Category: Life

24 Important self-reflection questions to ask yourself at the end of 2024.

The end of the year is always an exciting time for 3 reasons.

  1. We get to reflect on our wins and successes from a good year, preferably with a Kip Dynamite fist pump.
  2. We get to leave a bad year behind the way Bill Murray sneaks away from Father Rat Farts after he gets struck by lightning in Caddyshack.
  3. We get to start a fresh new year full of hope, like Hope Solo.

Preparing For 2025

Now it’s time to prepare for a great 2025. Why prepare? Because great years, like great lives, don’t just happen. You make them happen.

A key element of living a great life is self-reflection. Asking yourself good questions is like conducting your own performance review. It’s a simple way to discover where you need to course correct, where your course is already correct, and where your corset could help correct.

If you don’t know what questions to ask yourself, you’ve come to the right blog post. Here are 24 questions to ask yourself now to prepare to make 2025 your best year yet. For best results, write your answers down. In fact, I created a Google Doc that you can print or make a copy of right here.

24 Questions In A Particular Order.

1. Am I educating myself? Getting better starts with getting smarter. Continue to self-educate and your knowledge, abilities, and competitive advantages will grow like compound interest. 

TheONEThing_Book1-525x525
If you only read one thing in 2025, I suggest reading The One Thing.

2. Am I exercising enough? Your body is your life vehicle. Regular exercise keeps it in top shape. Which will allow you to travel further, faster and over rougher terrain without breaking down, like Tone-Loc.

3. Am I giving enough to others? Shel Silverstein famously wrote about The Giving Tree. But there is also a magical Giving Boomerang (perhaps made of wood from the giving tree). Because when you give your time, talent and treasure to others, good things come back to you in even bigger and better ways.  

4. Am I disciplined enough? Discipline is what gets the job done. If you are not doing the things you’ve committed to, or if you are not avoiding the things you should avoid, check your discipline. Remember, you only need enough to create a habit. Then the habit takes over and discipline can be deployed towards something else. Read James Clear’s Atomic Habits if you want to become great at developing great new habits.

5. Am I thinking big enough? The answer for 99% of us is no. So start thinking bigger! Think as big as you can. Think Elon Musky. Because bigger thoughts lead to bigger results. It costs the same amount to think big as it does to think small. But the return on your thinking investment is much different. You can always go bigger. #TWSS

woman draw a light bulb in white board
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

6. Am I taking the actions that matter most? Not all actions are created equal. Remember the 80/20 rule. Find the small actions with the biggest rewards. There are a lot of actions that generate very little results. Simply taking the right kinds of action (interacting with the right people for example) can change your life. For proof see Sliding Doors or Run Lola Run.

7. Am I getting better or getting worse? Check your trajectory. You are either headed up or down on every possible measure. The good news is that with all but some physical aging issues you can always improve your own angle through focused effort, commitment and mindset. 

8. Am I strengthening my network? Most people think far too little about the strength of their network. But take it from the mobile carriers, it is all about the strength of your network. Continue to develop and maintain meaningful relationships. Make as many genuine friendships as you can. When you do, your social, professional and political capital will continue to grow. Which opens you to more opportunities. Remember, opportunities come through humans. 

Some Milwaukee W-Club members flashing our gang sign. (I am very pleased with my font choice.)

9. Am I valuable to know? Do you add value to others? Are you kind, helpful, or inspiring? Do you offer access and connections? Are you are great listener? Really think about the value you offer others. The more value you offer, the more people will seek you out. And you want to be sought after. Just not by police. Or hitmen. Or Glenn Close.

10. Am I keeping my word? Trustworthiness is the bedrock of relationships, and the gateway to opportunity. Check your trustworthiness more often than once a year. Keeping your word is required on a daily basis. Like flossing and changing your undies.

11. Am I living into my vision for myself? You have aspirations. But simply having aspirations is not enough. You have to get yourself to the destination. You have to become the person you imagined, dragon. Do the doing, not just the dreaming. 

My son Magnus envisioning at Yosemite this summer.

12. Am I noticing those who need me? We all have people who need us. Family, friends, clients, employees, community members. Do you see them? Do you notice what they need from you?  Do you notice what you have to give?

13. Am I being present? Be now. This is all you ever have.

14. Am I taking care of my health? Have you seen your doctor and dentist lately? Do you have a doctor and dentist? How about a mental health specialist? A chiropractor? Take care of yourself. Because everybody needs a body.

15. Am I eating well? You are what you eat. Literally. Be mindful of your personal building materials. It makes a difference. Because you don’t want to look like Cheetos in your Speedos. 

16. Do I have a healthy way to de-stress? The world is an all-you-can-eat stress buffet. You need to have ways to rid yourself of the stress. Sleep, exercise and church are my go-to’s. Find your ways to de-stress best.

17. Am I spending enough time in nature? Spending time in nature is great for re-grounding yourself. A little quiet time with Mama Nature provides peace and perspective you can’t get anywhere else.

18. Am I getting enough sleep? Sleep is the great reset button. It enables you to regenerate your best self. Take advantage of it. Get as much as you need.

19. Am I finding joy in my work? Work fills half of your waking hours. Finding joy in work is finding joy in life. If you are not finding joy it is time for a change. A new approach, a new job, or a new career should be on the table. And a bottle of Joy should be on the counter next to the kitchen sink.  

Sprecher_SprecherSeason_1400x400_2

20. Does my boss value me? An unfair amount of your happiness is tied to your relationship with your boss. If you have a boss that values you and treats you well you have won half the battle. If not, make a change. Life is too short for bad bosses. 

21. Am I living a story worth reading? You only get one shot at life. Make it great. make it a story worth telling, worth hearing and worth reading.  

22. Am I positively impacting others? At the end of our days, the only thing that really matters is the impact we have on each other. Focus on making a positive impact and you will live a great life.

23. Am I laughing enough? This is the easiest way to measure happiness. Laughter is more valuable than money. Spend more time with the people who make you laugh. They will make you feel most alive. 

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Are Reserved. All Lefts Are Outgoing.

24. Am I investing enough in my most important relationship? Think of the one relationship that means more to you than any other. A spouse or significant other. A parent, child or sibling. A friend, partner or neighbor. Are you investing in that person as much as you should? Always give the most important people the most. 

Key Takeaway

Self-improvement starts with asking yourself good questions. You are a work in progress. Knowing what you should work on is how you make the progress.

*If you know someone who would benefit from these questions, please share this with them.

Here is the link to the Google Doc with the 24 questions. Plus some bonus questions. Because you should always give more than others expect.


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

You are about to get 111 hours free. Don’t waste them.

This week, you get an amazing gift. No, Ed McMahon won’t be showing up with a humongo check. You won’t have wise men pop in unannounced to drop off gold, fruitcake and myrrh. Instead, you will get the precious gift of time. Time away from work, or school, or even working at a school.

But you don’t just get 1 or 2 hours free. And not just 8 or 24 hours either.

You get a shipload of time.

In fact, you get 111 hours free!

The Math

If you are one of the many who don’t have to work or go to school Thursday through Sunday, your time off starts at 5pm on Wednesday and ends at 8am on Monday.

In between there are 111 hours for you to spend wisely.

You can use it on quality time with friends and family. There is plenty of time for talking, playing, singing, and laughing until liquids sprays our of your nose. And if your friends don’t make you laugh until you leak, you need better friends.

You can invest in your health. Walking, turkey trotting, hiking, or any other calorie burning activity before or after the meal is a great idea.

You can read. You can read a lot in 111 hours. In fact, you could probably read all 1032 blog posts I have written here at The Adam Albrecht Blog. You could read my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? Or you could read an important piece of literature, a valuable self improvement book, the biography of a wildly successful human or a tale of epic human adventure and triumph. But my blog will have more random pop culture references. So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

You can schedule that health checkup, or that therapy session you know you need. You could enroll in a program to stop doing that thing you know you shouldn’t do no more, like Phil Collins said.

You can start working on that master project you have always dreamed of. Or that mini project you couldn’t seem to find time to do, Mickey.

You could plan a vacation. Or book a vacation. Or at least watch National Lampoon’s Vacation.

You could transfer money to savings. Or to that investment account. Or to me.

You could plan a dinner with people you love chewing the fat with.

You could schedule a Zoom with friends or family that you won’t see in real life this holiday. But not if they are no longer in real life. (Zoom hasn’t worked out that technology yet.)

You could plan impromptu in-person get-togethers, right now, over me.

You can play games. Board games. Card games. Football games. Reindeer games. We don’t game enough.

You could start planning your own business. (Not that that’s any of my business.)

You could start filling a notebook with everything you know about a specific topic. That’s a great way to start writing a book.

You could volunteer. Even if you are not in Knoxville.

In fact, you can do just about anything you please.

But please, please, please don’t do nothing, Sabrina.

You can do nothing anytime.

Key Takeaway

You are about to receive the most precious gift of all. The gift of time. 111 hours. A stately sum. Invest it any way you like. But whatever you do, don’t waste it. Because you will never get it back.

If you found something valuable or rewarding to do with your 111 hours, please shoot me a note to let me know what you did at 614-256-2850 or at adam@theweaponry.com. I am always looking for good ideas and success stories.

*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 best bargain you will find during Black Friday Week.

It’s that time of year again. My inbox is full of Black Friday promotional emails. Everyone is offering discounts to get you to spend your hard-earned money with them in their final push to profitability for the 2024 fiscal year. And these great deals have many salivating like Pavlov’s poodles on a pile of bull pizzles.

But I have already picked up the best bargains available this week. And you can too.

Yesterday, I drove to my local Goodwill store with a load of donations. I dropped off 5 boxes of clothes, shoes, toys and other odds and ends that have outstayed their usefulness in The Albrecht Home. (You ever notice it is always the odds and ends that go, and never the evens and middles?)

After dropping my load in the drive-through, I parked my Expedition and walked into the store. I didn’t browse. I headed directly to my usual destination at the far back corner of the store. There, between the obsolete records and DVDs, I found my favorite treasure hunt honey hole: the Goodwill used bookshelves.

I scanned every shelf, looking for discount gold. I found 5 books, each for sale for between $1.99 and $2.99 that I had to have. I made my way back to the cashier counter and paid for my collection. But I felt like I stole them. Because I only paid $14. And that included rounding up for charity.

For that $14 I got:

Driven by Donald Driver: From this book, I will learn a lifetime of lessons from one of the greatest football players of all time. I expected to be entertained, educated and inspired by a man who went from homeless to Super Bowl and Dancing With The Stars champion. How much would you pay to hear him share his best life lessons? I bet it’s more than $2.99.

Ziglar On Selling by Zig Ziglar: Double Z is known as the greatest authority on selling ever. (In fact, he sold me on that designation.) And in case you didn’t realize, we humans are all selling all the time.) I expect I will pick up lessons from this book that will help translate to millions of dollars of revenue from my businesses, books and speaking engagements. All for $2.99.

Built to Last by James C. Collins and Jerry Porras. From this book, I know I will learn successful habits of visionary companies. Not only because it says so on the cover, but because I have already read this book. But that was before I owned The Weaponry. Now I will reread this great business book with a new perspective that will help my business thrive long into the future. Which is worth far more than the $1.99 I paid.

How To Read Literature Like A Professor, A lively and entertaining guide to reading between the lines by Thomas ‘Bananas’ Foster: This New York Times Bestseller is sure to help me get more out of my reading and understanding of the most important books ever written. And I expect that Foster will have more interesting insights to share with me than when kids used to hold up their 3 middle fingers and tell me to read between the lines. Understanding the deeper meanings of great literature seems like a steal for just $1.99.

John Adams by David McCullough This epic biography of one of America’s Founding Fathers is sure to deliver great inspiration and historical insights. I will learn more about the grit and determination of those charged with creating and fighting for this great nation. And I might finally learn what was up with those powdered wigs. Plus, buying a 750-page hardcover book for just $2.99 means I got more value in burnable paper than I paid for. And that’s before you factor in a full squid’s worth of ink.

Key Takeaway

As you look for bargains this week, don’t overlook books. Books at any price offer immense value. But on sale, or at second-hand-discounts they provide the best return on investment you will ever find.

*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 valuable life lesson you can learn from chewing gum.

When I was a kid, I liked chewing gum. I found the whole process fascinating. And when I say the whole process, I mean the whole process. I discovered that human effort can transform gum. And through the same process, we can learn to transform ourselves. Which is getting pretty deep for a story about chewing gum. But let’s go with it and see what we land.

Chew, Chew!

Gum starts as a solid form. It’s typically a stick or a small blocky nugget of some sort. Although it could be shaped like tape or rope. It could be a primary-colored ball. (I always call gumballs Bryant or Greg.) Or your gum may be shredded like cheese if you are into Big League Chew. And I am into Big League Chew.

As you begin to chew, your gum changes form under your direction. It softens as you mash it and mold it with your molars.

During the chewing process, gum releases its embedded flavor into your mouth. Gumtastic flavors include mint, peppermint, spearmint, experiment, wintergreen, cinnamon, grape, orange, watermelon, sour apple, lemon, strawberry, blueberry and the elusive juicy fruit, the Sasquatch of fruit.

Despite the wide range of interesting flavors that are used to create and market gum, shortly after you start chewing, the flavor disappears. And when it does, the most enjoyable part of the experience is over. Boo.

Then, not long after that, the gum begins to harden. Double Boo.

At this point, the fun part of chewing gum is over for most people. In fact, most people spit their gum out somewhere between the flavor dissipation and the great hardening.

But my favorite part of chewing gum comes after most people quit it, spit it and forget it.

At that point, most people feel they have extracted all the value they could get from gum. Other than maybe sticking the hard, flavorless wad to the underside of a desk or a railing for Buddy Elf.

Most people have no idea what happens after chewing gum loses flavor and hardens.

But I know.

Because when I was a kid, I loved to keep mashing away after the thrill was gone for most kids. I felt like the gum became an opponent to beat. I felt the gum was challenging me to a showdown on the playground at high noon. And the formerly fruity gum thought it was tougher than me.

But I wouldn’t wave the white flag.

I kept chewing and chomping. Like a cow chewing cud. Or Hubba Bubba. Or Bazooka.

Then, an interesting thing happened.

The gum gave up.

The wad of gum that became so tough to chew threw in its tiny little gum towel. It softened again. And then it fell apart. It lost all shape. It lost its will to gum. It stopped resisting. And it literally liquefied.

The formerly proud gum became a runny puddle of nothingness. No flavor. No form. No function. In fact, you could no longer even hold it in your mouth. If you didn’t spit the puddle out it would leak out of your face.

I loved getting to that point. It always made me feel like I had won. I felt like I took on a difficult challenge and completed it. I felt like I took on a difficult opponent, and I beat it. Like Michael Jackson.

The Lesson

Gum chewing taught me I could do hard things. That I could push through the unrewarding muddy middle of a long process. And that if I just kept going, even when it wasn’t fun. I would win.

I have applied the gum-chewing lesson countless times throughout my life. I found the approach useful as a track and field athlete when the work felt hard and the rewards felt small. It was helpful as an entrepreneur when I started The Weaponry and found that you just have to keep chewing no matter what. The lesson served me well when I wrote What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? and the work seemed long and the finish line was nowhere in sight. And as I faced the hard and unrewarding parts of parenthood, employment and yard maintenance I reminded myself that the key to getting through tough times and past challenging obstacles it to just keep chewing.

Key Takeaway


Success and accomplishment is like chewing gum. Everyone enjoys the beginning. It’s full of flavor and quick rewards. But when those immediate rewards disappear, it’s easy to quit. You lose interest and motivation. And when things get hard, it’s easy to get soft. But if you just keep going, keep doing and chewing, you will win. You will get the ultimate reward of knowing that you are tougher than the things you face. It’s an incredibly valuable lesson to learn from a stick of Big Red or Juicy Fruit. It’s a lesson that is more valuable than the fun, the flavor or the freshening the gum provides. But you only learn that lesson by sticking around when things get hard, and chewing to the very end.

*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.

What’s far more important than your physical age.

Are you worried about your age? Are you concerned that you are too old for the types of opportunities that now interest you most? Do you feel that you are too old to learn the new thing that is transforming your industry? Do you feel like you are too old for the dream you have been dreaming your whole life? Do you think you are too old to cut the mustard and not realize that mustard no longer needs to be cut?

Or do you think you are too young? That you don’t know enough and that you are not ready for the opportunities that are at your doorstep? Do you feel too young for the next level of responsibility? Do you find yourself singing, I don’t wanta grow up. I’m a Toys R Us kid?

I am currently reading Curtis Jackson’s book Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. You may know Curtis better by his monetary name, 50 Cent. Fifty talks about how some people have a difficult time transitioning as times change. Then he dropped these 2 cents (which may mean he is now 48 Cents):

“Age isn’t about what year you were born in. It is about how you approach the year you are in right now. “

-Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson

This is a good reminder to face today as if you belong. As if the changes, advances and technologies are coming for your benefit. Not to leave you behind, like Nicolas Cage and Lea Thompson.

Approach this year and every year with a growth mindset. As a learner. As a Curious George, ready to get into new trouble. Or as a Sponge Bob, ready to soak up new ideas and new possibilities, instead of simply becoming a Krabby Patty.

Key Takeaway

Your mindset should be an asset, not a liability. Approach each year with a youthful spirit and you will learn, grow, explore, and take advantage of all the new opportunities available. Recognize the new roles and opportunities afforded to you. Don’t get stuck in the good old days mindset. There are great things in every day. You simply need to adapt to take advantage of them.

*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.

What happens if your presidential candidate doesn’t win?

Today is the big day! Election Day 2024. Today, one way or the other, the political ads will be over, and we can finally get back to more important commercials about beer, incontinence, and the fancy new weight loss drugs.

If you pay attention to the political ads and news coverage you may believe that the outcome of the election will mark the end of days if it doesn’t go your way. The messages from the candidates’ campaigns are ominous. They all paint a stark win or lose, do or die, fail or thrive future. It is as if our very existence rests on the outcome of this election.

But none of that is true. Whatever happens, we will be fine. We can and will survive anything that comes our way. We have endured the Civil War, The Great Depression, and the Disco era. We have faced the oil crisis, the mortgage crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and the toilet paper crisis. They all did their best to sink us. But America is the Molly Brown of countries.

I have voted in every presidential election since I turned 18. I carefully studied the candidates and how their beliefs aligned with mine. I looked at how their policies would impact my personal freedoms and finances. I considered how they would act to help others in my community and country. I evaluated how the candidates would affect our relationships with other countries and world peace. Then I carefully voted for what I believed to be the best candidate. Just like a good American should.

However, the candidate I voted for has only won half of the elections. Which means that, in theory, the person who wanted the opposite of what I wanted won the other half of the contests. Yet, ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life has gone on.

It is easy to get caught up in the hype and extremism of a political election and think that there are clear winning and losing scenarios for the masses. But history would indicate otherwise. You will naturally lose roughly half the elections you vote in. And when you lose, America will still be full of moms, baseball and apple pie. And you can still share all of those things on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. Plus, you will still get to vote again in 4 years. And the pendulum always swings. Like Benny Goodman. And the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

So today as the last of us vote, and tonight as you watch the results come rolling in, remember, it will all be okay. There is more than one way to lead our country. There are pros and cons to each style, and each belief system. It’s why roughly half the country agrees with your thinking and half the country doesn’t understand you.

I respect that political positioning forces the campaigns to market the candidates ideas and ideals as diametrically opposed. But at the end of the day, both sides want to continue developing a great America. They just have different ways of going about it. Which means they are focused on pulling different levers, and pushing different buttons on the Wonkivator to get the machine to perform at its best.

America is a great country. Because it was founded by rebellious people who believed there was a better way of countrying. And America has attracted great and rebellious people ever since (think David Bowie and Billy Idol) who have continued to bring new and better ways of countrying.

Sure, we have unsolved problems. And we always will. Because life is one long problem solving adventure. We will continue to work towards better approaches to equality, security, safety, prosperity, health and peace. We just have different beliefs in how it is done. Neither approach is 100% right. And neither approach is 100% wrong. There ain’t no good guy. There ain’t no bad guy. There’s only Americans, and we just disagree. But that’s ultimately what makes the system work.

Key Takeaway

Things are going to be okay. There will be a lot of drama beginning tonight. It may last for months. But we will all be okay. Both candidates approaches generally work. We will continue to improve our country, our security and our economy no matter who is in the White House. Because ultimately, it all comes down to what we the people do.

*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.

It’s amazing what you can discover when you start asking a stranger questions.

On Thursday afternoon, I was on a plane. I was flying from Detroit Rock City to Columbus. My seatmate was a friendly woman. And like that scene from Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler, we began to speak. (Although, unlike in The Gambler, no one bummed a cigarette, drank down my last swallow, or croaked.)

My goal with the conversation was to see how quickly we could go from perfect strangers like Larry Appleton and Balki Bartokomous to pals, like Forrest and Bubba.

When I meet someone new I am always Curious George’n to know who or what we have in common. So, I broke out my set of proven questions designed to discover where our Venn diagrams overlapped. The only question was how many questions it would take to get to the Tootsie Roll Center.

The conversation went like this:

Me: What’s your name? Answer: Emily. (So we did not have a name in common.)

Me: Where do you live? Emily: Granville, Ohio.

Me: Where did you grow up? Emily: Centerville, Ohio

Me What did you do after Centerville? Emily: I went to college at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Me: Cool! I had two sisters who went to OWU! They were there between 1994 and 2000.

Emily: Interesting! I was there during that time…

Me: My sisters were both on the track and field team at OWU.

Emily: I had a friend who was on the track and field team at OWU. Her name was Donielle Albrecht.

Me: Donielle Albrecht is my baby sister.

Emily: I lived with Donielle in Paris!!!

Me: OMG!

Emily In Paris (Which is how I locked her name in my memory bank): I have traveled all over the country with Donielle! And I know your sister Alison too!

Emily in Paris is also known as Emily Hughes Smith. She’s a Realtor with Remax in Columbus. But she also worked in advertising for several years. We knew many people and agencies in common. And we both have sons who are juniors in high school. Which made for a fun and interesting conversation on our relatively short hop across the contentious Michigan-Ohio border.

However, I am disappointed that during our blitz-Venning session we didn’t discover another important connection. This morning, as I visited LinkedIn and Facebook to prep for this Emily In Paris’ story, I discovered that I know Emily’s husband! Kirk Richard Smith is a Creative Director and great photographer. We have known each other for years.

Key Takeaway

Get to know the people around you. Discover your commonalities. Connect over your shared people, places and interests. It is one of my favorite things to do. Because it quickly turns strangers into friends. It grows and strengthens your friend network. It reveals that there is always a little bit of magic around us. We just need to look for it. And that’s an ace that you can keep.

*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.

Do you do what you tell yourself you will do?

One of the best things you can do in life is keep your commitments to yourself.

There is no better way to build trust.

There is no better way to build confidence.

There is no better way to build personal momentum.

There is probably no better way to build a skyscraper. (But I have never done that so I’m not really qualified to say.)

Keep Your Commitments

Wake up when you say you will wake up.

Exercise when you say you will exercise.

Show up when you say you will show up. (Especially if you are a pilot, a superhero, or my cable guy.)

And don’t eat what you tell yourself you won’t eat. Even when that thing is a donut sprinkled with bacon and filled with Chick-fil-A nuggets and candy.

Resolve

Resolutions are a great idea.

The bad idea is not doing what you tell yourself you would do.

Which means that the best resolution you can make is to simply keep your commitments.

Getting Started

Start by committing to less.

Do everything you tell yourself you will do.

Because when you do that you will soon realize that you can do anything.

& 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.

There are no guarantees that your great idea will work every time.

Every day there are new songs, books, and blog posts. (Like the new blog post you are reading right now.)

There are new businesses, restaurants, shops, clubs and bars. Including shops where you buy clubs and bars.

There are new clothes, accessories and decoration.

And there are enough new social posts to fill a whole new social sphere every single day.

So why all the newness, Huey Lewis?

Because people have great new ideas worth betting on all the time.

However, you never know which good new ideas will wallop and which ones will whimper.

Sometimes your favorites will fail like New Coke and Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad. And sometimes your maybes will make a mighty roar. Like cat videos.

Learn from both.

And just keep swinging.*

The only real failure is to stop sharing your new ideas.

*Don’t actually be a swinger.

If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them. Especially if you know Kendall Jenner or anyone thinking about swinging.

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

8 Ways to reload your spring every day.

A good day is full of actions. Some physical. Some mental. Some social. But the progress you make each day is a result of the actions you take. But one good day is not enough. To live a good, good life you need to create good day after good day, mate.

However, a day full of action depletes your resources. That’s why it is important to reload your spring. (#snickering) Whether you are focused on your career, caring for your family, or training for competition, it’s important to come back day after day with great energy and effort.

To create a long chain of great days of action and progress you have to reload your spring.

8 Ways To Reload Your Spring

1. Sleep: A great night of sleep is the best thing you can do to reload. After a long day of activity, your spring is fully uncoiled. Your energy is expended. Like The Giving Tree, you have nothing left to give. No leaves. No branches. No apples. But overnight something magical happens. A full night of sleep reloads and resets your spring. It makes you ready to uncoil on another day of important actions, Jackson.

2. Eating: All that work you are doing burns calories. When you feel like a hangry, hangry hippo, it’s a sign that your spring is fully uncoiled. When you eat you are putting calories back in your system. You are refueling. As you reload energy into your system with great nutrition you are resetting your spring. Also, make sure to hydrate.

3. Hydrate: Make sure you are drinking plenty of water. Humans are basically walking bags of water. So rehydrate early and often to keep your spring at full hydraulic power. Start your day with a tall drink of water to make sure you hit the day fully recoiled.

4. Exercise When you exercise you are creating a better spring. You are putting more power into it. You are enabling it to uncoil over a longer period without losing strength. Plus, it makes you look more springy.

5. Socializing: If you have extroverted tendencies, you reload by spending time with others. For extroverts, socializing is like Gatorade. (But instead of replacing your electrolytes, it replaces your socialytes.) Make sure to add social activities to your calendar to regain what you have lost.

6. Solitude: If you have introverted tendencies, you reload in your quiet time alone. Don’t neglect this time. It will help you reset and prepare for another day among the Yappers.

7. Reading: Reading reloads your spring through education, inspiration and motivation. (Basically all the ations.) Learning new things helps you find new and better approaches to add to your weaponry. Reading exposes you to people who have done great things and inspires you to do more. Plus, reading provides motivation and reminds you of the reasons you are taking all those actions.

8. Faith: Faith isn’t just for George Michael and Tim McGraw. Tapping into and practicing your faith has the power to reload like nothing else can. Don’t miss out on its power to re-energize your system and bolster your resilience day after day.

Key Takeaway

Success is a result of putting your all into each day and then reloading. The better you are at reloading your spring daily the easier it is to sustain progress and deliver results. Whether you are the CEO of the world’s biggest company or the head of your household, make sure to reload your spring. It’s the key to bringing your best to each day.

*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.