Month: April 2026

Why You Should Always Be Taking Tests.

When was the last time you took a test?

Yesterday?

Last year?

During your last eye appointment? (U R B A F)

Once you get to a certain point in life, you can stop taking tests.

But don’t.

Even if it’s the spring of your senior year of high school, and you have already gotten into your first-choice college. (Sorry, that was meant for my son.)

One of the great ways to live a full, adventurous and successful life is to regularly test yourself.

Test your mind, your body, your resolve, your endurance, your focus and your dedication.

Test your willpower. And test your won’tpower. (I think I just made up a word with a contraction in it!)

It’s not hard to avoid testing yourself. You can stay within your natural bounds. You can refuse to push against your outer limits. You can easily live a life of comfort, without stress, tests, or growth. And it would be boring and sad.

When you stop testing yourself, you replace growth with shrinkage. And nobody wants shrinkage.

While you are still able, test yourself often.

Take on hard challenges.

Take on physical challenges.

Get certified in a new skill.

Or licensed in a new practice.

Sign up for a competition in anything.

Try the ski run that is a degree above your comfort level.

Or a cold plunge that is a degree below your comfort level.

Start a business.

Try to sell things.

Join Fight Club. (But don’t talk about it!)

Write a book. Or screenplay. Or a non-screen play.

Learn a new language with tests involved to prove what you are learning. (Capiche?)

By testing yourself, you are forcing learning, skill development, and growth.

You are pushing yourself to become a better, stronger, smarter version of yourself.

You are elevating your game. Like Milton Bradley, on an elevator.

And you are expanding and improving as an organism.

Testing…Testing…

Aside from parenting, nothing has forced my growth like starting a business. (The Weaponry.) The way that entrepreneurship tests you, you quickly realize that you are the greatest limiter of your company’s success. And if you want to grow the business, you have to grow and learn new and better skills too.

I also commit to an annual Misogi Challenge. These are difficult personal challenges with a high likelihood of failure. You create them to test your limits and push yourself and to spur confidence-boosting growth.

In 2020, I challenged myself to write a book during the COVID lockdown. And I did it. Which taught me how much I could accomplish when focused on a meaningful personal challenge.

The key to my happiness, life satisfaction, and self-esteem is directly related to the fact that I keep taking tests. I keep pushing myself. And I am learning, growing and expanding my skills, abilities and knowledge. And in the process, I am strengthening my character, values, resolve, grit and confidence.

Key Takeaway

If you want to maximize your own happiness, keep pushing yourself, testing yourself and forcing your own growth. It’s the best way to the best you. And the best way to experience your best life.

The Defining Characteristic Of The Successful Entrepreneur.

I have been on an entrepreneurial adventure for 10 years.

And over the past decade, I have been writing down what I have learned along the way.

In the process, I have accumulated a Costco warehouse full of breadcrumbs for future entrepreneurs to follow.

If you are thinking about starting your own business (and I hope you are), it’s important to know that the most distinguishing characteristic of the successful entrepreneur is not that they know more than everyone else.

It’s not competency.

Or experience.

Or education.

Or confidence.

Or risk tolerance.

Or charisma. (Or any other isma.)

Or a false sense of superiority and a bulging trust fund.

Or the ability to create a list of 7 lines that start with ‘Or’.

The most distinguishing characteristic is that the successful entrepreneur is willing to move forward in the absence of information, knowledge and experience.

The successful entrepreneur doesn’t need to know more than anyone else.

They are simply willing to do.

To go.

To start.

To try.

Half the time, they don’t know what they are doing.

But they do anyway.

The doing is what leads to the knowing.

The great entrepreneur is comfortable with ambiguity. Because they realize that actions create biguity. (I assume that is the opposite of ambiguity.)

Key Takeaway

When you don’t know what you are doing, just start doing anyway.

Because the doing will help you figure it out.

Simply taking a step reveals the next step.

Do this over and over and over again.

It’s amazing what you can create or accomplish if you start and just don’t stop.

Why I Cheated On My Writing Platform Of Ten Years.

For the past decade, I have been writing a lot. Like a lot, a lot.

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I have been sharing a wide range of experiences, reflections, insights, accumulated life lessons and random pop culture references in my writings at The Adam Albrecht Blog on WordPress.

In fact, I have now published 1,116 blog posts on the platform.

In 2021, I built on those blog posts and published my first book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say?

I have been totally committed to my WordPress blog. And I have believed in the sanctity of a monogamous writing relationship.

But then, one vulnerable evening, I started developing feelings for another writing platform.

Before long, I realized I was lusting in my heart for it. Like Jimmy Carter.

I tried to ignore it. After all, I had been a true and committed partner to WordPress, in good times (like that old JJ Walker show), and bad (like that Michael Jackson song). I wrote on WordPress in sickness and in health. And I thought I would write exclusively on the WP as long as we both shall live.

But over the past two months, I have been cheating on WordPress. Cheating like that couple on the Kiss Cam at the Coldplay concert. And unlike a crying Jimmy Swaggart begging for forgiveness, I don’t even feel bad.

So today, I’m revealing that my Camilla Parker Bowles-style side piece is the baddie content creation platform, Substack.

The platform makes it ridonculously easy to write and share. It’s crammed full of bells, whistles, chimes, horns, kazoos, and a space-age xylophone that I didn’t realize I wanted. But I freaking love it!

Substack allows me to write a blog post, then turn it into a newsletter, podcast, video, social post, or an origami critter. It does what I used to need 5 different resources to do. Like a content creation Ginsu knife.

What I am trying to say, in a pseudo-salacious way, is that if you have enjoyed reading the things I have written over the past 10+ years, I encourage you to check out what I have been sharing on Substack. (Although I think the name Substack sounds less like a writing platform and more like a tall pile of hoagies and grinders.)

You can sign up to follow my writings and even have them delivered hot and fresh to your inbox, like some linguistic Krispy Kreme donuts. (Mmmm, donuts…)

So consider subscribing, and you will never miss a bite.

But if you still need one more good reason to check out my writings on Substack, I have been working on another massive writing project for more than a decade. (Who does that?) And I will be sharing fun news about it soon, on Substack.

*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. And consider subscribing to Adam’s Good Newsletter.