Thursday morning, February 13th. Someone's live-streaming their creative process to an empty room, narrating every decision, every doubt, every false start. "Being transparent!" they announce to the void. Three hours later, they've produced nothing except a detailed chronicle of their inability to produce anything. Meanwhile, the person at the corner table—headphones on, door closed to the world—ships the finished work. Transparency isn't always a virtue. Sometimes it's just performance anxiety with better PR.

The Thesis

We've confused transparency with integrity, assuming that sharing everything—our doubts, our process, our struggles, our unformed thoughts—is inherently valuable. It's not. Radical transparency often undermines the work itself, turning internal dialogue into external performance, private process into public spectacle, and productive uncertainty into paralyzing self-consciousness. The demand to "work in public" and "share the journey" isn't always empowering—it's often just another distraction that lets you avoid the hard, private work of actually doing the thing.

Modern culture worships transparency:

  • Build in public
  • Share your struggles
  • Be vulnerable about your doubts
  • Document your entire process
  • Make your failures visible
  • Normalize talking about everything

It sounds healthy. Authentic. Human. Often, it's none of those things. It's just another way to perform work instead of doing it.

Why Transparency Fails

It turns process into performance:

When you make your work process public, you're no longer just working—you're performing working. You're narrating. You're curating. You're thinking about how it looks to the audience.

This splits your attention. Part of your brain is doing the work. Part is meta-analyzing the work for public consumption. Part is worrying about how the audience perceives your process. Part is pre-defending against criticism by acknowledging flaws before others can point them out.

None of this helps you do better work. It just makes you more self-conscious while working.

The person who closes the door and disappears into the work isn't being secretive—they're being focused. They're not splitting their consciousness between doing and performing. They're just doing.

It invites input at the wrong time:

Early-stage work is fragile. Ideas need time to develop before they're ready for criticism. Sharing half-formed thoughts invites feedback that can derail or distort them before they've had a chance to find their shape.

This isn't about ego protection. It's about process protection. Some things need to germinate in private before they're robust enough to survive public scrutiny.

But transparency culture says: share early! Get feedback! Iterate in public! This works for some types of work. For others, it's like pulling up a seedling every day to check if the roots are growing. You're not helping—you're killing it with premature exposure.

It weaponizes vulnerability:

"I'm struggling with this" used to be a private admission. Now it's a public performance. We share our doubts, our imposter syndrome, our mental health struggles, and frame it as courage.

Sometimes it is. Often, it's fishing for validation. Or pre-emptive excuse-making. Or a way to lower expectations. Or performing struggle as proof of authenticity.

Real vulnerability is private risk—actually trying something difficult without knowing if you'll succeed. Public vulnerability is often just crowdsourcing reassurance while avoiding the actual risk of shipping the work and letting it be judged.

The struggle becomes the product:

When you're constantly narrating your process, the process becomes more interesting than the outcome. You start optimizing for interesting struggle rather than for good results.

The writer who tweets about writer's block gets more engagement than the writer who quietly finishes the essay. The entrepreneur who posts about their journey gets more followers than the entrepreneur who silently builds the profitable business. The influencer who shares their mental health struggles gets more sympathy than the person who privately gets therapy and improves.

So you optimize for what gets rewarded: the performance of struggle. The actual work becomes secondary to the narrative about doing the work.

What Actually Works

Separate working from performing:

Do the work in private. Share the results in public. Keep the messy middle to yourself.

This isn't secrecy—it's focus. When you're working, work. Don't narrate, don't document, don't share. Just do the thing. Let your full consciousness engage with the problem instead of splitting it between doing and performing.

Share the outcome when it's ready. Let the work speak for itself. The process can remain private without being shameful. Not everything needs to be content.

Protect the early stages:

Don't share ideas when they're still forming. Don't invite feedback on rough drafts. Don't document your process while you're still figuring out what the process is.

This isn't about avoiding criticism. It's about giving your ideas room to breathe before they have to defend themselves. Some plants need a greenhouse. Not everything thrives in full sunlight from day one.

Share when you're ready to hear criticism without it derailing you. Share when the work is formed enough to withstand scrutiny. Before that, protect it.

Make vulnerability meaningful:

If you're going to share struggles, make sure it's helping someone, not just performing. Ask:

  • Does this insight help others navigate similar challenges?
  • Am I sharing this to contribute or to get validation?
  • Would I share this if it got zero response?

If you're sharing because you need reassurance, get that from friends, not from the void of social media. If you're sharing because it actually helps others understand something difficult, then it's generosity, not performance.

Real vulnerability is taking the risk to ship your work, knowing it might fail. Talking about how hard it is to ship your work isn't vulnerability—it's postponing the actual risk.

Judge by outcomes, not process:

The person who struggles publicly but ships nothing hasn't accomplished anything, regardless of how authentic their struggle feels.

The person who works in private and ships consistently is doing the actual work, even if they never share their process.

We've confused the performance of work with work itself. Stop measuring by how much you share and start measuring by what you produce. The work is the point. Everything else is optional.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Most "radical transparency" is just sophisticated procrastination. It gives you something to do that feels like work but isn't. You're building an audience! You're being authentic! You're helping others by modeling vulnerability!

No. You're avoiding the hard, private work of actually creating something worth sharing. You're performing work instead of doing it. And you're calling it virtue.

Here's what you should actually do:

  • Close the door - Do the work in private where you can focus
  • Protect fragile ideas - Don't share until they're robust enough to survive scrutiny
  • Share outcomes - Let finished work speak for itself
  • Save struggle for friends - Get emotional support from real relationships, not audiences
  • Stop performing - Your process doesn't need to be content

The person who ships in silence is doing more for the world than the person who documents their struggle in public and ships nothing.

Transparency is a tool, not a virtue. Use it strategically. But remember: most work benefits from privacy. Most ideas benefit from protection. Most creative processes benefit from being allowed to happen without an audience.

Stop sharing. Start shipping.

Today's Sketch

February 13, 2026