do the work | danoshinsky.com

05/20/2023

Invest in What’s Next.

A bronze bull sculpture stands proudly on Wall Street, representing the resilience and power of the financial markets. This iconic symbol serves as a reminder of the bullish optimism that drives the world of finance.

At age 30, in my annual Things I Believe post, I wrote:

You don’t need to be able to predict the future — but it helps if you can see what’s coming around the corner.

I certainly don’t know what the future holds. But I think I can see certain pieces that will matter in the decade ahead. I think small, curated, in-person events will matter. I think relationships will matter. I think expertise will matter. I think that there will still be a desire to learn new skills — that will matter.

And so I’m starting to make investments in what’s next: Dinners, writing, workshops, partnerships.

You should do the same. Try to identify what’s coming in the next month or the next year or the next decade, and start to make moves to invest in things that will help you in whatever comes next.

Maybe that means starting to have conversations with others who operate in the space you want to move into.

Maybe that means finding ways to level up your skills in a certain area.

Maybe that means making a little time to work on the ideas you have.

Maybe that means launching something small to start to carve out your niche.

Maybe that means finding partners to work on these ideas.

Whatever’s next is coming. Time to make your investments now.

———

That’s the eye of the famous bull on Wall Street. This post isn’t about that type of investing, but it still seemed like a nice fit for this blog post. The photo was taken by Redd F for Unsplash.

05/13/202305/13/2023

Busy vs. Occupied.

I was talking with a friend the other day, and he told me that something was annoying him. He’d been talking to his parents, who are both retired. He’d asked if they could help him with this big task, but they said they couldn’t — they were too busy.

“I don’t get it,” he told me. “They’re having lunch or dinner out every day, they’re playing pickleball, they have volunteer projects. That’s all stuff they’re choosing to do! But I’ve got work and family stuff. I’m the one who’s really busy!”

They’re not busy, I told him — just occupied. (Too occupied to take on this one task, unfortunately for him.) But it’s easy to confuse “busy” and “occupied.”

And it reminded me of something I used to do — or, if I’m being fully honest, that I occasionally still do — when I want to feel busy. I’d collect a bunch of small tasks and put them on my to-do list. And I’d cross them off. At the end of the day, I’d feel like I’d accomplished something — look at all the tasks I’d completed!

But then I’d look at the bottom of the list, and there would be one big task still on my list. It’d been the one thing I had to accomplish, and I hadn’t even started it. Deep down, I knew that I was only taking on all these other tasks to try to make myself feel better about avoiding the big task.

But occupied and busy aren’t the same thing. And sometimes, you have to stop what you’re doing and just do the work.

Might as well do it now.

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A pickleball photo seemed appropriate for this post. That one was taken by Patrick Hodskins for Unsplash.

05/02/202305/02/2023

The Hardest Questions to Answer.

That's sunrise over Puerto Rico in May 2023. Birds fly through the sky as the sun comes up

Sometimes, the simplest questions are the hardest to answer.

What does success look like?

What do I want to do next?

Is now the right time to try something big?

Do I know enough to start?

Am I ready for whatever’s next?

These are questions that are going to take time to answer. But they’re also worth putting in the work to answer.

———

I was thinking about a few of these questions while watching sunrise over Puerto Rico this morning. Not a bad place to think about big questions.

04/24/202304/24/2023

Get the First Win.

This is a photo of white golf balls and red, white, and blue golf tees on a driving range.

I went to the driving range once and found myself next to a couple that was playing golf for the first time. They had an instructor with them, and within the first minutes of the lesson, he was walking them through the complex biomechanics of the swing. He was telling them that there were more than three dozen different parts of the swing, all of which had to work together. He was giving them tips from professional golfers. He was getting into the mental side of the game.

In the hour alongside them, I didn’t see either of them swing the club a single time. The entire lesson was on golf theory.

And I remember thinking: These people will never come back and try to play again — because they never had that first win.

Golf can be a frustrating game, and yes, a really good swing is a complex thing, but the reason you come back is because of the feeling that happens when you hit a really good shot. That feeling — the sound off of the club, the whoosh of the ball in the air, seeing the ball fly — is what every golfer chases. You come back to try to recreate that feeling, over and over again. Those first-time golfers weren’t going to hit a drive 250 yards or experience a perfect wedge shot, but they never even got the chance to try.

With anything you’re doing for the first time, you’re chasing that first win.

Maybe that first win is the first time someone compliments your work.

Maybe it’s the first dollar you make.

Maybe it’s the first time a lesson starts to click.

The goal is to get that first win as soon as you can. Because once you’ve gotten that first win, you’ve experienced a taste of what the work is for — and can decide whether you want to come back for more.

———

That’s a photo of golf balls and tees at a driving range. It was taken by Robert Ruggiero for Unsplash.

04/08/202304/08/2023

Change Can Be the Right Thing.

This is a photo of me, ready for takeoff back to New York

When I first started Inbox Collective, I thought most of my job would involve projects and travel.

I’d do an audit for a newsroom, then travel to their office to lead a workshop. I’d take the lead on a big project, where I’d get into a client’s email platform to build something for them. I’d do talks in person. I’d speak at conferences in front of big rooms.

And the job changed when the pandemic hit. I wasn’t traveling for work anymore, which meant more calls and presentations on Zoom. A lot of friends told me they hated Zoom — I found that I loved it. I could actually work with more teams and help a lot more people since I wasn’t spending all my time on planes. I could work with newsrooms and writers in far-off parts of the world, and do so on my schedule.

And at the same time, I started to realize that I didn’t love project work. It took up a lot of time and was full of frustration — exactly the stuff that made me want to go solo in the first place.

So the job changed. I shifted towards the work I liked most: Coaching, writing, and IRL work that involves lots of 1-to-1 time. I took on some audits, but only occasionally. I farmed out work that I wasn’t enthusiastic about to other consultants or agencies.

This week, I traveled to LA for work for an on-site with a client and a Dine & Deliver dinner. I was in LA for 36 hours. I landed just before 2 a.m. in California. I got home the next day after midnight.

And I loved the work I did on site, but it was a reminder of how happy I am with the job I’ve created for myself. It’s definitely not the job I thought I’d have four years ago.

It’s better.

———

That’s me on the flight back from LA. I might not have been smiling if I’d realized that I’d get home at 12:30 a.m.

02/20/2023

Learn From Others — But Find Your Own Way, Too.

That's a photo of someone writing down ideas on Post-It notes (and crumpling up the bad ideas)

We live in an age of copycats. When someone has success in a particular way, there’s a rush for others to copy that model.

There’s nothing wrong with learning from others. There’s no reason to make the same mistakes that others have already made. Ask good questions, listen, and learn from others. Use existing examples to make the work you do better.

But you have to find your own way, too. You have to find ways to take what you’re doing and put your own spin on it.

Only you can do what you can do. So don’t be content to copy and paste — learn from others, and find a way to make things your own.

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That image comes via Kelly Sikkema and Unsplash.

01/07/202301/07/2023

Stop Stomping Around. Go Do The Work.

That's an alarm clock and a calendar, overlaid on a pink background.

There’s this story Mel Brooks tells about writing the title song for his movie, “The Twelve Chairs”:

“I was gonna get somebody to do the title of ‘The Twelve Chairs,’ and Anne [Bancroft, Brooks’s wife] said, ‘No, you’re a songwriter. Go up to the attic and don’t come down until you have a version of the title song for ‘The Twelve Chairs.’ ’ So I went up to the attic, walked around for a while until I’m sure she could hear me. And then I got an idea, and I sat down, and three or four hours later, I came down with ‘Hope For The Best, Expect The Worst‘ [which became the title track].”

I had one of those moments this week. I’d been procrastinating on a big project. It was one of those days where I was crossing stuff off on my to-do list, which made it feel like I was getting stuff done, but really, I was doing other work to avoid the big thing I knew I had to do.

And then Sally, who’s wonderful at holding me accountable, told me directly and sternly: “Go to your office and do your work.”

It was just what I needed. Everyone needs someone to hold them accountable from time to time.

So I went to my office, and a few hours later, came out with a finished project.

——

That photo of a clock is what comes up when you search for “deadline” on Unsplash. It was taken by Towfiqu barbhuiya.

01/01/202301/01/2023

What Are You In Such a Rush For?

That’s a photo of a jam-packed First Avenue here in New York City

When I talk with a prospective new client, they almost always tell me: We want to grow as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

And that’s natural — but my follow-up question is usually: Why?

If you’ve got the team in place, and the strategy in place, I understand the need to grow, and grow quickly — you’re trying to reach a level of scale where your business can flourish.

But so many of the teams I talk to aren’t there yet. They don’t have the team yet. They don’t have the strategy yet.

And in those cases, growth shouldn’t be the top priority. Their priority should be growing their audience to the point where they can prove out their editorial concept and business model. Only once they’ve done that should they shift into growth mode.

Yes, growth always sounds great. But maybe it’s worth asking yourself: What are we in such a rush for?

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That’s a photo of a jam-packed First Avenue here in New York City. It was taken by Lerone Pieters for Unsplash.

12/11/202212/11/2022

Make It Work For You.

That's a photo of a Brother typewriter, in teal and black.

I’ve been working with a few newsletter writers who are in a period of transition. For nearly two years, they’d been writing multiple newsletters per week. Now, they’re all trying to figure out what to do next. Should they write more, or less? Should they change the way they monetize?

And my advice, over and over, has been simple: Whatever you do choose to do next, make it work for you.

There isn’t a single way forward here. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Which means that the right answer, for now, is the one that works for each of these writers. It’s up to them to figure out what they want to build and how they want to build it. There’s no need to build around someone else’s constraints or rules — they’re free to do what’s best for them.

Maybe that means, as I told one writer, telling their readers that they’d be taking a month off in December so they can get ahead for 2023 and pre-write the first few months of newsletters. “I’m allowed to do that?” they asked me.

You are, I told them, because this is all about making it work for you.

Maybe it means changing up the way they monetize. One writer’s been trying to push forward with a paid subscription, but it isn’t working as well as they hoped. But they do have a fairly large, engaged audience. Advertising might be a better way forward for them.

“Can I just cancel the paid offering and switch businesses models?” they asked me.

You can, I said, because if you’re going to make this work, it first needs to work for you.

What’s the best route forward? Figure out what’s best for you , and work from there.

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That’s a photo of a Brother typewriter, in teal and black. It comes via photographer Laura Rivera and Unsplash.

11/14/202211/14/2022

Be Proud of the Work You’ve Done.

A client had a question recently about something I’d worked on at BuzzFeed, so I went back into my email archives to try to find an answer. And what I found, unexpectedly, was this email:

It’s from the end of year 1 of my work at BuzzFeed. It said:

Monday marks 1 year since we really launched the newsletter program here at BuzzFeed. Quick numbers for you:

January 2013
5 newsletters — all automated, with about 20,000 total subscribers
Newsletters drove 46,000 clicks to BuzzFeed
Newsletters were the 28th biggest referrer of traffic to the site

January 2014
14 newsletters — all hand-curated, with more than 125,000 total subscribers
Newsletters drove over 650,000 clicks to BuzzFeed
Newsletters are the 8th biggest referrer of traffic to the site

I’ll be honest: I knew I did a lot of work that year — I just didn’t remember how much work!

Looking back, I know I was motivated to prove that newsletters could be a great tool for BuzzFeed, and I remember working long hours to keep the newsletter strategy moving forward. I was making stuff up as I went along, and I didn’t really have many resources at my disposal. I was lucky to have a few wonderful supporters in my corner who helped me stay on track. But even now, looking back at this email — which I wrote — I’m stunned at those results from year 1.

Did I really do that?

I know I can be dismissive of some of the work I’ve done in the past. I know I’m better at this now than I was a decade ago. I don’t always want to talk about the mistakes or lessons I learned along the way.

But I don’t get the chance to build Inbox Collective without that work I put in ten years ago at BuzzFeed. I’m grateful for that work, and I’m proud of it.