A while back in high school, a talented acquaintance of mine started promoting their music before it was good. They did the whole nine yards—bought fake social media followers, created their own fan pages, bought ads, a photoshoot, etc. They would not stop talking about their upcoming success in the music industry. Almost a decade later, they are working odd jobs, hoping to “blow up”.
The lesson I took from that (back then) was “do not promote until you have the finished product. Do not talk about what you do until it’s good enough, just put your head down and get better.” I spent almost a decade making unfinished project after unfinished project, unwilling to release or promote them because they weren’t “good enough yet”. I way overcompensated.
In this case, the cure was worse than the disease (even though I greatly improved) because putting out bad music wouldn’t mean that I’d be known as a person who puts out bad music—I’d be known as “a person who puts out music”, which is a valuable thing. I’d be much more prone to positive black swan events from having my name out there. Plus, it’s not like I would stop improving—I could’ve easily had the best of both worlds.
I’m now aiming at the synthesis of those two views—being humble and diligent about improving while being okay with putting out imperfect things. 80% of 1000 > 100% of 0.
A while back in high school, a talented acquaintance of mine started promoting their music before it was good. They did the whole nine yards—bought fake social media followers, created their own fan pages, bought ads, a photoshoot, etc. They would not stop talking about their upcoming success in the music industry. Almost a decade later, they are working odd jobs, hoping to “blow up”.
The lesson I took from that (back then) was “do not promote until you have the finished product. Do not talk about what you do until it’s good enough, just put your head down and get better.” I spent almost a decade making unfinished project after unfinished project, unwilling to release or promote them because they weren’t “good enough yet”. I way overcompensated.
In this case, the cure was worse than the disease (even though I greatly improved) because putting out bad music wouldn’t mean that I’d be known as a person who puts out bad music—I’d be known as “a person who puts out music”, which is a valuable thing. I’d be much more prone to positive black swan events from having my name out there. Plus, it’s not like I would stop improving—I could’ve easily had the best of both worlds.
I’m now aiming at the synthesis of those two views—being humble and diligent about improving while being okay with putting out imperfect things. 80% of 1000 > 100% of 0.