I believe you become known for something when you share what you know. That sounds simple, and it is, but I don't think most of us act like it's true.
This past week I had two different conversations with two different people about the exact same thing. Both of them said some version of, "I just don't know what I'm known for." I hear this a lot from the people I work with, and if I'm honest, it's been a common refrain of mine too, which is a little ironic considering that helping people describe their work has been a big part of what I do. So many of us want a clear message before we put anything out into the world, so we keep studying and learning and writing things down, waiting to figure out what we're known for before we start talking about it.
I don't think it works in that order. Without any material to shape and craft, it's very hard to come up with something clear from scratch. In this episode I lay the work of my client Luvvie Ajayi Jones next to the work of Kit founder Nathan Barry to show where the clarity in what they're known for came from. I also share an experiment with a piano that I used to show my choir students, because it's the clearest picture I have of what happens when you send what you know out into the world.
IMPACT POINTS FROM THIS EPISODE:
⚡ Being known for something means other people know it, too. — And they can only know it if you share it. When I was preparing for a session with Luvvie, it was very clear to see what she's known for, because she has been sharing online publicly for twenty years. She started blogging in college in 2003, published I'm Judging You in 2016, gave her TED Talk "Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable" in 2017, and published Professional Troublemaker in 2021, almost twenty years after she started writing online. The clarity in what she's known for came from the sharing. Nathan Barry made a commitment in 2012, before Kit existed, to write 1,000 words every day, and decided, "I now share and teach whatever I can, and you should, too." A lot of people know him now as the person who helps creators earn a living from what they know, and he got there by sharing what he knew long before anyone knew him for it.
⚡ You find out what you're known for by what people reflect back to you. — The next time you're near a piano, hold down the sustain pedal and sing a note over the strings. The strings that match your note start to ring all on their own, but they can only answer if you sing. Sharing what you know works the same way. The people who need it ring back: they repeat a phrase you said, they ask you a follow-up question, they send someone your way. At Craft and Commerce, after years of fumbling my own introduction, someone who'd heard me talk about my work handed the words back to me over a lunch hour, and none of that could have happened if I hadn't been in those rooms sharing first.
⚡ Sharing what you know doesn't have to happen in public. — You don't have to start a podcast, post on LinkedIn every day, or write a book. You can share what you know in a conversation with a client, in an email back to someone who asked you a question, or in a small room with five people working on the same thing you are. What matters is that it gets out of your head and in front of someone who can reflect it back to you. This week, pick one thing you know to be true, share it with one person, and write down what they repeat, what they ask you more about, and what lights them up. Then do it again. It's going to make sense after you share, not before.
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