Thrive in obscurity

The path to creative mastery begins with years of silence. Publish anyway.

Most things take forever to bear fruit.

Even the most successful creators have spent years (if not decades) putting content out in obscurity. Just a complete total void. Youtube videos with 4 views. Newsletters with 3 subscribers. Podcasts with 10 listeners. Blogs with 6 readers. Songs with 4 downloads. No one but their parents and their spouse consuming their work. And sometimes not even that.

If you’re in it purely for the promised land of love, praise, followers, and fame from millions of people - it’s impossible to sustain. In every field, it takes years of practice, repetition, and “failed performances” before the first hit. In the worst case, artists go their entire life without ever receiving the praise they deserved. Look at Van Gogh - an incredible artist who died unappreciated & broke, in a mental asylum. All of his fame came after his death.

So how do you keep going?

How do you keep hitting that publish button, over and over again, knowing there’s no one on the other side?

I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.

But I have come across a few frameworks and quotes that I’ve found useful, so I’m sharing them below.

1 — Do things you like, and sometimes the world will agree

This interview between Shaan Puri and Mike Posner is awesome. In it, Mike talks about his (seemingly) sudden rise to stardom, the rapid fall, and the slow climb back.

After writing music for 10 years — since the age of 6 — Mike’s single Cooler Than Me blew up. No one other than his mom had heard any of his previous songs. Cooler Than Me hit #6 on the Billboard Top 100 — while he was still in college at Duke.

Mike spent the next 7 years trying to chase the same hit, and every song ended up worse than the last. The chase pushed him into depression, drugs, a near-fatal snake bite, a walking journey across the US, and climbing Everest.

Ultimately, he came out with a much healthier attitude (that led to more hits).

Do things that you like, and sometimes the world will agree.

Instead of chasing hits, Mike only produces music he likes. Music he thinks is good.
Music he’d listen to.
Music that’s a hit for him.

And sometimes, the world agrees.

2 — Push yourself out

Similar to Mike Posner’s mindset: Instead of trying to figure out what your audience likes, just create what you like.

That’ll help sustain motivation when your audience doesn’t really exist. You’ll be more likely to push through plateaus, and you’ll enjoy the process. You’ll also just produce better work.

Best of all? It’ll attract like-minded followers — people who love the work you like to create.

Your audience is just you, pushed outwards.

3 — Build your Binge Bank

Instead of being disappointed when no one consumes your content, treat these initial pieces of content as an investment. An investment in your Binge Bank. What’s that?

Your Binge Bank is the collection of content that your future fans will want to consume. It’s the rabbit hole of content they'll go down. Your audience might not exist now, but when it does in the future (and you can bet it will), they’ll want to go back in time and see everything you’ve produced.

This is why YouTubers with millions of followers have hundreds of thousands of views on their first few videos. Those videos didn’t get any views when they were first published. They were revisited after they became famous, by their most loyal fans.

So if you (like me) are publishing into obscurity, this is your gentle reminder.

Keep going.