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creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration, the result of a mind connected to other minds.
Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.
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.
They’re just regular people who get obsessed by something and spend a ton of time thinking out loud about it.
The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
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.
if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.
Take inspiration from the people who muddled through life before you—they all started out as amateurs, and they got where they were going by making do with what they were given, and having the guts to put themselves out there.
“People really do want to see how the sausage gets made.”
A lot of us go about our work and feel like we have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. But whatever the nature of your work, there is an art to what you do, and there are people who would be interested in that art, if only you presented it to them in the right way.
Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal: Write your thoughts down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you working. This isn’t about making art, it’s about simply keeping track of what’s going on around you. Take advantage of all the cheap, easy tools at your disposal—these days, most of us carry a fully functional multimedia studio around in our smartphones.
“Post as though everyone who can read it has the power to fire you.”
Always be sure to run everything you share with others through The “So What?” Test. Don’t overthink it; just go with your gut.
Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine.
“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 its own currency.”
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.
When you find things you genuinely enjoy, don’t let anyone else make you feel bad about it. Don’t feel guilty about the pleasure you take in the things you enjoy. Celebrate them. When
“Do what you do best and link to the rest.” —Jeff Jarvis
Attribution is about putting little museum labels next to the stuff you share.
we found the work that we’re sharing. It’s always good practice to give a shout-out to the people who’ve helped you stumble onto good work and also leave a bread-crumb trail that people you’re sharing with can follow back to the sources of your inspiration.
Don’t share things you can’t properly credit. Find the right credit, or don’t share.
“When shown an object, or given a food, or shown a face, people’s assessment of it—how much they like it, how valuable it is—is deeply affected by what you tell them about it.”
Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.
If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.
“‘The cat sat on a mat’ is not a story. ‘The cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is a story.” —John le Carré
“A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.”
Strike all the adjectives from your bio.
Think about what you can share from your process that would inform the people you’re trying to reach.
When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work. People feel closer to your work because you’re letting them in on what you know.
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.
If you want to be noticed, you have to notice.
Stop worrying about how many people follow you online and start worrying about the quality of people who follow you.
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.
If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire.
Vampires cannot be cured. Should you find yourself in the presence of a vampire, be like Brancusi, and banish it from your life forever.
As you put yourself and your work out there, you will run into your fellow knuckleballers. These are your real peers—the people who share your obsessions, the people who share a similar mission to your own, the people with whom you share a mutual respect.
Meeting people online is awesome, but turning them into IRL friends is even better.
The way to be able to take a punch is to practice getting hit a lot. Put out a lot of work. Let people take their best shot at it. Then make even more work and keep putting it out there. The more criticism you take, the more you realize it can’t hurt you.
Every piece of criticism is an opportunity for new work. You can’t control what sort of criticism you receive, but you can control how you react to it.
Protect your vulnerable areas. If you have work that is too sensitive or too close to you to be exposed to criticism, keep it hidden.
You want feedback from people who care about you and what you do. Be extra wary of feedback from anybody who falls outside of that circle.
Because, of course, the worst troll is the one that lives in your head. It’s the voice that tells you you’re not good enough, that you suck, and that you’ll never amount to anything.
“An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint,” said artist Ben Shahn. “A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.”
Don’t write off your friends because they’ve had a little bit of success. Don’t be jealous when the people you like do well—celebrate their victory as if it’s your own.
Beware of selling the things that you love: When people are asked to get out their wallets, you find out how much they really value what you do.
The people who sign up for your list will be some of your biggest supporters, just by the simple fact that they signed up for the potential to be spammed by you.
Be ambitious. Keep yourself busy. Think bigger. Expand your audience. Don’t hobble yourself in the name of “keeping it real,” or “not selling out.”
If an opportunity comes along that will allow you to do more of the kind of work you want to do, say Yes. If an opportunity comes along that would mean more money, but less of the kind of work you want to do, say No.
“The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful,” writes author Neil Gaiman.
