Tag: do the work

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Kick Over Rocks.

I stumbled upon this story the other day about the CEO of Pittsburgh’s airport, Christina Cassotis. I’ve got a soft spot for Pittsburgh — my wife’s from there, we got married there, and about once a year, we fly through there to visit my mother-in-law. The Pittsburgh airport’s a bit dated. It was built to be a hub for US Airways, but now that airline no longer exists, and the airport they have doesn’t really fit with what the city needs.

So I was fascinated to read this story in Pittsburgh Magazine about Cassotis, an executive who, by all accounts, is doing great things to rebuild and modernize the airport. (The rebuild of the airport will cost $1.7 billion, per one account.)

This was my favorite section from that Pittsburgh Magazine article:

“You don’t know how things work around here,” someone yelled after she instituted Uber pickup at the airport soon after she was hired. “Who do you think you are? You think you just come in here and change things?”

“Yeah, I actually do,” Cassotis replied. “That’s my job. My job is literally to kick over rocks. We have to do things differently if we’re going to get different results.”

I absolutely love that mentality. Sometimes, you need leaders who can guide you through a series of slow, steady changes. Sometimes, you need a leader who can recognize when things have been broken for a long time and really roll up their sleeves.

Never be afraid to kick over those rocks.

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That’s a photo I took at Pittsburgh International Airport back in 2019. When you’re walking to the train to take you to baggage claim, you used to have to walk past two statues of legendary figures in western Pennsylvania history. One is George Washington. The other is former Steeler Franco Harris. I always loved that in Pittsburgh, these two men were given statues right next to each other, and no one seemed to think it was odd that our nation’s first President and a guy who played fullback in the NFL were given equal weight.

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A Trick for Prioritization.

a yellow legal bad with sections for NEED and LIKE written out.

Here’s little trick I like to use when I’ve got way too many tasks on my to-do list and can’t figure out what to prioritize.

Open up a spreadsheet and type out all the tasks you’ve got on your list. Then create three columns, and put these headers at the top:

• What you NEED to do this quarter
• What you WANT to do this quarter
• What you’d LIKE to do this quarter

NEED is the stuff that 100% absolutely must get done.

WANT is the next bucket of tasks you’re most excited about.

LIKE are things you’re interested in… but you can’t quite make a priority.

I know I’m guilty of focusing on stuff that isn’t in those “Need” or “Want” buckets. Sometimes, just seeing everything laid out like this helps me refocus on what’s most important.

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That’s a sketch that Canva’s AI tool created for me. It’s a decent example of what this exercise might look like if you did it on a yellow legal pad.

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Inches, Not Miles.

Something I’ve been telling my teams a lot lately: Growth comes in inches, not miles.

I’m seven years into running my business, and more than a dozen years into working my field, and it feels like I’m just starting to get to a place where I can do the work I’m most excited about.

Everyone wants to move quickly, but the good stuff takes time.

You don’t always move as fast as you want to. Celebrate the little wins. Take the inches when you can.

They all add up.

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That’s a a phot of a biker pedaling forward on a bike path, surrounded by green grass and blooming trees. It comes via Unsplash.

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Don’t Overthink This.

a brown chair, a white table, a simple fern, up against a white wall.

90% of my advice to clients is boils down to three words:

“Don’t overthink this.”

People get into their heads when it comes to tweaking their strategy or tactics. They get caught up thinking that there are a series of three-dimensional chess moves that will fix what’s wrong.

But usually, the fixes are simpler than that: Your positioning is unclear. You’re not targeting the right audience. You’re doing too many things at once.

My job is often to tell teams: You’re overthinking things! Let’s simplify and get back to the core of what you do well.

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That’s not the fanciest desk set up in the world, but it’d work just fine? Why? It’s so darn simple. Thanks to Unsplash for the photo.

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Stay Right Here.

As silver DeLorean, like the one seen in “Back to the Future,” as photographed from behind.

I keep thinking about this line from poet Andrea Gibson in their book, “You Better Be Lightning”:

Regret is a time machine to the past
Worry is a time machine to the future

I’m as guilty as any of having my head somewhere else. Sometimes that means thinking about mistakes I’ve made or things I could have done better. Sometimes that means spending too much time thinking about all the stuff I have to do in the weeks and months ahead.

Gibson’s lines are a reminder: Wherever your feet are, keep your head there. There’s work to do right here, right now. That’s where your mind needs to be, too.

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Feels like the only appropriate photo for a post like this is of a DeLorean. That photo comes via Unsplash.

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Start Writing. Keep Writing.

I launched my consulting business in 2019, and in the years since, I’ve never sent out a cold email request to a potential client. My website mentions my consulting practice, but honestly, it’s a little bit hidden. Yes, I’ve got a newsletter and a welcome series, but I barely promote my consulting work at all. (I’ve had clients tell me they were on my list for months before realizing that they could hire me.)

And yet, I’m fully booked for the next six months.

So what’s the secret?

I just keep writing.

For the first few years, I shared what I was learning in Not a Newsletter, a public Google Doc I published. Later, I moved everything over to WordPress and started publishing every week.

But just through the act of publishing — at this point, hundreds of thousands of words about newsletters — I keep proving to my audience that I know what I’m talking about. (At least a little bit. I’m still learning new stuff about this space every month!)

If you’re in the services business and you’re not sharing what you learn — on your blog, in your newsletter, regularly via channels like LinkedIn — forget about those cold email strategies that promise to bring in new clients.

Just start writing.

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Speaking of longtime writing projects: I’ve been writing here on danoshinsky.com since 2008. That’s a screenshot of my website back in summer 2010 — I think dropping the tagline about my mom was probably a good move!

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Be Excellent, Not Perfect.

My Missouri Tigers had a huge win this past week in men’s basketball, and I went back to watch the highlight package that the basketball team put together. Mizzou’s coach, Dennis Gates, has a bunch of different sayings he uses. (For instance, his eight core values for success: “Friendship, love, accountability, trust, discipline, unselfishness, enthusiasm, and toughness.”)

But watching the movie, I heard one line I’d never heard before.

Gates: Communication has to be excellent, OK? It has to be excellent. It don’t have to be perfect, it has to be what?

Team: Excellent!

I’ve written a lot — like, so many different things — about perfection. But I love the idea of reframing the concept. For most of us, the goal shouldn’t be around perfection. The goal should be to put in the work, to enjoy doing the work, and to try to do something great.

Aim for perfection and you’ll usually fall short. Aim for excellence and you have a chance to do excellent work along the way.

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It Might Not Happen Today.

A funny thing about being a parent, especially a parent of a young child in daycare, is that your entire schedule can change in a moment.

One phone call from daycare — “Hey, your son has a runny nose and a weird cough, so I think you need to pick him up” — and suddenly, there goes your week. Calls get canceled, work gets postponed. That big project you wanted to do today? It’s definitely not happening today anymore! (And maybe not next week, either.)

All of this has made me weirdly grateful for the days when things go right. There are days when things actually work out, where the work gets done and your child comes home completely healthy. Those are great days, even if this winter, it feels like there are far fewer of them than before.

Still: The mindset shift is important. I used to get mad when the work didn’t get done. Now I know it’s part of being a parent — and it’s my job to adjust how I work, adjust what I work on, and adjust my mindset. I’m a dad and a business owner. This is just how things work now, and that’s part of what I signed up for.

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That’s a photo of my son carrying a reusable bag upstairs. Why? Who knows, but parenting means a lot of unexpected moments — like my son deciding that a bag is far more fun to play with than the toys we got him.

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Find Your Rubber Duck.

A few days ago, I saw Sandie Taulo Essemann do one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen a speaker do on stage.

So we’re in Odense, Denmark, for Email Summit. When I give talks in America, there’s usually a line of people coming up to ask follow-up questions or say hi. But in Denmark, the cultural tendency is to leave the speakers alone — they don’t want to bother the speaker, so they quietly shuffle out of the room.

I was talking to Sandie about this the night before the conference, and she said she’d figured out a way to get people to come up and chat with her afterwards.

“How?” I asked.

“I brought rubber ducks,” she told me.

In her suitcase, she explained, she’d brought more than 100 rubber ducks. She told me she planned to close the talk by reminding people that when they went back to work, she didn’t want them to lose the feeling of excitement that they had at the conference. She wanted them to take a rubber duck, put it on their desk, and use it as a reminder of the sense of possibility they’d felt at Email Summit. Anytime they felt like they weren’t making progress, the rubber duck would be there to remind them that they could always make things a little bit better.

So the day of the conference, I stood in the back as Sandie closed her talk with the story about the rubber duck. (Fun fact: There’s no word in Danish for rubber duck. They just use the English words.)

I’ve spoken in Denmark three times, and at this point, I’ve seen lots of speakers give talks, both in Danish and English, but I’ve never seen more than two our three people ever go up to the speaker afterwards.

And then I watched, with amazement, as Sandie finished the talk, and more than 100 Danes stood in line to say hi to her, ask her questions, and take home their very own rubber duck. (And I saw a ton of people scanning a QR code to sign up for her newsletter. These are people who didn’t just get a free rubber duck — they’re also going to become Sandie’s fans, and maybe even clients one day.)

It was an absolutely brilliant icebreaker, and an example of a speaker going the extra mile to really connect with her audience.

(Now the only question is, because I’m 100% stealing this idea for myself: What should my version of a rubber duck be for my next talk?)

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That’s Sandie introducing the rubber duck concept on stage! (I got one of the last ones. Since I got home, my son has refused to end bath time until he plays with it.)

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Be Grateful For the Opportunity.

Back in 2021, I got the chance to speak at Email Summit DK, Denmark’s largest email conference. (It’s also one of the biggest email conferences in all of Europe.) I loved the event — the warmth of the attendees, the incredible venue, the little touches.

And this week, I got to go back and stand on that stage again — this time in front of 600 people.

And as I closed my talk, I told the attendees this: It’s not lost on me what a gift it is for all of us to get together, for a day like this. We have so many things competing for our time; it’s so easy to stay glued to our desks. So to see everyone, in one place, sharing and learning and eager to grow — that is an incredible thing, and I’m grateful to be a small part of it.

I’m lucky to get the chance to give talks like this. Each and every one still feels special. I’m grateful, as ever, for the opportunity.

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That’s a photo of me on stage in Odense, Denmark, at Email Summit 2025.

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