Hi All!
You have something worth sharing. A project you’re working on, expertise you’ve built, a perspective that matters. But it’s not finished yet. It’s not polished. You’re not sure people are ready for it. So you wait. You wait for it to be perfect. You wait to have it all figured out. And while you wait, someone else with less talent but better timing shares their unfinished work and builds an audience around it. This week’s newsletter is about why your imperfect work, shared generously, is infinitely more valuable than perfect work locked away.
💬 Quote that stuck with me
“If you just focus on getting really good, people will come to you. But it’s not enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable.” — Austin Kleon
This one rewires something in the perfectionist brain. You read it and think: I’m working on being good. I’m putting in the hours. But the quote isn’t questioning your work ethic. It’s questioning your strategy. Because being good is necessary but not sufficient. You can be phenomenally talented and completely invisible. Invisibility isn’t about talent. It’s about shareability.
The most foundational mistake creators make is treating creation and sharing as separate activities. You create in secret, perfect in isolation, then share when it’s “ready.” But that’s not how the modern world works. Sharing is part of the creation process now. The people who build audiences aren’t the ones with the most talent. They’re the ones brave enough to document their process, share their learning journey, show the messy middle. They make themselves findable by being visible about who they are and what they’re working on.
📚 Book of the week
Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon
Kleon’s thesis is deceptively simple: don’t wait until your work is perfect to share it. Share the journey. Show your influences, your process, your work in progress. Daily small shares compound into a substantial body of work that becomes its own proof of dedication. The book dismantles the mythology of the lone genius working in secret and replaces it with something more true: creativity is community, and the more generously you share, the more you discover who you are and what you’re building toward.
→ Read my full book notes here.
🎧 Podcast of the week
On Purpose with Jay Shetty — “Brian Chesky: The Crisis of Disconnection and How to Tap Into Your Creative Potential”
In this deeply personal conversation, Airbnb founder Brian Chesky reveals why being temporarily misunderstood is essential to innovation, and why the real joy of creation comes from making something you believe in—not what others think you should make. He shares how great ideas are dismissed at first, and how listening to your own voice rather than others’ opinions is what artists call “artistic integrity.” Most importantly, he articulates something that mirrors your own journey: the real fulfillment comes when you create something initially for yourself, then watch others benefit from it.
→ Listen to the episode: On Purpose with Jay Shetty
💡 Book highlights I’m contemplating
From Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
“Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”
This is the shift that changes everything. You think you need to be original from the start. But originality isn’t something you’re born with. It’s built by studying what you love so deeply that you internalize not the surface style but the thinking underneath. You copy. You fail to copy perfectly. That failure, that gap between what you’re trying to do and what you’re actually producing, that’s your voice emerging. The people who think they’re too derivative to share are the ones who haven’t studied their heroes deeply enough to steal the thinking.
💭 A note from me
I spent two years not sharing my writing because it wasn’t “good enough.” I compared it to published authors, felt embarrassed by the gap, and decided I’d share when I reached their level. The problem: reaching that level required writing a lot. And I wasn’t writing much because I was waiting to be good enough to share.
Then I started sharing work-in-progress. Sketches. First drafts. Half-formed ideas. The response wasn’t judgment. It was connection. People responded not to the polish but to the honesty. To seeing someone think out loud. To being invited into the creative process instead of just consuming the final product.
More importantly, sharing unfinished work forced me to actually finish work. When five hundred people know you’re working on something, you’re more likely to complete it than when it’s locked in a folder on your computer. The accountability is different. The motivation is different.
What surprised me most: the work I thought wasn’t ready got some of my best feedback. Not “this is polished,” but “this is interesting, here’s what I’m thinking about it.” The conversation was richer. The learning was faster. The visibility was immediate.
If you have something you’re sitting on, something you think isn’t finished yet, ask yourself honestly: is it truly not ready? Or are you waiting for permission you don’t need and a standard that doesn’t exist? Share it. Let people see you thinking. The world doesn’t need another perfect silence. It needs your unfinished voice.
Much love,
Alex x
