastily wrote and put out the first blog. I eventually went back to the video to watch the latter 12 minutes and promptly started reading Austin Kleon’s essential, the primary focus of this article.
The book itself is dressed in a bright yellow cover etched with massive block letters, complete with an exclamation mark, “Show Your Work!” As if Austin is shouting the message at the top of his lungs. As you pinch the cover open, you notice the subtitle for the first time: “10 Ways To Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered.” It’s a short book. You can read it cover to cover in an hour. It is clear, direct and punchy. This will be the most valuable hour you’ve ever spent.
Austin argues 10 points:
1. You Don’t Have To Be a Genius.
2. Think Process, not Product.
3. Share Something Small Every day.
4. Open Up Your Cabinet Of Curiosities.
5. Tell Good Stories.
6. Teach What You know.
7. Don’t Turn Into Human Spam.
8. Learn To Take A Punch.
9. Sell Out.
10. Stick Around.
From the start, Austin cheers you on. He argues that you do not have to have everything figured out to start sharing your work with others. Work means any artistic expression, be it writing, painting, singing, playing a musical instrument…; But I extend the invitation, as well, to analysts, motivational speakers, entrepreneurs, sportsmen and women, software engineers and whomever else can document and publish what they do. As much as we prefer listening to experts, there is a lot to be gained from giving audience to amateurs.
An amateur documenting a trade as they are leaning it may, at times, offer more value than someone who is so pro that they have forgotten how it was like to not know. You can think about all the terrible teachers you’ve had. Some of them were failing to reach you because they had been instructing on that one thing for so long a time that it became lost on them how one could be ignorant of something so obvious. Their experience shape shifted to resemble a handicap. They forgot how to speak to someone who is entering that field of study for the first time.
My worst lecturer at uni fits this mould to a T. PhD, Professor for however long at a leading African institution. Renowned scientist. Poor first year instructor! We all collected our lowest grades from his module. I suspect he was proud of this. My favourite lecturer on the other hand was a young, kasi gent who was yet to attain his masters at the time. He was exceptional! It was like watching a Dave Chappelle performance every Tuesday and Thursday. You just couldn’t look away. One day he delivered what I can only call a soliloquy on B.E.E. in a classroom that was majority white. It was a respectful chat, but it was spicy too. I had never been in a room with so many nervous white people before that day and I have never since. They were even reluctant to betray so much as a sneeze. You would think that participating in a class where we continuously sipped from a deep well of wisdom would be enough for one to attain an A. I didn’t. Lol. Maybe I’m the problem 🤔.
“BEE stands for Black Economic Empowerment, an integration programme launched by the South African government to reconcile South Africans and redress the inequalities of Apartheid. The policy seeks to advance economic transformation and enhance the economic participation of Black people.”
Do not worry too much about the actual product as you begin. Focus on your process. Set up in such a way that you can observe shortcomings and reset to go again, a little wiser. Iterate as needed for as long as you live. Tyrion Lannister said it best.
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better"
Sharing your work with others means that sometimes you will encounter opinions that you really do not want to hear. They’ll criticise. They will doubt you. It’s inevitable. Develop a thick skin. Be picky about who has your ear. Remember, it is not everyone that talks that has something to say. Get that dirt off your shoulder.
I want to end how Austin ended. Stick around! Put in your 10 000 hours. And SHOW YOUR WORK!
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