Some Things Die From Being Shown Too Early

As we all know there's a lot of pressure right now… The idea of the building in public, you have to post the process, share the rough draft, to even the messy middle, to show everything. And listen I get it, and granted in some part, a lot of that advice is good, but only for the right thing, at the right time. But, let’s be honest here, nobody really talks about what it can cost you.

With my personal experience, I have learned that some ideas are just not ready to be looked at so early, because they’re still forming. The second you put them in front of people, something will shift. As you start to hear the reactions before the idea has even finished becoming itself; you will start adjusting to all the extra noise in the room and you start bending it toward the response instead of whatever made it feel true in the first place. And just like that, it stops being yours. It now feels like a negotiation.

Let’s take Christopher Nolan, He's the filmmaker behind Inception, Interstellar, Oppenheimer, and his most recent film, The Odyssey; These are some of the biggest and most technically ambitious films of the last twenty years, and with all that success, here’s the part that got to me with what is behind his process, he has confirmed that he doesn't use email, Never has. Doesn't even carry a smartphone either, just an old flip phone he keeps for travel; And when people ask him why, his answer is simple. It gives him time to think. He says it's not about the technology, it's about the level of distraction, and that the idea of being accessible all day would just get in the way of the work. Now, for me hearing this from one of the most in demand director alive, has decided the constant noise wasn't worth it. So he cut the channels that everybody else treats as mandatory, just to protect his own attention.

He uses this same instinct on how he handles his scripts! Since he doesn't use email, he often has the script hand delivered! For instance, when it came time to casting and to show his script for Oppenheimer, he flew to Dublin, left the actor he wanted for the part, alone in a hotel room to read it, and came back a few hours later. Now, some might say that this is an extreme way of maintaining secrecy, and keeping it from being leaked out; But it's really about a different type of protection. His work meets people on his terms, in the right room, at the right moment, Not scattered across a hundred inboxes to get half read and judged before it ever had a real chance.

Let me give another example, Prince, one of the greatest singer, songwriter and musician to ever do it, and he was famously private about how he worked, and how he also did his own version of keeping his process private, as Nolan did. He played most of the instruments himself, ran his own studio, his way, on his own terms; He recorded constantly, at a pace that barely seemed human, leaving hundred of finished songs sitting in a private vault, he kept the work closed. Not everything he made was meant for the world while he was still making it. Some of it was just for him.

Now again, of course to some, these methods may seem like extreme cases, cause in reality, most of us aren't ditching our phones or building a vault. But if we take the instinct underneath it all, that’s what is worth sitting with, because for me, I know and can relate so much with these examples from the inside, and how I have let the modern day idea of sharing, posting, and building in public can ultimately cause and create a ripple effect that does more harm, then good.

Im sure many of you can relate, as for me… It usually starts with that moment of second guessing, as I’m in the middle of something, deep in it, and then some small doubt creeps in and instead of leaning further into what I was feeling, instead of trusting what my gut was already reaching for, I go looking for someone to tell me if this, or that is okay. I show it early, not because it's ready… but because I got scared and wanted the reassurance, that's the move that quietly wrecks it.

Now I'm not making what I intended anymore. I've now turned it into managing how people feel about it and I begin reading the room and adjusting toward whoever or whatever seemed a little unsure. Now, I’m in a mindset of people pleasing and I start sanding down the exact parts that made it mine, all because I'm now worrying about how people react to it.

Some would say feedback is good, but feedback isn't even the problem, it should never be, but the question to think and ask... What is the reasoning behind it? Did I go looking for it because I stopped trusting myself… and if that’s the case, that's the real dilemma.

You see It’s not about the difference of secrecy versus openness. It's whether you can stay with your own creative instinct long enough to let it become something, before the doubt talks you into handing it over for a vote.

Sometimes work needs a closed door. Not to hide it, But, to protect it and to keep your own second guessing out of the room long enough to hear what you were actually trying to say creatively.

I always try to keep this in mind... you can show it later. You should show it later. But only after you've trusted yourself first. That's the whole point, because the urge to share early may feel like courage, but if I'm being honest, it's really just fear looking for permission.

Trust it fully first. Then open the door.