Would You Dare Show Your Work to Someone You Respect or Admire?
This is how I merciless evaluate my writing ideas and determine which ones don’t make the mark.
It’s midnight and an idea pops into my head. A diamond in the rough. With some polishing, it could become a decent opinion piece or article. Excitedly, I tuck it in my book of ideas before going to bed. The next morning, the idea headbutts me like a playful cat. I examine it further. There’s potential that a little coaxing will bring out.
But before I do that, I lean back and ask myself the same question I pose to all my work:
“If I pursued this, would the end product be something I’d dare show to someone I respect or admire?”
This is a moment of self-inflection. If I want to produce high-quality work, then I need to be writing for an audience with higher expectations. And personally, there’s no better yardstick than the few special individuals in my life that I respect and secretly wish to impress.
For myself, it’s my significant other, my life mentor, and one of my ex-managers. For you, it could be your parents, other writers, your professor, your best friend, your tribe, or your business mentor. The people you turn to for advice, not the other way round.
But if you had to give them an honest opinion through your writing, would you be up to the task?
Strangers Don’t Hold You Accountable
It’s so easy to peddle unsolicited advice to a crowd of faceless readers. I can picture the transaction: these are my five thoughts on how you can do better, take them, or leave them. Whatever happens next isn’t my responsibility.
You see this sort of transaction being perpetuated by authors across the online world. They expound the virtues of writing 100,000 words or 15 articles per week because you need volume to grow your audience and earnings.
If I followed this advice, would I create something that I’d proudly show people in my life? My gut tells me no.
The thing about half-decent writers is that they can take a thought or idea and spin it into a brilliant life lesson. Throw in a few experiences, mix in a few anecdotal examples, and you have content. Most of the time, it will look like a rehash of almost any listicle out there on Medium.
The important people in your life will call you out on things like that. They hold you to a higher standard. Show your work to them, and they hold you accountable for everything you say. Because if they followed the advice or lessons in your writing and failed, guess who’s responsible?
If I’m confident in sharing my writing with the people I respect and admire, then I’m confident in sharing it with the world. Because I know when my writing is examined in the light, it won’t crumble to a million pieces.
Because It Kills Any Semblance of Superficiality
I’m reminded of the timeless advice given by John Steinbeck. He’s a proponent of the ‘audience of one’ mindset, which advises writers to write to one and only one person, rather than nebulous groups of people.
‘This removes the vague terror of addressing the large and faceless audience and it also, you will find, will give a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness.’ — John Steinbeck
It’s the last bit of that quote that I cling to. When I’m writing for a public audience, I often feel like I need to please them. I’ll insert points that I think they will agree on, deliver my insights in a more palatable way.
With my own private audience — the people I want to impress — I do less of that. It’s paradoxical; wouldn’t I want to sound clever, pleasing, and intelligent to these people?
Again they will see right through this veneer and suss out what I’m doing. They respect me too much to not say anything.
If I can’t be superficial, then I have no other choice but to choose honesty. Amazingly, this imparts freedom to my writing. I can be direct, true to myself, free of any self-consciousness because that’s what the people I admire and care about expect from me.
And when your work goes out there, to everyone else, you can bet they will feel that raw authenticity as well.
Because Your Convictions Are All That Matters
The most powerful writing comes from a place of conviction. It’s in the manifestos founders write for their companies, the marriage advice fathers give to their daughters, in the speeches where valedictorians credit their success to the help of their professors and classmates.
I want my writing to come from the same place. The place where the people I admire, respect — even fear — exist.
“If I can’t write something that I can proudly show to these people, why write anything at all?”
The word going around most Facebook groups is that you’ll earn more on Medium when you write about technology, social issues, entrepreneurship, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I want a portion of that gravy train as much as the next aspiring writer.
The problem is, I can’t bring myself to write about those things because I lack the conviction to contribute. The end product wouldn’t be great. And it would certainly not be something I’m willing to show those I trust.
When I worked in advertising, I stumbled upon a well-known fact about David Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising. Unlike most advertisers back then — and even today — Ogilvy used his client's products. All of them.
‘I always use my clients’ products. This is not toadyism, but elementary good manners. Almost everything I consume if manufactured by one of my clients… I spend my life speaking well of products in advertisements; I hope that you get as much pleasure out of buying them as I get out of advertising them.’— David Ogilvy
If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to sell them well. His ads and copy wouldn’t hold the conviction of someone that had a strong opinion on something. This belief also led him to drop Rolls Royce, a huge client of his firm, because “he lost confidence in their cars.”
I believe Ogilvy did that because he knew the quality of any future work he’d created wouldn’t be as good. And then he wouldn’t be able to face the individuals he admired and held in high regard.
Write To The Person You Care The Most
Conventional wisdom tells me that is the audience your article, blog post, op-ed, or listicle is supposed to help the most. And for the most part, that’s true. But another audience exists. And you know who they are.
“Would I dare show this to someone I respect or admire?”
You can follow all the writing advice you can find on the Internet. You can pepper your article with the most reputable of sources. You can spend hours crafting up the world’s greatest headline. But then it will still look like any other article out there on Medium or the internet.
But write something that you’ll proudly show to your best friend, your mentor, your professor, your partner, and that will shine no matter where it ends up.
So, that article you have in your brain, the one that popped into your head last night. Would you dare show it to the people you respect and admire?
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