Month: April 2025

The best way to get back on course.

There are proven ways to get results in every area of your life. Some methods are universally true. Some are proven to work for you. But when you discover a process that gets you results, use it. And don’t lose it.

I have proven processes:

  • To help me shed pounds when I creep above my target weight. (Like a creeper.)
  • To help me gain strength.
  • To help me put out 3 blog posts per week. (Which is a safe way to put out.)
  • To help me grow my business.
  • To feel closer to God.
  • To wake up well-rested. (Instead of feeling like I rested in a well.)
  • To make my hedges look good.
  • To read 3 books every month
  • To make sure my teeth don’t fall out

But sometimes I get away from my processes. And I gain weight, lose strength, fall off my reading pace, wake up tired, think less about God, write less, and give the Cavity Creeps a shot at my teeth.

When these things happen, and I realize I have strayed from my ideals, goals and norms, it is time to get back on track, Jack. And to get back on track, I give myself a 3-word reminder:

‘Trust The Process.‘

You have developed great habits that are proven to get great results over time. But only when you follow the process. If you are not getting the results you have come to expect, chances are that you have gotten away from your best habits.

In those times, return to the process. Resume the great habits. Trust the process. The results won’t come the same day. (Like Amazon.) Or overnight. (Like FedEx.) But be patient. The results will come.

Key Takeaway

Trust your proven processes to get you the results you seek. Give your processes time to work their magic. Your good habits are like the processes in an assembly plant, creating great results. You have to run the process through the full line. And when you do, you will be happy with the final product that rolls out of the factory.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

You vs You: The Ultimate Battle for Success.

When you think about the people standing between you and your hopes and dreams, you probably think about your competitors.

Or criminals.

Or cheaters.

You know, the people willing to harm you for their own self-interest.

But do you recognize that the person most likely to prevent you from meeting your goals in every area of your life is you?

The simple, undeniable truth is that you are your own worst enemy.

Your life’s greatest battles will be You vs You.

You are the one who decides not to do the things you said you would do.

You are the one who doesn’t live up to your commitments.

You are the one that cuts corners.

Who sleeps in.

Who mails it in.

Who opts out.

Who half-asses it when a full ass is required.

You are the one who gets too tired.

Or thinks it’s too late.

You are the one who will want rest more than you want reward.

You are the one who gives in to short-term thinking instead of long-term benefits.

You are the only one who can violate your own code of conduct.

You are the person most likely to talk yourself out of action.

Remember, to be great, happy and fulfilled, you have to overcome yourself.

You have to defend yourself from negative self talk.

You have to deny your own excuses.

You have to constantly argue against the valid arguments you present to yourself that would make it rational to quit.

You have to build self-defense systems against yourself.

You have to prioritize your long-term vision, your mission, your purpose and your goals over every excuse you come up with not to do what you know you have to do to be successful.

You have to decide that when you don’t feel like doing the thing, you do the thing anyway.

You have to be a badass today so you are not a sadass tomorrow.

You have to continuously prove to yourself that you do hard things.

In fact, you love to do hard things.

You don’t accept excuses. Not even really good ones, with whipped cream on top.

You have to do everything you can to make future you happier, healthier, wealthier, fitter, and closer to your heavenly ideal than current you.

You have to deny that first fucking marshmallow every time.

Always hold out for the bigger prize.

For the magical power of compound interest.

Focus on the long-term benefits of exercise.

Keep your weight in your acceptable zone.

Getting to the church on time. Like David Bowie said.

Never forget that you are your greatest ally.

You are your own bodyguard. Your own Frank Farmer.

You are your dream defender.

You are the person you can rely on most.

You are the one who writes your own rule book. So you know how to respond when tempted by the fruit of another other.

You are your own best armor.

You are your own biggest cheerleader.

You are the one who says I am not giving in yet.

You are the person who decided to hold on for ten more minutes.

Or to hold out for another day.

You are the one who reminds yourself that the couch and the TV will be there when you are done.

You are the one who sets the alarm. And gets up early. Even on vacation. Even on Holidays.

You do your things, even when the rest of the world doesn’t care if you don’t.

You are the one who sets your own deadlines. And hits your own deadlines.

You are the one who tells yourself that you don’t do what everyone else does.

Your rules are tougher.

Your requirements are harder.

Your standards are higher.

Because in the greatest battles you will ever fight, you have to beat you.

And when you do, you win at life.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Master Your Mindset: The Power of Thought Choices

Your brain is an amazing engine.

It is the ultimate hybrid machine. (Sorry Prius)

It runs on whatever you feed it. 

Positivity. Negativity. Enthusiasm. Cynicism.

Any ity, asm or ism.

Any octane.

Just pour it in the tank.

Your brain can churn it and burn it.

Or shake it and bake it.

You can set your brain to run on optimism.

Or you can set it to crank on pessimism.

It fires in both criticism and support mode.

It can process the profound and the petty. (Including Tom and Richard)

You can stoke your brain with greatness or gossip.

Happy thoughts or sad.

You get to decide.

Every day.

In every situation.

And if you choose a setting and a fuel that doesn’t serve you, you can change it at any time.

Key Takeaway

Your inputs determine your outputs.

And your mode determines your mood.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

The Easiest Way To Have A Positive Impact On The World.

I got an email yesterday from Matt Wolf. Matt is the Academic & Career Planning Coordinator at Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin, where I live. And Wolf, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a rock star kind of last name. So, for the rest of this story, I will refer to Matt simply as The Wolf.

The Wolf was putting together a Career Day extravaganza at Homestead. I knew this was happening, because he reached out to me to ask if I knew anyone that would be a great speaker on sports marketing. The Wolf share that students frequently list sports marketing as a career area they are highly interested in. I blame Jake Paul.

So I connected The Wolf with my friend and former coworker Leslie Stachowiak, who, in addition to having a name that would trip up a Spelling Bee champion, works for the Milwaukee Brewers, the Major League Baseball team.

The Request

But now The Wolf was apologetically asking me at the last hour if I could also fill a slot in the career day lineup. He wrote this apologetically because he asks me multiple times a year to come speak to the middle schools in The Quon about my career as the Founder and CEO of the advertising and ideas agency, The Weaponry. And since I volunteer for that job multiple times each year, he was trying to avoid asking me to also volunteer to speak at the high school.

My Most Important Work

What The Wolf doesn’t know is that I think the most important and impactful work I do is having a positive influence on the youth in my community. That’s why I always raise my hand to speak to the middle schools. (I also raise my hand because I use Sure Deodorant.) It is why I speak each year at Career Day at our neighboring Whitefish Bay High School.

It is why I volunteer to guest lecture at The University of Wisconsin, Madison (the most fun university in the history of universities), Marquette University, Concordia University, and basically any school that invites me to come speak.

My interest in having a positive influence on youth is also why I coach track and field at Homestead. It is why I also volunteered to coach track and field at Steffen Middle School this year. And it is why I have coached youth football in Mequon for the past 7 years. Which means I have proudly passed a lot of background checks. (The hardest part of those tests is remembering my address from 7 years ago.)

I love teaching life lessons and character development through athletics. Because the life lessons I learned through athletics have benefited me for a lifetime. Plus, there were never any Scantron sheets or number 2 pencils required on the track or football fields.

Not only have I coached these boys on the football field, I have shared my educational and career path with them. I also showed them how to grow hair. It looks like my work here is done.

Helping future generations is why I volunteer to speak with student-athletes at the University of Wisconsin whenever I can. Which is why my great friend Nicholas Pasquarello, Executive Director of the W Club and Strategic Partnerships, invites me to so many events and activities with current and former Badger athletes.

Helping kids is also why I wrote the book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? I wanted my kids and the rest of the next generation to have quick access to valuable life and career lessons it took me decades and a lot of mistakes to learn.

The Answer

So I told The Wolf that I would happily come speak at Career Day next week. Because this type of work is a priority. I can’t think of more important or more impactful work.

Key Takeaway

Please consider sharing what you know with the next generation. And the generations after that. Whether you take time to share your knowledge and experience with the youth in your community, college students, recent graduates, or those navigating careers in your field of expertise, your wisdom and guidance is extremely valuable. You help provide a model and a path for others to follow. You have the ability to inspire others to follow your lead, to develop their skills, and to lean into their interests, passions and strengths. It is the easiest and most rewarding way to have a positive impact on the world.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Embracing Vulnerability: My Sunday Lesson.

On Sunday at church, I sat unusually close to the front of the sanctuary. My wife Dawn and I started a walk n’ talk with Pastor Bill Knapp in the narthex, and ended up walking him down the aisle until we got to the altar. Since we didn’t qualify for the exclusive seating on the altar, we sat in the second pew. Or the second row, if you don’t use the word pew. To me, this is the real first row. Because who sits in the row without a pew rack in front of them? People with nothing to hide from God?

I noticed things from that ultra-close vantage point that I had never noticed before.

  • There were more people wearing jeans to church than I realized.
  • I saw people who walk to the altar for communion but didn’t kneel to partake, presumably because their kneelers no longer kneel.
  • I noticed how the choir files out to the choir-itorium up front, then circles to the back of the church to grab a little bread n’ wine. (Emphasis on the little.)
    • I discovered the patterns the distributors use to return to the beginning of their side of the altar after working across the altar to distribute the Jesus goodies.

The Children’s Sermon

But I also witnessed something interesting during the children’s sermon. About 20% of the way through the service, our pastor invited the wee folk to come up to the altar for the children’s sermon.

Within seconds, I saw a young boy dash down the aisle like an eager bride on her wedding day. The boy sprinted to the altar, jumped the 2 steps to the main stage, and hit a hook slide across the wooden floor to a spot at the dead center. And just a foot in front of Pastor Bill. It was such an amazingly enthusiastic Dukes of Hazard way to show up for the word of the Lord that I couldn’t help but admire the young boy’s enthusiasm and aggressiveness.

After all the other kids filed up to the altar and took their seats crisscross applesauce-style, I saw another very young boy slowly approach the altar. This boy looked very timid, and unsure. He squeezed his father’s hand. And as he passed just in front of me, I heard him whisper to his dad, ‘Stay with me, ok?’ I then watched the loving father sit on the edge of the altar, with his arm around his son, so that the boy felt comforted in this scary, vulnerable and foreign situation.

After witnessing both boys approaching the same children’s sermon in the same church with such drastically different styles, I couldn’t help but consider which of these boys I identified with.

The answer came to me quickly and obviously:

Both.

While I love the eager, enthusiastic approach of Hook Slide Sven, and often employ a similarly energetic entrance, there are times when I feel like Timid Teddy.

When I was young, I felt that way a lot in specific new and confusing situations. Over the years, the balance has shifted dramatically. My moments of timidity today are few and far between. But they still happen. I don’t look meek. But I feel like I have no idea what I am walking into. But like Timid Teddy, I go anyway.

It’s important to recognize the value of experience. Anything you do can be scary and intimidating the first time. But do it anyway. Because everything you do is easier the second time. I see Hook Slide Sven at church all the time. He’s altared countless times for the children’s sermon and to sing in the children’s choir. He’s very comfortable in that environment. Which makes it easy for him to show up as his authentic hook-sliding self.

Timid Teddy was trying. Good for him. And good for you when you try something new, go somewhere new, eat something new or wear something new and bedazzled. It’s ok to show up feeling uncomfortable. That’s how you grow, learn, expand your world, and develop life skills and confidence. And once you are confident in a situation, help bring others along.

Key Takeaway

Sometimes you will feel confident, energetic and aggressive going into situations. That’s great. That is you at your best. Embrace and enjoy when you feel like that. It comes with experience. But know that it is ok to feel unsure, unprepared, apprehensive and cautious. The world does a good job of making us feel like that when we are out of our element and out of our comfort zone. When you feel unsure, but go, do, try, ask, join or partake anyway, you are growing. And that is just as valuable. Because when you do, you gain comfort and confidence. And you will soon be sliding into the same situation like Bo Duke, Rickey Henderson, or the boy at my church.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Create Your Big Life List Today.

You have a lot of amazing things you could do in life.

Adventurous travel.

Creating your own business.

Writing that award-winning thing that only you could write.

Doing things so interesting that you find yourself rubbing elbows with people who have really nice elbows.

But are you doing any of these amazing things?

Are you ticking things off Your Big Life List of amazing things that add to your life resume and make your enemies mad that they envy your experiences, accomplishments and elbows?

If so, you probably feel happy, fulfilled and purposeful.

If not, it’s time to jump on it, Kemosabe.

You are not getting any younger. (And after seeing how The Substance ends, you won’t want to try.)

Remember, you don’t know how much time you have.

Start Today

Consider the things you would regret not doing if tomorrow your ability to do was done.

Make a list. (Check it twice. Find out who is naughty and nice.)

Start with the biggest, most important activities.

Set self-imposed deadlines.

They are amazing tools to help you accomplish more.

Reflection

On a recent flight, my seatmate and I were talking about our lives and experiences. She commented on the number of impressive life-listy things I had accomplished. I told her that a Big Bertha-sized drive for me was that on the eve of my 40th birthday, I reflected and wrote a list of all the things I was proud to have accomplished. Then, I turned to consider all the things I had not yet done, seen or experienced.

That list of Things Undone has been a great driver for me ever since. Today, I am keenly aware of the many things I still want to do. So I keep a list. And I set deadlines. And I keep ticking them off.

You can too.

Key Takeaway

I encourage you to write your regret list this week. Find some time when you can reflect on what you would regret not having done, accomplished, tried, seen, tasted, explored, or created if you were to die this year. Then get going. It will lead to a more interesting and adventurous life. A life that you can be very proud of. And it will help you finish your time here with no regrets.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Don’t be a fool. Make sure to get all the value you can from your vacation days.

Happy April Fool’s Day! I just returned from a spring break trip with my family. The best thing I came back with was not relaxation or a tan. In fact, my vacations are rarely relaxing. I logged nearly 30 miles worth of desert hikes in Scottsdale and Sedona, Arizona. And my dermatologist would be happy with how much F-ing SPF I used. (Ok, so I don’t actually have a dermatologist. But I do pack a lot of derm, like a pachyderm)

Inspiration

What I came back from vacation with were more memories with my family, new inspiration, and more ideas. None of those things took up any space in my carry- on bag. In fact, the only souvenir I bought on vacation was a single ornament to hang on our Christmas tree. It’s a family tradition. And I’m traditional.

I saw new things. I ate new things. I explored new places that expanded my thinking.

I discovered businesses that made me think about businesses that I could start. And things I could introduce to The Weaponry, the advertising and ideas agency I lead.

People

I met new people at hotels, on planes, and on hiking trails. I also saw my cousins Cher Fesenmaier and Chawn Tipton who live in Phoenix, whom I hadn’t seen since our Grandma Albrecht’s funeral a few years ago. Which was a surprisingly fun funeral. After all, she was 99 and taught us how to have fun. Even at funerals.

Cher, Adam and Chawn in Tempe. Make sure to see your people in real life.

Reading

I finished a book on vacation. (The Splendid and The Vile) I started reading 2 new books. (Barbarian Days and Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller.) Everything you read helps make you more creative. It feeds your brain more material and creates more dots to connect. Vacations would be valuable even if you just stayed at home and read. Your dermatologist would probably like that too.

Appetizers

I got to really dig into some locations that I had only experienced as appetizers in the past. My mom taught me that short visits to new places are like having appetizers. If you enjoy the appetizer, you can come back for more another time.

Memories

Your most valuable possessions are your memories. They are like pieces of art, movies, photos and paintings that you hang in the museum in your mind. The more new experiences you have the more you fill the most valuable gallery in your head. That gallery serves as your perpetual source of inspiration when you need ideas, and as your perpetual source of entertainment and conversation starters when you don’t have the time or money to travel. You get to relive the experiences of your memories over and over in your mind. Even when you are too old, weak, or poor to travel and adventure.

My people in Sedona. 10 out of 10. Can definitely recommend.

Key Takeaway

Make sure to take your vacation time. Use it to do new things. It enhances your creativity in immense ways. You collect new dots to connect to the other dots you already have. This helps you come up with new ideas and combine old ideas in new and novel ways. It expands your world and your thinking. It creates new perspective. It introduces you to new people. It gifts you new stories. And new reasons to laugh. It creates new memories. And sooner or later you realize that your relationships and your memories are your most valuable possessions. Your vacation days help you develop both.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.