I’m Dan Oshinsky, and I run Inbox Collective, an email consultancy. I'm here to share what I've learned about doing great work and building amazing teams.
“Me shooting 40% at the foul line is just God’s way to say nobody’s perfect.” —Shaquille O’Neal
A story about my mother:
About five years ago, my mother was asked to serve on the board of directors at my synagogue. They asked her to write a short essay about her favorite moment from Jewish history. They wanted to publish it in the next synagogue newsletter.
Mom’s not much of a writer, but she got into the assignment. She spent a few days writing the essay. She wrote and re-wrote the essay. She kept us updated on her progress.
At the end of the week, she finally had a draft ready. I’m the editor in the family, and so she gave her essay to me.
Like I said: Mom’s not much of a writer, but she worked really hard on this one. And it showed.
Her essay was about the story of the exodus from Egypt, and it was a nice essay.
There was only one problem: My mother had written all about the parting of the Red Sea, and how Noah — not Moses — had been the one to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
“Uh, ma,” I told her. “It would’ve been way easier to get across the water if they’d had Noah and his ark.”
Point is: My mother is a remarkable woman. She’s one of the best networkers I know. She loves to help. And she’s a fantastic project manager.
She just knows how to make stuff happen.
But she also knows her weaknesses, and one of them is writing. She needs an editor — or sometimes two.
What I love is that she’s always willing to ask for help on these things. She’s willing to recognize her weaknesses.
“Staying comfortable is the number one way to stay exactly where you are.” — Kate Matsudaira
In 2008, when I got my new driver’s license, I weighed in at 175 pounds. By the end of senior year, as I started to grow into myself, I hit 190. But I was still pretty darn skinny. I’m 6’5”, and at that height, people don’t really notice a belly until you start putting on serious weight.
But in Winter/Spring 2011, I was living at home, and I put on weight quickly. It wasn’t hard to do. I was living with my parents, and my parents were always putting food in front of me. We had Girl Scout cookies everywhere. My dad was trying to convince me to put whipped cream on chocolate milk before bed.
I wasn’t working out, and I didn’t belong to a gym.
The tipping point came in May. I went to my sister’s college graduation, and I realized that I could only fit into my suit if I sucked in — hard. None of my jeans fit anymore.
When I saw the scale — TWO HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE POUNDS! — I was shocked. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. It’d never weighed that much before.
But then three wonderful things happened. And by the end of Summer 2012, I was down to 195 lbs. I was in the best shape I’d ever been in, and I was also — not coincidentally — as happy as I’d ever been. In August, I finished a sprint triathlon.
There aren’t any secrets to losing 30 pounds in a year. There’s no mystery. All you need to do — and anyone can do them — are these three things:
1. Starting Cooking For Yourself — When you eat out — or when someone else cooks for you — it’s easy to put crap into your body. When I was at college, I always joked about the “Winter Break 15.” At home, I’d go on a diet of Thin Mints and leftovers, and I’d always come back to school a few pounds heavier. When you’re not cooking for yourself, you’re usually not thinking as much about what you’re eating.
When you start shopping for yourself, you start making better decisions. You start choosing good stuff to put in your shopping cart — fruits, vegetables, protein, grains — and start leaving out the junk.
And actually cooking the food helps, I’ve found. It makes you extra conscious of the stuff you’ve had other people sneaking into your food all these years — butter, fatty oils, etc. When you cook for yourself, you’ll start leaving those things out.
Cooking for yourself is how you can hold yourself fully accountable for what goes into your body.
2. Start Exercising — Again, there’s no magic here. The first thing I did when I moved out to Missouri was join a gym. I started going a couple of days a week for 45-60 minutes each morning. When I noticed my enthusiasm lagging, I hired a personal trainer to work with me twice a week. I find that I work out much better when others are doing it with me.
But I know that personal trainers — even in Columbia, Mo. — are expensive. So here’s an alternative: Find a class you can take. Find a group you can run with. Join a local league for soccer or frisbee. It’ll all help.
3. Create Routine — Any health pro can tell you this: Diets don’t work because diets don’t create routine. Go on South Beach for two months and you might lose 10 lbs., but as soon as you drop the diet, you’ll gain it all back.
Diets are like duct tape: They’re an okay temporary solution, but they’re not always pretty, and they’re certainly not something you should rely on for too long.
What you want is to build something lasting for yourself. Build out a block of time in every week to work out, and find time to go grocery shopping once or twice a week. The more you shop, the more likely you are to buy stuff like fresh vegetables, and the less likely you are to stock up on the frozen stuff.
The longer you keep all of these things going, the better. Work begets work. Healthy habits beget healthy living.
Getting in shape doesn’t need to be a mystery. It requires a lot of work. It requires a certain persistence — you absolutely have to be willing to put one foot in front of the other, and again, and again, and again.
But something wonderful comes at the end of all of it.
A month ago, I went to a wedding with a friend. She had made fun of me a year earlier for having to buy bigger jeans.
So this time, before I hopped on the plane to see her, I stopped at Old Navy. I discovered I’d dropped a full size — from a 38 waist to a 36.
When I finally saw her, I showed off the new belly. The word “astonished” came out of her mouth.
You can earn that kind of reaction, too. Just do these three things — cook, exercise, and create a routine — and keep it going. That’s the roadmap to getting yourself into the shape you want.
It is not magic. In fact, it’s a little bit boring.
I’ve kept a private collection of writings for the past two years. I was fishing through that collection the other day when I found something that surprised me. A year ago this month, as I headed out to start my fellowship at RJI, I wrote this:
“Dad’s been asking me about what my schedule will look like at Mizzou. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too. I know I want to get up early. I want to hit the phones. I want to write. I want to study. I want to read. I want to find time to be normal, to unwind, to exercise. But an exact schedule? I don’t know yet. I’ll have to decide soon, though.”
It’s funny to imagine now. A year ago, I didn’t have a schedule.
I woke up… whenever. I worked… whenever.
I was, in one word: Unspeakablylazyohmygodwasthatreallyme?
This was the single biggest mistake I made after I left Biloxi. I stopped sticking to a routine. I stopped waking up at a specific time. I stopped having a plan.
I stopped doing the work every single day — and the work has to get done every single day.
I’m telling you right now: Don’t be this guy.
Everyone can do great work. But first, you must start with this: By creating routine.
At a normal job, routine often feels like death. It sucks the life out of you.
But when you’re building or creating something, routine gives you essential structure. Studies show that if you give yourself a routine, your body starts to learn when it’s time to work. And by keeping a sleep schedule, your body learns how to recover for the next day’s work.
When you get off that routine, your body gets confused.
Ever been on vacation for a few days and then tried to return to work? That feeling — that struggle — is what happens when you lose your work routine. It can take days to get back into the flow of work.
Our bodies demand that flow — and demand that we stay in it.
The hard truth is that work does not just happen by accident. It cannot happen whenever you feel like making it happen. If you’re just sitting around waiting for inspiration, you will be sitting a long time.
You have to commit to the work. You have to make the choice to build a structure for yourself. A wake-up time. A bed time. A plan for the day.
You have to build the structure on which great work happens.
There’s a section in Andre Agassi’s great autobiography, “Open,” that I really loved. He’s talking about losing his focus and slipping in the rankings. He makes a choice. It’s time to change. He writes:
“And yet. Our best intentions are often thwarted by external forces – forces that we ourselves set in motion long ago. Decisions, especially bad ones, create their own kind of momentum, and momentum can be a bitch to stop. Even when we vow to change, even when we sorrow and atone for our mistakes, the momentum of the past keeps carrying us down the wrong road. Momentum rules the world. Momentum says: Hold on, not so fast, I’m still running things here. As a verse in a Greek poem goes: “The minds of the everlasting gods are not changed suddenly.””
This is the reason why New Year’s resolutions are so easily broken. A simple pledge one day is just the start of change. If intention and repeated effort aren’t paired together, the result is often failure.
The decision is yours. Change does not merely happen. It starts by creating a schedule and creating a plan. It starts by creating a platform on which work can get done.
It starts by committing — to that schedule, to work.
“I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.” ― Voltaire
I have friends who are addicted to their GPS devices. Without a GPS, they couldn’t find their own feet. They’re always plugging destinations into that device, and that GPS voice gives them the road ahead. Miss a turn? The GPS tells them how to get back on track.
It’s a type of traveling with one thing in mind: Getting to the destination as quickly as possible.
What I find is that so many people I know live life this way. It’s always about moving on to the next milestone. Graduation. Job. Marriage. Kids.
There are a number of names for my generation, but let me offer my own suggestion: the GPS Generation. We hit one milestone and start pointing towards the next.
But I don’t think life is meant to go this way, hopping from job to job, from destination to destination.
Isn’t the best stuff in life the stuff you find along the way?
“Wizard of Oz” isn’t a movie about the girl who makes it to Oz. It’s about the people she finds on the road.
“Into Thin Air” isn’t about reaching the summit of Everest. It’s about the power of the human spirit.
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” isn’t about getting where you want to go. It’s about getting lost along the way.
This life needs to be about the journey, not the destination. There’s value in being lost. There’s value in keeping your eyes open, in staying curious. In exploring!
We have to stop worrying about the perfect route. We have to be willing to wander.
I think we need to keep one eye on the road and the other on what’s happening all around us. Otherwise, we’ll wake up one day at one of these milestones and wonder, How the hell did we get here? And what did we miss along the way?
Put down that GPS. Go enjoy the journey. Go enjoy the ride.
In 2009, I wrote something that I thought was clever.
Turned out I was just being a dick.
I had gone to a concert with my roommate, Nate, at the Blue Fugue in Columbia, MO. There were a couple of bands playing that night, and one of the openers was from Utah. They were called Mad Max & the Wild Ones. They were a family band. (That’s them in the photo at top.)
And that was that. Until, of course, the band’s manager — also, the band’s mom — went home and searched Google. She found my post.
We traded some comments on my blog, and later emails. She was pissed, and understandably so — some asshole on the Internet was writing snarky comments about her kids!
It’s just that in this case, that asshole was me.
The conversation eventually settled down, and I eventually apologized. I never took the blog post down, because I didn’t want to forget the incident. The Internet is written in ink, and this blog is no exception.
What I’m building towards is this: There’s nothing clever about Internet hate. I know a little more now about what it feels like to be on the other side of that hate. Victories are fleeting, but hate stays with you. Especially Internet hate, where it’s often anonymous, and especially vicious. Somebody you’ve never met has just seen something you’ve done and taken the time out of their day to tell you exactly how much they think you suck.
Look, friends: Spread love, or just keep your damn mouth shut. Opening it to spew hate — especially on a blog, or a YouTube comments section — does you no good.
That night at the Blue Fugue, I could’ve just gone up to the band and told them what I thought. I didn’t, because I would’ve been a giant jackass to tell them to their face what I thought. Instead, I went home and wrote the thoughts on a blog, where I figured they’d never read them.
How is that any different?
I traded emails with the band last week. They’re getting older, and getting offers from legit bands to tour. They’re still out on the road, taking their stabs, making it happen. That’s awesome.
They’re coming through Springfield in a few weeks, actually. If I’m here, I’ll go to the show, and apologize in person, and tell them what I could’ve said the first time:
You guys may be young, but hot damn can you play. Don’t let the haters get you down.
This is not a ground-breaking statement, but I’ll say it anyway: Life is confusing. We have so many questions and so few answers.
And it’s tough to know who our role models should be. There are so many great leaders and thinkers and builders in our world. Who to model a life after? Gandhi? Lincoln? Joan of Arc? Da Vinci?
May I suggest a simple answer:
Do as The Most Interesting Man in the World does.
You know who I’m talking about. The Most Interesting Man in the World is a remarkable guy. I mean, he can speak Russian — in French! Sharks have a week dedicated to him! He’s clearly figured out something about this life that’s worth taking note of.
And I think I’ve figured out his secrets.
Watch enough of his ads, and you’ll notice a few things in common. The Most Interesting Man is almost always:
I was at the Stry.us HQ/apartment on Monday night, sitting on the floor, when I looked up and announced to my editor, Jordan:
This is the furthest along this project has ever been.
Stry.us — or versions of it, at least — had been on my mind since 2007 or so. But it really came into fruition almost two years ago to the day, when I worked up a pitch for something I called “Four Days in America.” It would be a story, I decided, about the state of our union, with reporting on who we we are and where we’re going. It evolved pretty quickly to Stry.us. Two months later, I was leaving my job to start this thing.
But right on that floor in Springfield, on Monday? At no point has Stry.us ever been closer to reality than right then.
Right now, we have:
A website that doesn’t suck.
Some fans.
A team.
Some money.
Excitement.
We’re actually on the verge of… something!
And more good things are happening! Like: I’ll be speaking about Stry.us and our new website at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia convention this summer in Detroit. That’s pretty amazing.
And just being down in Springfield, I can sense the excitement. The library team, in particular, is absolutely wired about our project. They’re going to be a fantastic news partner this summer.
But I always find that just when my ego’s getting a little too big, something happens to bring it back to normal size.
On Monday night in Springfield, I slept on a yoga mat on the floor of the Stry.us apartment. I used a hoodie for a pillow. My bed — and bed-related accessories — won’t arrive for a few more days.
Yes, Stry.us is moving along. Yes, we’re making big strides. Yes, after two years, it’s starting to feel like we’re building towards something really big.
Yes, I can even use the word “we,” because there is a we — the Stry.us team I’ve put together.
But you cannot have a big head when you’re going to bed on a yoga mat, with a hoodie for a pillow.
I posted the job openings for Stry.us on JournalismJobs.com last week, and since then, the apps have been rolling into my inbox. Some are exceptionally good. A few have been exceptionally bad.
Many have left no impression on me whatsoever.
That shouldn’t happen. I’m seeing apps from talented people who just failed to catch my eye. Remember, Future Job Applicants of Tomorrow: The app is your opportunity to sell me on you and your skills. If it’s not eye catching, I’m not hiring.
Some of you guys really need help. So here’s some unsolicited advice for job seekers — specifically, college students and recent grads applying for a reporting job.
There are five questions I’m thinking about when I open your job application email. They are (in this very order):
1. What happens when I Google your name? You should know the answer to this already. I’m hoping to see a portfolio site, some work you’ve done for a news outlet, and maybe a social media profile or three. I will not look past the first page of Google results.
2. Do you have a website? If you’re selling yourself as a modern reporter, you must have an online portfolio. It does not have to be terribly fancy. It can be a blog on WordPress or Tumblr or — and I have seen more than one of these this week — Blogspot. It can be an about.me or a flavors.me page. It must have your contact information, a brief bio, and a list of links to your recent work. It must have been updated in the previous three months.
3. Do you have a LinkedIn page? I want to see where you’ve worked, and I want to see that you’ve actually connected with co-workers. I want to see that it’s been updated in the previous three months.
4. Can you prove any other forms of digital literacy? I want to see that you have an account on any of the following sites: Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Quora. Just having a single account on any of these sites proves that you actually use the Internet, which is good. (One job applicant this week offered to snail mail me a resume and clips. Another sent me a resume in a file format that I’d never seen before. These are equally bad things.) I want to see that you use the Internet.
5. How organized is your resume? Your email to me? This is important. I want to see that you know how to correctly format an email. When you send me a link, I want to know that you know how to use anchor text. I want to see that you can write succinctly, that you can spell my name correctly, and that you use paragraphs when writing. I need to see that you have an understanding of how words, pictures and links should be laid out visually.
If you can do those things — pass a basic Google test, maintain a website, keep a LinkedIn page, prove digital literacy, and keep your email/resume organized — then the chances of me following up for an interview are infinitely higher. I am likely to pass on you — even if you’re an award-winning reporter who does rocket science in your spare time — if you cannot answer these questions.
Because here is the simple truth: If you fail the five questions above, what you’re really telling me is that you don’t know how to do work on the Internet. And this job I’m hiring for — and pretty much any job in journalism today — is Internet-first.
Before you click “send” on that application to me, go through those five questions. If you can’t answer one, then you better get moving on the answer.
I’m going to close the application process for these Stry.us jobs in two weeks. Get going, guys. Wow me with your apps.
Let me take you back to 2009. Newspapers were slashing staff daily. Jobs weren’t plentiful. A young, wide-eyed Dan Oshinsky was about to graduate from college.
And in the midst of all this, a strange thing happened: A big newspaper chain decided that they really liked me. They liked my attitude and my skills. They told me, straight up: We want to hire you. We don’t know what for yet, but we want you.
Over the next few weeks, I had a number of phone conversations with one of the chain’s executives. The chain had just launched a big blog project at one of their papers, and they seemed really excited about the numbers. They had an idea for me: Start a blog for our papers devoted to young people and business. We’ll give you $100k and a small team to start. Give it a few days and come up with some potential topics for us.
Understand this: I was coming out of journalism school like most J-school students. I had great clips and great ambition. I was fully prepared to start working for a newspaper on a city desk or a political beat.
I thought I was totally unprepared to lead an ambitious, new journalism effort.
I didn’t know anything about business. I didn’t read business blogs. I didn’t understand the market for business news.
The next week, I told the executive: I’m flattered, but sorry. I’m not your guy for this project.
Looking back, I’m stunned at how stupid I was. I can’t believe that I said no, and I can’t believe that I failed to even produce a single tangible idea for such a blog.
How could I have been so unresourceful?
Over the course of about 72 hours, I was given the opportunity to pitch something really impressive. I had everything I needed to start such a project: I was ambitious, I had blogging experience, and I had a good sense for how to create a voice that was readable.
Sure, I didn’t know anything about business news. But here’s the thing: I knew plenty of people who did.
I didn’t ask for their help.
I could’ve turned to my network — my friends, my former bosses — and asked for input on ideas. I could’ve generated a really impressive proposal for that blog.
And I didn’t even think to ask.
What I’ve learned since is the importance of a really good conversation. You need people who can advise you, guide you and — most importantly — ask the kind of questions that will help lead to you the right answers. When you have an opportunity, talk about it with smart people. It’s amazing how a good conversation can really open your eyes to your full potential.
I was reminded of that last week. I was down in Springfield, taking meetings for my upcoming reporting experiment with Stry.us. And in the course of a half dozen conversations, I started to notice some new themes popping up. I suppose I had been thinking about these changes for some time, but it wasn’t until I started really talking it through with others that I realized how big these changes were.
I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to have smart people on my side, asking good questions and helping guide this project towards an even more awesome future. Stry.us will be be stronger because of their curiosity and wisdom.
When you’re starting something new, you have to keep your eyes open. You have to listen fully.
And for goodness sake: When you’re lost, don’t be afraid to ask. You don’t have to go it alone.
I’m going to guess that you’ve seen the movie “Cool Runnings,” simply because I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t seen “Cool Runnings.” It’s one of my favorite films, the based-on-a-true-story tale of four Jamaican guys who somehow qualify for the Olympics as bobsledders. It’s funny, and goofy, and inspiring.
Think about the beginning of the movie. We meet our four intrepid bobsledders in unlikely places: Three are trying to qualify for the Summer Olympics in track, and one is a pushcart driver. But when the track thing doesn’t work out, they come together to try to qualify for the Olympics in bobsled, even though they’ve never seen snow, and the Olympics is only a few months away.
And somehow, they qualify for the Games. These four men — through sheer willpower, and also a few classic Disney montages — put in the work needed to learn how to bobsled, and they make the Olympics.
But on the first night of the Games, disaster strikes. They can’t get into the sled fast enough, and the driver, Derice Bannock, has a bad race, and Jamaica finishes the day in last place among all teams.
Then comes the key scene. The whole team is back in their room in the Olympic Village. Derice and his coach, Irv, are talking about what went wrong. Derice suggests that maybe they don’t know enough about the race course. Maybe they don’t know about bobsledding to win.
And that’s when their coach says:
“You know the turns! You know everything there is to know about this sport!”
Think about that for a second, and strip away the fact that this is a Disney movie. Imagine it by itself: An Olympic-caliber coach telling his team, You know everything there is know about the sport, even though you just started learning about it a few months earlier.
That sounds outrageous, and it is. Of course they don’t know everything about the sport! Hell, it’s not even clear that a single member of the team could name someone besides their coach who’d ever competed in an Olympic bobsled event.
But what if I told you that their coach was right? What if I told you that they knew everything they needed to know? — to start, at least.
What do you really need to compete in a four-man bobsled race?
1. A sled
2. A bobsled track
3. Four really big, really strong, really fast men
4. Four helmets
5. Ice
And that’s it. You don’t need fifteen years of bobsled experience to start. You don’t need to know who won the four-man event in the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games.
All you need is a sled, and a track, and four dudes, and some helmets, and some ice, and you can start racing.
Again, here’s the key concept: That’s what you need to start racing.
Yeah, to win a gold medal, it’s going to take years and years of practice. It’s going to take thousands of hours of work, and then some luck, and Jamaica wasn’t even close to having enough practical experience to win.
But to start, they had everything they need to know.
That’s the idea I want to drill into your heads. If you’re thinking about becoming the world’s best painter, well, yes, it’s going to take some time. You’re going to have spend a lot of time painting, and you’re probably going to spend a lot of time studying other painters.
But to start? All you need is a brush, a canvas, some paint and a little free time.
The world’s best basketball players all started with a ball, sneakers and a court. You think Michael Jordan waited until he’d watched a decade of basketball games before he felt he had enough basketball knowledge to pick up a ball?
Hell no.
The truth is, to start, you don’t need to know all that much. So start before you’re ready, because as Travis Robertson once wrote, you won’t feel ready until long after you’ve already started.
Let me give you another example. I was at a startup event in the fall and heard a guy pitch a lending business. He talked about how he’s been studying the field for five years, reading everything he can about lending, and he’d finally decided that he was ready to start.
The judges asked him what he’d actually done for his business idea in those five years.
Well, he said, I’ve read the books, and I’ve…
No, no, the judges said. What have you done? What actual work do you have to show us?
Nothing, he said.
And where do you think you’d be if, five years ago, you’d started building something instead of just thinking about it?, the judges asked.
The man’s face went blank.
You don’t need to know that much to start. You just need to know that you can do the work, and that you’re passionate about doing the work.
You need to start before you’re really ready to start, because that’s when you’re going to learn the most about what you’re doing. What you’ll read about in books is helpful, and important, but it’s nothing compared to the self-discoveries you’ll make along the way. The most important knowledge is what you’re going to learn during the process of the doing.
If you already know what you want to do, then ask yourself: What are the most basic tools I need to start?
If you have them already, then the only thing truly keeping you from starting is you.
isn’t about reaching the summit of Everest. It’s about the power of the human spirit.
