Learn in public — It’s the absolute fastest way to build your skill or expertise

Many people have tons of ideas to improve their body of work. Others have dozens of new projects they want to start.

But more often than not, they fall into the trap of perfecting their creative work in private before they think about launching, shipping or publishing.

They think they are not good enough to share, ship or launch. Others are too scared of being judged by the public or their audience.

Most people want their careers to take off, but they are not prepared to do what it takes to get to that level of career growth. They keep everything they know, read or learn to themselves.

There are tons of benefits to learning. When you make it lifelong, you will deliberately upgrade your skills and accumulate enough knowledge to support you for life.

One of the best methods I have used to learn better, upgrade my skills and retain more of what I learn is learning in public.

It simply means sharing what you learn online, with your audience, subscribers or a group of people interested in the same topic or subject.

“It is simply the fastest way to learn, establish your net- work, and build your career. This means it is also sustainable because you are primarily doing it for your own good”, writes Shawn Swyx Wang in the Coding Career Handbook.

Learning in public is one of the best ways to build your body of work and improve your ability to take initiative.

Why it can work for anyone

“To teach is to learn twice. “ Joseph Joubert said.

I’ve gained more in life and career in the last five years by embracing public learning than I could have ever done if I kept what I learned to myself.

I landed a book contract, earned a six-figure income and networked with smart and amazing people in just five years of learning in public consistently.

Learning in public forces you to explain what you know to others in the simplest way possible. It improves your understanding of new ideas. And helps you remember 90% of what you learn.

You could also use the knowledge shared in public as a reference for new projects or impending creative work.

Many bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, writers and artists are good explainers. They’ve mastered the art of sharing in public and learn in public every week.

There’s more to learn from experiential learning than passive learning. Aristotle observed, “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

Lessons from active learning can help you improve your next iteration or piece of art. Learning from what works and what doesn’t feel a lot more like real progress than just accumulating knowledge.

Sharing in public is also a great way to find out the blind spots in your thinking process. It can help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, If I can’t explain something I’ve learned recently in a post, via my weekly newsletter, or an ebook in the simplest way possible, I go back to first principles and relearn it again.

The second shot at learning reinforce the knowledge and helps me discover even better ways to retain and teach new knowledge.

You can get started now

Martha Stewart is right. “If you learn something new every day, you can teach something new every day. “

The good news is you don’t need permission to start a blog, launch a newsletter, create a YouTube account, start a podcast, draw, illustrate, code, build or write.

You can start learning in public right now. You don’t need a following. All you need is that first step to put yourself out there. “…start building a persistent knowledge base that grows over time,” says Swyx.

Don’t worry about your personal brand just yet. Don’t allow personal expectations to get in the way of learning in public. You start sharing your work in progress online.

The only thing that matters is showing up and publishing what you learn consistently. That’s how you build your body of work. Soon enough, you will build a following or an audience.

Take your time and build a creative process you can sustain. You will get good over time. Experiment and do more of what’s working. That’s how you establish yourself in the long term.

Learn, share, repeat. Douglas Horton explains it beautifully, “Live to learn, learn to live, then teach others.”

Learning in public can do more for your career than you can ever imagine. I’ve done it, and I’ve no regrets. It has accelerated my learning process and helped me discover my intellectual curiosities.

This article first appeared on Medium.