A friend told me "whatever you do, do it incognito, until it is finished". This may have been a good rule of thumb in the past, but now the world is too complex to not get feedback on what you're doing. Would you rather know what is wrong everyday or would you rather wait until a year later?
This is particularly true in programming, you would never want your compiler to wait a week later and tell you: “By the way, this syntax error was causing your whole program to crash”. The chances of building with the wrong product, implementation, logic, or being disillusioned only grow exponentially when operating incognito.
In the west, the reason why some choose to go incognito: is to sacrifice other activities to focus, to not be demotivated by naysayers, to avoid getting laughed at when we fail, to not feel stupid or incompetent. In some parts of Africa, add to that the fear of resentment that you are being too bold, that you are getting out of place, that someone nearby would sabotage your progress, mystical stuff, on and on…
The future is a little brighter though. Consider Github, the two main limitations to someone's progress is the fact of not putting themselves on the line by either using fake names, or not sharing their pet projects for the fear that others think that it is no good. But “who cares”, really. You only have upside potential. Either someone falls into one of your repos and leaves (no downside) or gets interested, submits a PR (pull request) or even develop a relationship. Seriously, you have nothing to lose and it is freaking free.
Knowing when to consider an advice and when to ignore it, is an art in itself.
I personally struggle with this a lot. Our ego, our sense of self is the main barrier. Without proper judgments you won't be able to use the tool of getting actionable advice. There are instances when working incognito is the fastest lane to get things done. Those are the times when you have thought hard about something for days or weeks, when you are confident that you are one of the few with the insights. Sometimes, it is the fact that you need a demo or MVP (minimum viable product) in order to show how something would work.
But still you need to get feedback as soon as possible, not take them personally or at face value. Think personally where does it fit, what does it imply, what makes sense to work on next.
We have weak and strong points. When we need to go ultra fast, working with our weak points is just pure lunacy. Share. Hire someone. Delegate. Seek out a volunteer or friend.
Going forward consider feedback as irregular pulses that you need to check frequently in order to stay alive and be on the edge.
Good one