4. The Cookie House Strategy (a.k.a. why the time to share your work is NOW)

"Should I be showing up and sharing my work if I don't have anything to sell yet?"

My answer is an emphatic YES.

Waiting until you've got everything perfectly figured out to show up big + bold is one of the biggest  mistakes you can make. By the time you have that "perfect" positioning or product ready to release, who is going to care? You'll be starting from scratch with no audience, no buzz, no invested supporters.

When you share your process from a spirit of generosity -- your unfinished thoughts, rough drafts, and learnings -- three powerful things happen:

1. You attract a community of people who become emotionally invested in your journey
2. You get real-time feedback that gives you 100x more valuable insights for building a sellable offer than "market research"
3. You create the perfect "business card" that markets on your behalf, creates connections and opens doors for you.

Doesn't matter if you even have a business or not. Doesn't matter if you don't even know what your 'thing' is, or how many fears you have. 

Stop waiting. Your work deserves to be seen NOW -- even (especially) while it's still evolving.

----

Links:

Join Truth or Dare starting March 20th, and I'll help you make the biggest moves to get the fastest results while building the emotional architecture to consistently choose courage over fear.

Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work

Transcript

 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Liberatory Business. I'm your host, Simone Seol. Now, here's a question I've been getting a lot that I want to talk about today as I'm promoting Truth or Dare, which is my brand new program. And when I say truth or dare, that's exactly what it sounds like. A game of truth or dare, like we grew up playing, except it's applied to entrepreneurship, where you're going to tell truths in your marketing that's going to build a community of support.

Porter's that are going to rally around your work like crazy. And you're going to take strategic, daring risks to put your creative work out there in the spotlight, getting yourself opportunities and connections that you assumed would take years to get all that's happening within a five week high powered container.

And if that sounds like your jam, you should check it out. I'll leave the signup link in the show notes. So I've been talking a lot about the importance of showing up now and sharing in real time. What you're working on, what you have to offer the world, and the power of showing up and sharing now. And so people have been asking me, you know, Simone, I'm interested in that.

It sounds like something I should do, but I don't have anything to sell yet. Or I'm thinking of starting a business, but I'm not sure I figured out what it is. Or I do have a business, but I'm not really established yet. I don't have any clients yet, or I'm in transition. So, What you're telling me is that you basically don't feel like you have something shiny and perfect and polished to offer the world.

If that's you, does truth or dare work still apply to me? Do I still need to be showing up in that way? And even if I am, what would I even say? What would I even do? Okay, so here's my answer. Yes, it is vital. And this is exactly when you need to be showing up and sharing your work. This is exactly when you need to be building a body of work in public, documenting your process and letting people in your community in on The process of you engaging in your own artistry.

And I'm going to break down why in this episode and why you're profoundly missing out if you are waiting until you have something perfect and polished and shiny and finished that you are ready to sell. If you're waiting to have that, and you're going to stay silent, that is a. Big, big mistake. And I'm going to break down why.

So here's the first thing by the time you have that perfect product that you're ready to release into the world, and that's when you're going to start talking about it, that's when you're going to start sharing. Tell me, who the hell is going to care? Why would anyone, first of all, even know that your thing exists?

Why would anyone be invested? Because by the time it's all ready, it's too late. You have to create a buzz around it from scratch. You have to create a community around it from scratch. You have to introduce who you are from scratch. You have to forge those connections with potential supporters, buyers, people who can connect you to buyers from scratch.

When you have a finished product, it's so much more efficient, so much smarter. If by that point you already had been busy creating a community of people. Who are invested in you, invested in your process, and excited for what you have been doing. So that by the time you're like, hey, I have this thing, it's finished, it's ready to sell.

People are like, oh my gosh, I'm already lighting up. So, this is why. Anyone who's undecided, who's still working through their stuff, still trying to figure it out, who's still building. The mid process is the exact opposite. Right time. It's the exact perfect time for you to show up if you wanna have any hope of people being excited and ready to jump on your thing when it's ready.

So here are all the benefits, and I'm gonna break it down for you, why you should show up now, aside from the fact that. You want to generate pre interest, right? So number one, people gravitate towards value and sharing is valuable. Let's say there's someone in your neighborhood on your block, who's constantly giving out free cookies.

Every time you visit delicious cookies in every flavor, would you want to keep visiting that house? Uh, yeah, that house is going to be the most popular house on the block because they're giving out delicious cookies to everyone who visits. You want to be that house because sharing from your process is an act of generosity.

When you share something, you give someone else a chance to learn from what you're sharing or to be inspired, to be entertained by what you're You give them a chance to have their lives be changed in some small way for the better. So everything you share from your ongoing process is you being generous towards the world.

It's a small gift you give the world every time. It's your form of giving out a cookie to somebody who's visiting your house. If you're consistently sharing from that spirit of generosity, you're going to be a house on the block that everyone wants to visit because every time I go, I get a cookie. I get something interesting, something entertaining, I learn something, it inspires me.

And trust me, nothing is more inspiring than seeing a creative person at work documenting their process. It is so much more interesting than someone who's showing you, hey, here's something that I made that's already perfect. So, the one thing is generosity, and people are drawn to the generosity of someone who's sharing their process.

It draws the right people towards you. The second reason you want to share now, in the middle of the process, not later, is that when you start sharing, you get feedback about your work so much earlier in the process. If you look around in the business world, everybody's going to tell you, you need to do market research, you need to do market research.

And they're not wrong. But I feel like almost everyone gets market research wrong because if you just poll a bunch of people Hey, do you want a B or C? What do you like better? You're gonna get a bunch of answers that are totally irrelevant to your business because they're answering your question from a totally theoretical place, you know how you get real research data You know how you get real feedback is when you document your real process and have people react to it genuinely, not theoretically. in Real. Time. 

I cannot count the number of people who came to me afterwards cause they worked on some big project that they had pinned all their hopes and dreams on in secret. And they didn't tell anybody, they kept it under wraps cause it wasn't finished yet and they put their blood, sweat, and tears into it for months and months and the minute they release it, crickets.

No one gives a shit. No one cares. It's a flop. And it's so demoralizing. You know why that happened? It's not because they suck, it's because they were keeping their thing a secret the whole time they were making it. So they didn't give themselves an opportunity to let it meet the world in the process of development to get invaluable feedback during the creation process.

That would have enabled them to iterate and to get new ideas and to refresh and to pivot in the creative process. That's not smart. Once you can let people in to the development process, you're gonna be so surprised. Because what you learn from letting your idea interact with the world is going to be so different from what your idea looks like when you develop it in the echo chamber of your own mind.

What you thought was not that good, like a throwaway piece, turns out that's the thing people fucking love. That's the thing people want to buy now. Or, the thing that you thought was so important and so great, that you were putting so much pressure on yourself to finish, turns out Nobody wants it.

How are you going to get this information unless you're sharing what you're working on in real time and get real time reactions from people not theoretical reactions that you get by polling them or interviewing them in which people are going to answer from their head in theory and not with their actual real time reactions.

Now, this is not to say that you should let people make all of your creative decisions for you. But when you let people in on what you're doing, you get that real time learning, you get smarter and you can make your creative decisions with those data points in mind. So much more useful than the poor person who waited months for something to be perfect in their own minds and then releases it.

Only to find no one can relate to it. It's not useful for anyone. No one cares. That's heartbreaking. The third reason you want to be sharing as you go, not when you have it perfect, is that when you share in the middle of your process, you build a much more authentic and resilient connection with the people who support you.

Content that someone shares when they have a finished product, so much less interesting than the content of someone who's like in it and the struggles that they're going through, their breakthroughs, their failures, their learning. We all love to watch movies that have these dramatic narrative arcs for reason.

We don't want to start a movie and skip straight to the happy ending. That's like the most boring movie ever, right? You have to give people a chance to Get invested emotionally in your journey, in the buildup, in the ups and downs. That creates intense, emotional, authentic connection. When people know that you're always a work in progress, your whole brand, so to speak, your whole business, your artistry, becomes so much more resilient in the marketplace.

Because, let's say you were ever to slip up a little bit. If you make a mistake, if you put something out there that's not perfect, people aren't going to be like, oh my god, I'm horrified. How dare they? People are going to be like, yeah, you're a human being and we love you for it. And they're going to be invested in your creative process as opposed to The perfect finished product.

I mean, wouldn't you rather have that kind of relationship with your people? I would rather have that. And actually one of my repeat clients said this to me recently, I feel good about my money going to you because I'm invested in hearing your process. My money feels safe going in your direction. And I was so grateful to hear that, and I think that should be true of all of you.

I think, I share so much of stuff like, Guys, I'm having an existential crisis here. Or, I don't know what I'm doing. Or, I made a mistake and this is what I learned. And this is not me being falsely humble. I'm, I have a very high opinion of myself and my work and my own. creative gifts, but I also am fully aware that I'm a human being who is continuing to learn.

So I show you all of it. And when you see all of it, you're like, Oh, I'm buying from a human being that creates so much trust and safety. And so not only are you more invested in me and my business, you also are more gracious with me. I see this again and again, if I were to ever mess up, which I do. A lot and talk about it.

People are like, oh, Simone is learning. Like we're all learning. I'm so grateful that she's le letting us in on what she's learning so I can learn alongside her. It people can learn on the sidelines when you let them learn alongside you. That is your. Generosity, that's service, and you're depriving people of the opportunity to get that if you are concealing yourself until you have something perfect to present.

By the way, a lot of my thinking on this is informed by Austin Kleon's book. called Show Your Work. And if you're on the market for a really creatively inspiring book, I highly recommend Austin Kleon, Show Your Work. I'm a big fan. I'll include a link to the book in the show notes. The one thing that he says is that when you document your work on an ongoing basis, that becomes your best business card.

And I was like, that is so brilliant. That's what this is about. Because, guess what? Guess what's more compelling for someone who wants to find your work? A perfectly branded website under your name or you documenting the ongoing aliveness of your work. Is it a perfect LinkedIn profile? A perfect finished portfolio you can show someone?

Or letting it, letting them in on the dynamic process of your ongoing journey. What you are learning and trying in real time. When you have a body of work like that, that lives publicly, you don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to try to over justify your value to the marketplace because it speaks for itself.

What you're doing is clear. The resonance becomes clear. Now I know that for so many people it's fear that keeps them from doing what they want to do. From showing up, speaking their truth, documenting their process. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if somebody judges? What if it's not good enough?

What if it's already been done before? What if it blah, blah, blah. And listen, me too. I have fears too. We're all human. Fear is so strong in our brains because that's how our brains evolved. Our first instinct is always to keep ourselves safe from harm, and that's to try to avoid doing new things as much as possible.

And that's so normal and understandable, and we get to give ourselves permission to be human, and also to rewire those patterns, which is why I created Truth or Dare. And I don't want to just throw some files and videos and lessons at you and call it a day, because I know that rewiring your brain takes time.

You gotta take action that you haven't taken before. You gotta build mental, emotional skills. Rewiring your brain takes time, which is why we're going to take five weeks to do this together in True Third Air. So not only do you create a bunch of incredible results in your business in a short time, you become a new version of yourself where fear isn't calling the shots on your creative process anymore.

And another thing I really want you to know to make this kind of brave showing up and sharing a way of life is I really want you to make the switch between Thinking of your marketing as being for selling to think of it thinking of your marketing as being for connection. And there's a really big difference, a world of difference between trying to sell something and trying to connect.

Not that there's anything wrong with selling, but if I only show up to sell then anyone who isn't in the market to buy that exact thing I'm selling right this second has to tune out because they're like, oh, this must not be for me and they have to go somewhere else. So you're only speaking to a tiny number of people, whereas if you're like, wait, I don't, I'm not sure exactly what I'm selling right now, or maybe I'm not ready to sell my thing right now, but that's not my only goal.

I'm here because I want to connect and to nurture my connections to other humans because I like other humans and I don't want to be here all alone. And my creativity actually is helped by interacting with other humans. And it helps other humans too. So if you shift the focus from selling to connection, there's no point at which you are unable to connect.

You're always able to connect. When you're struggling, you can connect because everyone struggles from time to time. When you're thriving, you can connect. When you're somewhere in the middle of the wilderness, you can connect because all of that, so everyone can relate because we all have the same human experience.

If you think marketing is only for showcasing something perfect or showing yourself to be perfect so that people can be impressed. I want to tell you that's the old paradigm and we're going to throw that old, oppressive, outdated paradigm out the window. And our new thing is what? In the liberatory business paradigm, marketing is for connection between humans.

And guess what? The more you show up, the more points of connection you create. And the more points of connection you create with people, the stronger your bonds, the stronger your community, the more resilient your business. And you know, I mentioned Austin Kleon says documenting your process publicly becomes the best business card you can have on the internet, right?

And let me tell you a story. In the beginning, in the first few years of my business, I had like, what, like 150 people on my email list. And I wrote this thing one time, years ago, to my tiny list. I was like, I don't know same number of people on my Instagram followers. I wrote this thing about foreign policy because I was reading the news.

And I had these thoughts about North Korea because North Korea was doing another thing where everyone was freaking out that they were going to nuke everybody. And I was in Korea and I had a unique perspective on it and I thought, you know, American people should know this. I feel like American white people don't know what I know about North Korean nuclear shenanigans.

And so I wrote like this essay about that. And that actually became one of my most popular pieces of content back then. And some people who are still in my world now found me through that content. Am I a foreign policy expert? No! Is that any part of my business now? Or was it then? No! But I was like, I have some thoughts I want to share because I'm a human being who thinks about these things.

And then some people really took that and were like, I like this chick. I'm going to pay attention to her business. I'm going to hire her because they were like, I like how this person thinks. This person is interesting. When I'm in her world, I learn something interesting. You know what happened? I became the house on the block where people pass by and they get a cookie.

And they tell other people, Hey, you know, when you walk by that house, you get a cookie. And people are like, Oh, I'm going to go walk by that house. That's how my business got built. Month after month, year after year, and that shit accumulates. Your brain's gonna give you a thousand excuses why your time is not now.

You don't have a clear thing yet. You don't know how to blah, blah, blah. You don't have a thing, right? You're not confident enough. You don't have enough people around you. Blah, blah, blah. You have to disbelieve your brain. You have to start building your body of work now. And look, you don't have to. If you don't have that hunger inside you to share your artistry with the world and impact people positively.

If that's not your thing, you don't have to. And you know when I say artistry, everyone's an artist. Whatever your thing is, it's an art. If you're not sure what your thing is at all, you being alive, that's an art. If you don't have a hunger inside you to do something with your aliveness that benefits other people, then everything I'm saying does not apply to you, but I also feel like you wouldn't be listening to my podcast.

But if you do have that inside you and you're letting fear call the shots on how you move in the world, that's going to change, okay? So, join Truth or Dare, because in five weeks, I'm going to lead you to do the things that it took me years to gather the courage and the emotional skills and the strategic awareness to be able to do.

I'm going to teach you everything I know about how to make the biggest moves to get the fastest results. Like, boom, boom, boom, you're going to do them one after the other. We're going to stack up. We're going to front load the biggest work that you can do. And at the same time, you're going to build the internal architecture so that you don't have to force yourself to just do one or two brave things and then just hyperventilate and then retreat into your hole.

But to become the version of yourself who listens more consistently to your courage than you listen to your fear. The version of you who effortlessly takes directions from your bigness. Rather than your smallness. It's funny, I actually have so many people emailing me to ask, Hey, I want do truth. I wanna do truth or dare, but I'm not established yet.

It's just for me. And I always have this reaction like, established Who the hell is established? I'm not established. I don't know what the fuck I'm. I literally don't know what I'm gonna do in three months. After I finish Truth or Dare, I might move to a farm, and go offline forever. I probably won't, but I don't know.

I'm in the middle of a big existential dilemma. I'm constantly talking about it. I don't feel established at all. Everything I do is Okay, let's just do this one experiment, see what we learn from it. And that is all of life. And think about it too, right? If I let myself think that I'm established, how much more one dimensional and uninteresting would my marketing be?

Like, how annoying would I be if I'm like, Oh, I'm established and you're not. I'm going to teach you how to be established. Blech. Fuck. I'm a work in progress. And I think if you're like me, so are you. And I think people who are a work in progress are the most interesting people. It's humbling, but it's also fun.

That's what life is about. Let me tell you, another person asked me about sharing your process. Okay. What does it actually mean to share your process? What does that mean? Okay. So it means when you have an unfinished thought, you share it when it means if you have a shitty rough draft. You share it without editing for another 70 hours.

It means if you feel like you're in the muck of it and don't know which way is up, you share exactly that. And by the way, I do this all the time in my emails, my social media, my podcast. And if you're in the muck of it and you don't know which way is up, you might feel like, oh my God, that is so embarrassing.

Why would I admit to that? Wouldn't people just laugh at me? And what happens is that actually when you share that thing that's vulnerable for you from a place of generosity, from a place of letting other people meet you and your humanity because it might help them too, people who are watching are going to go, Oh my God, me too.

It wasn't just me. I feel less crazy and they're going to be thankful to you for having the courage to speak your human experience out loud because once again, that's value. Everyone's like, how do I give value? Having the courage to speak your human experience is value. Sharing your process is value.

That's your generosity. It's affirming, it's validating, it's inspiring. It's healing for people to be able to connect with you on that level. So that's what I mean, and there's no excuses. The time to show up is now. The time for you to speak is now. The time for you to get to work and to document your process publicly is now.

And if you're still like Okay, I still don't know how to do that exactly, and I need you to hold my hand through the process. Or, I know what to do, but I'm scared? Congratulations, you're in the perfect place to start Truth or Dare. Grab your ticket, we start March 21st. Uh, no, 20th. And even if you're listening after that, We're still going to be open for you to join.

We will help you to not only do the things, but teach you what to do every step of the way and to give you the emotional, spiritual support to make that a new way of life. Once again, I'll include a link to join in the show notes. So go sign up, go sign up, be part of the movement. Okay. I'll talk to you later.