BEING LESS STUPID #17 - Book Summaries

Show Your Work | The Art of Noticing

👋 Hello

This week is all about books. I am sharing two books I found useful about sharing our work in public and how to notice better.

---

1. Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

In this short book, Auston Kleon shares a ton of wisdom on why you should share your ideas and work in public.

• You do not have to be an expert to share what you know. You can become an expert by learning and sharing in public.

• Be an amateur. They’re just regular people who get obsessed by something and spend a ton of time thinking out loud about it

• Raw enthusiasm is contagious.

• The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.

• By letting go of our egos and sharing our process, we allow for the possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move more of our product.

• Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine.

• You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one. If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller.

• Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.

---

2. The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker

We are glued to our smartphones or our own idea and fail to notice what is in front of our eyes. In this book, Rob shares 131 ideas to notice better in general and while traveling & being alone.

• It’s not a penalty to spend time alone. It’s an opportunity—to exist totally free of anyone else’s expectations, or your smartphone.

• Finding numbers in the urban landscape is very easy, and looking for them is a good eye-sharpening exercise

• Sit by an office window that you hardly bother to glance through anymore or on your own front porch. The determined repetition of the same view over time will likely reveal something that is not really the “same view” after all.

• Looking really, really slowly forces them to notice things they had initially passed over, sometimes changing their entire understanding of a work. The process unlocks meaning and potential that first glances can miss.

• The sketcher became a far better observer than the non-sketcher. Suppose the next time you were tempted to capture a snapshot of an appealing or interesting scene, you drew it instead?

• But next time you are confronted with some scene or situation that feels numbingly familiar, stop, and ask: What would a child see here? Children are blunt and curious, and they are effortlessly imaginative and insightful.

• Hunt for a Sound - The places we think of as merely “quiet” are of course filled with sounds, which are just subtle or distant or spread out.

• That bland-looking eatery in some ugly strip mall that has no Yelp reviews? Give it a try! Take in the atmosphere; ask questions about the menu; slyly observe the other patrons. Then take a few minutes to explore the nearby area. Maybe you’ll get to brag to your friends about the delicious food you discovered. Either way, you’ll experience a new place, for yourself.

---

I would love to talk to you and get to know you more. Hit reply or send a DM on Twitter. If your friend forwarded you this email, you can Signup for the newsletter here