"Be Less Perfect" and other lessons from Kit's Conference [WRAP 217]

Hey Reader, I was in Boise last week for my favorite conference of the year, Craft + Commerce by Kit.

This is a little different than the normal WRAP—I'm just sharing my main takeaways from the week.

The speakers are amazing but the quality of attendees is even better. Seriously, great people and amazing creators who should (and have been) speakers in their own right just show up to hang out.

I love it for all those reasons, but also because it has the feel of a big family reunion. It's the one time each year I get to see many of my creator-internet friends like Steve Kamb (new book out btw), Barrett Brooks, Jay Papasan, John Meese, KC Procter, Brad Hussey, Robby Miles, and many others—including Nathan Barry and his incredible team at Kit.

Check out my quick recap on Instagram here 📹

From left: Jay Papasan's talk - Analog Action! - Yes, light at 10:01 PM

💡 One Big Idea: Be Less Perfect

The talk that give me the biggest kick in the pants in terms of my business was being more active on Instagram Reels and short videos in general (hello YouTube Shorts).

Nicole Burke gave a great workshop on how to structure reels, entertain + teach, and be more consistent. I realized that I was treating my reels too much like my YouTube videos, i.e. too much structure, b-roll, production value, etc. Which meant I wasn't really publishing any. I was trying to make them perfect when I really just need to be myself and show up more often.

But since her talk on Thursday I've published 8 reels across my personal and BulletJournalGuy accounts—more than I've posted the whole year, I think?! Oh and Nicole posted a reel of my sketchnotes, which was cool 🤩

🤔 One Thing I'm Thinking About: Shoot Your Shot

Two other great talks were from Gannon Meyer and Gabby Beckford—who both talked about how to make great connections, do incredible work, and not settle for anything less than what you're worth.

A couple clear ways I've seen this work in my own career that you can use today...

From Gannon: Do the work you want people to hire you for

Gannon has a recurring series on Instagram of "If [insert famous person] hired me to do [this thing], here's what I would do." Then he proceeds to explain the big picture of his marketing plan, with just enough to show how he thinks and create interest from the potential client.

In his talk, Gannon showed us the really play here is other people like to see how you think too. In fact, these short reels and carousels are the number one way Gannon gets new clients!

Takeaway: people and brands want to see how you think 🤔

From Gabby: Delusional self-confidence

"Don't be the person who tells you no—that's the other person's job."

This was echoed by a few speakers, but it really hit home for me in Gabby's talk because she showed several posts and emails like this where she's reaching out to brands and people who are "slightly out of my league."

It was a good reminder for me to reach out to people and brands I admire and want to work with. I've been playing too small, telling myself "no" instead of letting the other party do that 😆 Gabby also encouraged everyone to stick with it and keep your standards high, showing a collaboration with an airline that took four years (!) to become a reality.

Bonus! James Clear said "suffer a little longer"

James Clear was back at Craft + Commerce for the first time since year one in 2017. He gave a couple fireside chat style talks and it was really interesting to hear him talk about the publishing industry and book writing process. But the thing that stood out to me was his mindset to "suffer a little more" to create an excellent book—one that would stand the test of time.

I've been thinking about "suffering a little more" ever since. With a busy life, business, and client work, I've ended up packing a lot of effort into my days—but in a way that's more like "that's good enough" than "let's suffer a bit more and make it better".

This is part of what's fun, frustrating, and endlessly fascinating about being a content creator and entrepreneur. It's juggling the decisions, priorities, projects, and opportunities every day—deciding where to suffer a little more and what just needs to be shipped.

Thanks for reading the WRAP!

Talk soon,

Matt Ragland