27th August, 2021

So, hands up. I’m recording Day 149 as one of two recordings on Day 150.

Having been little dejected yesterday, I stormed straight into work and meetings and busy busy business on Day 149 and forgot to record the pod in the silence of the empty office. By the time I remembered, more colleagues were in the offices around me and, quite frankly, I was just too embarrassed to record anything knowing that my ramblings were somewhat audible through the paper-thin walls. It’s that sort of embarrassment that I want to talk about more today.

If you’re toying with the idea of making your own content and putting some know-how out into the big bad Internet, the embarrassment is something you absolutely have to manage. Perfect doesn’t exist, and few people will care about the rough edges so long as they can find the nuggets of gold in what you’re sharing.

In that framing, however, is the assumption that all such content creation needs to be done for others. Wrong (in my opinion). My dear departed grandfather used to say that “Charity begins at home”. And as selfishly philosophical as that sounds, it overlaps with an important point for experimenting with content creation beyond what you produce traditionally in the day-to-day. Whatever you are creating, you have to first do it for yourself. Whether that’s motivated by learning a new skill, finding your own therapeutic ways of organising thoughts, or because you couldn’t find the content you wanted to consume, scratch your own itch first. Doing something purely for the likes is a slippery slope. And it’s the wrong motivation if you want to be in with the chance of going the distance, creating regularly, and evolving over time.

For the niche you’re work blends with, those who hang around to read or listen or watch will be more forgiving of the imperfections that you will want to give them credit for. Once you realise this, the excuse to put off the work until you know you’ll smash it goes away. There is no perfect time or perfect day. Treat it as an experiment. Experiments have no ‘bad’ results. Data is data.

What are you putting off trying?

If you have a question for Marc, upload an audio recording for it to be featured on a later Q&A episode!