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.
There is a phrase I use a lot. I overuse it. A lot of my friends do, too.
The word is “fail.”
Fail can mean a lot of things. It can mean:
-Go try hard things, and see what works!
-Don’t be afraid to mess up!
-If it doesn’t succeed, that’s okay — it doesn’t mean you’re a failure!
But sometimes, when we just wrap all that in into that one word — fail — we lose a sense of what we’re really trying to say. Sometimes, I’ll find myself telling people that they should be willing to fail, and they think, “Dan doesn’t think I can do it.”
And that’s not it at all! If you’ve got the skill and hustle and the team, you can absolutely pull it off.
So if I’ve told you, “It’s okay to fail” or “Go fail fast,” I’m sorry. I can say it better.
This year, be willing to do difficult things. Be willing to go on adventures where you don’t know the outcome. Be willing to persevere.
Here’s a section from part of the Lakers’ playoff run that season. Jackson had been critical of Shaq’s free throw shooting abilities. (That playoffs, he shot 109 of 254 from the line.) Here’s what Jackson had to say about one pre-game effort:
“The press made a big deal out of [Shaq’s] dedication, showing up at the arena today three hours before tip-off to work on his free throws. To me it was no big deal. That was exactly what Shaq, as a professional, should be doing.”
And… he’s absolutely right.
Where else but in sports do we hear about how hard people practice? We don’t praise the coders who spend weekends diving into the craft. We don’t compliment the writer who stays up late working on drafts that never get read.
“Slump? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hitting.” — Yogi Berra
Over the years, I’ve developed a sixth sense for certain things during sporting events. Like many sports fans, I know exactly when to flick back to the game after a commercial break. Like other sports nuts, I can usually tell you the cliché the announcer is about to spout just before he spouts it.
And of course: I can tell you when one team has the Mo.
You know Mo, or maybe you know it by one of its pseudonyms: Uncle Mo. Mighty Mo.
Big Mo.
Mo is momentum. Mo is how teams make comebacks that don’t seem possible. Mo is how the hot goalie gets hot, and why the power hitter suddenly can’t swing the bat. Mo is that mighty force that can upend even Murphy’s Law.
You can have skill, strength, strategy and coaching, but if you don’t have Mo, you’re not going anywhere.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes: Some nights, Big Mo just gets rolling, and crazy things start happening.
Yes, you read that right: It takes a full year for United Airlines to get a new meal option onto a flight. It takes a full year — 12 months, 365 days, 525,600 minutes —
to create a new food option and get it ready to be served on a United flight.
And to think: Many of us who’ve eaten these meals would hardly classify them as “food.”
One year. I’m hung up on that number. That’s an awfully long time to institute a tiny change to an airline menu, isn’t it?
I’ll ask you now: What if they could do it in a day? What if they could do it better?
But what if United just simplified their list of ingredients to include things that can be found at any airport kitchen in the world? What if United only cooked from that list?
And what if United changed its menu every day, with United’s head chefs emailing out that day’s menu options?
And what if — because yes, local flavor is important — United empowered local chefs to add an ingredient or two from the departure airport to personalize the flight? (Sushi from Japan, hummus from Tel Aviv, cheddar cheese from Milwaukee.)
What if United focused on going fresh every day, and creating a beautiful meal presentation for all of its passengers?
What if United decided to spend a little more on airplane food? As of 2010, United spent about $6.35 per meal per passenger — is that enough for passengers who’ve paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for a seat?
What if United decided that while every other airline cuts back on meals, they’d make it a priority? What if passengers actually looked forward to their meals on the flight – because they knew it was made that day, and made specifically for them that day, not dreamed up in a kitchen a full year earlier?
I know what you’re thinking: Yeah, but… they’d never go for it. It’s too complicated. Too costly. Too hard.
And I say: Every day, United moves thousands of people around the world. You’re telling me they can’t think of a better way to serve us salad and sandwiches in the sky?
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” — Steve Jobs
“I’m so grateful that I struggled.” — Ellen DeGeneres
Those are the words of someone who’s really, truly learned what it’s like to see bottom. Look at her resume, and you’ll find that Ellen DeGeneres has been low places:
• She got into comedy by accident.
• She worked crappy nightclubs and bars. (Once, she worked a restaurant that had the words, “Soup of the Day: Broccoli, and Ellen DeGeneres” on the chalkboard outside. Her name was below the soup.)
• She made it to “The Tonight Show,” where she was the first woman ever to get called over to sit on Johnny Carson’s couch after performing stand-up.
• She made some movies that flopped.
• She got her own TV show.
• On that TV show, she confessed that she was gay.
• The ratings tanked, and her show was cancelled one season later.
• She couldn’t get a job in TV or movies for three years afterward.
And then somewhere in the 2000s, things just started to click. She was in “Finding Nemo.” She got her own talk show. And all that work just started to spin itself into success.
Ellen said those six words at top — “I’m so grateful that I struggled.” — at an award ceremony being held in her honor at the Kennedy Center last month. Sometimes, award ceremony acceptance speeches ring hollow, but this one hit home. And it got me thinking:
What would it be like to be on stage accepting that big award without the lifetime of struggle?
What would it be like to reach success without the bumps and the roadblocks and the failures? Would it mean as much?
When Ellen said she was thankful for the bad times, she meant this: The struggle is when you find out whether or not you’re willing to put in the work. Over the years, after all the criticism and the pain, Ellen found that it was worth it to keep putting in the work — and I think our world is better for it.
Nothing great comes in this world without a lot of work and a lot of struggle.
Embrace the struggle. Embrace the pain.
It’s the stuff that’s molding you and guiding you toward something really amazing.
“Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is at hand.” —Henry Miller
I had the privilege of going to a TED event last Friday. It was fantastic. Colin Powell gave a talk. So did a guy who marched with MLK. And an opera singer who’s had two lung transplants.
It was an inspiring day. TED promises to deliver “Ideas Worth Spreading,” and Friday most certainly did.
But that’s not what made the biggest impression on me.
No, what made the biggest impression was a conversation I had with a teacher out in the hallway between talks.
It’s a shame, he told me. We’re seeing all these great talks, but what will come from all of this?
What I’d like to see are more TED events that lead to action. Let’s get 10 speakers on the stage to pitch big ideas, and then let’s get the community behind TED to actually make something happen with one or two of the ideas.
There’s a quote in that book that’s fascinating. McCloud talks about the cartoonist’s challenge. You’ve got a handful of panels in which to tell a full story, which means that you can’t show every action. You’ve got to pick and choose the parts you want to show.
Let’s say you’ve got a cartoon of a man at Starbucks. In panel 1, the man might be picking up his coffee from the counter. In panel 2, the man might be yelling while the coffee burns his lips.
What’s amazing is that the brain is able to put together the middle step — somewhere between panels 1 and 2, the man drank the coffee, and the coffee was too hot — even though it’s never actually shown in the comic.
”The phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It’s called closure.”
Basically, if there’s a story being told, and there are loose ends to the story, the brain is capable of closing the loop. It takes the parts it has and jumps to a conclusion.
But what if, in our little coffee hypothetical, what we think happened wasn’t what happened. What if something else happened between the man getting the coffee and the man screaming? We never actually saw the man drink the coffee, after all. Isn’t it possible that something else happened there to cause the man to yell, but our minds had already decided what we wanted to see?
What if our minds closed the loop but changed the story along the way?
So let’s bring this back to you.
If you’re reading this post, you’re someone who’s trying to do awesome work. I salute you, creator of awesome stuff. You’re doing the work we need more of in the world.
But I’m also warning you: The haters are coming for you. Haters love to hate on awesome work.
And your work is no exception.
They’re going to come and see parts of your life’s story. They’re going to see certain things you’ve done or written or said, and they’re going to connects the dots for themselves. This is what McCloud warned us about brains: They like to finish unfinished stories.
You have no control over how they decide to close the loop on your story. It is entirely out of your control.
Here’s more proof that McCloud is right. Jimmy Kimmel sent out a TV camera two weeks ago to document voters’ reaction to the previous night’s debate. There was only one problem:
There wasn’t a debate the night before.
And yet: Here’s 3 minutes of voters responding to a debate that didn’t happen. They took this single bit of information from the cameraman — there was a debate last night! — and whatever preconceived notions existed in their minds, and they closed the loop for themselves:
So here’s what you need to remember: Haters are going to hate. When it comes to your story, they’ve already closed the loop for themselves.
You cannot control the haters, but you can control the work you do.
Focus there. Do the best work you can.
A huge thank you to Ross Nover, who gave a talk last week at Refresh DC that inspired this post. Also: That photo at top comes via someecards.
“There’s always better. There’s always faster. There’s always more. But there will never be another now.” — Dustin Curtis
A question I’ve gotten a lot this year:
How do you know?
How do you know when you’re doing something you really, really love? How do you know when you’re doing the work that’s meant for you?
The answer is a strange one: You just kind of know.
Here’s how I knew with Stry.us: At the end of last year, things were starting to ramp up with the project. Then my family asked me to join them out west to go skiing for a few days. I took a week off. And after a few days, I found myself on a chairlift thinking a very strange thought.
That night, I wrote this note to myself:
“I had a weird sensation today. I was on the slopes, skiing. And I realized: I shouldn’t be here. I should be working.
“I actually WANT to be working right now. Rather than skiing.”
It was a strange feeling. It was the first time in my life that I can ever remember wanting not to vacation.
My work, I realized, was just more fun.
The more I talk to people who do work that they love, the more I hear that same refrain: At some point, I just knew. I wish there was a better way to measure it, but I haven’t found it just yet.
When it’s right, there’s something that finally just clicks inside of you.
So if you’re searching for the right work, make sure you listen to yourself. If you find yourself telling friends that you can’t go out for a drink because you’ve got some work you really want to do, then you’re doing something you love.
And if you’re considering flying home from a ski vacation on New Year’s Eve so that you can get back to work — well, you’re definitely doing something you love.
But if you’re not getting that feeling — that sense that what you’re doing is so important and so awesome that everything else should go on hold — then maybe it’s time to start searching for new work.
