What My Editor Taught Me About Taste (And Why I Couldn't See It Myself)

I write about taste constantly.

It's one of the four things I learnt at Microsoft that actually matter: process, judgment, accountability, and taste. Taste is knowing the difference between good and great. It's having standards that go beyond "does it meet the requirements?" to "is this actually excellent?"

I've written thousands of words about taste. I've explained it to clients. I've built frameworks around it.

And then I handed my manuscript to an editor and discovered I couldn't see my own blind spots.

Crossing the Line

Sending the manuscript was my fuck it line that day.

I'd been working on "Teach Yourself Out" for months. Writing early mornings, weekends, stolen hours. Pouring everything I knew about helping teachers build products and income into a book that felt important.

And I'd done it myself. Built it myself. Written every word myself.

That's my default mode. Figure it out. Do it yourself. Don't need anyone else. It's served me well in many contexts. It's also a limitation I'm only starting to understand.

Handing over something you've built yourself is exposing. There's a vulnerability in saying "here's my best work, tell me what's wrong with it." A voice in your head whispers that maybe it's not good enough. Maybe you've been fooling yourself about the quality.

But I'd crossed enough fuck it lines to know that the fear is usually a signal. If it feels uncomfortable to share, that's probably exactly why you should share it.

So I sent it to a professional editor I'd been working with for a while. Someone I'd found on Fiverr who had consistently delivered excellent work. Someone whose judgment I trusted.

And then I waited.

The Editorial Report

What came back was the most insightful document I could have imagined.

Not because it was full of praise. Because it was full of truth.

She saw things I couldn't see. Not small things. Fundamental things about how the book worked, where it lost momentum, what was confusing, what was missing.

Here's what hit hardest: I had written about cognitive load. I'd explained the concept clearly. And then, in the very same book, I'd done things that increased cognitive load for the reader.

I was teaching one thing and doing another. And I couldn't see it.

She pointed out places where I went on about things that weren't actually the key point. Where my enthusiasm for a tangent was pulling readers away from what mattered. Where I needed to cut, consolidate, get out of my own way.

She suggested adding visuals to break up dense sections. She identified chunks of text that could be combined or removed entirely. She even flagged places where I needed to ensure I had permission to say what I was saying.

Every note was specific. Every suggestion was actionable. And almost all of it was obviously right the moment I read it.

The Reaction I Didn't Expect

Here's what surprised me about my own reaction: I wasn't defensive.

I immediately lit up. I wrote back thanking her, telling her she was amazing, asking her to trust her gut on everything.

Why no defensiveness? I think because the feedback was so clearly in service of making the book better. It wasn't criticism for its own sake. It was someone with developed taste helping me see what I couldn't see myself.

This is the thing about taste: it requires distance.

When you're deep in your own work, you lose perspective. You know what you meant to say, so you read what you meant instead of what you wrote. You're attached to sections that took effort, even if they don't serve the reader. You can't see the forest because you've been staring at individual trees for months.

An editor with taste sees what a reader sees. They experience the book fresh. They notice where attention wanders, where confusion creeps in, where the pace drags.

That fresh perspective is irreplaceable. And you cannot give it to yourself.

What This Taught Me About Taste

I've written that taste is knowing what good looks like before you can articulate why. That it's developed through immersion and exposure. That it takes time and cannot be rushed.

All of that is true. But working with this editor taught me something I'd been missing.

Taste requires other people.

You can develop taste in a domain by reading thousands of examples, by studying what works, by paying attention to quality. But when it comes to your own work, you're too close. Your taste, no matter how developed, has blind spots shaped exactly like your habits.

The things I couldn't see weren't subtle. They were obvious, once someone pointed them out. But I couldn't point them out to myself because they were invisible to me in the way that your own accent is invisible to you.

This is why every great writer has editors. Why every great filmmaker has trusted collaborators who tell them the truth. Why every capable organisation needs people who can say "this isn't good enough" even when it came from someone important.

Taste isn't just a personal capability. It's a system. It requires multiple perspectives, including perspectives from outside your own head.

The Humility of Craft

There's a lesson here about the "do it yourself" mentality.

I pride myself on being able to figure things out. On not needing help. On building things from scratch with my own hands. That independence has been valuable. It's gotten me far.

But it has a shadow side.

When you believe you can do everything yourself, you cut yourself off from the perspectives that would make your work better. You mistake self-reliance for capability. You confuse "I made this" with "this is good."

The best work isn't made alone. It's made by people who are good at what they do AND who surround themselves with others who can see what they can't.

That's not weakness. That's craft.

The great artists, the great builders, the great leaders all have this in common: they seek out people who will tell them the truth about their work. They create conditions where honest feedback is possible. They treat "I couldn't see that" as information, not insult.

I thought I was writing a book about helping teachers build things. Turns out the book was also teaching me something about how anything good gets built.

The Irreplaceable Human

There's another layer to this that matters right now.

I use AI constantly. For research, for drafting, for thinking through problems. AI is woven into my workflow in ways that would have seemed like science fiction five years ago.

But the editorial report wasn't something AI could have produced.

Not because AI can't analyse text. It can. Not because AI can't suggest improvements. It can do that too.

But because what the editor provided wasn't just analysis. It was taste applied to my specific work by someone who understood what I was trying to do and could see where I was falling short of my own intentions.

AI can tell you if sentences are grammatically correct. It can flag inconsistencies. It can even identify structural issues. But it cannot tell you whether your book works as a reading experience. Whether the human on the other end will feel what you want them to feel. Whether you've earned the moments you're trying to land.

That requires a human reader with developed taste, reading your actual words, experiencing them the way your audience will experience them.

In a world flooded with AI-generated content, this is the bottleneck. Not production. Curation. Not creating more. Making what exists actually good.

The editor's taste was the irreplaceable ingredient. And I couldn't replace it with my own, no matter how much taste I think I have. Because taste applied to your own work isn't the same as taste applied by someone else.

What I'm Taking Forward

The manuscript is better now. Significantly better. Not because I wrote more, but because someone helped me see what to cut, what to clarify, what to restructure.

But the bigger takeaway isn't about this book.

It's about building anything worth building.

If you're creating something that matters, you need people who will tell you the truth about it. Not cheerleaders. Not yes-people. People with taste who can see what you can't see and who care enough to tell you.

Find them. Pay them. Listen to them.

Your blind spots are invisible to you. That's what makes them blind spots. The only way to see them is through someone else's eyes.

I teach that taste is one of the capabilities that makes organisations actually capable. That it can't be bought or outsourced or acquired through procurement. That it has to be developed over time through immersion and attention to quality.

All of that is still true. But I'd add something now.

Taste isn't just something you develop. It's something you access. Through other people. Through relationships with those who can see what you can't.

That's the lesson my editor taught me. And I couldn't have learnt it by myself.

This is part of the journey of writing "Teach Yourself Out," a book about helping teachers build products, income, and options. If you want to follow along or join the community of teachers building things, the link is below.