When I was 16 years old, I had a news story published in The Boston Globe. I wish I could tell you it was because of hard work or talent, but it wasn’t. I was interning at a news service in Washington, D.C., and one day, thousands of protestors in yellow shirts marched past our office. I asked my boss if I could go outside and ask them a few questions. Turns out they were protesting against the Chinese government — they were from Falun Gong, and one of their members had been detained in China. They’d rallied to try to pressure China into letting him go. The man detained was from Boston. The news service I worked for had a relationship with The Boston Globe. I got some quotes, wrote up the story, and the next day, read my piece in the paper. Right place, right time, right story — that’s how I ended up in The Boston Globe.
When I was 24 years old, I got a job at BuzzFeed. I wish I could tell you it was because I truly believed that BuzzFeed was about to become one of most influential publishers in the world, but it wasn’t. They were launching a section for feature stories, and I’d been doing a lot of that sort of thing with Stry.us. I was curious about what the were doing, so I reached out to chat. I wasn’t the right person for that role, but they invited me to pitch them on a new role within the company. I’d had some success with my newsletter, Tools for Reporters, and thought email might be a good fit there. They agreed. Right place, right time, right background — that’s how I ended up at BuzzFeed.
When I was 32, I left my job at The New Yorker to start Inbox Collective. I wish I could tell you it was because I knew that email was about to become one of the hottest channels in the digital space, but it wasn’t. I’d been working in this space for several years and had learned a lot. I’d launched Not a Newsletter to share some of the things I’d learned. My readers started reaching out to ask if I could consult for them, and at the same time, I started getting invited to travel both in the U.S. and abroad to speak about newsletters. It seemed like a good moment to take the leap. Right place, right time, right strategy — that’s how I started Inbox Collective.
There are so many things that can make or break an opportunity. Do you have the right skills? Do you have the right team? Do you have the right funding?
But then there’s timing. Whatever you’re working on, it might not work if you’re too late or too soon.
Timing isn’t everything. But it needs to be right for you to have a chance to succeed.
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That’s a photo of a train station in Switzerland. It was taken by Jan Huber for Unsplash.