The Tale of Two Cats: Why Your Best Work Is Going Unnoticed (And How to Fix It)

A farmer once had a serious rat problem, so he went to the market and bought the best cat he could find. A white one, lean and quiet, with eyes that didn't miss.

The white cat was a master. Within weeks the rats were gone, the barn was clean, the harvest was safe. But it hunted the way good hunters do, in the dark, alone, and without ceremony. It killed at night, ate what it killed, and left no trace by morning. The farmer would walk into his barn day after day and see nothing at all. No rat, no body, no proof.

Months passed, and a quiet doubt began to grow in him. Is this cat actually doing anything, or am I just feeding it for nothing? All he saw was a cat sleeping in the sun all day, so one afternoon, he sold it.

Then he bought a black cat from the same market, and something changed. The black cat hunted with the same skill as the white one, the same patience, the same instincts. But every time it killed a rat, it would drag the body across the yard and drop it at the farmer's doorstep, like a small offering. Every morning, the farmer would step outside and find his receipt waiting for him.

He kept that black cat for the rest of its life. Same skill, same outcome, two completely different fates. One worked in silence and got replaced. The other showed the work and got rewarded.

Most skilled Africans are white cats

Now look at your career, because the same thing is happening every day across this continent. There are thousands of skilled Africans coding, designing, writing, and shipping serious work right now, and most of them are white cats. Heads down, quiet, producing value behind closed laptops in dark rooms, and nobody knows.

So when an opportunity opens up, whether it's a job, a client, a partnership, or a grant, the world doesn't even know they exist. The opportunity goes to whoever was visible, not whoever was best.

Skill alone doesn't pay anymore. Visible skill does.

Showing your work isn't bragging

Most people hear this and think showing your work is bragging. It isn't. Bragging is talking about results you didn't earn, while showing your work is documenting results you actually got. The black cat wasn't bragging. The rat at the doorstep was a receipt, and you need receipts too.

Here are the kinds of receipts that earn you opportunities:

1. Project screenshots. If you built a website, a dashboard, or an app for a client, post the visuals with a short story of what you fixed.

2. Case studies. If you trained an AI agent that saved a business hours of work, write up the before, the after, and the numbers.

3. Lessons from your last project. A breakdown of one mistake you made and what you'd do differently next time.

4. Course completions with proof of work. Don't just post the certificate. Post what you built using what you learned.

5. Behind-the-scenes process. A short walkthrough of how you solved one specific problem, code snippet or all.

Every piece of work you do is a rat. Your job is to drop it at the world's doorstep.

The old career path is dying

The old African career path told you to keep your head down and wait for HR to notice you after five years of silence. The new one rewards people who build in public.

Look around and you'll see them already winning:

• The freelancer earning in dollars from a client in Berlin she met on LinkedIn.

• The developer hired by a US startup because of one Twitter thread that went around.

• The designer whose Instagram portfolio brings in three retainers a month.

• The technical writer pulling consulting offers from companies she's never even pitched.

None of them got there by being quiet.

Your skill earns you the seat. Your personal brand earns you the room.

A simple plan to start this week

You don't need a fancy strategy. You need a simple system you can actually keep up with. Here's what I'd do:

1. Pick one platform and stick to it. LinkedIn for career and clients. Twitter for tech community. Instagram if your work is visual.

2. Post one piece of work every week. Just one. A project you finished, a lesson you learned the hard way, or a problem you solved, with a story.

3. Don't worry about engagement at first. Worry about consistency. The first ten posts are practice, not performance.

4. Save proof as you work. Screenshots, before-and-afters, client messages with names blurred. Build a folder of receipts so you're never stuck for content.

5. Review every three months. Look back at what you posted, see what landed, and double down on that angle.

The format doesn't matter. The consistency does.

What you can expect

After a year, you'll have fifty receipts on the internet. After two years, you'll be the person someone remembers when an opportunity comes up. That's how the black cat wins. Not by being the best, but by being the one with the most rats on the doorstep.

The white cat is still out there, by the way. Skilled, hardworking, doing brilliant work nobody sees. And one day, somebody is going to sell that cat too.

So don't be the white cat. Build the skill, then show the work, then watch what shows up.

P.S. You can't drop a rat at the doorstep if you haven't caught one yet. Pick a programme, build the skill, then show the work. [See what's running this cohort →]