Get up on stage and start performing
Twitter is a humbling place. One day, I pour my heart into an essay, release it into the wild, and watch in awe as Amjad Masad (Replit CEO) retweets it—twice. 125K views. Nearly 500 likes. It feels like I'm on top of the world. Two days later, I work even harder on a different piece. A part of me thinks a million views is in reach this time. When I hit “tweet”... crickets. 80 views total. 0 likes.
The magic of creating in public is that you open yourself up to instantaneous feedback from a global audience. It still boggles my mind that I can post something at 2 a.m. while I can’t sleep in Boston, and receive a reply from a complete stranger in India just seconds later. What an extraordinary world we live in. Of course, this isn't always a healthy dynamic. Sometimes, the feedback is vicious. But on the whole, I believe it's fantastic. Feedback is fuel.
If you want to master a craft, stop dreaming about it. Get up on stage and start performing. You will almost certainly bomb the first time. But everyone bombs! The greatest comedians of all time have endured soul-crushing silence, jeers and heckles and walk-outs. They bombed in the beginning, and they continue to bomb today. (Just ask Seinfeld, who has dedicated countless segments on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee to the pleasures and pains of bombing.) The best in the business—they've all bombed hard! But the more you do something, the better you'll be and the less you'll bomb.
I’ve now written an essay each of the last 11 days and posted it on Twitter for the world to see. On many of those days I’ve gotten not a single like. I've bombed big! What I’ve learned is that it’s really HARD to produce something valuable. But I’m going to keep trying. For one, the act of writing itself is the most stimulating thing I've done in ages. Beyond that, it's just so powerful to publish in public. Sure, it stinks when an essay flops, but mainly it's fuel for next time.
In the words of @prakhesar, "life is interesting because you're always a zero at something. Incremental improvements are addictive, when starting from zero, you must find out the quickest way you can get positive feedback." Last week, I was a zero. Today, maybe a one. Onwards and upwards from here.