Granted, most of the world's workers may not be looking to create a social media presence, instead toiling away in factories, offices, fields or supermarkets. But Zweig is talking about those are who are highly trained and expert in their fields, but yet seem to be completely uninterested in outside attention. He calls them 'Invisibles' from the title of his book; Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion. He explains that they're editors, fact checkers, translators, engineers or generally in roles where they only really attract attention if anything goes wrong and the trail leads back to them. We've all been in jobs like that, right?
"What makes Invisibles so captivating," Zweig writes, "is that they are achieving enviable levels of fulfillment from their work, yet their approach is near antithetical to that of our culture at large." In other words, Invisibles are engaged in something that the rest of us have not even considered: not talking about themselves. They are not building elaborate websites or desperately trying to accrue Twitter followers in an effort to 'brand' themselves. They are not trying to talk up their current jobs into something more exciting and higher profile. They are just doing their work proudly and meticulously and then shutting up about it. But Zweig's point isn't that Invisibles are more highly evolved than their attention-seeking counterparts but more that they have cracked the code for a satisfying life. Do your work for its own sake, and tweet about it later. In a similar vein to Gary Vaynerchuck's mantra of 'document, don't create'; it's about giving little snippets of what you're up to as and when you do it, instead of spending a lot of time thinking up and creating content. Choose what you actually want to do rather than what you think will impress people on Facebook. Ironically, when you do this, something amazing happens; what you produce stands a better chance of getting recognition. Not just on Facebook, but in the real world too. Your audience will develop and grow based on you and what you do, not what you tell them you do. Which is why it's so important to just talk rather than over-promote. Because the truth is that most of your Facebook friends and the businesses, busy building their own audiences, are too busy counting their own 'likes' to pay attention to you for more than a few seconds anyway. It's perfectly fine to fly below people's radar, as long as you're getting the job done. Your work is likely to draw the attention for you.
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