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.

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.

10/24/201210/23/2012

How You Know.

“There’s always better. There’s always faster. There’s always more. But there will never be another now.” — Dustin Curtis

A question I’ve gotten a lot this year:

How do you know?

How do you know when you’re doing something you really, really love? How do you know when you’re doing the work that’s meant for you?

The answer is a strange one: You just kind of know.

Here’s how I knew with Stry.us: At the end of last year, things were starting to ramp up with the project. Then my family asked me to join them out west to go skiing for a few days. I took a week off. And after a few days, I found myself on a chairlift thinking a very strange thought.

That night, I wrote this note to myself:

“I had a weird sensation today. I was on the slopes, skiing. And I realized: I shouldn’t be here. I should be working.

“I actually WANT to be working right now. Rather than skiing.”

It was a strange feeling. It was the first time in my life that I can ever remember wanting not to vacation.

My work, I realized, was just more fun.

The more I talk to people who do work that they love, the more I hear that same refrain: At some point, I just knew. I wish there was a better way to measure it, but I haven’t found it just yet.

When it’s right, there’s something that finally just clicks inside of you.

So if you’re searching for the right work, make sure you listen to yourself. If you find yourself telling friends that you can’t go out for a drink because you’ve got some work you really want to do, then you’re doing something you love.

If you find yourself setting your alarm earlier in the morning so you can squeeze more work into your day, you’re doing something you love.

And if you’re considering flying home from a ski vacation on New Year’s Eve so that you can get back to work — well, you’re definitely doing something you love.

But if you’re not getting that feeling — that sense that what you’re doing is so important and so awesome that everything else should go on hold — then maybe it’s time to start searching for new work.

That photo at top comes via.

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.

10/17/201212/17/2019

How To Keep Going When Things Go Wrong: Lessons From a Dispatch Concert.

I went to see Dispatch last week in D.C. They’re a band with a fascinating backstory. They’re a New England-based jam band with a Dave Mathews meets Phish meets Paul Simon kind of vibe. In the late 90s, they got big despite releasing their music without a major label. Then, right as they were starting to go mainstream, they broke up.

But last year, they reunited, and this year, they released their first full-length album in a decade.

Live, they’re fantastic. I’ve seen them a handful of times, and I’d put their show up against any. The show is a ton of fun to go to. The crowd jumps up and down, everyone’s singing along — it’s just a really good time.

But last week in D.C., tons of stuff went wrong at the show. The sound went out during their third song, and again during the fourth. Some guitar strings broke. The band had a few false starts on songs.

But the funniest came about halfway through the set. You know it’s not your night when something like this happens:

Chad Urmston, lead singer of Dispatch: “We’d like to call out some friends to join us on this next song.”

[Stage manager runs out and whispers something in Chad’s ear]

Chad: “Uh, apparently our friends are already driving to Atlanta for tomorrow night’s gig.”

So did the band panic? Did they freak out?

Hell no! They called up four strangers to sing backup vocals on the song instead.

Seriously. They grabbed four random people from the crowd, briefly taught them the chorus, and then started playing.

There’s the Malcolm Gladwell idea that you need to hit 10,000 hours to master any skill. But with a band, you need even more than that.

It’s not just your instruments that you need to master. You also need to learn how to play live — because lots of things can go wrong live. A band like Dispatch has spent so many hours on stage that they’ve mastered how to keep doing work even when everything’s going wrong.

Most people want to plan for the road ahead, but you can’t really plan for most of what’s about to hit you. All you can do is have the confidence to get through bad situations.

You have to stay calm and keep putting one foot in front of the other when it hits.

Dispatch did it last week, and they pulled off a hell of a show — even with all the technical difficulties.

Bravo, boys. One day, may the rest of us learn how to keep going when things go wrong.

10/15/201210/11/2012

The Three Things That Separate Those Who Do From Everyone Else.

“Ignore the money and the news. Find good people who make wonderful things, and help them do it.” — Erin Kissane

About once a month, I get an email from someone I don’t know. The email reads as follows:

Hi, Dan.

I’m a huge fan of Stry.us. I’m thinking of starting my own news site devoted to long-form journalism. I was hoping I could talk with you about how to get started.

I have gotten a lot of these emails, and I’ve followed up with almost all of them. Of the people who’ve emailed me, a small number have actually gone on and done something. A much larger number shoot me a couple of emails or maybe spend 20 minutes on the phone with me before deciding not to take on their dream.

This is what I’ve learned from the conversations with all of these people. The lessons here are from the journalism world, but they’re pretty universal themes, I’ve found.

1. People Rarely Follow Their Effort — People tend to think about their own passion first. They’re told that if they care about something, they should focus on that.

But I’m a believer in what Mark Cuban once said:

“Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort. It will lead you to your passions and to success, however you define it.”

Everyone I’ve talked to about starting a long-form project has been incredibly passionate. But only a handful have actually gone through with it.

Why? Because not everyone is willing to put in the time and deal with the pain that comes with starting something great.

I know this: Just proving that you’re willing to do the work is a differentiator in this world.

2. Having a Team Matters — The people who’ve gone forward with these projects always have a team/tribe behind them. Even if it’s just a few readers who are really excited about the project. Even if it’s just a few people who want to copy edit stories.

The people who go forward have always found other people who buy into the dream, too. It’s much easier to quit when it’s just you.

3. Experience Only Takes You So Far — Some of the people I’ve talked to have had lots of experience in the news world. Some have had very little.

But when you’re trying to start something big, experience is only a small part of the equation. I’ve said it before: You also need time to make it happen, and a great team behind you, and a lot of hustle.

The people who say they can’t do something because they don’t have enough experience are usually just making excuses for themselves.

If you want to start something, then do it. But please, remember: Anyone can start something. What counts is that you follow through. That you hustle. That you do the work.

There are people in this world who talk, and there are people in this world who do.

Be the latter. We need more of them.

That inspiration at top comes via @coffeeeater.

10/10/201210/08/2012

Perspective Matters.

“When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.” — Alain de Botton

When I lived in Springfield, MO, I occasionally had to fly other places for work. Getting flights out of the Ozarks isn’t always easy, and it’s rarely cheap.

So twice this summer, I flew instead out of St. Louis. That airport is 227 miles away from where I lived in Springfield.

I am writing this blog post while riding a bus from New York to DC, and I am shocked at how fast this drive is going. I seem to remember it taking longer.

But now I’m checking the length of the trip on Google. The total distance? 225 miles.

So here’s a thought: In Missouri, I’d drive all that way to get on a plane. But if I decided to book a flight out of NYC — and I drove from DC to fly out — I’d be considered crazy. Why is that?

We all like to think of ourselves as creatures with steadfast principles, but the truth is, we’re constantly making decisions based on place, time and circumstance. Perspective matters.

In Missouri, when booking flights, price mattered most to me. In DC, I’ve got plenty of cheap options, so I shift to a new priority: convenience.

The same holds grow for the decisions we make during the course of our work. What matters most in one situation might mean less in another.

There are few decisions in this world that we will make every time, regards of circumstance. There are few easy calls.

Where you are and what you’re doing matters. We’re changing, and our work is changing with it.

There’s no need to fight it. Make the best decisions you can with the information you have in the moment you’re in — and then move on.

Photo of feet via @ishootiphone.

10/03/201209/25/2012

Excuses We All Tell Ourselves.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. — Brené Brown

There is a voice in the back of your head that’s trying to tell you that what you want to do cannot be done.

All of us hear that voice. It leaves us wondering things like:

Where do I even begin to start?

Tomorrow will be better.

What if it doesn’t work?

I’m scared.

I’m worried.

I doubt.

I fear.

I’m not sure this is the right path.

I don’t know enough to get moving.

I’m a fraud. Doesn’t everyone know I can’t do this?

If this fails — I’m a failure.

Wrong. So, so SO wrong.

Many days, you are your own biggest hater. I know I am some days.

I doubt. I fear. I worry.

It happens to all of us. Every single one of us who does this work — we fight these voices off every day.

But there is a way past it.

Commit to the work. Hustle. Follow your effort. Start, and then keep going.

The voices don’t go away. But over time, you learn how to crush them. You learn how to fight them off.

Don’t let them overwhelm you. You have enough — right now, I promise you — to start. You have much more than you know.

Work, don’t worry.

That fortune cookie photo comes via @nellicoco.

09/26/201209/26/2012

How I Lost 30 Pounds In A Year (And You Can, Too).

“Staying comfortable is the number one way to stay exactly where you are.” — Kate Matsudaira

In 2008, when I got my new driver’s license, I weighed in at 175 pounds. By the end of senior year, as I started to grow into myself, I hit 190. But I was still pretty darn skinny. I’m 6’5”, and at that height, people don’t really notice a belly until you start putting on serious weight.

But in Winter/Spring 2011, I was living at home, and I put on weight quickly. It wasn’t hard to do. I was living with my parents, and my parents were always putting food in front of me. We had Girl Scout cookies everywhere. My dad was trying to convince me to put whipped cream on chocolate milk before bed.

I wasn’t working out, and I didn’t belong to a gym.

The tipping point came in May. I went to my sister’s college graduation, and I realized that I could only fit into my suit if I sucked in — hard. None of my jeans fit anymore.

When I saw the scale — TWO HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE POUNDS! — I was shocked. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. It’d never weighed that much before.

But then three wonderful things happened. And by the end of Summer 2012, I was down to 195 lbs. I was in the best shape I’d ever been in, and I was also — not coincidentally — as happy as I’d ever been. In August, I finished a sprint triathlon.

There aren’t any secrets to losing 30 pounds in a year. There’s no mystery. All you need to do — and anyone can do them — are these three things:

1. Starting Cooking For Yourself — When you eat out — or when someone else cooks for you — it’s easy to put crap into your body. When I was at college, I always joked about the “Winter Break 15.” At home, I’d go on a diet of Thin Mints and leftovers, and I’d always come back to school a few pounds heavier. When you’re not cooking for yourself, you’re usually not thinking as much about what you’re eating.

When you start shopping for yourself, you start making better decisions. You start choosing good stuff to put in your shopping cart — fruits, vegetables, protein, grains — and start leaving out the junk.

And actually cooking the food helps, I’ve found. It makes you extra conscious of the stuff you’ve had other people sneaking into your food all these years — butter, fatty oils, etc. When you cook for yourself, you’ll start leaving those things out.

Cooking for yourself is how you can hold yourself fully accountable for what goes into your body.

2. Start Exercising — Again, there’s no magic here. The first thing I did when I moved out to Missouri was join a gym. I started going a couple of days a week for 45-60 minutes each morning. When I noticed my enthusiasm lagging, I hired a personal trainer to work with me twice a week. I find that I work out much better when others are doing it with me.

But I know that personal trainers — even in Columbia, Mo. — are expensive. So here’s an alternative: Find a class you can take. Find a group you can run with. Join a local league for soccer or frisbee. It’ll all help.

3. Create Routine — Any health pro can tell you this: Diets don’t work because diets don’t create routine. Go on South Beach for two months and you might lose 10 lbs., but as soon as you drop the diet, you’ll gain it all back.

Diets are like duct tape: They’re an okay temporary solution, but they’re not always pretty, and they’re certainly not something you should rely on for too long.

What you want is to build something lasting for yourself. Build out a block of time in every week to work out, and find time to go grocery shopping once or twice a week. The more you shop, the more likely you are to buy stuff like fresh vegetables, and the less likely you are to stock up on the frozen stuff.

The longer you keep all of these things going, the better. Work begets work. Healthy habits beget healthy living.

Getting in shape doesn’t need to be a mystery. It requires a lot of work. It requires a certain persistence — you absolutely have to be willing to put one foot in front of the other, and again, and again, and again.

But something wonderful comes at the end of all of it.

A month ago, I went to a wedding with a friend. She had made fun of me a year earlier for having to buy bigger jeans.

So this time, before I hopped on the plane to see her, I stopped at Old Navy. I discovered I’d dropped a full size — from a 38 waist to a 36.

When I finally saw her, I showed off the new belly. The word “astonished” came out of her mouth.

You can earn that kind of reaction, too. Just do these three things — cook, exercise, and create a routine — and keep it going. That’s the roadmap to getting yourself into the shape you want.

It is not magic. In fact, it’s a little bit boring.

But I’m living proof: It gets results.

09/10/201209/07/2012

Run Your Own Race.

“At 25, if I was sitting at this desk speaking with you, as pompous as the things I have to say are now, they would be millions of times more pompous and inappropriate.” — Scott Avett

I’m 25, and it feels weird to say that. I haven’t been quite sure what 25 means — it doesn’t have the significance that turning 13, or 18, or 21 had for me — but it definitely means something.

And then I read something that really captured the experience of 25 for me:

“At 25, you will feel drastically more mature than some people you know, embarrassingly less put-together than others, and acutely aware of these imbalances in lifestyle, career, and consciousness between you and the friends you used to feel absolutely in sync with … Your 20s is supposed to be a time of rapid growth and development in every area of your everything, but we don’t always — in fact, rarely ever — evolve along the same timeline. And so we lose pace with each other.”

And that’s it! I have friends who are 25 and who own their own home and are married. I have friends who are 25 and who have kids. I have friends who are 25 and have graduated from law school, and I have friends who are 25 and taking the LSATs. I have friends who are 25 and who have started their own companies. I have friends who are 25 and who are permanently unemployed and live with their parents.

It’s weird to think about that, too. Some of these friends I’ve known since I preschool. We grew up together. We went through all the same life stages together. When one of us took the SATs, we all took the SATs. When one of us was getting internships or summer jobs, we all were going through it.

Then we graduated, and we all went different directions.

When I think about my friends at 25, I think about a 400-meter race. When you watch that race, each of the runners starts at a different point on the track. At first, it’s tough to tell who’s going really fast and really slow. The curve screws up your perspective.

It’s not until the straightaway that everything comes into focus.

I get jealous, sometimes, when I see 25 year olds who are way ahead of where I am. I get competitive. How’d that person pull off a book deal at 25? How’d they get a movie done? How’d they make their first million already?

But then I remember that this isn’t a 400-meter race. We’re not all shooting for the same end goal.

We’re all on different paths. We’re all running our own races at our own speeds.

It’s tough to tell where each of us is going now. It’s only with time — a decade, maybe more — that we’ll start to understand where we’ve been going.

In the meantime, what really matters is that we keep going. We keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It’s not easy being 25. But the road ahead doesn’t get easier. Stop worrying about what everybody else is doing and focus on what you’re doing.

I’m 25, and I’m pledging today to run my own race.

That photo of runners via.