As an introvert, I’ve hidden my serious work for most of my life, always appearing as the class clown. Thus, when people get the chance to talk with me one-on-one, they’re often surprised at how serious I am. I hated self-promotion; I saw it as expressing arrogance. However, I’ve since realized that I did not show my work because of arrogance itself. I was afraid that others could see that I am not a perfect human, that my work is not perfect. This is one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride.
While in university, I slowly understood that any meaningful work deserves to be shown, even when it is small, as this can be beneficial if you want to connect and open yourself to different kinds of opportunities.
This book solidifies and gives me new insights on promoting my work: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon. I read this today while waiting for my laundry to dry. Totally a recommended short book and you can purchase it from this link below to support this blog.
The book title is self-explanatory. I wrote about creating and practicing your craft in one of my previous articles here: Embrace Creativity No Matter What: Lessons from Franz Schubert. But this book is talking about showing it. Kleon argues that showing your craft is just as important as creating and practicing your craft. He goes even further to say that: “It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.”
I am surprised by that statement. But deep down, I know that it is true. Even my busiest and most antisocial professors publish their work and papers online.
My key take for the whole book: This action of showing your craft transcends to proclaiming our existence. As humans, to exist is to create, and as social creatures, we ought to let others experience our creation.
So here is my summary that I incorporated with my personal notes for every chapter, and as always, in the end, I’ll show you my practical steps that I apply from this book.
1. You Don’t Have to Be a Genius
We often shy away from showing our work because we’re not experts. We think we have to be the best of the best so that our work is worthy of being exhibited. But if we wait until we’re all experts, by that time we’d be regretting everything.
We also often misunderstood high-achieving individuals like Einstein or Mozart as lone geniuses. In fact, they did have their own supportive circles and communities that helped them to thrive. Kleon suggests that instead of hopelessly waiting to be a genius, we should find a scenius. It’s a term coined by English musician Brian Eno to describe the collective intelligence and creativity of a community or scene, as opposed to the traditional idea of a lone genius. It emphasizes that exceptional work often emerges from a collaborative environment where artists, thinkers, and other creatives support and inspire each other. In short, geniuses are made from communities that support them. So, start with finding a community that supports your craft.
At the same time, we’re afraid of being called amateurs. Kleon argues that this is totally fine. By being labeled amateurs, we’re not afraid of exploring our craft and showing our work, even if it’s not perfect, because we do it out of love. The word “amateur” is even derived from the Latin word “amator” which means “lover”.
That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else
–Charlie Chaplin
Kleon also suggests reading obituaries and reminding ourselves of our inevitable death in the future. We’ll see people regretting their lost opportunities because they were too afraid of taking their chances. This is what the Stoics called memento mori, which literally means “You must die.”. Ironically, remembering this every day can potentially help us live fully. Just like how George Lucas (the director of Star Wars) dedicated every single day as an “extra day” because he almost died in a car accident when he was young.
For instance, let’s look at this emotional interview. The man named James in the interview said that he wrote 2 plays that he has never shown to anyone. His life is filled with regret for what could have been. Lord, have mercy on this old man. Let us not regret our lives.
2. Think Process, Not Product
In this digital era, it’s possible to share and view everything. Back in the day we have to wait an artist to work in total secrecy before releasing their art. Now with modern tools, anyone can document the progress leading to their end product. Kleon advises creators to be documentarians of what they do, documenting their process. Because it’s interesting to see what’s behind the scenes, to see the humanity behind the artist. This documentation can be any media, it can be a blog post, an Instagram story, video, voice note, or anything you can think of. It does not have to be a masterpiece of art, simply document your process.
3. Share Something Small Every Day
Dedicate 30 minutes every day to share something. Don’t overthink. It can be any form, but this something have to be meaningful, in the sense that it has to be helpful or entertaining. If you share something small every single day consistently, you’ll end up with a mountain! I love this quote in the book that value consistency:
One day at a time. It sounds so simple. It actually is simple but it isn’t easy: It requires incredible support and fastidious structuring.
–Russel Brand
Just because it is simple does not mean that it is easy.
Robin Sloan, the American author, introduced the economic concept of “stock and flow” into creative work. The idea is that your daily “flow” (the small posts, tweets, or other incremental outputs) will eventually build up into a larger “stock” of work, such as a blog post, book, movie, or other more substantial form. By consistently contributing to your “flow” through small, regular creative efforts, you can gradually accumulate a body of work that can then be shaped and developed into these bigger projects.
4. Open Up Your Cabinet of Curiosities
This chapter talks about sharing your influences and inspiration. Be honest with what you like and share it. They’re worth sharing becase our tastes define us and our work. For example, my writing style for most of my blog posts is influenced by Barbara Oakley’s book, A Mind for Numbers. So, it’s fine to share your inspiration, and don’t forget to give credit to your heroes.
5. Tell Good Stories
Your work is not interesting without stories. I heard someone else said that “Art is not only about creating something new, but creating something meaningful.”. If you share your work without value or meaning behind it, your audience won’t be able to connect to it. There’s this quote in the book:
…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.
–Rachel Sussman
Connect your personal story to your work before showing it. Remember to put your story in a clear and interesting structure but still be honest.
6. Teach What You Know
Don’t gatekeep the knowledge within your craft. By sharing and teaching others, you can actually add more value to your work. Kleon explains, a restaurant that shared its cooking techniques and recipes on YouTube ended up gaining more customers as a result. Rather than worrying that this would let the competition in, the restaurant understood that its true craft could not be easily replicated through simple YouTube videos. Instead, this strategy helped make the public more aware of the restaurant’s existence and the quality of its offerings. The key is recognizing that by openly sharing what you know, you generate greater interest and appreciation for your work, rather than diluting its value.
7. Don’t Turn Into Human Spam
Be adaptive and listen to what people want from your work. Don’t just exist for the sake of existing. Kleon put it like this: “If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community, you have to first be a good citizen of that community. If you’re only pointing to your own stuff online, you’re doing it wrong. You have to be a connector… If you want followers, be someone worth following… If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested… 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.”
Human spam is what he calls as people who only care about passive consumers. What we need are potential collaborators. That’s why it is important to listen and also be able to surround yourself in like-minded community in your craft. You have to actively interact with them both online and in real life.
8. Learn to Take a Punch
By exposing your work, you’re taking a risk (this is mostly a good thing). You have to be ready for criticism. It’s impossible to avoid criticism, there will be always people who criticize you. The two important points that I can understand from this chapter are:
- Adapt to a new life where it’s always possible to be criticized. Don’t be overly sensitive. Don’t be a pussy.
- Be selective in where you seek feedback – don’t waste time entertaining trolls who criticize without even engaging with your work. At the same time, remain open to genuine critiques that can help you improve. The key is finding the right balance. Don’t be a human spam who dismisses all feedback, but also don’t let unfair criticism derail you.
9. Sell Out
This chapter opens up with this cheeky quote:
An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.
–Ben Shahn
As you grow in confidence of your work, you can start to charge for your work or earn money. This is totally fine if you already put a significant work out there. Don’t need to be afraid and undervalue your work. Keep your audience base
10. Stick Around
This last chapter basically tells us to not quit and work hard. If we easily quit, we would not ever achieve anything. This famous illustration put things in perspective. (I don’t know who the illustrator is)
To work hard is also to rarely take breaks. Always keep your momentum. Consistently practice and create. But Kleon also suggests to take sabbaticals to condition ourselves to perform again, this can be done through commute, exercise, or nature.
Thank you for reading this. Feel free to reach me out through the Instagram account on the homepage if you want to discuss anything!
My Personal Practical To-Do Lists
- Since this is my first book review on this blog, I’ll upload a post about this into @ars.vitae.project Instagram account. This means I need to create an Instagram feed template for book reviews.
- I also plan to document my journey of learning something that I’ll reveal soon at this blog and on Instagram, hopefully I can create cool projects afterwards using the new knowledge.
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