What Are You Looking At?

“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.

11/05/201211/05/2012

Why Ellen DeGeneres Embraced the Struggle.

“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?

What would it be like if Ellen hadn’t been willing to suck for a very long time?

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.

11/02/201210/30/2012

The November Edition of The Awesome File.

Every month, I put together a list of 10 things to inspire you to do better work. This is The Awesome File.

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.

Here’s a post that got me thinking: “The Career Value Of A ‘Pointless’ Sabbatical.” It’s a really good example of how time off can be the restart button you need.

6. USE: This Awesome New Conference Call System.

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?

8. SCROLL: Through These Hurricane Sandy Photos.

I love a good Internet hack, and this one was really good: Instacane, a website for Instagram photos of Hurricane Sandy. Definitely worth a few minutes to scroll back through the storm that was.

9. WAIT, WHAT?: Dan Rather Brought Us The First Radar Image of a Hurricane.

This is pretty cool: Turns out that it’s Dan Rather who brought the first ever radar image of a hurricane to TV viewers, way back in 1961. It was one of his big breaks as a TV reporter.

10. !!!: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Sings ‘Bad Romance’

Nothing more to say about this. Rock out, and make some awesome happen this month.

That photo at top comes via here.

10/31/201210/30/2012

Ideas Worth Doing > Ideas Worth Spreading.

“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?

And he’s absolutely right. Ideas worth spreading are great, but ideas aren’t worth much.

It’s the action behind them that matters.

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.

“Ideas Worth Spreading” is good.

“Ideas Worth Doing” would be even better.

That photo at top comes via @emtier.

10/29/201210/24/2012

The Haters Have Already Decided What They Think. So What Will You Do?

“Confidence is a little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you belong.” — Michael Gervais

There’s a cartoonist named Scott McCloud. He’s given TED talks and written some really influential books. “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art,” is revered within the world of cartoonists.

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.

McCloud explains:

”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.

Haters are going to find reasons to hate. They are going to find ways to close the loop however they see fit.

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.

10/19/201210/14/2012

Close Just Shows You How Far You Still Have To Go.

“Failure isn’t final. It’s a test – and the difference between those who pass and those who don’t is who gets up and who doesn’t.” — Emily Bennington

I love sports for many reasons, but over the years, I’ve discovered I love it most for one reason: Sports remind me exactly what I need to do in order to be great.

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.

Close shows you how far you still have to go.

There are so many things that we want to accomplish in our lives. These things never come as easily or as quickly as we want them to.

But that’s okay. The greats get back out there and keep doing the work. The greats keep going.

I know my teams are already working toward next year. What’s happened is done. What’s ahead is still left to be written.

So here’s the only question that matters: Are you ready to step up and be great this year?

That image at top comes via @hopespaul.

10/05/201209/26/2012

Today Is Awesome. Can We Just Recognize That For A Second?

“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 serious discussion 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.

Can we just appreciate that for a second?

Photo via PegiF.

10/01/201209/30/2012

The October Edition of The Awesome File.

Every month, I put together a list of 10 things to inspire you to do better work. This is The Awesome File.

Inside this month’s Awesome File: Lessons from NYC! Adorable puppies! Rock and Roll! And Richard Freaking Branson!

1. READ: ‘Fifty Important Lessons New York City Taught Me’

This was a fantastic read on things the amazing things in life. It features lessons like:

-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.”

4. READ: ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

Speaking of ridiculousness: This behind-the-scenes look at the 1990s Dallas Cowboys reveals that life in the NFL is absolutely insane. Fighting, drugs, hookers, limos — and that’s just Super Bowl XXX.

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?’

And speaking of bad segues: This was a fantastic piece of reporting.

(Actually, on a sad note: it’s more thorough than a lot of the real news reports you’ll see in many publications.)

8. LEARN: Why Politicians Talk The Way They Do

I also really enjoyed this look at the origins of our political speech.Who knew that that’s why Bubba was such a good speaker?

9. SEE: This NYT Magazine Cover

This photo from Cuba was absolutely mesmerizing. (The article attached to it wasn’t bad either.)

10. ROCK ON: Led Zeppelin + Foo Fighters

Let’s close this out the right way: With Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin playing “Rock and Roll” for 80,000 screaming fans in London.

Turn it up, and let the awesome happen this month:

That fake eCard at top comes via.

09/28/201209/23/2012

How Tom Petty Helped Me Understand What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life.

“You belong among the wildflowers.” — Tom Petty

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.

That photo of Tom Petty at top comes via John VanderHaagen.

09/14/201209/14/2012

25 Ideas That I May or May Not Decide To Do Something With.

“Start where you are.” — Danielle LaPorte

Five words I don’t ever expect to say again:

I don’t have any ideas.

The challenge, it turns out, isn’t coming up with good ideas. It’s deciding which of them is worth pursuing and working on.

I have a list where I keep all these big ideas I’d like to work on one day. Some of them will get acted on in the coming months. Some of them will get executed in the coming years. Some will never make it past this list.

And then I decided this week to put all of these ideas down on the Internet. This scares the crap out of me. Maybe one of these is a million dollar idea, and I just don’t know it yet.

But then I realized: Maybe you’ll see something on this list that you’d like to work on with me. Maybe you can help point me towards the ideas that are really great.

No reason to keep this list secret. So here they are: 25 big ideas that I’d like to work on one day.

Got advice or help to offer on one them? In that case, shoot me an email or a tweet. Let’s talk.

Stuff That Could Actually Happen In 2012.

1. Wiki 2.0: Tools For Reporters —> A revamp of jstart.wikispaces.com, my giant list of journalism resources. I’m going to relaunch this as an email newsletter specifically geared toward journalists, and show them tools that can help them do better work. I’m launching this next week.

2. The Student Guest Blog project — The big challenge for college students with blogs is finding an audience. I’d like to open up my blog to any student who wants to write about how to do better work. I’d be able to offer editing help and blog advice to those students, and they’d be able to use that post on “Good. Better. Done.” to help pitch future guest blogs elsewhere.

3. The “Almost Famous” blog challenge — I love the movie “Almost Famous,” but I always wondered what the main character’s final story for Rolling Stone would look like. So I’m going to write it up myself — a 3,000 word piece about the fictional band, Stillwater — and I’m going to invite others to submit their own versions of William Miller’s story.

4. The Good. Better. Done. Newsletter — A weekly update from yours truly about doing better work and links/awesomeness that can inspire such work.

Stuff That Could Actually Happen In The Next 1-3 Years.

5. The Indecisive Man —> This is a manifesto I started writing in early 2012 dedicated to shaking self doubt and getting to work on work that matters.

6. Belly Challenge 2.0 — Belly Challenge 1.0 — between my father and I — was a huge success. Each of us lost 20+ pounds over the course of the year. But I’d like to invite others into the Challenge, and to create a small network of people who push each other to work out and improve their lives through regular exercise. When trying to lose weight/get in shape, having a team behind you makes a huge difference.

7. Guide to Startup Journalism — Using what I’ve learned from Stry.us, I’d create a guide to the initial steps in starting up a journalism business. I’d focus on the things that don’t often get emphasized: The importance of getting the right business structure set up; finding a payroll service; launching a website; etc.

8. 1000tinysteps.com — A blog devoted to all of the little steps someone can take to get moving on a project, an idea or an adventure.

9. The Monday Morning Work Podcast — I’ve found that I’m always more excited when I start the week with a good conversation. So I’d like to start hosting a live podcast each Monday morning — 15 to 30 minutes long — about doing work and getting inspired. Each podcast would be built around a single conversation.

10. The College Graduate’s Guide to Getting a Job — I really want to help people who are about to go through early career decisions. I’d love to start by helping walk students through the basic career steps — how to network, how to build a portfolio site, how to do better interviews — in an online class.

11. The “How Can I Help?” sessions — A block of time each week in which I make myself available via phone to early career journalists (and other young people) to help in whatever way I can — from career advice to resume help.

Stuff That Would Be Awesome But That I’d Need Lots of Help On.

12. “30 Conversations” — One of the things that I loved about Stry.us was that we gave people who otherwise wouldn’t have a say the opportunity to get their voice heard. I’d love to have 30 conversations with Americans in the days leading up to a big event — i.e. an election — about the issues that are on our minds.

Dayquil 13. The I’m On Dayquil Gmail hack —> When I get sick, I go straight to Dayquil, and I get a little loopy on those orange pills. But I still try to send out email and do work when I’m sick. I really need a Gmail hack so that I can add something to my email signature when I’m on Dayquil, something that says, “Dan’s sick and on Dayquil. If this email makes less sense than usual, that’s the reason why.”

14. Dog and their Owners, Losing Weight Together: A reality show — I think that done right, reality shows can produce some really amazing stories. This would be one about dogs and their owners, losing weight together. It’d be a show about companionship, a show about trust — and a show that inspires. Done right, it’d tell some amazing stories about Americans and the role that pets play in our lives. Some reality shows are trashy, but I think this could really break the mold — again, if done with care.

15. ReadLocally.com — A site featuring great, original long-form journalism produced for specific local communities. It’d be for newsrooms at the intersection of hyper-local and long-form — think projects like Stry.us for Springfield.

16. TravelGoesWrong.com (or: WhenTravelGoesWrong.com) — A site devoted to first-person testimonials about horrifyingly bad travel experiences.

17. The Big Book of Sleep — For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with sleep. What most people don’t realize is that sleep is a multi-billion dollar industry in this country. That includes the money spent on beds, sleep aids and sleep-related research. And if you count work hours lost to exhaustion, I bet the number would be several billion dollars higher. I’d love to write a book on the industry and how important sleep has become in America.

Stuff That’s Probably Never Going To Happen

18. The Plus-1 Network — A small email listserv for young professionals who love going to weddings. When someone on the listserv needs someone awesome to come along as a plus-1 to a wedding, the listserv would step up.

19. ThisFuckingJob.com — A site devoted to helping people escape cubicle life and find meaning from their work. Also: The most memorable name of any domain I’ve ever purchased.

20. TV Dinners That Were On TV — A website featuring recipes that you saw your favorite characters make on TV. Kevin’s mom on “The Wonder Years” and Betty on “The Flintstones” always seemed to be cooking up awesome dishes, and here, we’d try to figure out how to make them.

21. Body By Thin Mints — A few months ago, I made my dad a joke T-shirt with the slogan “Body By Thin Mints” on it. He wears it everywhere. I’d love to turn this into a line of joke clothing for fellow Girl Scout cookie lovers, but I’d also like to not get sued by the Girl Scouts.

22. UsuallyAlways — Last year, a friend caught me responding a question of hers with the phrase, “Usually always.” I liked how it sounded, and I’ve decided: If I ever start a production company, Usually Always will be its name. Of course, first I have to figure out what the hell “usually always” means. (Also, I need to learn what a production company does.)

23. Start my own community newspaper — I’m not sure why I don’t see young career journalists trying this, actually. Go to a small town. Buy a paper — they’re selling for almost nothing. And see if you and small team of really dedicated young people can experiment and hustle your way to success. With a really amazing team on board, I might consider this. But after Stry.us, I also know how crazy you have to be to attempt something like this.

24. Why Choose News! —> A list of reasons why people should read news sites every day. The entire idea is based around one fake poster I made earlier this year. (See right.)

25. SeeDanGo.com — A site dedicated to my personal travels — you know, once I make the first billion and dedicate my life to world traveling. :-)

So that’s what I’ve got. Maybe there’s something on here you’d like to work with me on? Shoot me an email or a tweet.

Maybe there’s something you’d like to steal for yourself? That’s cool, too.

Because here’s what I know: Ideas are only worth so much. Execution’s really what matters.

Photo of the lightbulb via here. Indecisiveness via here. Dayquil via here.