Tag: do the work

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The Thing That Makes The Internet So Amazing.

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” — Yogi Berra

 
In Feb. 1995, Newsweek published a story titled, “Why Web Won’t Be Nirvana.” It is a piece that has not aged well.

And this is my favorite quote from the story:

“What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another.”

Which is, of course, not what played out.

What makes the internet so amazing in 2013 is that we have such powerful communities. NPR keeps chugging along because there’s such a strong community that supports it. Kickstarter’s a place where community directly funds its most creative members. Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit — they’re all places built and maintained by communities.

For all of the amazing stuff about the web, it turns out it’s the people that makes it such an amazing place. And when you leave out the people — when you don’t ship your work, or you avoid your communities on the web — you miss out on the thing that makes the internet so great.

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Shut It Down.

“Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?” — Josh Pais

 
For about two weeks, I haven’t been myself. A combination of things — work, some weird breaks, some late nights — caught up to me. Friends started saying that I didn’t seem like myself.

And they were right.

For two weeks, I lost my routine. And without it, I didn’t quite feel like me. My work suffered, too.

Everyone has ways that they reset to normal. For me, it’s two things:

A trip to the gym in the morning, and some time in the kitchen cooking dinner after work.

If I have those two things to bookend my day, everything else falls into place. I find myself in a comfortable place, and when I’m there, I do really great work.

You probably have your own things that help you reset. My Dad does laundry when he needs to shut down at the end of the day. I know people who need a TV show, a drink with friends, or a book to finish the day.

But whatever you need, keep at it, and don’t miss a day. When you do, you lose a little bit of that routine, and your work gets slightly off track.

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Get On Stage.

“Shut up and make something.” — Danielle Morrill

 
I went to the Apollo Theater last night for Amateur Night. I went to watch, not perform. That’s probably for the best.

I have personally stood on some amazing stages, but I’ll never be on anything like the Apollo. For performers there, it’s just you, and this decades-old theater, and a crowd ready to boo you at the first missed note.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Apollo, read that sentence again: Bad performers really do get booed off stage. (They even bring out a guy called “The Executioner” to escort you off.)

But the Apollo is kind of brilliant in that way. Most places, if you’re on stage and you suck, people stay quiet. They clap politely when your performance is done.

At the Apollo? Hell no. If you’re bad, you’re getting booed off stage. You know immediately whether or not what you’re doing is working.

And that’s brilliant. That’s how all our work should be.

Do work. Put it out there. See what people say.

Then do more. And more. Keep putting it out there. Keep inviting reactions.

See what sticks. Learn what doesn’t.

Yes, it will suck sometimes. It will hurt.

But nothing really matters until you get on stage.

That photo at top is of the Apollo Theater, and I took it.

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Just Don’t.

“Percentage wise, it is 100% easier not to do things than to do them.” — John Mulaney

 
Don’t.

Just… don’t.

The work will be hard. It’ll be draining. You’ll be tired all the time. You’ll be working harder than you’ve ever worked.

And the work won’t stop. You’ll go to bed at midnight, having put in a full day of work, and you’ll wake up the next day with just as much — probably even more. It’ll just keep coming at you, work day after work day, and the only way to deal with it will be to keep going, deeper and deeper into work that won’t ever end.

You’ll be an emotional wreck. You won’t be sure that what you’re doing is right, and your friends will probably tell you that you’re crazy. Most days, you’ll agree. You’ll be a bad break away from a nervous breakdown, or a big break away from floating on air, and you’ll never be sure which way the next 90 minutes might take you. You will never feel like you’re standing on solid ground.

You will feel alone, and you will feel helpless, and you will feel scared.

You will want to quit. You will tell yourself that quitting is the way out.

And then you will wake up and do it all again the next day. You will want to quit, but you’ll be even more scared that quitting might take you to an even worse place.

So you’ll keep going, day after day, hour after hour, task after task. You’ll lose the ability to tell the difference between a step forward and a step back. Soon, all you’ll be sure of is that you’re taking steps — but you’re not sure where they lead.

The work will make you question everything. The work will bring you to tears. The work will hurt.

The work. It will take everything you have to keep it from crushing you.

So, just… don’t. Don’t do it. Not doing the work is the easy way out. Not doing it is the sane way out.

Unless you want to do something really great. In which case: You’re going to have to do the work. It is the only way.

And yes, you’re going to be tired, and scared, and totally unsure of yourself.

But you’ll be doing the work, and there won’t be a single thing you’d rather do than that.

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Demand The Finish Line.

“I applaud the guy who has the courage to meet the confrontation.” —Kim English

 
I ran a 10k on Saturday — my first in six years.

And this thought popped into my head, somewhere around mile 4: You did it, Dan.

Yes, I knew I had 2.2 miles left. But I knew I was going to get the finish line.

You can’t always say that at the starting line. Or even at the halfway point.

But I knew, with 2.2 miles left, that there wasn’t anything that would keep me from that finish line. I knew I had the final few minutes in me.

At a certain point, the mind takes over. Getting to the end of a 10k — or whatever your race is — is about demanding of yourself the finish line.

You’ll see runners on the side of the race, telling themselves they aren’t “able” to go the distance. That’s bull.

A 10k is all about wanting to get there. Anyone can run six miles. Maybe not six fast miles. But anyone can run that distance — as long as you keep yourself moving forward. As long as your mind wants it more than whatever your feet are telling you.

In that kind of race, Want To > Able To.

Do you want to get to the finish line? Do you want to know you went the distance?

In these short races, want is all that matters. Want is what gets you to the end.

That photo from my 10k comes via @anasarbu.

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The Two Types Of Routine.

“Funny thing happens when you keep putting one foot in front of the other: you get somewhere.” — Marina Martin

 
Something you learn from doing the work: There are two types of routine.

There’s good routine: A process to help you get through tasks faster.

Then there’s bad routine: When things get dull.

Creating the first time of routine helps you get through your workday. The second makes you resent your workday.

Anyway, point is: We tend to talk about it in negative terms, but routine isn’t always a bad thing. And when you find the good routine, it actually helps keeps you moving forward.

Just something you’ll learn when you commit to the work.

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Lucky + Good.

“Crush it where you’re at.” — Skip Prosser

On Friday, Florida Gulf Coast — a school that did not exist when I was born — beat Georgetown in an NCAA Tournament basketball game. It was one of the biggest upsets in the history of March Madness.

There were a lot of moments in the game where it looked like FGCU could pull the upset. But the moment when I knew, when I was absolutely sure it could happen, came with 2:17 left. FGCU’s Dajuan Graf stepped to the free throw line. His team was up 8.

And his free throw hit every part of the rim. It hit the backboard. It hung up there forever. It had no business going in.

But it did.

To pull of a huge upset, you need to be good AND you need to be lucky. You need the bounces to go your way when it matters most. You need a lot of things to align.

That matters in basketball, and it matters in your work. It is not enough to be good. Getting the breaks matters, too.

Lucky + good is a pretty excellent combinations. On some nights, even for a 15 seed going up against a 2, it might just be enough.

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Building Big Things Never Happens Fast.

“Velocity, not speed.” — Siqi Chen

 
There is a funny misconception that exists in the general public about building big companies. They see something like Instagram, which sold for a billion dollars, and think: The path from A to B(illionaire) doesn’t take that long.

Wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

I work at BuzzFeed now. That photo at top is what our office looks like today.

But this is what it looked like in 2007, in the earliest days of BuzzFeed.

Not quite as exciting, right?

I remember those types of days at Stry.us. I remember sleeping on the floor in a small apartment next to a cow pasture. I remember that when I hit the “Sleeping On A Floor In A Small Apartment Next To A Cow Pasture” point, that was actually a big milestone for Stry.us.

Good things come slowly. You build with good people. You find ways to hang in the game as long as you can.

The road is slow and long and kind of boring sometimes. If that doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, that’s okay. Building big things isn’t for everyone.

But if that sounds like something you like? Well, start as soon as you can. You’re going to need all the time you have.

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Another Thing I Learned Watching Missouri Play Basketball.

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” — John Wooden

 
So that photo at top is of me. That’s me from, I believe, my sophomore year at the University of Missouri. Yes, that is my yellow pinstriped jacket. (Also, yes, that is very bad sophomore year beard.)

I went to Missouri, and I love my alma mater. The sight of our colors makes me happy. Tigers, in general, now make me really happy.

And I love rooting for my Missouri Tigers. There aren’t a lot of Missouri fans outside of the state of Missouri. But we are a passionate few.

This year, Missouri has a strange basketball team. They have a really good point guard, and several really good shooters, and two really good big guys. They rebound extremely well, and they have lots of experience. They should be an exceptional basketball team.

Except that they are not. In this last two months, Missouri has lost six basketball games that were decided in the final 30 seconds. Missouri has lots of talent, but it just can’t seem to win close games.

As a Missouri fan, this crushes me. I WANT them to win. I absolutely love it when we win.

And this year’s team is SO dangerously close to being a really good team. But they are not. Great teams win games — they win blowouts, and they win close, and they win when it does not seem possible that winning could ever happen — and this Missouri team does not do that.

When I look back on this season, I feel a sense of disappointment. This team is that friend that everyone has, that friend who has lots of talent — who has ideas, and ambition, and decent skills — but who can’t figure out how to put it all together.

This team is disappointing for another reason: They cannot figure out how to put it all together IN THE MOMENT in which it matters.

Doing the work well matters, but doing it well in the time you have matters even more. There is a moment for your work, and when it passes, it passes.

So it goes for my Tigers. There will be other seasons, sure. But for this team, for this moment, time is almost out. The work is almost over. The season will be over with one more loss.

This time won’t come around ever again. You put it together now, you get better, or you find yourself watching others get their moment instead. How it goes.

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Two Great Questions: Why Not? And What Else?

There’s a pizza place around the corner from me that’s pretty good. They’ve got a good pepperoni and mushroom slice, and they’ve got this chicken caesar pie, too, if you’re into something kinda different.

But what I like most about this pizza place are the guys behind the counter. There are two guys I see most often working the counter, and they’ve each got a catchphrase.

The first guy waits for you to order, and when you announce your choice of slice, he says, “Why not?”

Order another slice, and you’ll hear, “Why not?”

Hang around the restaurant for 10 minutes and you’ll hear him say it over and over again.

The second guy behind the counter has a different way of responding to each order. Each slice is followed by a simple question: “What else?”

And usually the customer pauses and says, Well, maybe that one? Or that one?

“What else?”

Maybe that one…

I really like this pizza place, because I really like those two questions. I like how, subtly, really good questions can challenge a captive audience. The right questions can force someone to take action that they might not otherwise take.

I’d like more people to ask questions like that when they’re taking on new work. Something too big? Too scary? “Maybe I shouldn’t do this,” you find yourself saying.

Well, why not?

And when you think you’ve hit the end of some work, and you’re trying to figure out if there’s anything left to do:

Well, what else? Is there something more to do?

Those two really good questions could unlock a lot of really good work. Don’t thank me, though. Thank the pizza place on the corner.

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That photo was taken by Peter Bravo de los Rios for Unsplash.

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