My first review is actually just a completion of what I started last year in my previous blog post: Show Your Work!. I picked this up on the recommendation of YouTuber Ali Abdaal, and while it is a rather small book, and a pretty quick read, it still took me a year to get it done. Nevertheless, I'm finally done with it, and I'm ready to share a few thoughts. Going through the book, I was able to draw so many parallels with other things in life like finances, or how my agency handled social media content, and I would even go so far as to say it was educational, giving some insight into some of the psychology of consumers and marketing.
TL;DR: It was a short, easy, engaging read, with some nuggets of wisdom to incorporate into my approach to self-promotion. The gist of the book is: people like seeing the process behind the product. Find a way to show people small, meaningful snippets of your creative process on a daily basis. This serves to not only build your audience, but to build a meaningful connection with your audience, and in return they get invested in your story and success.
It was largely at the behest of Ali that I started this blog to begin with. However, reading Show Your Work! helped cement for me the reason one might want to journal about their daily grind. Austin Kleon writes in a fairly straightforward and easy to read style. He has a few other books that I'm given to understand are along the same lines, so I plan on picking those up in the future for more reading. The main thrust of the book centers around artists and creators and how they can generate an audience by slowly pulling into their orbit, people that find their process as interesting as their finished product. This is, essentially, a marketing book, but the product is you. For this review I think I would like to break down the book's content chapter by chapter, and for that, I'm going to use the chapter title to title each section.
Intro: A New Way of Operating:
While many people naturally shy away from self promotion, if you're someone that wants to be recognized and rewarded for the work you're doing and creating, then self promotion is essential, and this book serves as a how-to guide to self-promotion, but without the off-putting airs of being a braggart. One of the key points for me was one I had heard echoed in someone else's talk on the matter.
Imagine if your next boss didn't have to read your resume, because he already reads your blog.
I think that that point, more than any other in the intro section was the one that really struck a chord. I had heard something similar from Ali when one of his friends got a job under similar circumstances, but it also echoed the sentiment of another content creator and YouTuber, Network Chuck.
Chuck is a network and computer engineer that focuses on delivering some of the heady concepts of networking and programming to the general public in very palatable and easy to understand video segments. His reason for starting a website echoes a good bit Kleon's thoughts in Show Your Work!. He makes the case that everyone needs a website for a variety of reasons that he puts forth in his video (linked above), but one of those reasons was for self-promotion: using your website as a resume that you could present to prospective employers.
He brings up other reasons that I'll get to shortly, but his main point here was that, when he was in charge of hiring for a firm, applicants that had websites automatically stood out from the crowd. He would end up spending more time one the applicants that had websites, because he would go and look at the websites, then he would have such a better idea of the applicant because he got to see their passions, their writing style, etc. This is much the same reasoning that Austin gets into in his book, and it's partly why I started this blog in the first place. Additionally, Austin also adds the thought:
Imagine losing your job, but having a social network of people familiar with your work and ready to help you find a new one. Imagine turning a side project or hobby into a profession because you had a following that could support you.
That probably hits at the second fundamental reason that I put in the time and effort here that I am. After matters of faith, my second highest priority is to ensure the welfare of my wife and kids. That passion and pursuit takes many forms, but the end goal is to always ensure that they have financial security. For that reason, I am constantly trying to find ways to generate income that isn't attached to my physical labor and time. It's that pursuit of building wealth and financial security that I try to share more than anything, but that pursuit has many aspects to it that may not at once be apparent: like investing first in myself and my education by reading and writing, before I pour money into other investments.
1. You Don't Have to Be a Genius.
Clearly I'm not a genius, but Austin's first point is that ordinary humans are very much interested in the daily lives of other ordinary humans. While we may put certain people up on pedestals as celebrities, think about how popular it has become for people to watch other people do the most mundane of daily tasks. People love to watch other people play video games, or open toy boxes, or put on makeup. In fact, one of the most successful YouTube channels was just a boy opening toy boxes.
Find a Scenius: There's a persistent "myth" as he calls it, of the "lone genius" toiling away in solitude to bring some brilliant creation to the masses. The more realistic creative process takes place in community. Humans are geared for community for various and sundry reasons, but among those is its affect on creativity. In a communal approach, creativity occurs in an "ecology of talent" - a group of like-minded individuals that share similar passions. He calls it a "scenius" after a comment from musician Brian Eno. Rather than creativity being done in isolation, it makes creativity is a social affair, and let's everyone else play a part in it.
Be an Amateur: Austin's next point is that in market filled with professionals, oftentimes it is the amateur doggedly pursuing some venture or other with outright passion and love for the subject, that gains the upper hand. Whereas the master may be unwilling to show imperfection, the amateur can revel in it. The amateur also isn't steeped in tradition and dogma, and can be free to pursue unconventional methods when trying to overcome obstacles. Whats more, it's easier for the amateur, the mediocre, the average everyday man to help others along the process of learning than the master, since they're still on the same path of learning.
You Can't Find Your Voice if You Don't Use It: I've heard many people tell the world to "find your voice," without having any real clue what it meant, why I should, or how I could. Austin says that the thought is putting the cart before the horse. Just start talking about those things you love, and your voice will follow. Austin uses Roger Ebert as an example. He says that Ebert already had an established career as a critic, but it wasn't until he lost his ability to speak that he found his voice. He had previously relied on speaking in his career, and with that no longer an options, Ebert turned to writing as an outlet, and soon began to write at a breakneck pace about anything and everything. He wrote essentially, as a matter of existence, for without writing, he would cease to exist. In much the same way, if we want to exist to the outside world, we have to share.
Read Obituaries: His final point in this chapter is to understand the urgency of life and the inevitability of death. George Lucas had a near-death experience that spurred him into film making and eventually into making Star Wars. Author Tim Kreider was stabbed in the throat and noted in one of his books that "for a whole year, he was happy and life was good." Writer George Saunders said similarly, "'for three or four days after that, it was the most beautiful world.'" But these epiphanies don't last. So Austin says that making a daily habit of reading the obituaries is a way of maintaining that frame of reference, and adding urgency to your work.
2. Think Process, Not Product.
Show Your Work! is not about a way of telling the world how great you are, but about telling the world that you're on a journey, and this is what the daily grind looks like.
Take People Behind the Scenes: Austin writes that there's painting the noun, and there's painting the verb. There's artwork the product, and there's the art work the process. Refer back to the earlier point: people love watching and learning about people. Whereas previously, people liked to keep their processes shrouded in mystery to maintain the interest and mystique, the internet has opened up all sorts of opportunities for sharing, and this has given creators the opportunity to build connections and community like never before. This infatuation with what others are doing and how is an opportunity to be capitalized upon, not just in a monetary sense, but in an audience and community building sense.
Human beings are interested in other human beings and what other human beings do.
Become a Documentarian of What You Do: Austin writes about Astronaut Chris Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station, and how he became an internet sensation in 2013. Based off of a suggestion by his son, Hadfield shared the mundane day-to-day of life on the space station, and the internet ate it up. It was all the same things that we do in our daily lives, BUT IN SPACE, and so people tuned in from all over the world to see how the astronauts bathed, or brushed their teeth, or did maintenance on the space station. Austin recommends journaling and photographing your work in various stages of the process. Even if you don't share it, just document it. If you do decide to share it, you'll have material to pull from. We're not all astronauts, and we're not all artists. Letting people see the process, the mundane day to day activities of the artist, gives them a glimpse of something that they don't get to see themselves. This leads well into his next chapter.
3. Share Something Small Every Day.
Don't just show the final product in some huge unveiling, but take some of the scraps off the floor each day, and mold them into something worth sharing with the world.
Send Out a Daily Dispatch: I'm not planning on doing any daily blogging, but there is something to be said about doing daily updates on social media, etc. Austin talks about "overnight success" being a myth. Behind every so-called "overnight success" is about a decade of hard work, according to Austin, and to build a body of work, requires a life time of effort, but all of that effort happens one day at a time. He likes the day as the smallest meaningful unit of time when discussing a body of work at this scale. It's hard to conceptualize the real time of a month or a year, but a day is very straightforward. We're engineered to work on a daily cycle: the circadian rhythm. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. Try to fit in some meaningful work in that period in between. Austin also like the daily dispatch because it's not just a resume or portfolio of completed works, but shows what you're working on right now. The artwork in this section does a good job of showing the power of small daily advances. It's actually a nice allegory for the power of compound interest, or dollar-cost-averaging, or reinvesting dividends.
There's also Sturgeon's Law. According to science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, "90 percent of everything is crap. The same is true of our own work. The trouble is, we don't always know what's good and what sucks. That's why it's important to get things in front of others and see how they react." So don't be afraid to put yourself out there. This is a quick way to find out what works and what doesn't, and can act as a guide to making those incremental improvements.
The "So What?" Test: There's a fine line between sharing, and oversharing, writes Austin. You want to be open and share the imperfect and unpolished, but you still want to be mindful of what you're sharing. First, act as though your boss or your mother will read it. Second, ask yourself, "so what?" Is what you're sharing useful to the people on the other side of the screen?
Turn Your Flow Into Stock: "Stock and Flow" are economic concepts that have been adapted to the creative process. "Flow" is the daily dispatches: the tweets and the Instagram posts. "Stock" is the evergreen content. It's the stuff that interesting and applicable in a week, a month, a year down the road. Continue your flow, and from that, you sift out the "durable" material that will become your stock. Use your daily dispatch as a kind of journal. As you journal, look back and see what works. Look for themes and trends. Take that and build it into your stock.
Build a Good (Domain) Name: This concept, paired with Network Chuck's advice, was the heart of the driving force to build my own website and blog. Austin really wants to drive home the utility of having your name on a piece of digital real estate, and says, "if you get one thing out of this book, make it this: Go register a domain name.... If your name is common or you don't like your name, come up with a pseudonym or an alias and register that." It's a fairly simple process, and if you go watch Network Chuck, he'll help you build your own website quickly and simply. Like Chuck says, "you're probably thinking, 'Man, Chuck. I'm a nobody. I don't need [a website].... Maybe you're a nobody because you don't have a website." Austin says that the day he learned how to add a blog to his website, it changed everything. It was the ideal tool for turning flow into stock. It was his everything: store, journal, sketchbook... "Don't think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine," he says. Social networks will come and go, but your website is a lasting bit of digital real estate, and just like IRL real estate, don't abandon it. Lastly is your name. Build a name for yourself, a good name, and keep it up. Don't make compromises, and don't do anything to dirty it. Eventually your name can become its own currency. Just focus on doing good work.
4. Open Up Your Cabinet of Curiosities.
This is where some of my inspiration for my post on The Search for Wealth and Knowledge came from. Share the things that your passionate about and the things that are authentically you. Just like your website, this is a place to self-invent, where you're free the be who and what you want to be.
Don't Be a Hoarder: It was common for affluent individuals in the 16th and 17th century to have rooms dedicated to the rare and wondrous as a way to show off your commitment to learning and exploration. In many ways, we still have out cabinets of curiosities: favorite collections of books, records stamps, art, etc. My own brother likes to collect some rare oddities, among which are bones and skeletons. He has had many on display in his office or at home, and this is so uniquely him, and yet, they were very well matched for not just his personality, but his background in law enforcement, and his occupation as a professor of criminal justice, and now as a director of campus safety for a college. He could just as easily be a curator in a museum. In many respects, we're all curators of our own little museums and art galleries, and these things that we're into eventually come full circle and influence our creativity and art. Share your influences and inspirations.
No Guilty Pleasures: Austin relates the story of Nelson Molina, a garbage man in New York City. Molina would collect little odds and ends from among the refuse that he found interesting. The collection, eventually name The Trash Museum, was eventually adopted and displayed in the Sanitation Department. There's no singular, unifying theme or criteria for inclusion, other than "something that Molina liked." Just like Hadfield and the daily life aboard the ISS, sometimes the mundane can be truly exciting, to the right observer. If you find something that you love, own it, and share it. You'll eventually find your "tribe" of like minded people and can build an engaged audience.
Credit is Always Due: Like any good researcher, when we find something of substance, we must cite our sources. When you find something that sticks with you and you want to share, give context and credit. Let your audience know where they can go to find more and similar content.
5. Tell Good Stories.
We humans have a long and storied history (pun intended) with story telling. Many of our earliest histories were passed down through and oral tradition. Many of our famous legends and myths grew out of these oral histories. It is no small wonder that we're suckers for a good story.
Work Doesn't Speak for Itself: Austin recounts an experiment by two authors, Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, that beautifully illustrates our propensity for ascribing value to things based on their story, and not on their inherent value. Their hypothesis was "stories are such a powerful driver of emotional value that their effect on any given object's subjective value can actually be measured objectively." They collected various odds and ends, and knick knacks from thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales for an average cost of $1.25. They hired a team of writers to write backstories for each item that added some significance to it. These items were listed on ebay with the description, and the opening bid set at their initial cost for the items. In the end, they sold $130 worth of these knick knacks for over $3500. Humans are not perfectly rational beings. We tend to make wholly irrational decisions on things like assessment of value. This is one of the things that works against us when we're attempting to make good financial decisions. This is well illustrated in PBS Two Cents' video on 5 Ways People Are Dumb with Money.
Structure is Everything: Good storytelling has a process. Every hallmark movie is a retelling of the same handful of themes, why, then, are millions of people tuning in to watch them? It's because the writers have a proven formula. Do you remember studying play structure while studying Shakespeare in school? There's a predictable structure and flow underlying each piece. You know that a comedy will end in marriage. You know that a tragedy will end in death. Austin shares a quote from George Abbott, "in the first act, you get your hero up a tree. The second act, you throw rocks at him. For the third act, you let him down." We find solace in these predictable, logical story structures because life oftentimes isn't anything of those things. J. R. R. Tolkien understood this escapism as a natural coping mechanism and defense against life out there in the world. G. K. Chesterton also wrote on the idea, saying, "fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." Part of what makes a good story, and part of what draws people in, is the familiar, the comfortable, the logical, and the predictable. Being a good story-teller is understanding the structure of a good story. From the book, Austin writes, "author John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: 'A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.'"
I like Gardner's plot formula because it's also the shape of most creative work: You get a great idea, you go through the hard work of executing the idea, and then you release the idea out into the world, coming to a win, lose, or draw.
Talk About Yourself at Parties: Here Austin gives a small dose of realism into the self-promotion. You should always be about the business of telling your story, but giving your biography is not the time for creativity. When you tell other people what you do, be prepared to answer questions and help them understand just what it means to do what you do. Don't embellish your bio. Referencing a quote by George Orwell, "Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful." Keep your bio short and sweet, without embellishment or hyperbole. Don't use adjectives, and don't ever use terms like "guru", "rockstar", or "ninja", unless you actually are one.
Strike all adjectives from your bio. If you take photos, you're not an "aspiring" photographer, and you're not an "amazing" photographer, either. You're a photographer. Don't get cute. Don't brag. Just state the facts.
6. Teach What You Know.
This was a section that is close to my heart. I don't want to be a teacher, but I do enjoy being an educator. I enjoy studying material to better myself, and then trying to give the next person in line a leg up to continue their own educational journey. After all, the conventional wisdom is that in order to truly learn and master something yourself, you must teach it someone else. That was part of impetus behind the No Shock Advised Podcast, and behind this blog.
Share Your Trade Secrets: Austin uses Aaron Franklin to illustrate his point here. While most pit-masters treat their recipes as state secrets, Aaron has been perfectly open about his recipes and processes, even going so far as to record videos available to everyone teaching them how to cook barbecue like he does. Yet still his restaurant has a line around the block will sell out of meat every. day. Teaching is part of the continuum of learning, and in doing so, you actually enhance your own value.
7. Don't Turn Into Human Spam.
There's a line between sharing, and over-sharing. Just like with the "So What?" test judging the quality of your content, there's a continuum describing the volume of content you share. You don't want to hoard, and you don't want to spam. You want to contribute.
Shut Up and Listen: By now I'm sure we've all heard the quote from Epictetus, "we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." The flow of information is a two way street. In order to be a good writer, you must also be a good reader. Before you wring out water from a sponge, it must first be allowed soak some up. Some of the best contributors to any field are simultaneously voracious consumers. The best educators are the ones that are the best students of their fields first. The best clinicians are the ones digging into cutting edge research in medical journals, looking for ways to improve their practice. One of my most memorable and impactful teachers was the instructor for my NAEMSE Instructor I course. She was the head of the paramedicine program at a school outside of Chicago, and her daily morning routine was to wake up, and then spend 4 hours reading research papers, both clinical and educational.
You Want Hearts Not Eyeballs: In order to get more followers, be someone worth following. Don't look for followers for the sake of having followers. You want people that are invested and engaged in your work.
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.
The Vampire Test: Put short and sweet, don't suck the life and energy out of others. Simultaneously, protect yourself from those that would suck away your life and energy. This applies not just to people, but to jobs, hobbies, and other things as well. You want to walk away from something or someone feeling invigorated. If you feel drained, they are a vampire.
Identify Your Fellow Knuckleballers: Knuckleballers are unique among pitchers. Like recipes, many pitchers hold on to the tips and tricks of their signature slider or fastball treating them like state secrets, to keep the edge over their competition. Knuckleballers on the other hand, are such a small crowd, and form a thriving community around their shared skill, sharing tips and tricks with each other, and generally working to advance their sport and profession by trying to keep their signature pitch alive by teaching anyone and everyone. Similarly, your tribe of fellow "knuckleballers" will coalesce around your shared obsessions and passions and work. There won't be many of you, but your tribe is vitally important. For that reason, you should seek to elevate not just yourself, but each other. Share them with the world. Invite them to collaborate with you. This is how we ended up with our first guest episode on our podcast, No Shock Advised, that we will be recording next week.
Meet Up in Meatspace: Finally, take your internet friends and turn them into IRL friends. Austin talks about how many of his friends started out as part of his online community. Arrange meetups. It doesn't require huge gatherings of people, it could be as simple as a sit down coffee if you're traveling through someone else's city or at a conference together.
8. Learn to Take a Punch.
Life on the open net can be brutal. You have to be prepared and able to take a beating and get back up. Perhaps a perusal of The Daily Stoic might be in order. Not everything you do will be pure gold, and you need to be able to roll with the punches, to take criticism and failure, and to continue on with your work.
Let 'Em Take Their Best Shot: How do you take a punch: 1. Relax and breathe. 2. Strengthen your neck. 3. Roll with the punches. 4. Protect your vulnerable areas. 5. Keep your balance.
Don't Feed The Trolls: Not all criticism is equal. You need to evaluate the source. There are those out there that just like to watch the world burn. They're little more the monkeys who show up to fling poop around the room and smear it on the walls. Treat your space like an extension of your living room. If someone shows up and start pooping on your living room carpet, you wouldn't leave it there, nor would you tolerate that behavior. Feel free to remove them and their filth from your internet living room.
9. Sell Out.
It's not (just) about being a sellout, it's about selling out. Anyone in the retail business would be thrilled to sell out of their merchandise. Any musician or actor would be thrilled to have a sold out theater. Regardless, at the end of the day, this is still your business... your livelihood.
Even the Renaissance Had to Be Funded: Another modern myth it the romanticized "starving artist." We treat art as if touching money somehow taints it. However, some of our most cherished works of classical art were made on commission. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel. Some of my most beloved writers write to get paid (and pretty handsomely at that. One recently bought his own "mountain"). Money doesn't taint your work. Your work has value, and money is simply an exchange of value. Feel free to trade value (art) for value (money).
Pass Around the Hat: This is usually the first and easiest way people monetize their work. When people start showing up for your work, and you build an audience around it, you may want to take the step to monetize your work. In sales, this might be called conversion. Give people the opportunity to donate to your cause with a "Donate Now" button on your website, or perhaps a Patreon.
Keep a Mailing List: For the people that are interested in your work, get their email address. Email as a technology is far from being obsolete. Unlike social media, almost everyone has an email address. As people come across your work and engage, find ways to get their email addresses and compile them in a mailing list (with their permission, of course). This may prove vital down the road, and it could even start you off on a good foot with future business ventures.
Make More Work for Yourself: Part of this is just keeping yourself busy with new projects. Part of this, can also be running down leads and making connections with potential clients in order to keep a steady stream of projects in the wings to keep yourself busy. Don't be afraid to try new things. Remember to keep that amateur mindset, and don't be afraid to suck at something new.
Pay It Forward: Once you become successful, don't forget about the ones that helped you along the way. Be sure to continue to share your mentors and your inspirations. Also, don't forget to look behind and help the next generation get a leg up.
10. Stick Around.
Victory and success is often left in the hands of the last man standing. So many ventures like podcasts and blogs fail. 80% of Podcast hosts will quit within a year. 90% of podcasts won't last longer than 6 months. There's 6 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds. Of course, we've all seen the popular trope of the aspiring actor or musician making ends meet in a diner. There's a lot of competition for audience out there. You have to stay with it and outlast the competition.
Don't Quit Your Show: Dave Chappelle was asked to give a talk to a high school class sometime after quitting his Comedy Central special: Chappelle's Show. His advice? "I guess, whatever you do, don't quit your show. Life is very hard without a show, kids." You never know where your next gig is coming from, so don't walk away from your "show." Your career will have ups and downs. Oftentimes, you won't necessarily know whether you're in the up or the down until after it's passed. Whether your career is successful or failed may very well depend on where in the cycle you decide to walk away. This also has some interesting parallels with finance. Timing the market is no where near as good as time in the market. The investors that come out successful are often the ones that are in the market for the long haul, and not the ones that try to time the market swings.
Chain-Smoke: This echoes sentiments from Make More Work for Yourself. Just don't stop. Some creators will look for the failures in their last project and use that as a spring board into their next project. Some writer's will stop their writing mid sentence so that they know exactly where and how to start when they pick it back up tomorrow. Some overcome writer's block by never stopping writing. Austin calls this chain-smoking. Instead of taking breaks between projects, use the end of the last project to "light up" the next one.
Go Away So You Can Come Back: Austin doesn't recommend never taking breaks. What he does recommend are planned and structures breaks. He calls them Sabbaticals. Take a day, a week, a month, or even a year away from your work to rest and recharge. Oftentimes, he says, your best work comes from some bolt of inspiration you had during your sabbatical.
Start Over. Begin Again. When you've finally mastered something, then go back and start again with something else. Austin uses George Carlin as an example in this chapter. When George Carlin finishes and records a special, he scraps all of his material and starts over again. Austin says to look at it not as a starting over, but as a beginning again. Go back to chapter 1, and be an amateur all over again.
Conclusion:
As I mentioned in the intro, I was able to tie the principles in this book to multiple other real world applications beyond just the creator/artist sphere. It definitely helped refine some of my thoughts on marketing and self-promotion, and it helped give me an understanding of some of the psychology behind becoming successful in this sphere. Other people, like Ali Abdaal described it as life changing. I don't know that I could go that far, but it was truly enlightening and helpful. I do think that it is a simple, easy to read, and helpful book, and makes a great gift to the creators and artists in your life. Based solely on my on my reading of Show Your Work, I'm adding Austin's other books, Keep Going and Steal Like an Artist to my To Read list.
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