Last week during our office hours in Six-Figure Blog Builder, a conversation came up from one of the members of the Creators Club about how to balance doing the work and sharing the work.

They were curious about how to create products and content for their audience while also trying to do the work they needed to get done, and in a world with more distractions and seemingly less time for things than ever, this is a really fair question.

In that conversation, I brought up Austin Kleon’s book, Show Your Work!, and how in that book he lays out an incredible roadmap for sharing our work and introduces the concept of openly sharing your creative process with the world.

In today's email, I want to share with you why this approach is so powerful and how you can use it to revolutionize your creative journey.

The Flywheel of "Showing Your Work"

At the heart of Kleon’s philosophy is a simple yet powerful cycle: solve your own problems, share your process, and in doing so, solve others’ problems while building an audience.

Here’s how it works:

1. Solve Your Own Problems: Begin by addressing your own challenges and creating solutions. This is where the magic starts. Your unique perspective and methods are valuable because they are authentic and grounded in real experience.

2. Share Your Process: Document what you do and how you do it. This doesn’t have to be polished or perfect. Think of it as letting people peek behind the curtain. Share your successes, your failures, and everything in between.

3. Build an Audience: When you share your journey, you resonate with others who face similar challenges. Your transparency and willingness to share create a connection, building trust and an audience organically.

4. Reveal New Problems: Engaging with your audience exposes you to new perspectives and challenges that help inform you not only of problems you weren't aware of that provide fresh material for you to tackle and share, continuing the cycle. But they also help solve problems you're working on that your audience hasn't reached yet.

This flywheel effect not only helps you grow as a creator but also continuously attracts and engages your audience.

So, how you can actually show your process to the world?

Document, Don’t Create

One of the most liberating ideas from Kleon's book is the notion that you don’t need to “create” in the traditional sense. Instead, you just have to focus on documenting the process of what you're ALREADY working on.

Here’s how you can apply this (using the example of how Kleon's book inspired ME):

• Share Your Inspirations: Talk about what is inspiring you. Whether it’s a book, a piece of art, or a conversation, sharing your sources of inspiration can ignite creativity in others.
• Teach Everything You Know: Don’t gatekeep. Sharing your knowledge and insights helps others grow and fosters a community of learning and collaboration.
• Steal Like an Artist: Borrow ideas, remix them, and make them your own. Creativity is about building on existing concepts and infusing them with your unique perspective.

Start with simple questions like "What am I working on?" or "What did I learn today?" and just make a habit of sharing that with the world. Find somewhere to document those things and you'll start to build up the habit of documenting.

What if I'm not an expert?

You don't have to be a guru or an expert to share what you're working on. As Ali Abdaal says (coincidentally also inspired by Kleon's book): "Don't be a guru, be a guide."

You don’t need a grand project to share. Begin with small, daily posts about what you’re working on or learning, and start from where you are.

For many of you, even the process of sharing the fact that you're trying to create a successful blog online could help attract people who are interested in creating their own businesses too, and who might want to watch as you embark on that journey.

Do what you can with what you have

Utilize social media, blogs, or video platforms to share your journey. You don't have to use all of them, but find one or two that you really resonate with. Find what works best for you and your audience.

If you only have an iPhone, lean it up against the wall and use that. If you don't want to be on camera, then sit down at your keyboard and write what you're working on and share that.

You don't have to have a bunch of fancy equipment or the best tools to get started and to begin showing your work.

By embracing the mindset of documenting over creating by using what you have, you simplify your process and remove the pressure of perfection. You become a part of a larger conversation, helping others while also learning and growing yourself.

Most of the time, we seem to overlook the value of letting others see us try because it can be scary to let other people see us when we haven't achieved what we're trying to do or obtain yet.

But people don't often want to see only the final result. They want to see what it took to get there. People LOVE a good story. They want to learn from you, learn from your mistakes and successes, and they want someone they can relate to.

In a world of people striving to appear as the "best" and to create this perception that they or their work are "perfect," obsessed with being some kind of guru, you showing what it ACTUALLY looks like to do something others want to do could be the single thing that helps propel you to success and that helps you to stand out.

So, I leave you with this, what can you share about what you're working on right now?

I dare you to go share it, post it somewhere, hell even just reply to this email and tell me what you're working on.

But somehow, some way, find a way to show your work this week.

Quote of the Week

From Show your work!, the second book in Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist trilogy:

"Teaching people doesn't subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. 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."

His other books include Steal Like an Artist and Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative​

New Around Here?

Here are our best resources to get started:

• ​Start Your Own Profitable Blog: Tutorial​
• ​Six-Figure Blog Builder: Launch and Scale a Blog Business​