danoshinsky.com

I wrote about this a few weeks ago on my annual Things I Believe post, about my work through Inbox Collective so far:

I tend to oscillate between “This is going to work!!!” and “Holy shit, what am I doing???” on a weekly basis. I’m scared and excited, but never bored, and always thrilled to be doing this work. That’s how I know I’m in the right place.

And this is true! Since I started this, I’ve traveled to Australia, Brazil, Canada, and France for work. I’ve got a great group of clients, and I’m thrilled with the work we’re doing together. I’ve learned so much about how to do this work, and every breakthrough is exciting. Things are good for the moment!

But at the same time: This business is more than a little terrifying! Things are good… for the moment. I have no idea what comes next.

I’m learning that that fear can be an incredible motivator. I’m hustling as much as I can to find clients I can work with for a long time, and to figure out ways to make this thing last. I’m loving the work right now, and I want to keep this going. I want to make this work.

What I’m starting to learn is that it’s easy to get too high or too low, and riding that roller coaster distracts from what I need to focus on. The real challenge is in staying focused on the work, and staying on that even keel. Some days are good, and some days are rough, but neither seems to last long. Every day, I try to learn a little more and to do a little better. It’s all about the road ahead.

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That image of a roundabout comes via Avi Waxman for Unsplash.

Here’s a story I’ve seen a few times now: A friend takes a job at a great company. It’s a huge, well-deserved role for them. Everyone agrees: They’ll do big things there.

And then a year or two later, that friend steps away from the role. From the outside, it seemed to be a good fit in terms of responsibility, opportunity, and salary. But the day-to-day of it was a different story. They weren’t learning or growing, or felt unhappy in their role. They decided to leave.

But when I’ve asked these friends afterwards if they regretted the decision to take the job in the first place, they’ve almost always told me: No, definitely not. Again, it’s the same story: These are people who did their homework before taking the job. They talked to people at the company, and asked as many questions as they could. The job didn’t work out, but it was OK: They’d still made the right decision at the time. And I’ve seen stories like theirs countless times — stories of people who made a decision that didn’t work out, but who still don’t regret the choice they made.

I’m thinking back to something I wrote back in 2011, in my annual “The Things I Believe” post. I wrote: 

Try not to regret bad decisions. Just make the best decisions you can with the best information you have.

Eight years later, that still holds true. You don’t always have control over what happens after you make the decision — but you have total control over the decision itself. Do your research, talk to people you trust, and make the best decision you can. Even if the choice doesn’t work out as well as you’d hoped, I’ve found that as long as you made the right decision for the moment, you’ll walk away with no regrets.

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That illustration comes via Katerina Limpitsouni and unDraw.

I’ve had conversations with friends in the consulting world who’ve told me: Don’t give too much away for free. If you do, your clients might not need you anymore.

And I think exactly the opposite is true.

I’ve made Not a Newsletter — 11 editions so far, totaling more than 36,000 words — free and open to anyone. I’ve shared documentation on how to set up dashboards in Google Analytics, calculators to help with subject lines, and guides to building newsletters and Courses — all for free. I’ve done interviews, shared lessons, and given as much away as I can.

The hope is this: In the long run, by being generous with my community, they’ll be generous back. They’ll share these resources with their colleagues. They’ll recommend my services to their friends. They might even hire me to work with them.

My bet is that they’ll say: Look at all that Dan’s done for us already. Shouldn’t we hire him and see what else he can do for us?

And here’s the thing: Even if every member of my newsletter list wanted to hire me, I couldn’t say yes to all of them. So by giving so much away, I have the opportunity to help as many members of this community as I can.

It’s worked for me in 2019, and I hope to do even more of it in 2020. I’m not sure if it’s the best way to build my business — but I know it’s the right thing to do, and doing the right thing is usually the right thing.

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That photo of a gift comes via Ekaterina Shevchenko for Unsplash.

There are things I’ve learned over time, stuff that’s worked for me. When I’m giving a talk about email, I’ll mention some of these best practices. But it’s always followed with a caveat:

Don’t take my word for it.

Try it yourself.

If you read a case study that says a green subscribe button converts readers best, you should try it yourself! If you hear that the optimal time to send a newsletter is Tuesday at 1 p.m., you should try it yourself! If you attend a talk where the speaker tells you the perfect welcome series should be a week long or a month long or a year long, you should try it yourself!

What worked for one person or one company might not work for another. Don’t blindly follow advice. Test something out and see what you learn. You won’t know what’s best for you until you try it yourself.

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That very generic stock footage at the top comes via David Travis and Unsplash.

There’s an excellent profile of Jeff Bezos and Amazon in this week’s New Yorker, by Charles Duhigg, and the whole thing is worth reading. One paragraph in particular stood out to me:

Most firms have a mission statement that even the C.E.O. has trouble remembering. Amazon employees, Freed discovered, studied the Leadership Principles like Talmudic texts. During his first few years, he occasionally pulled colleagues, and even Bezos, aside to ask questions. What, for example, does “leaders are right a lot” really mean? Bezos explained, “If you have a really good idea, stick to it, but be flexible on how you get there. Be stubborn on your vision but flexible on the details.” Executives at other companies tended to lay out definitive plans. But Bezos urged his people to be adaptable. “People who are right a lot change their mind,” he once said. “They have the same data set that they had at the beginning, but they wake up, and they re-analyze things all the time, and they come to a new conclusion, and then they change their mind.”

Being stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details is such a good way to approach work at an office. The big picture matters — have a sense of where you want to go, and what you want to deliver. But those little details? The tools you use, the timeline for a project, all of the minutiae — those can always change. Don’t get tied up by the little things. Be flexible, and let your team drive the details.

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That’s a photo of an Amazon Kindle at top. It was taken by Amanda Jones for Unsplash.