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.
“Life is a story, if you wouldn’t read the one you’re telling, write a different ending.” — Jonathan Fields
I went to the World Domination Summit last weekend. [1. Strange name for a conference, but powerful stuff.] And what I heard were a lot of great stories about how people do work:
I heard some people saying: Start! You have all you need to start right now!
I heard some people saying: Wait! Give yourself time to recover, to ripen, to grow.
I heard some people saying: Just tell me the secret thing that successful people do and I’l do it! Tell me! (There were, admittedly, a lot of these.)
And at the end of the weekend, here’s what I really heard: As long as you make time to listen, and make time for your community, you’re going to do just fine. The work follows people who are patient, persistent, and surround themselves with great people.
There is no right time for the work you want to do — just your time.
So get ready. Get going.
And get yours.
Ultimately, it’ll be there — something remarkable, something amazing — when you’re ready to put in the work.
“The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.” — John H. Schaar
There’s this hour right before sunset where the light is perfect. Photographers call it the Magic Hour. The sun is going down, and the world is bathed in this perfect, almost sepia tone.
It’s the hour when conditions are just right for photography. It’s the time when photographers love to work.
Other professions have a Magic Hour, too. Writers and athletes have their own word for it: The Zone.
It’s that brief window where everything you need to work is just there for you. The work pours out, and just the way you always hope it will.
Of course, such magic hours don’t exist daily for most of us. Most of the time, the work comes out slowly. Progress happens slowly.
We wish for those magic hours, but we shouldn’t resign ourselves to waiting for them. Most days, the work has to get out — whether or not you’re feeling it.
The good news is, you don’t have to wait for the perfect moment to get started. You probably shouldn’t. Part of doing the work is learning to struggle. Part of doing the work is learning how to start before you feel ready.
That advice seems almost impossibly easy. But until you’ve actually tried to do the work when you’re feeling out of the zone, you won’t ever know how hard it can be.
“Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.” — Morgan Missen
10 years ago this summer, I started my first internship in journalism. I was 16. That summer, I got an article published in the A section of The Boston Globe, and I thought: This journalism thing is going to be easy. I thought I was going to be a very big deal.
Five years ago this summer, I went to China to cover the Beijing Olympics for the Rocky Mountain News. I was in China, reporting on the biggest sporting event in the world. I was doing good reporting, and my bosses were happy with me. I was convinced: I was going to be a very big deal.
And now it’s five years later, and… well, the words “big deal” probably don’t apply just yet. I’m really happy with where I am in journalism. Thrilled, actually.
But this isn’t what I thought it would be. I had visions of reporting, of telling big feature stories that won big awards, of traveling to tell stories that could change lives. I had huge ambition, and no reason to doubt that everything I wanted would come soon.
I never thought about the work. There was no concept that it was going to take work and time and screw-ups to get somewhere good. Everything came easy: the reporting, the writing, the opportunities. Stuff just seemed to work out.
But I ended up in a pretty great place anyway. I’ve learned about the work. I’ve had leaps forward, and I’ve taken steps back. I have screwed up a lot, and I’m better for it.
Somewhere down the road, I might even get good at whatever it is that I do. I’m 26 now, and I think I’m getting closer. Not close — but definitely closer.
Every once in a while, someone tells me how far along I am. They say I’m doing well — really well for someone this young. They talk about how quickly success has come for me.
And not too far off — maybe a few years down the road, even — there’ll be more of them. They’ll talk about how fast it’s all happened for me. The words “overnight success” might even be used.
And only I will know: I’ll have been an overnight success more than a decade in the making.
There is a certain point in your life when you realize that you don’t know anything.
Up until that point, you thought you knew what was up. You thought you’d experienced heartbreak. You thought you’d experienced pain.
And then comes this big breakthrough, and you realize, you don’t know jack. You’re just starting your life, and you’re starting from zero, and everyone else seems to know more than you do.
You feel like a fraud, and a phony. You feel like you don’t have anything to offer this world.
And there’s that expression you’ve heard: Fake it ’til you make it. That’s almost true.
Because there’s a second realization that comes a little later: Nobody else knows anything, either.
Everyone, turns out, is kinda faking it. Nobody is just born an astrophysicist or a banker. (And nobody is born or a social media expert.) We mold ourselves into these people. We see what others are doing, we think about what we like to do, and we make ourselves into the people we want to be.
And once you realize that, you don’t feel like a phony. You don’t know anything, but hell, neither does anybody else. We’re all just trying to make it work in this world.
So just do good work and surround yourself with good people, and you’ll be okay. It’s normal to feel like you don’t know anything.
We all feel that way, and we’re all in this thing together.
There is a phrase I use a lot. I overuse it. A lot of my friends do, too.
The word is “fail.”
Fail can mean a lot of things. It can mean:
-Go try hard things, and see what works!
-Don’t be afraid to mess up!
-If it doesn’t succeed, that’s okay — it doesn’t mean you’re a failure!
But sometimes, when we just wrap all that in into that one word — fail — we lose a sense of what we’re really trying to say. Sometimes, I’ll find myself telling people that they should be willing to fail, and they think, “Dan doesn’t think I can do it.”
And that’s not it at all! If you’ve got the skill and hustle and the team, you can absolutely pull it off.
So if I’ve told you, “It’s okay to fail” or “Go fail fast,” I’m sorry. I can say it better.
This year, be willing to do difficult things. Be willing to go on adventures where you don’t know the outcome. Be willing to persevere.
“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.
“Me shooting 40% at the foul line is just God’s way to say nobody’s perfect.” —Shaquille O’Neal
A story about my mother:
About five years ago, my mother was asked to serve on the board of directors at my synagogue. They asked her to write a short essay about her favorite moment from Jewish history. They wanted to publish it in the next synagogue newsletter.
Mom’s not much of a writer, but she got into the assignment. She spent a few days writing the essay. She wrote and re-wrote the essay. She kept us updated on her progress.
At the end of the week, she finally had a draft ready. I’m the editor in the family, and so she gave her essay to me.
Like I said: Mom’s not much of a writer, but she worked really hard on this one. And it showed.
Her essay was about the story of the exodus from Egypt, and it was a nice essay.
There was only one problem: My mother had written all about the parting of the Red Sea, and how Noah — not Moses — had been the one to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
“Uh, ma,” I told her. “It would’ve been way easier to get across the water if they’d had Noah and his ark.”
Point is: My mother is a remarkable woman. She’s one of the best networkers I know. She loves to help. And she’s a fantastic project manager.
She just knows how to make stuff happen.
But she also knows her weaknesses, and one of them is writing. She needs an editor — or sometimes two.
What I love is that she’s always willing to ask for help on these things. She’s willing to recognize her weaknesses.
This is where you need to avoid your instincts. This isn’t the time to dish out a job title. You’re not talking to HR. You’ve got Bill Gates next to you!
You’ve been given a tiny window to wow him with your story.
But this situation isn’t just limited to people pitching a company or a product. Every single person needs to figure out their story — and how to pitch it.
So what’s your story? It’s a combination of your work and your passion. We need a little taste of what it is you make/build/do and a lot of why you do it. Your story is the thing that tells us why you’re great, and why we need to pay attention.
I’ve met Sam several times and each time I’ve been at an event with him I’ve heard his opening line, “My name is Sam Jones. I buy dead magazines.” He gets a stare every time. You can’t help but lean forward and want to hear what the next line is. He’s a master. He waits for a brief moment and lets the suspense build. He knows your next line in advance, “Excuse me? You do what?”
When I work with young reporters, I ask them how they’re pitching themselves for jobs. There are thousands of young reporters out there applying to the same small pool of jobs. To get one, you’ve got to stand out.
I encourage reporters to pitch themselves differently. Let everyone else send the standard cover letter. Instead, tell me: What do you do?
I build great communities around stories.
I use data to tell great stories.
I listen, I learn — and then I share with my readers.
Something like that can stand out. And when you brand it across your platforms — on your blog, your Twitter bio, your resume — it really drives the point home.
What you’ll learn is that it’s surprisingly easy to stand out. The masses are all doing the same thing. Even taking a few steps out of the mainstream will get you noticed.
If you get on that plane with Bill Gates, here’s all I ask: Don’t tell him your job title. Tell him what you’re working on. Tell him why you’re passionate about it.
Tell him a great story.
It won’t be hard to do. After all, it’s your story.
