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.
“The things we create tower over us.” — Matt Dopkiss
I was watching an old college football game on ESPN Classic the other day. It was from the 80s.
My mom walked into the room.
“What’s the score?” she asked.
Not sure, I told her.
“How much time is left?” she asked.
No idea, I confessed.
“How many yards do they need for a first down?” she asked.
Uhhhhhh, I said.
There was no on-screen scoreboard. There was no clock. There was no yellow first-and-10 line.
I’d been watching this game for 15 minutes, and I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was looking at. I had a football game in front of me, that much I knew, but I didn’t have any context to understand it.
Early football games — and when I say early, I mean “as recently as 20 years ago” — didn’t give viewers even the most basic information on screen. And as a result, viewers like me often got left in the dark.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness.” — David Foster Wallace
That cartoon at the top of this post is by a cartoonist named Wally Wood, and — the title is kind of a giveaway on this — it’s a list of 22 ways to illustrate a panel in a cartoon.
Consider this: There’s only so much you can do with a cartoon. There’s only so many ways to keep a story going. There’s only so much that’s possible in a tiny rectangle.
Before looking at the Wally Wood graphic, I might have been able to name five or six ways to illustrate a panel.
But 22? I had no idea.
Point is: Whatever you’re thinking about, there’s probably another way of thinking about it. Whatever you’re looking at, there’s probably another way of looking at it.
Don’t get locked into your own perspective. Get out and listen — to friends, to critics.
Let them help you figure out what you’re really dealing with. Let them show you a new side of the problem.
“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.
Inside this month’s Awesome File: Advice! Struggle! Hurricane photo porn! That dude from ‘Inception’ covering Lady Gaga!
1. LEARN: From Jack Donaghy.
If you’re a ’30 Rock’ fan, you already know that Jack Donaghy’s one of the best characters on TV. But it turns out that he’s also offered up some pretty good business advice over the years. These lessons in business management are pretty excellent.
2. REMEMBER: ‘Note to My 25-Year-Old Self.’
And here’s some advice from the real world. It’s from Evonne Benedict, a journalist out in Seattle. She’s got 15 pieces of advice for herself at age 25. I think no. 14 — “Listen. Ordinary people have extraordinary stories if you take the time to listen to them.” — is especially fantastic.
3. READ: ‘The Struggle.
But even if you’ve got that advice in mind, you’ll need to remember something else: It won’t be easy to do great work. Ben Horowitz, an entrepreneur and VC, explains why in this really excellent post, “The Struggle.”
4. WATCH: Derrick Rose Returns.
If you do fight through the struggle, remember that you’re going to get something in return: Your very own comeback story. Here’s Derrick Rose’s, for his return to the Chicago Bulls. It’s pretty epic.
5. CONSIDER: The Sabbatical.
People who do the work — you, included — work damn hard. You hustle. You push. You create.
But oftentimes, you don’t spend enough time stepping back from the work to consider the present — and the future.
And speaking of bad segues: Once you start working on that awesome new thing, you might have some other team members to work with. Consider using Speek for your conference calls. It’s awesome, it’s free and it’s ridiculously easy to use. It’s changed the way I think about conference calls.
7. STARE: These ‘Star Wars’ Posters.
I’m blown away by how gorgeous these “Star Wars” posters are. They’re by Olly Moss, and they’re just amazing. Why can’t the movies companies themselves make posters this 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.
This year, three of my teams had amazing seasons. They did things that they weren’t really supposed to do.
My Missouri Tigers had the best season in school history and earned a no. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. My Washington Capitals shook off a bad funk, made the playoffs and upset the defending Stanley Cup champs. My Washington Nationals finished with the best record in baseball.
But then came the big games.
My Tigers hit front rim on a three pointer at the buzzer and lost by two to Norfolk State in the opening game of the tourney.
My Caps gave up the game-tying goal — one that went off the post — with 6 seconds left at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, and then the game-winner in OT, and went on to lose to the Rangers in seven games.
My Nats were one strike away from the National League Championship Series, but somehow couldn’t get it, and lost, 9-7, to the St. Louis Cardinals.
An inch or two here and the Tigers hit that three. An inch or two there and the puck hits the post and goes out for a Capitals W. An inch or two anywhere and the Nats win their first postseason series in 70 years.
Change a few inches, and this is the best sports year of my life.
Instead, it’s just another year that wasn’t quite good enough. Another year in which my teams were “close.”
Close is disappointing, yes. But it’s also a powerful measuring stick.
“Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” — Ben Franklin
I don’t write about religion very often on the blog — at least a seriousdiscussion of religion, that is — and there’s a good reason for that: I’m not a very religious person.
So I won’t get preachy here. But I learned something last week during Yom Kippur services at my synagogue, and it was too good not to share.
My rabbi gave a sermon about the importance of time. In the Torah, if you go all the way back to the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth. Then God blesses something. It is the very first thing that God blesses, according to the Torah.
It’s the Sabbath day.
“And God blessed the seventh day and He hallowed it,” reads a line from Genesis.
What a wonderful thought that is. The day itself is a holy thing, the Torah teaches. It is not to be squandered. It is to be cherished and celebrated.
These are the days we have, and we are so freaking lucky to have them.
-If You Don’t Care, No One Will
-You Can Only Control What You Do
-There Are All Kinds Of Thanksgivings
-Small Is Magnificent
Read it, and then read it again.
2. SMILE: Puppstream.me
This feels like a website that should have happened a long time ahead: Puppystream, an endless display of adorable photos of puppies. If you’re in a bad mood, go to this site and spend 20 seconds there. You’ll feel better.
3. LOVE: Richard Brason, Flight Attendant.
Here’s Richard Branson serving drinks on a Virgin American flight. As a reminder: Virgin America is the airline owned by Richard Branson.
And as a corollary: This interview from the same flight with Branson, in which the guy who owns several bazillion dollars worth of airlines can’t remember the word “conveyor belt.”
5. ENJOY THE AWESOME: Snoop Dogg on ‘Price is Right’
Also on the note of absurdity: Snoop Dogg was a guest host on “The Price is Right” a few weeks back, and him hugging this Showcase Showdown winner was absolutely epic.
6. LOVE: Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel sing ‘Les Mis’
Let’s keep the awesome rolling: The “How I Met Your Mother” team goes Broadway.
7. READ: ‘Did Blowing into Nintendo Cartridges Really Help?’
One man is responsible, probably more than any other, for much of what’s happened to me the past two years.
That man is Tom Petty.
I can’t tell you the date, but I can tell you how it felt when I first heard “Wildflowers,” an acoustic number off of the Petty album of the same name. “You belong somewhere you feel free,” he sang, and I knew he was right. I felt, at that moment, like he had written that song solely for me.
A song had never felt like that to me before.
It was the spring of 2010, and a lot of things were hitting me all at once. There was frustration over my job and my place in the journalism world. There was anxiety over my future — was I destined to hop from $35k journalism gig to $35k gig? What the hell was I doing with myself? With my life?
Something about that song just struck me. I had this sense that Tom knew something I didn’t. I had this sense that I was supposed to listen.
I’m not sure why, but I knew Tom was right: I belonged somewhere I could feel free.
Here’s the thing: Freedom is a place, I think, not just a state of mind. It’s a place where you can do great work. It’s a place where you can surround yourself with people who want what you want. For me, it’s a place where I can tell stories that nudge our world a little bit forward.
Freedom’s within all of us, but for me, it took a physical place to find it within myself. It took Biloxi, a place that scared me and excited me all at once. Biloxi’s where I found the fear, and also where I found the freedom.
I can’t tell you what freedom should mean for you. But I can promise you this: It is a wonderful feeling to find that place where you can be free.
Freedom doesn’t give you all the answers, but it helps define the path ahead. It helps you see, clearly, what kind of life you really want for yourself.
Today, start the search for the place where you feel free. It’s an awfully good place to start the work you’re meant to do.
