📖 Aftertaste

I learn about the book ”Show Your Work” from Ali Abdaal, a well-known YouTuber and productivity expert.

This book is short and easy to read. Every sentence resonated with me, and I found myself highlighting half of the book. It even inspired me to start my own blog. I had wanted to start writing for a long time, but something always held me back. This book helped me take action.

I believe this book will be interesting for anyone who has something to share and wants to find a community of like-minded people. If you have an interest in creativity, writing, or business, I recommend spending a couple of hours reading it - you won’t regret it.

🎯 Key Takeaways

1. Start sharing your work with others, document your process, and find like-minded people. It can change your life.
2. Don’t be afraid to be an amateur. Talk about the things you love, and your voice will follow.
3. Persevere and don’t give up. The people who achieve their goals are often the ones who stick around long enough.

💜 My Favourite Quotes

1. When Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was asked what he thought his greatest strength was, he answered, “That I don’t know what I’m doing.”
2. “You have to make stuff,” said journalist David Carr when he was asked if he had any advice for students. “No one is going to give a damn about your résumé; they want to see what you have made with your own little fingers.”
3. The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.” —Brian Michael Bendis
4. How many people waste time and energy trying to make connections instead of getting good at what they do, when “being good at things is the only thing that earns you clout or connections.”
5. Patti Smith got this advice from William Burroughs: “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.”
6. “I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you f---ing like something, like it.” —Dave Grohl
7. “Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” —Derek Sivers
8. The worst troll is the one that lives in your head.

📝 Summary & Notes

1. Don’t be afraid to be an amateur

Don’t worry, for now, about how you’ll make money or a career off it. Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.

Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.

2. Remember that you’ll be dead one day

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.” —Steve Job

I’m not going to sit here and wait for things to happen, I’m going to make them happen, and if people think I’m an idiot I don’t care.

3. What can you do if you’re just starting

• Share your influences and what’s inspiring you;
• If you’re in the middle of executing a project, write about your methods or share works in progress;
• If you’ve just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor, or write about what you learnt.

4. Be yourself

Don’t try to be hip or cool. Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.

5. Work doesn’t speak for itself

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.

It’s important to become a good storyteller. Speak to your audience directly in plain language. Value their time. Be brief. Learn to speak. Learn to write. Use spell-check.

6. Teach what you learnt

The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading list. Point to helpful reference materials. Create some tutorials and post them online. Use pictures, words, and videos. Take people step-by-step through part of your process. As blogger Kathy Sierra says, “Make people better at something they want to be better at”.

7. Be a connector and don’t turn into human spam

If you want to get, you have to give. If you want to be noticed, you have to notice. If you want followers, be someone worth following. To put it more simply: If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.

Credit is always due – if you’re sharing other people’s work, you want to credit them. Attribution = providing context for what you’re sharing. It’s about putting little museum labels next to the stuff you share.

8. Don’t be embarrassed about the work that you do

Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.” If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.”

9. Don’t quit early and don’t stop

The people who get what they’re after are very often the ones who just stick around long enough. It’s very important not to quit prematurely.

Instead of taking a break in between projects, waiting for feedback, and worrying about what’s next, use the end of one project to light up the next one. Just do the work that’s in front of you, and when it’s finished, ask yourself what you missed, what you could’ve done better.

10. It’s ok not to like your old work

Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough,” writes author Alain de Botton.

The thing is that the lessons that you’ve learned from your previous work will seep into what you do next. Look for something new to learn, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open. Document your progress and share as you go so that others can learn along with you. Show your work, and when the right people show up, pay close attention to them, because they’ll have a lot to show you.

This post may contain affiliate links which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through links. I will only recommend products that I have personally used and liked.