The Search For The Secret.

“When you feel like your work is not that good, you’re right there — you have to keep pushing. — Ike Edeani

You don’t want to hear this, but… tough. You’re gonna. Deal with it.

When I meet people who are trying to do something new in the world, I hear one thing over and over: They’re looking for the one thing that unlocks their world. The thing that unlocks their creativity. That unlocks doors and unlocks opportunity.

And the dirtiest, scariest, most terrifying secret is this:

There is no one thing. It does not exist.

People matter. Work matters. The willingness to learn matters. An ability to put up with weeks and months and maybe even years of sucking — that matters.

But there is not a secret thing that successful people know. There isn’t.

Successful people do the boring stuff well, and successful people surround themselves with other people who want to help.

That’s all. No secret spells. No secret ingredients.

It’s no magic at all, really. Which is reassuring, I think. The gap between where you are and where you want to be isn’t nearly as big as you think it is. There is nothing you’re missing.

Just the work and the people to get you there. And that’s there for anyone who wants to find it.

That awesome photo at top comes via @zimagin2000.

07/15/201304/15/2018

Get Ready. Get Going. Get Yours.

“Life is a story, if you wouldn’t read the one you’re telling, write a different ending.” — Jonathan Fields

I went to the World Domination Summit last weekend. [1. Strange name for a conference, but powerful stuff.] And what I heard were a lot of great stories about how people do work:

I heard some people saying: Start! You have all you need to start right now!

I heard some people saying: Wait! Give yourself time to recover, to ripen, to grow.

I heard some people saying: Just tell me the secret thing that successful people do and I’l do it! Tell me! (There were, admittedly, a lot of these.)

And at the end of the weekend, here’s what I really heard: As long as you make time to listen, and make time for your community, you’re going to do just fine. The work follows people who are patient, persistent, and surround themselves with great people.

There is no right time for the work you want to do — just your time.

So get ready. Get going.

And get yours.

Ultimately, it’ll be there — something remarkable, something amazing — when you’re ready to put in the work.

07/11/201304/15/2018

The Magic Hour.

“The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.” — John H. Schaar

There’s this hour right before sunset where the light is perfect. Photographers call it the Magic Hour. The sun is going down, and the world is bathed in this perfect, almost sepia tone.

It’s the hour when conditions are just right for photography. It’s the time when photographers love to work.

Other professions have a Magic Hour, too. Writers and athletes have their own word for it: The Zone.

It’s that brief window where everything you need to work is just there for you. The work pours out, and just the way you always hope it will.

Of course, such magic hours don’t exist daily for most of us. Most of the time, the work comes out slowly. Progress happens slowly.

We wish for those magic hours, but we shouldn’t resign ourselves to waiting for them. Most days, the work has to get out — whether or not you’re feeling it.

The good news is, you don’t have to wait for the perfect moment to get started. You probably shouldn’t. Part of doing the work is learning to struggle. Part of doing the work is learning how to start before you feel ready.

That advice seems almost impossibly easy. But until you’ve actually tried to do the work when you’re feeling out of the zone, you won’t ever know how hard it can be.

07/04/201304/15/2018

This One Very Good Break.

“Our lives happen between the memorable.” — Jack Gilbert

A year ago today, something funny happened in Springfield, MO:

Jordan and I had a Stry.us booth downtown at the ice rink. This guy came up to us. We hoped he wanted to talk about the project. He didn’t.

“You guys got any jumper cables?” he asked.

Not really what we were there for, but hey, I did have cables. So we went outside and got the car started. The driver thanked me. We made small talk. He said he was from Joplin. I told him that the team was going to Joplin the next day to do some reporting.

He handed me his card. I know the mayor, he said. Give me a call. Maybe we can set something up.

And… he helped. He pointed us in the right direction. And we needed that. I don’t know what we do without that — a chance encounter 100 miles away from where we all wanted to go.

Little things, little connections, little moments — it’s funny how much those matter, and how often we forget.

07/01/201304/15/2018

The Thing I Learned From The Spin Doctors.

“Just go ahead now.” — Spin Doctors

I have been obsessed lately with this video of the Spin Doctors playing ‘Late Night’ in the early 90s. David Letterman introduces the band with huge energy. He introduces them to America as though they’re about to become the biggest thing since the Beatles.

I look back on this video — two decades later, with everything I know about what would happen to that band — and chuckle a little. I know the rest of the story. I know where this video fits into the story. The Spin Doctors fizzled out after a few years. The band never had an album as big as their debut.

But at the time, somebody watching at home probably did think the Spin Doctors would be an enormous deal in rock and roll music. Back then, based on that first album, huge success seemed likely.

This is why we let the story play out. We don’t know in the moment — only with work and time do we figure it all out. We tend to think that the story has been written already, but we don’t know.

Do the work, and see where it all takes you as you go.

06/27/201304/15/2018

The 10-Year Plan For Overnight Success.

“Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.” — Morgan Missen

10 years ago this summer, I started my first internship in journalism. I was 16. That summer, I got an article published in the A section of The Boston Globe, and I thought: This journalism thing is going to be easy. I thought I was going to be a very big deal.

Five years ago this summer, I went to China to cover the Beijing Olympics for the Rocky Mountain News. I was in China, reporting on the biggest sporting event in the world. I was doing good reporting, and my bosses were happy with me. I was convinced: I was going to be a very big deal.

And now it’s five years later, and… well, the words “big deal” probably don’t apply just yet. I’m really happy with where I am in journalism. Thrilled, actually.

But this isn’t what I thought it would be. I had visions of reporting, of telling big feature stories that won big awards, of traveling to tell stories that could change lives. I had huge ambition, and no reason to doubt that everything I wanted would come soon.

I never thought about the work. There was no concept that it was going to take work and time and screw-ups to get somewhere good. Everything came easy: the reporting, the writing, the opportunities. Stuff just seemed to work out.

But I ended up in a pretty great place anyway. I’ve learned about the work. I’ve had leaps forward, and I’ve taken steps back. I have screwed up a lot, and I’m better for it.

Somewhere down the road, I might even get good at whatever it is that I do. I’m 26 now, and I think I’m getting closer. Not close — but definitely closer.

Every once in a while, someone tells me how far along I am. They say I’m doing well — really well for someone this young. They talk about how quickly success has come for me.

And not too far off — maybe a few years down the road, even — there’ll be more of them. They’ll talk about how fast it’s all happened for me. The words “overnight success” might even be used.

And only I will know: I’ll have been an overnight success more than a decade in the making.

06/24/201304/15/2018

Get The Work Out.

“You can’t choose what stays and what fades away.” — Florence Welch

I wrote a thing for BuzzFeed this week about Gmail. I thought it would be a pretty good post — no “What’s The Cheapest, Classiest Way To Get Drunk,” but a good post.

And then it ended up being the biggest post I’ve ever written.

I had no idea. I don’t think anybody had any inkling that it would turn out that way.

We don’t really know what’s going to stick and what won’t. You just put the work out into the world, make it easy to share, and see what happens next.

06/22/201304/15/2018

The Fire.

“There’s a fire burning deep inside / And it’s as mad as it’s mean / It’s hungry as it’s lean / And it’s as fleeting as a dream.” — John Fullbright

Two separate things that happened this week:

The first: A colleague at BuzzFeed died. His name was Michael Hastings, and I never met him. But when you read about him — and you really should — the thing that comes across is a certain fire for his reporting. People at my office described him as passionate, as forceful, as energetic. What a wonderful thing to bring to your work.

The second: I saw a guy play in concert on Thursday. His name is John Fullbright, and he’s a hugely talented songwriter from Oklahoma. Watching him live, he sang with that same passion. He threw himself at the microphone. He sang loud, and played hard. He’s a guy who actually appears to work on stage — he sweats and screams and aches through his music. What a wonderful thing.

It’s an amazing thing to see people doing work they really care about and believe in. The passion comes through. The fire comes through.

I feel lucky to have witnessed glimpses of it this week. That’s what we’re all shooting for, isn’t it?

06/17/201304/15/2018

After The Frustration.

“Innovation happens at the crossroads of frustration with the present and blind optimism about the future.” — Aaron Levie

A lot of really great stuff can come from being mad at where you are. You’re pissed about your job or your friends or your place in the world, and you do something bold. That’s where a project like Stry.us came from.

But frustration is just a little bit of fuel. It might jump start you, but it won’t keep you going.

What keeps you going are boring things: Routine, effort, persistence, teamwork. The frustration convinces you to start the work, but the structure lets you do the work every day.

It’s boring stuff, yes, but it’s also what actually makes great work happen.

That image at top comes via.

06/13/201304/15/2018

Stop Talking About The Future. Start Working Today.

“You have to learn to be bad at something before you can learn to be good at something.” — John Oliver

If I hear one more talk about the future of my industry, I’m gonna be sick.

The future. Goodness, what the hell do we know about the future?

We have no clue what happens next. None. We are consistently, ridiculously wrong when it comes to predicting the future. We are just bad at it.

Here’s what I’m interested in:

What are we doing now?

What tools are we working with now?

What are we trying to accomplish now?

We shouldn’t stop trying to make our world better, but we have to start now. We know what people are doing now, and how people are reacting now. That’s where we should start.

But we get lost in talking about what’s next.

We are constantly trying to sift through all that’s happening now to predict what’s coming next. That’s where we get lost — trying to follow the thread a little too far into the future. We want to write the story as it’s happening. We all want to feel like we’re a step ahead.

But forget about the future for a second. We chase it too often. We follow it to dead ends.

All we can do is put our work in right now and see where it takes us.

The work leads us to the story, not the other way around. Go do the work. Go ask your colleagues what they’re working on, and try to learn from it.

Just remember: Some predict the future; others make it.