building credibility

building credibility

October 7, 2026 • Issue No. 46

Happy Wednesday!

First, I have BIG news: as of last Tuesday, I am an award-winning writer. The American Theatre Critics Association has named me the WINNER of the Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. Kinda surreal, kinda bananas, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I deserve it. (Read more or watch my reaction.) I’ll show you my trophy when I get it.

The best part is feeling like I’m not yelling into a void. That my work has impacted someone. It’s nice to feel heard.

Speaking of heard, I went to a lecture this weekend that has me thinking about credibility. The artist and conceptual photographer, Carrie Mae Weems, who you may know from her 1990 ‘Kitchen Table’ photo series hosted a day of discussion at the Park Avenue Armory on Saturday. In a nod to Toni Morrison, the day was titled “Now Is The Time: Artists Go To Work” and convened nearly 100 artists on the East Side to discuss making art in the face of fascism. (Everything I told you just now was more information than I’d had when I arrived, I was really just there to see Ms. Weems in the flesh.)

Carrie came to the stage wearing black neoprene Nike sweat slacks and a white three-quarter sleeve burnout tee. She paused before introducing the agenda, she paused each time she wanted to choose a word intentionally. No one stirred in these pauses. No one checked their phone, whispered, or shifted in their seat. We all just waited.

It made me wonder, in an era of declining attention-spans, endless scroll, and near-constant distractions, who do we consider to be worth waiting for?

I reflected the question back to myself. What was it about Carrie Mae Weems that made me lean in and not out in those silences? Why did I find myself hanging on her every word? Why, when she played a video clip of one of Aretha Franklin’s last performances, was I still mostly watching Carrie?

The Answer: I see her as credible.

Now remember, I’ve never met Ms. Weems before. But I trusted her to arrive at something meaningful because she’s been making conceptual art longer than I’ve been alive and she’s earned numerous accolades along the way.

While she spoke, I scribbled in my notebook: CREDIBILITY = CONSISTENCY + VALUE.

If you’ve been trying to get people to listen to you, I think this formula is worth a shot. You can prove consistency and value in (at least) 2 ways: 1) showing, and 2) telling.

Showing is arguably the more difficult of the two because consistency takes time and time takes patience. If you’re playing the long game, showing is the way to go.

• Consistency is established by being there and following through.

• Value is what you offer when you’re in the room or delivering on a task.

If you’re hoping to build credibility on a team, you’ll have to be present and involved and say or do things that push the conversation or project forward. (This sounds straightforward, but we’ve all been in a meeting with someone who’s regularly off topic, asks questions that slow down the group, or offers solutions that are too expensive/short-sighted/not feasible. The credible person knows when to speak up and when to listen, but the credible person cannot be silent all the time.

Telling will do when there’s no time for showing. Imagine a situation where you’ve been asked to speak on a panel or prepare a presentation about your team’s work for a cross-org audience. There might be people in the audience wondering, Why should I listen to her? It’s a good idea to earn credibility right up front. Maybe someone will read your bio before you come to the stage or maybe you’ll need to reserve one slide for introducing yourself. Just listing your degrees is unlikely to earn credibility because degrees might communicate value, but they don’t do much for consistency. The credible person will explain how long they’ve been involved with the subject matter at hand and how they’ve achieved results while there.

Here’s what I mean:

Bio 1: Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning journalist at the New York Times. She has written articles on school segregation, institutional racism, national politics, and the long-lasting impacts of slavery.

Bio 2: Nikole Hannah-Jones has written for the New York Times since 2015. Her work on the 1619 Project, which details the long-lasting impacts of American slavery, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.

Now, before you start saying, Of course she should mention her Pulitzer! go deeper. There are other differences in the second bio: it says how long she’s been working as a journalist, which award she’s won, what she won it for, and establishes a timeline between when she started at NYT and when she won that Pulitzer. All of those details establish consistency and value. Same person and both bios are true, but the second bio is more likely to engender trust and take her at her word.

You don’t have to win a Pulitzer to write a bio that builds credibility. Remember that a list of accolades or degrees are unlikely to communicate much in the way of consistency or value without context — and context, more than anything else, is what that second bio conveys.

Work on building your credibility in the room by showing and telling how you’ve been consistent and where you add value and before long, you’ll have rooms full of people waiting to hear you, too. If you won’t take it from Carrie Mae Weems, take it from me: an award-winning writer. 🙂 

💎 credibility = consistency + value 💎 

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