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.
I was driving down with my son to pick up my wife at the airport. It’s an easy drive — 35 minutes, especially on a low-traffic day like a Sunday. There was no one on the road when we left home. We left two hours early so I could run a few errands beforehand. I was already thinking about activities to fill all the extra time we might have.
The drive was going fine — until it wasn’t. About two miles before the highway exited the canyon out into Salt Lake City, we hit a standstill. What we didn’t know was that an 18-wheeler had crashed, and the road was completely closed. It would take officials nearly eight hours to re-open the road.
I almost always check Google Maps before we leave, just to make sure there’s no traffic to be aware of. Had I done that today, it would’ve re-routed me to an alternate road. That trip to Salt Lake would’ve taken an extra 15 minutes.
I didn’t, though.
Instead, we got stuck in traffic for over an hour. Luckily, after a whole lot of waiting, police were able to route smaller vehicles like mine over a bridge and to an alternate route. We did make it to the airport for pick-up — it just took two hours for what should’ve been a 35-minute trip. Even more luckily: My son napped through most of the traffic.
Still, it was a reminder: No matter matter how many times you’ve done something before, you still should go through your routine. A five-second check of Google Maps would’ve saved me 90 minutes.
Next time, even if it’s the 1,000th time I’ve done something, I’ll still make sure to check.
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That’s the photo I took while stopped in the canyon on I-80 today. We saw a out of red lights for a very long time. I’m grateful we didn’t have to sit there for 8 hours — I’m not sure what we would’ve done!
One funny thing about becoming a dad is watching how kids start to process the world. What I’ve noticed is that nobody — not even professional reporters — ask as many questions as little kids.
It’s one thing for a parent to get the initial question: “Why’s the sky blue, dad?”
The parent will give the answer. But then they’ll ask a second question: “Why?” And then a third or a fourth why.
It’s funny: In a certain way, kids are often more curious than a lot of the working professionals I know. I’m guilty of this myself: I might ask “why” once to a colleague or client, but if a satisfactory answer is provided, I won’t dig deeper.
And I want to challenge myself to be prepared for that second why. I want to be prepared to know more, to go deeper.
If I’m asked or if I’m not, I should be prepared to defend what I know — or at least be prepared to give more than the surface-level answer.
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That’s a photo of a young girl with brown hair reading, as the pages of a book flip before her. It was taken by Johnny McClung for Unsplash.
I’ve been keeping a daily journal for well over a decade now. Every night, I write a little note to myself about what I did that day or what I learned. Often, I’ll go back and look through old entries to remind myself of the progress that I’ve made or the things I’ve done.
But what I didn’t expect about parenting is that my phone’s photo album would be just as powerful of a reminder tool.
I’ll often look back through the archives to see what photos I took a year ago on this date. With a one-year-old, the photos are astonishing — could our son really have been that small a year ago? That bald? Remember that outfit? He used to fit into it all the time! Remember that trip we took? Yeah, that was a year ago today, too.
The time really does go by as quickly as everyone says, and it’s by grounding yourself in these moments from the past that you can appreciate the progress. I know a year from now, I’ll be amazed at the things my son is doing that he couldn’t in the fall of 2024.
Make time to pause and to rewind. We all need those moments to show us how far we’ve come.
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That’s a screenshot of my phone’s photo album. A funny thing happens when you have a kid: You replace lots of photos of food and trips with literally thousands of photos of your kid.
I played golf over the weekend at a par 3 course near me. Most par 3 courses are what’s known as a “pitch-and-putt” — you rarely have a shot longer than 100 yards, so each hole involves a fairly short shot and then a putt or two.
This is not that kind of course.
This is a par 3 course that involves shots over long stretches of desert bush and water. The greens are devilishly sloped, and you sometimes have to hit the ball close to 200 yards just to land on the green.
It’s truly not an easy course. I usually shoot a better score on a full-length golf course than I do on this par 3 course.
But one thing I love about it is that it inspires me to try shots I wouldn’t otherwise try. The other day, I ended up literally between a rock and a hard place — there was a boulder 20 feet in front of my ball, with the hole maybe 10 feet beyond that. At first glance, I had no chance to get my chip shot anywhere near the hole.
But then I took another look around the green. Behind the hole was a huge slope that, if I could land my ball on it, would feed the ball back to the hole.
So instead of playing my shot at the hole, I aimed 25 feet past it. My ball landed on the slope and trickled backwards. Maybe 10 seconds later, it stopped less than a foot from the hole.
It’s not a shot I would’ve tried on any normal golf course, but on this one, it made perfect sense.
And I’ll say: It reminded me that sometimes, you need to use your imagination to figure out the right answer. Solutions aren’t always as straightforward as they could be. So look around for alternative paths, even ones that seem a little ridiculous. There are options out there — some good, some bad, some risky — if you know where to look.
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That’s a photo of one hole on the course, which features what’s known as a Biarritz green — basically, imagine a giant halfpipe in the middle of the green. Depending on where the hole is that day, you may need to putt either up or down a slope that’s about five feet high.
Last night, we went down to Sundance to see a few singer-songwriters from Nashville — Trannie Anderson, Josh Jenkins, and Matt Jenkins — perform on stage as part of a series of concerts with Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe. Together, the three of them have written songs played by some of the biggest artists in country music: Lainey Wilson, Walker Hayes, Keith Urban.
But as they told stories about their work, one thing came up over and over again: It takes an awful lot of writing songs just to get one song on an album. The Jenkins brothers told a story about writing a song for an artist, who passed on it — before deciding to record it several years later. Anderson told a story about working a job as a dog walker for a famous country musician who ended up recording one of her songs almost a decade later. All of the artists on stage said that they might have to write a 100 or more songs just get one that’s worthy of being recorded. (And there’s still no guarantee that the song will end up on an album!)
Sure, there are overnight success stories out there, but to me, the night was a reminder that it usually takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, and a lot of rejection to get to where you want to go.
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I took that photo during the show. The stage at Sundance is absolutely spectacular — it’s built into the hill, with just a little backlight against the dark night sky. If you get a chance to go there for a concert, you should.
“Everything was about trust. He would rather lose your business than your trust.”
There are things that are more important than making a profit (though Costco certainly does that). I think about this a lot with Inbox Collective — what matters most to me? For my work, it’s about:
• Being willing to listen to readers and serve them. • Teaching first, and selling second. • Making sure that everything I put out is something that people can learn from. • Helping people find joy in their work.
If I take care of my readers, I know the business will flourish in the long run. No matter how the business evolves, I know those core value will remain.
My son has this funny habit. We’ll take him upstairs to the hallway in front of his room. There will be a few doors open: One to his room, one to the guest bathroom, and one to the guest bedroom. Ben will start to crawl towards one room — but then pause, and spin towards another, and the pause, and spin towards a third. Sometimes, he’ll spin in a circle, for an entire minute or two, unsure what room to crawl towards. There are just too many choices!
And I get it! I often do this myself. I’ll have one too many choices, and instead of just making a choice, I spin my wheels and end up going nowhere.
But the next time I find myself doing that, I’ll try to think about Ben moving in circles. When he does, I try to give him a little pat on the butt to nudge him forward. It doesn’t really matter what choice he makes — he just needs to make one. I need to remember to do the same.
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That photo is from Joel Fulgencio for Unsplash, and it’s of a series of blue walls, with holes cut in the middle, that are in Hong Kong on top of a parking garage. It reminds me a little of when you’re standing between two mirrors, and the reflections seem to go on forever.
Anytime he sees a ceiling fan, and our new home has a few of them, he pauses to admire it. I keep thinking that he’ll grow tired of them — It’s just a ceiling fan, I want to tell him! They cost $127 at Home Depot! — but he never does. He watches them spin with awe.
There’s something special about watching him appreciate a new thing. He’s only 1, and there are so many new things he hasn’t experienced yet. So when he sees something new, he takes his time with it. He watches it, he admires it, he considers it. He takes pleasure in experiencing new stuff.
I’m not saying you should take 20 seconds to pause in awe every time you see a ceiling fan. But we could all use a little reminder to shift our perspective. I’ve tried to take a page from my son’s book and take a moment to appreciate anything new in my world, even if it’s something small.
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That photo of a bedroom — white bedspread, two bedside lamps, a bit of light coming in off the far wall, and a brown ceiling fan — comes via Lotus Design N Print and Unsplash.
Jon Stewart did this great interview the other day with Matthew Belloni on “The Town” podcast, and this part really stuck with me:
Jon Stewart: Post-mortem is the gift to the gods in terms of improving content and really anything.
Matthew Belloni: So Tuesday morning, it’s, “What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Did this land? Did this not?”
Jon Stewart: It‘s Monday night, and it has to be an agnostic process. It’s not a blame process. It’s always a constructive, like, “How do you feel that worked out?” You always have to be self-examining, reflective of the process, little things, because it’s the only thing that keeps you on top of it.
It’s a lesson I think more of us could apply to our work.
Running an end-of-the-year campaign? Make sure you put time on the calendar the week after the campaign ends to review everything and document lessons for next time.
Launching a new newsletter? Set up check-ins on the calendar every few months to make sure you’re meeting your goals and want to continue investing in that newsletter.
Building a new business? Make sure you hold quarterly reviews to track what’s what working, what isn’t, and what you want to do next.
It’s not enough to put the work out into the world. You also have to make space to review, reflect, and iterate.
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That photo of Jon Stewart accepting a Peabody Award on stage in 2005 — he’s in a black suit with a dark tie and is behind a podium with a gold replica of the award — comes via the Peabody Awards and a Creative Commons license.
