Stop Building in Secret

All right. This next episode, gang, is something that, heck, I'm, I'm probably guilty of more than anybody, right? So we're at episode 34 and we're gonna get Keep It Real. And this one, it might sting a little bit. I mean, sometimes they do, but that's kind of the point is to say something where you're like, shoot, that's me. So you could have that moment where you're like, you know, it's time to change. And I'm somebody who's been there with this, right? So this is, this is gonna be a topic that hits home with me. I've, I've been there, done that. And it's this: you're building in secret. Think about it. Stop building in secret. Really, that's gonna be the title of this episode, probably. Stop building in secret. That seems to make sense. You know, you're building in secret, and what I mean by that is this. You're working on the offer, you're tweaking your website, you're refining your program and what you deliver. You're getting everything just perfectly right before you tell anybody. Like, you keep it all in. You're just doing it all. You're doing all the background work and nobody knows. And I get it. It feels like the responsible thing to do. It feels like the professional thing to do, not to half-ass it, right, with something that's not finished. It feels safer than putting something out there and having it be imperfect. And look, for me personally, I have that problem. I'm one of those people where I could look at something over and over and over again and, you know, just ride that that perception of imperfection in my head to not release things. Honestly, it's why I made the entire Fuck It Switch Challenge in my community at Unshakeable AF. The whole reason I built that challenge was a personal— it was a personal challenge to myself to get this done because I have so many ideas, man. If I, if I just did nothing but content production for the next year, I could be busy every single day. That's how much I've got written down. That's how much content I've created. That's how many, you know, pages of, of stuff that I've written. And we're not talking about AI stuff. We're talking about me writing it over decades now. Just content, just stuff, uh, things I do with people. You know, I, I do keep records of my conversations with folks and the, the main things I build, the structures I build so I can have it for reference. Fed all that stuff into the, into the old GPT there, into the old Claude, and Man, oh man, it can turn itself into a manifesto. But look, here's what's really happening. You're hiding, right? And every day you stay in build mode and you're not putting something into the world, you're paying a price. And it's not just about missed revenue. I mean, yeah, you're missing revenue. That's part of it. But it's also missed feedback, missed momentum in the slow erosion of your own belief that it's actually going to work, right? The longer you delay something, I mean, think about all the times you may have paid out for a service. Or paid out for a tool, they never actually used it. Same kind of thing. And the market, it doesn't reward perfection. It rewards presence, consistent, visible, honest presence. If you're around all the time, you start getting seen. If you're around once in a blue moon and nobody has a freaking clue when it happens, guess what? Ain't nobody know that you're even here. You're working in the clouds. You're working your mist monster. Nobody knows you exist. And it's not the worst thing. For some people, they have enough referral business, they don't care and they're happy with it. But for people that wanna put themselves out there in the universe, you actually have to do it. That's a pain in the ass. I get it. I remember when I launched my first real program, I spent weeks polishing it. Then I spent 3 more weeks finding reasons, you know, not to announce it. Meanwhile, I got a, you know, a DM asking me, you know, if I had anything like that. They didn't care that it wasn't perfect. They were just asking, hey, do you have a course like this? You, of course, have talked more about what you talked about here. And I'm like, yeah, kind of do, but it's not up yet. You know, that's kind of do, but, but yet, you know, and that's, that's a struggle a lot of us happen to fall into where we, we wanna do something, we have a passion for something, but then when it gets to the brass tacks of just putting it out there to the universe and letting people like it, hate it, or tell us to go fuck ourselves, we, we get afraid and we sit there and we turtle up. And how fucking stupid is it to turtle up when all because you, you're afraid of what some random asshole on the internet's gonna say, or some jerk off on LinkedIn that you don't know from a hole in the wall and they, they requested you, you know, 5 years ago, but you see them being active on social media, so you're like, oh, if they don't like it, well, I'm screwed. Who cares? Fuck these people. Like, build for you. Build your universe for you, for who you wanna help and how you wanna help them. Don't build for them. So what you need to do is this. You need to understand that you don't need a perfect offer, a perfect website, a perfect solution to start the conversation. You need a real one. As long as what you're building is legit, that's all that matters. And here's today's move. And today we're in the execute side of it, of Rise, right? So we're fully on the other end of execute today. I want you to tell one person today what you've been building, not to sell them. I just want you to say it out loud. So if you, so I've been doing a lot with, with, uh, Claude Code, right? I've been coding a tool using the Agenta coding features that they have mixed with my own abilities. And it's been, let me tell you something, that's a whole, I could do 40 podcast episodes about that right now. I've. Completely re-fallen in love with, with technology and coding after pretty much 15 years or so, just walking away from it entirely and wanting nothing to do with it, mainly because I had a daughter that was born and I wanted to spend time around her and not late nights at the CLI sitting there hacking away like a lunatic because I could get obsessed. And I am again. And it's, you know, it's, it's a better time in life to be obsessed with this and with the technology around. Oh man, it's a good, but so look today, execute. Tell the one person today what you're building. One person. Don't sell 'em. Just say it out loud. Because once you say it out loud to another human being, that stops being an idea and it becomes something real. You now have to wonder if that person sees you again, if they're gonna say, hey Steve, how's Project X working out? Oh, well, it's still in my mind. Or, oh yeah, it's live now. Here's a link. So that's what I wanted to tell you today. Stop building in secret. The world can't hire what they can't see. The world can't benefit from what they don't hear. And you can't reach people if they don't know that you're alive. And if they don't know that you're out there, you have to put yourself out there to some degree, no matter how scary it is. Just jump in with two feet. And today's riff of the episode's gonna be this: the market doesn't reward perfection. It rewards presence. So let's get some presence going, people. Let's just everybody, you know, write it in the comments, write it on the blog, write it on social media, write it wherever you want. Put it out there. Let people know what you're doing. Take a picture of what you're doing. Take a picture of your desktop loading something. I don't care what it is. Take, do something where you're showing people and telling people what the hell it is that you're building in the background. Because if you don't tell us, nobody's gonna know. Thanks so much, guys. That was it. Yeah, still haven't made a jingle for the end of these. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just keep it real like this and say, is was another episode of Unfiltered and Unshakeable with yours truly, Steve Lichtman. Take it easy, guys.