Thinking in Public
Where This Idea Comes From
I’ve always been a bit frustrated by the concept of “building in public.”
It’s everywhere in the startup world. I tried to like it, but it never fully clicked. Founders sharing metrics, posting product updates, documenting the behind-the-scenes…
I get the point: document, don’t create. It is supposed to be a quick, frictionless way to do content marketing.
Trouble is, most of us knowledge workers aren’t founders, aren’t coding or building something other than our career. We don’t really have a portfolio of side projects either.
I felt that it was not something I could really apply, and that sharing MRR metrics was not really that interesting for anyone anyway.
But when I started paying closer attention to the people I genuinely wanted to follow, things got clearer.
One of them was founder Brian Casel.
He has been building and sharing for years. But the value from his content isn’t so much in “showing” what he’s building.
It is in how he thinks. The questions he asks openly, the doubts, the insights. It feels like watching someone sharpen their ideas almost in real time.
And it made me want to do the same.
The moment I reframed “building in public” as thinking in public, a lot of the “personal branding” noise started to make more sense.
Of course, I immediately crashed into my own impostor syndrome (more on that below). But something unlocked.
For the first time, I saw a path toward building a personal brand that felt real.
Conversations
The same realization hit me listening to Patrick O’Shaughnessy (O’Shaughnessy Asset Management) and hosting his own podcast.
I remember thinking:
“If I were wealthy enough (and perhaps American), I’d be in full ‘shut up and take my money’ mode.”
Not even because of his own ideas (at least at first), but because of the way he asks questions. The way he thinks with others. That’s thinking in public at its best. Not just monologuing but thinking through conversation.
This led me to a second lightbulb moment for me:
It can start with only one other person. I don’t need an audience, but only one thinking partner.
That’s one of the core ideas behind inLabs and the better conversations I’m trying to have.
And it’s exactly why I’m also building so many niche and tiny media properties with tiny Media partners: to give more people access to such conversations, without needing a big audience, or being famous enough to be invited on a big podcast.
You don’t have to be a founder. You don’t have to know it all (see “Better Questions” below). You just have to be willing to share your thinking.
And if you can do that consistently, form the habit, you’ll attract people already wired like you.
That’s what I call Thought Kinship. An idea I introduced in my first article: “Against Volume.”
Mental Barriers
Let’s talk about impostor syndrome.
It usually kicks in the moment someone says, “you should share your ideas.”
It definitely kicked in for me the second I embraced the “thinking in public” concept. We tell ourselves we’re not experts, not original enough, not sure enough. So we stay quiet.
But here is is the truth: sharing your thinking doesn’t require certainty. It does not even require answers: you can simply start with questions worth asking.
Years ago, consulting giant Ernst & Young launched an ad campaign called Better Questions.
And to this day, I’m mad about it.
It is everything I had been trying to articulate for a long time, captured in two perfect words. And I didn’t come up with it. Worse: a massive corporate consultancy did, and banked on it.
But credit where credit is due: this is a brilliant idea. One that goes far beyond consulting.
Because in the context of personal branding (especially thinking in public) better questions are the perfect starting point. You do not need absolute certainty (and perhaps the ego coming with such certainty).
You can start with questions that help others either see what they had not noticed before, or put into words something they have been feeling too.
You are shaping your thoughts. And giving others an opportunity to shape theirs. That is where thought kinship begins.
But there is another barrier that keeps smart people from sharing anything at all. I call it the Humble Veteran Syndrome.
You would not believe how many deeply experienced professionals I have met who stay silent because they are experienced. The more you know about a field, the more you are aware of everything you don’t know. You see complexity. You see the gray.
I believe the fastest way to spot true expertise is when someone starts answering your question by “it depends”.
And so, believing that personal branding requires bold certainty, “expert status” and assertion, the humble veteran often opts out entirely.
But again: better questions help here too. And they can help you whether you are a veteran or more junior. You can ask them at any point in your career.
The first step
You do not need a content calendar and you do not need to think of posting anything yet.
The first step is simpler, yet harder: carving out some time to think about what truly matters to you and the people you want to connect with.
Start by noticing the questions that won’t leave you alone. Write them down to understand them, to play with them. Sharpen them.
The sharing will come later.
You might actually end up wanting to share your thoughts. You might begin to post on social media not because you “should,” but because your thinking will be asking for it.
What to read next: The Hard Truth About Thinking >>