Tag: do the work

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Anything I’ve Ever Done Well, I Have Done Wrong First — Many, Many Times.


How about I just put this in the simplest way I can?

Everything I have ever done right in my life is something I’ve done wrong a half-dozen times first.

Every good idea, every well-executed plan, every romance — it’s all the result of complete, total, abject failure. I have never done anything right the first time.

The first time I tried to speak Spanish ended up with me locked in my closet, crying hysterically at the fact that I just didn’t understand the language.

The first time I interviewed a source using a tape recorder, I forgot to press record.

The first time I tried to play guitar, I sounded like an amateur.

The first time I wrote a blog post, the words came out all wrong.

The first time I tried to barbecue ribs, I nearly poisoned my friends.

Everything I have ever done right in my life — anything I have ever learned to do well, and to love — I have done wrong first, and I have done it wrong many, many times.

But what I have learned is that if it really matters to you — if it’s a thing, or a person, or a love, or a project, or a dream — then the first failure is no deterrent. And neither is the second, or the twenty-second.

Most of the people in our world see failure as an excuse to stop trying.

The builders in our world see failure as a chance to learn, and to try again.

I believe that the best things in this life cannot be had without failure — crushing, crippling, head-in-your-hands failure — and without the incredible bit of courage it takes to stand back up and fail again.

If you love something, then you must learn to love failure. It is the only road on which great dreams are made.

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There Is No Set Path From A->B. There Are Only Steps. Take The First One.

Run, Forrest, Run.

When I first started Stry.us, I had this notion that I was going to create a company that was going to disrupt the Associated Press. It was going to do a lot of things — most especially, it would tell great stories — but it would be funded by news organizations who would rip up their contracts with AP and give me their money instead. All I needed was 100 news organizations who’d give me $10,000 each.

This was the very definition of cluelessness.

I got excited, and I got ahead of myself. Way, WAY ahead of myself. It was going to take way more than three months of reporting from Biloxi for me to raise money for Stry.us.[1. And a million dollars! I thought I could get a million dollars! Lordy lordy was I dreaming big.]

The road from here to there — and for the record, the road has since changed, and I’m on a totally different path with Stry.us [2. And that’s totally okay!] — takes time. It takes a thousand tiny steps. There are no big leaps.

Think of it this way: Forrest Gump didn’t wake up and say, I’m going to run across the country four times.

No! He said: Maybe I’ll run down to the end of the block. And then to the end of town. And then to the end of the county.

And then you know what happens next:

My goal of getting people on board with Stry.us was one that was going to take time. It was going to take a certain amount of crazy before I got to that first follower, that first client.

It was going to take many tiny steps.

People quit too soon. If there’s one thing that I’ve done right, it’s that I haven’t quit on Stry.us. I’ve kept it going, and just by inching it forward, I’ve gotten it to Springfield.

It takes a thousand small steps to get to where you want to go. The first steps are slow. They are painful.

But if you really want to get somewhere good, you have to take the first one.

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We May Look Silly For Trying To Predict The Future. But We’ll Look Like Morons If We Don’t Try To Build It Anyway.

I just finished Michael Eisner’s autobiography, “Work in Progress.” It’s an excellent read, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the final chapter. It’s 1997, and Eisner — CEO of Disney — starts predicting the future of his corporation.

Hindsight makes a book that’s only 15 years old seem like an absolute relic. Eisner offers his predictions for the future, but the stuff that matters most in today’s media — the Internet, Google, streaming video, HDTV — is barely touched upon. He mentions that Disney is expanding on the web, but only by mentioning Go.com.

And if you go to Go.com right now, you’ll see… a web portal that hasn’t been updated in five years.

The point is: We cannot see very far into the future. We are going forward, semi-cluelessly. We have ideas. We have dreams. We have leaders.

We have no idea what happens next. And we have no idea how the things that come next will affect the things we believe in now.

To quote a Florence & the Machine song that’s been in my head for a few weeks now:

A revelation in the light of day
You can’t choose what stays and what fades away

We do not know what is next. We are all out here making it up as we go along.

But future is ours, and we’re the ones who’ll be shaping it, in our own haphazard way. We may look silly for trying to predict the future, but we’ll look like morons if we don’t try to build it anyway — each of us — today.

Thanks to Instagram user @jpcherry for the excellent photo of Tomorrowland.

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There Is No Such Thing As Bad Work. George Carlin Taught Me That.

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When I was in 9th grade, my family roadtripped down to Florida over winter break. My parents had always found interesting things to play in the car on long drives. My parents were big fans of D.C. parody group The Capital Steps,[1. I still can’t hear Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time” without singing, “Boris Yeltsin is the hardest rhyme.”] and we listened to their cassettes in the car. We listened to the hysterical stories of Bill Harley, and the random baseball rantings of Danny Kaye.[2. “Oh, I say D! I say D-O! D-O-D! D-O-D-G! D-O-D-G-E-R-S! Team, team, team, team ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”]

But on that trip to Florida, my mother decided — and I do not know why — to bring along some George Carlin for the drive.

That was the first time I’d ever heard Carlin’s famed “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” routine.[3. No need to Google it — the seven are shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.] I’d never heard anything quite like it before. I’d never heard anyone use words — simple, clear, decisive words — to prove such a powerful point.

Things would never be the same after that.

One line in the routine hit me especially hard. There was this idea that certain words were inherently “bad.” Carlin said that was total crap.

“There are no bad words,” he said. “Bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And words.”

I’d like to say the same is true with your work. Again, it doesn’t matter what your work is — playing basketball, writing the Great American Novel, building a better mousetrap. All that matters is that there is no such thing as bad work.

The results aren’t what you want sometimes. But the work itself is always good. Always.

There are bad results, sure. But work? Passionate, driven, goal-oriented work never fails. It’s never bad. Through it, regardless of results, you’ll learn how to do better work.

There will always be people who tell you that your work isn’t any good, just like there will always people who tell you that you can’t say certain words, or that you can’t try certain things.

But I know what Carlin would say about those people:

Fuck ’em.

Go do the work instead.

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Why ‘Just Be Yourself’ Is Lousy Advice When You’re Young.

Here’s a piece of advice I don’t much care for, especially when it’s directed towards young people: Just be yourself.

You’re giving a talk? Just be yourself.
You’re writing a paper? Just be yourself.
You’re going on a date with Cindy Crawford? Just be yourself.

But the problem is, What if you’re not really sure who you are yet?

To the confused souls among us — and yeah, I’d put myself in that category some days — “Just be yourself” is lousy advice. Before you can be yourself, you have to find yourself.

That takes time. We find ourselves through trying new things, through experimenting, through stepping out beyond our boundaries and seeing what we like and what we don’t.

And we never really stop searching for who we are. There will come a time when you find a version of yourself that you really like. That’s fantastic.

But it’s only the 1.0 version. You cant stop there. You can’t stop growing. You can’t stop trying new things.

I’d like to do away with “just be yourself.” I’d rather tell someone, “Do something that scares you.” Action leads to discovery.

Don’t settle for being someone you’re not totally sure of. Do the work, and through that, you’ll find yourself.

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My Little Brother is Lazy. But What I Can Really Do About It?

Sam O

My little brother is — and I say this with all the love that I can muster — the laziest little shit I know.

I just got off the phone with my mother. She told me that ever since he got back from college, he’s been sleeping in until 2 p.m. every day. She wants to get him tested for mono. She thinks something’s wrong with him.

There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just 19 years old, and the only difference between him and Garfield the cat is that Garfield sometimes makes his bed.

Sam O, despite that laziness, actually pulled off an amazing internship this summer. It starts Monday. He’s also got a dream job in mind, and that company has offered him the opportunity to do some volunteer work on weekends.

Whether or not Sam O takes advantage of any of this is really up to him.

There’s something I’ve learned over the years, and it’s that no matter the situation, there’s only one way you can really learn something:

Your own way.

You cannot be told to do something. Comments from friends and strangers can spark something in your head, but the only action comes when you decide to take it.

And often, that action only comes when you’ve hit bottom.

I hope Sam O takes advantage of his opportunities this summer. I hope he works hard. I hope he changes his sleeping habits. I hope he decides to get off his lazy ass and join a gym.

I hope all of these things for Sam, but I know that no number of calls or texts or emails will change his habits.

He will do what he wants to do. He will learn when he wants to learn.

It is his road, and the best I can do is to support him and hope that he learns sooner rather than later.

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Ferris Bueller, You’re Still My Hero.

I had a Twitter back-and-forth with Therese Schwenkler last week. She’d just written an awesome post about Derek Zoolander and finding yourself.

And I joked: “Zoolander” is a classic, but I think my lifestyle (and Stry.us) is more based on “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Except I wasn’t really kidding.

There’s a whole lot of Ferris in everything I’ve been doing these last two years. The attitude. The rejection of norms. The inability to play by any sort of rules.

Seriously, it’s all there.

But don’t take my word for it. Take Ferris’s:

Ferris: Hey, Cameron. You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?

The rules were laid out pretty clearly for me in high school: Get good grades. Get a good SAT score. Go to a good school. Get a good job. Go to a good grad school. Get a better job. Have kids. Coach a soccer team. Send your kids through the same cycle. Retire. Move to Boca.[1. Okay, maybe not the Boca part.]

I can’t remember a single class that taught me that doing what I’m doing now was possible. I was trained to go out and be a part of the existing workplace, to serve my bosses well, and to maybe get the chance to work my way up to boss one day.

This? They mentioned lawyer, doctor and firefighter, but they never mentioned this.

If I played by the rules, I’d be out in the journalism world starting a second or third job as a professional Facebooker by now. Instead, I’m building a start-up.

So I’m not big on rules these days. I think we make our own rules around here.

Cameron: Okay Ferris, can we just let it go, please?
Sloane: Ferris, please. You’ve gone too far. We’re going to get busted.
Ferris: A: You can never go too far. B: If I’m gonna get busted, it is not gonna be by a guy like that.

There have been times when I’ve been told it’s time to give this up. It’s gone on too long. It’s gone too far.

Hell, no.

Every time I get that sense, I push it even a little further. I’m not going to let the doubters keep me from taking Stry.us as far as I can take it.

Our site’s getting old? Let’s build the most beautiful new news website on the planet. Our team’s not big enough? Let’s hire a few guys. Hell, let’s hire five.

Let’s try some live events. Maybe one live events partner’s not enough. Let’s find another.

Let’s tell some stories online. And while we’re at it, let’s syndicate ’em. Online. And in print. And hey, why not?: Let’s do it on the radio, too.

All that’s happening this summer with Stry.us.

Ferris was right: Don’t set limits for yourself. Break beyond them.

Ferris: Look, it’s real simple. Whatever mileage we put on, we’ll take off.
Cameron: How?
Ferris: We’ll drive home backwards.

Yeah, I had a couple of crazy ideas when I started Stry.us. Some worked. Most didn’t.

The crazy ideas keep coming. I’m not sure if any of them will work, but I’m going to push my team to try them anyway. One or two might turn into something big.

Do first, ask for forgiveness later.

Cameron: We’re pinched, for sure.
Ferris: Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.

One of my earliest Ferris lessons: Get yourself out of a jam once and you’ll know you can do it again.

And again.

And again.

I’m not trying to end up in trouble. I swear I’m not.

It’s just that… trouble sometimes finds me. And when it does, it’s good to know that I’ve always been juuuuuuust smart enough to get myself out of it in the past.

Knowing that I can find an escape again helps in tricky situations.

Ferris: This is my ninth sick day this semester. It’s pretty tough coming up with new illnesses. If I go for ten, I’m probably going to have to barf up a lung, so I better make this one count.

Part of me keeps thinking about the end. About the untimely demise of Stry.us. I have this recurring fear — not a nightmare, just a fear — that somebody’s going to show up one day and tell me, straight up: Dan, it’s been a nice ride. But, uh, we made a mistake. It was supposed to be somebody else on this crazy journey. Turn in your press pass. You’re needed on the fryer at McDonald’s now.

I still might end up on the fryer. But I’m not going to go quietly. I’m going to do like Ryan Adams told me and burn up hard and bright.

Hell, I might end up in a place I didn’t expect/want, but I’m not going to spend my days there wondering what might’ve been if I’d just put in a little more work on Stry.us. I’m not going to leave any “what ifs” on the table. I’m trying everything I can right now.

Ferris: A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus.

The -ism here: All those conventional journalism beliefs I was taught. Time to challenge them all.

And another thing: Be yourself! Not a bad lesson, either.

Ed Rooney: I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind.

I like it when traditional news folks tell me that I’m messing with their shit. It means they’re scared of what I’m doing. And if they’re scared, that probably means I’m trying something a little bit risky.

Risky is good. Journalism needs some risk right now. It needs experimentation.

It needs something like Stry.us.

I’m not trying to leave anybody’s cheese out in the wind, but if we do this right, the Stry.us team might build something that saves somebody else’s bacon.

Ferris: Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

The best Ferris Bueller advice of all.

I’m 24, almost 25. I’m not waiting around for retirement here. I’m young, I’m dumb, I’m hungry. These are amazing years, and I’m trying to build something great with them.

So I tell you now: Be like Ferris. Be a little too bold. Get up and dance a little too hard. Drive a little too fast. Kiss the girl a little too long.

We may not be able to save Ferris, but I want to keep his spirit going.

Bueller? Bueller?

Yeah, he’s still alive here at Stry.us.

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Just Once, I Wish Someone Would Ask Me: How The Hell Are You Still Here?

So it’s Tuesday afternoon, and I’m in an almost empty TV studio in the middle of Springfield. I am sitting next to Leigh Moody, news anchor at the local ABC station. I am the guest for the 4 p.m. news “Close-Up” interview.

The countdown goes “4.. 3… 2…,” and then Leigh turns to me and asks me the question that a lot of people ask, which is: How did Stry.us start?

And it’s the funniest thing. Because everyone — EVERYONE — wants to know how this thing started. But hardly anyone asks the really big question, which is:

How the hell is this thing still going?

I’ve started plenty of things that never went anywhere. But I’ve never started anything that’s lasted quite like Stry.us.

And that thought was rattling around in my brain when I hopped in the car after Leigh’s interview and turned on the radio. Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” was playing, and Bob was already through the first verse. And he sang:

How does it feel /
To be on your own /
With no direction home

And it all just kind of hit me at once. That’s what this has been — this solo journey, with no discernible course. Some projects are linear. Some have a definite road.

The path for Stry.us has been more of a squiggly.

I didn’t know what this thing was going to become two years ago. In my initial pitch for Stry.us, I talked about filming YouTube videos and wearing sponsored logos — like a NASCAR driver. (Seriously.) I was especially clueless back then. This thing’s gone through so many iterations that I’ve lost track of them all. It’s been a solo operation. A news syndicate. It went through a period of nothing, and then a few periods of serious somethings. And now?

Now it’s taking real shape, because I’ve paired it down to an incredibly simple mission. Stry.us is about two questions:

1. What matters to people?
2. And how do we tell great stories about those things?

It is the simplest thing in the world. And people get it. In my meetings this week in Springfield, I’m seeing that twinkle in the eye when I talk about Stry.us. People love the idea. They get the idea. The love what we’re doing with our reporting.

After two years, I finally got okay with the idea that we’re just a band of reporters in pursuit of really great storytelling, and we don’t need to be anything more. We’re focused, we’re uncomplicated and we’re really starting to go places.

So, Bob, you wanna ask me, How does it feel?

It feels pretty damn good.

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Keep Stabbing. Keep Going. Keep Working.

I remember seeing the band Phoenix in Austin three years ago. It was at the Austin City Limits Festival. It was just an afternoon slot on a Friday — not quite primetime –but a massive crowd showed up. Even the band’s lead singer admitted that day that it was the biggest crowd they’d ever played for.

And it showed. They were very good — Phoenix’s songs are layered and powerful and super dancy — but they weren’t electric. Their music was fantastic, but the band didn’t look quite ready to perform on such a big stage.

Then I saw them a year later in Denver. It wasn’t even the same band. The singer was climbing up scaffolding on the stage and singing from high above his bandmates. At one point, the band just stopped mid-song, their instruments still reverberating, and walked off stage. The crowd — this was at another festival, mind you — started to leave the stage. And then the band rushed right back out and kept playing. The crowd flooded back in, a stampede of people jumping and screaming and generally losing their minds.

It was epic.

Maybe they weren’t ready for the big stage in Austin. Maybe they didn’t know what they were doing yet.

But they went out and played anyway. They started before they were ready, and they found themselves through doing the work, night in and night out.

The same holds true for Florence & the Machine. I saw her open for U2 last summer in Baltimore. She was very good. The crowd knew her music. But there was simply no way she was prepared to play for 60,000 people that night.

Then I saw her on Thursday in New Orleans. She blew the crowd away. She looked completely comfortable on stage. Her banter was good. When she told the crowd to jump, they jumped. When she told every guy in the crowd to grab their girlfriends and put them up on their shoulders, 500 women popped up in the air.

It’s an amazing thing to watch someone find who they are and embrace it, and to watch the crowd embrace it, too. But even the best — even the biggest rock and roll acts in the world — struggle to find themselves at first. I’ve seen it with Phoenix, and I’ve seen it with Florence.

It’s only through doing the work that we find our way.

Like Teller (of Penn and Teller) once said:

Get on stage. A lot. Try stuff. Make your best stab and keep stabbing. If it’s there in your heart, it will eventually find its way out.

Go out today and put yourself into the world. Take a step towards doing the work you really want to do.

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How to Get Your Ass Moving.

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Some mornings you wake up, and

-You can’t find your keys.
-The gym’s closed.
-The highway’s blocked.[1. Here’s looking at you, donkey in the road. And yes, Grandma, he’s the ass I’m talking about in the title. I wouldn’t use that kind of language on the blog otherwise :-)]
-Oh, and it’s raining, and you accidentally left your couch cushions outside on the porch to dry.

That was the last 45 minutes for me.

And I know from experience: I can let this drag on as long as it wants. There are mornings where it’s an endless parade of things that can and will go wrong. Give it 20 more minutes and I’ll be on the side of the road trying to fix a flat tire. And then it’ll start raining again.

Murphy’s Law rides shotgun, somedays.

So this is a restart kind of morning for me. Things get off wrong, and I have to bring it all back to zero. Turn off the engines. Breathe. Maybe sit down at a diner with a stack of pancakes and find my center again. Maybe I’ll hit the gym, or run an errand or two. I’ll go through what’s wrong and figure out how bad the damage is. Often, it’s just a series of little things that I’ve built into something much bigger.

Bad breaks happen. Bad things happen.

But I can’t afford to lose an entire day of work because things aren’t going my way. That’s why I have to know when it’s time to stop the slide. I have to know when it’s time to restart.

This applies to your work, too. You will do work that goes nowhere. You will have days where you hit dead ends.

Recognize when things just aren’t breaking your way. Step back and give yourself room. Give it a few minutes for something else to take hold in your mind. And then come right back to the work at hand.

Some mornings, it all lines up for you. Every light’s a green. You’re fully in the zone.

Those days are fun.

But they don’t come around every day. And the work has to get done every day.

Know when you need to stop and restart. Just stop. Breathe. Grab some pancakes.

When you’re ready, you’ll find the zone again.

———

That photo of a donkey was taken by Jordan Butler and published on Unsplash.

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