Last week when I was at my local gym my friend Spencer Koenig approached me while I was on the elliptical machine. (Not the ellipsis machine…) He handed me his phone. It displayed a photo of a profound thought he had written on a hotel room notepad.
Spencer smiled at me and shared, ‘In 2017, you wrote a blog post about how you should always use the notepad in your hotel room to write down your ideas. And I always think of that when I stay at hotels.’
I loved that!
I stay in a lot of hotel rooms each year. I have Titanium Elite status with Marriott. Apparently, that’s better than silver, gold and platinum, because they make body parts out of titanium. So I have body-part-worthy-metal status for my hotel room stays.
The Lesson
The most important thing I have learned from all that staying is that you should capture your ideas on the hotel notepads. By doing so, you turn the notepads into the most valuable object in the room.
The following is the post I first shared in 2017. It is all written on the notepad from the hotel room I stayed at when visiting family in Austin, Minnesota.
Note: The Holiday Inn is a sweet hotel in Austin. And the Perkins next door is my go-to breakfast spot. I always order The Tremendous 12.
A great business is simply a collection of great people running a great process. But what makes people great, and thus collectible, is certainly a topic of debate. I am sure you have your own trait that you think makes you a valuable addition to a team. You advertise this special trait in job interviews. You are organized. Or ENERGETIC! Or cReAtIve. Or not easily bored…
Throughout my career, I have spent a lot of time interviewing job candidates. And there’s one trait I have heard people brag about more than all others. I couldn’t possibly count how many times I’ve heard people proudly state, ‘I am a perfectionist.’ This proclamation makes me want to throw up. Because if you are looking for creative thinkers and problem solvers, perfection works against you.
That’s why I proudly consider myself an Imperfectionist. So what does that mean? It means I value progress in any form. I am quite comfortable dreaming up and then sharing half-baked ideas. Or writing a first draft and passing it around for a reaction. Why? Because unbaked and half-baked ideas are available faster than fully-baked ideas. And typically, a team simply needs a ‘for-instance’ to get moving in the right direction.
I enjoy sharing ideas that are still in a moldable state. (But not a moldy state.) Sharing wet-clay ideas enables others to help form, modify and improve them before they’re finished. As an Imperfectionist, I embrace the process of creating, testing, learning and improving.
Today, speed is king. In the advertising agency business, we need to act quickly to help our clients take advantage of short-lived opportunities and thwart threats. This puts a premium on quick thinking. It’s why I like swift action as much as Travis Kelce does.
We no longer live in an era that rewards you for sitting alone in your office, with your Swingline, making sure your ideas are bulletproof before you share them.
Now don’t get me wrong. Once our team has determined a direction and we move into the execution phase, every detail matters. (Because you hate to get an execution wrong…) I will question the kerning, analyze the delivery of a line, and poke at a transition in an edit until I’m convinced we have it right. There is a time and place for this type of scrutiny. And it’s at the end of the process.
Being an Imperfectionist is what enabled me to launch The Weaponry. It is what allowed me to start this blog. It was the key to writing my first book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? And it is the great enabler behind all of my creative and business projects yet to come.
Key Takeaway
Be an Imperfectionist. Explore more. Fail fast. And improve faster. Share what you think are good ideas earlier in the process so that others can contribute their good ideas too. Imperfectionism is the difference between doing and dreaming. Action and inaction. It is the key to entrepreneurial thinking. And it has the power to change the world.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
I have spent my entire career as a professional creative. I started my career in advertising as a junior copywriter and worked my way up to Chief Creative Officer. Then I Rumpelstiltskined an advertising and idea agency called The Weaponry out of paper clips, bubble gum, and Real Red by Benjamin Moore.
Away from work, I do more creating. I have written 954 blog posts at The Adam Albrecht Blog. I wrote another hundred posts at a humor blog titled You Call That Work? I’ve authored a book titled What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? I co-authored a book called The Culture Turnaround. I’ve co-created a comic strip called Kirky. And I have written and recorded several songs. One song I wrote when I was 16 was the first dance at my co-writers wedding reception. Think Always and Forever by Kip Dynamite.
I know a lot about creativity and the creative process. And I have found that most people wait for inspirational lightning to strike before they create. But Baby, I, I, I can’t wait.
What I Do Instead
I hunt the lightning every day. I put up lightning rods. I tie keys to my kite and fly it to the clouds. I erect an aluminum extension ladder to the heavens. I lasso the lightning and ride it. Like Metallica.
Clockwork Inspiration 
What that really means is that I sit down to write every morning by 6:10 am. And when I sit down to work, the inspiration comes. Every day. Without fail.
Because I have created a creative habit, the universe knows it has to deliver the electricity to my desk. Just like nature’s paperboy throwing the morning edition on the porch. (Or like Paperboy throwing Ditty my way in 1993.) And like clockwork, the electricity starts flowing my way.
I go through each day attracting bolts of inspiration the way mobile home parks attract tornadoes. My mind is always tuned for inspiration. Whatever the universe is serving, I can use. My eyes and ears are always open and taking in sparks, flickers and bolts. And because I’m always receptive, I always receive. Like Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. Or OBJ.
To be creative you have to be actively curious. Which means you are actively consuming inputs. Looking. Listening. Reading. Considering. Every day I am collecting more dots. Because creativity is nothing more than collecting dots, and then connecting your dots in new and novel ways.
Key Takeaway
Don’t wait for inspiration to strike you. Go strike the inspiration. Force it to pay attention to you every day by simply sitting down and doing the work. That’s what professional creatives do. And the juice just keeps flowing.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Opportunities are the seeds of success. Just as the acorn becomes an oak, opportunities can transform into happiness, wealth, fulfillment, or success. And like little pigs, musketeers, and Charlie’s Angels, they come in 3 types:
The opportunities that find you.
The opportunities that you find.
The opportunities that you create.
The first kind falls in your lap. The second kind you catch. The third kind you make.
If you wait around for the first type, you may wait forever, like an airline customer service representative.
The second type you need to look for. And you better be ready to compete for it when you find it. Kind of like parade candy. Or the t-shirt shot out of a cannon at a sporting event that isn’t even your size.
The third type will have no competition. Because without you it doesn’t exist. Like your next business, book or baby. This includes connections, creations, innovations and organizations of all types. Basically anything with a tion in it. Because the suffix tion turns a verb into a noun. Just like opportunities empower you to make things with your actions.
Key Takeaway
Keep your eyes open to find opportunities. But more importantly, keep your mind open to create your own. Because those are the most valuable and available variety of all.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
I don’t have any tattoos. At least none that I know of. But I like to think about what I would get inked in my epidermis if I was into such things. This little exercise keeps me looking for significant words, images and icons with the potential to provide a powerful, positive and long-lasting impact on my life. Yet, because I only think about it, I save money on both the inking and the laser removal cost when I realize the tattoo artists I hired didn’t use spellcheck on their work.
If you asked me today what tattoo I would get, I have a quick answer. There are 3 words that I would have written under my eyelids so I could still see them when I am wearing a turtleneck or asleep.
The 3 Words:
Opportunities Never Cease
I love this phrase. It is the optimist’s motto. It is the pessimist’s hope. It is the entrepreneur’s crack. It is the start of every great story.
This phrase is a great reminder that you can change the trajectory of your life at any point. You can improve. You can reinvent. You can shed your skin. Heck, you can even shed your backyard. Or your aquarium.
There are always great new opportunities:
To create new things.
To develop new relationships and improve or repair old ones.
To learn, grow and transform.
To establish a great habit.
To create wealth and prosperity.
To improve your attitude and outlook.
Create your legacy.
To have a positive impact on others.
To make minds sparkle.
To take control of your health.
To apologize.
To randomly write the word fart just to make people laugh.
To salvage a bad day.
To take the first step.
To drop the weight you have carried. (Both literally and figuratively.)
To discover how much you are capable of.
To start your winning streak.
To do something new for the first time.
To discover a new favorite.
To forgive yourself.
To reprioritize.
Key Takeaway
Opportunities never cease. Discover the opportunities all around you. They are gateways to growth and happiness. And they are the blank pages for you to fill with the great stories and successes of your life.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Last week I was invited to Minneapolis to give the keynote address at Ungerman’s annual meeting. Ungerman is a Twin Cities-based restoration company that offers 24/7 emergency cleanup and repair. They are a great company to have on speed dial after a flood, fire, storm, or epic house party.
The company gathered to reflect on its successes from 2022 and plan for a great 2023. I spoke to the Ungermaniacs about one of my favorite topics: How to become your best self. I related lessons from my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? to the company’s core values. Everyone who attended got a copy of the book. I announced the giveaway like Oprah announcing that everyone gets a car. At least it sounded like that in my head. (And you get a book! And you get a book!)
Ungerman Top Dawgs, Kirsten Meehan, Ron Ungerman Jr., and Lindsey Uselding. Sisters Kirsten and Lindsey are stars of the upcoming HGTV show Renovation 911! (Not to be confused with Reno 911)
After my talk, there was a Q&AA portion of the program. (Questions and Adam Albrecht.) Heather Jurek, the head of Human Resources, shared that the team at Ungerman focuses on strengths and opportunities/growth areas. She asked me to share what I thought my #1 strength was.
While I shared an answer with Ungerman, I’ve thought a lot about Heather’s questions since the talk. (Those sneaky HR leaders know how to get you thinking about yourself!)
However, I have reframed the question to elicit an even more valuable answer. The question I find most interesting is:
‘What strengths of yours earn you money?‘
I began searching for the answers by considering the ways that I earn money.
The 4 ways I earn money:
The Weaponry. The advertising and ideas agency I founded and lead.
With this backdrop, I analyzed why people choose to spend their money with me. The answers came quickly when viewed through this lens.
Creativity: I have spent my career in advertising as a professional creative. First as a writer, then as a Creative Director and Chief Creative Officer, before launching The Weaponry in 2016. Creativity is my craft. If I lost everything and had to start again with just my children and my wife (like Lee Greenwood sang about in God Bless The USA) my creativity is the strength I would lean on for my comeback. Because there is always a demand for creative thinking.
2. Strategic Thinking: This is my career strength 1A. It provides the valuable foundation for my creative thinking. My problem-solving and game-planning skills are critical differentiators. They are why I get so many calls from business leaders who want my help thinking through their challenges. Work on your problem-solving skills and strategic thinking every day. Study other successful people. You can learn a lot from their examples.
3. Energy/Enthusiasm My natural energy is my most visible strength. I love taking on whatever work needs to be done. I get invited into a lot of important rooms because my energy has a positive effect on those around me. It has had a major impact on sales and business development because people enjoy spending their time and money with people they know have the energy to make a valuable contribution to their business. My energy is also a significant reason I get hired for speaking events. Because as Maya Angelou said, ‘People will never forget how you made them feel.’ I encourage you to put more energy into your energy. It is both a highly valuable and highly renewable resource.
4. Trustworthiness: Those who have worked with me in the past keep coming back because they trust me. They trust that I will deliver. They trust that I can help them navigate their challenges, which can seem ethereal in advertising and marketing. My trustworthiness is the reason clients took a chance on The Weaponry when it was a startup with no website, no logo and no business cards. Trust me on this.
5. Relationships I am better than most people at developing and maintaining relationships because I value relationships more than most people. People like to work with people they like. (Or as the kids would say, People like, like to like work with people they like, like.) My relationships keep leading to new opportunities, new referrals and new relationships. All of which positively impact The Weaponry, my book sales, speaking opportunities, and my investments. Make sure you develop and maintain more and better relationships.
6. Risk Taking: My above-average risk tolerance is what led me to bet on myself and launch The Weaponry. It is what lead me to invest time, energy and money into books that had no guaranteed ROI. My risk tolerance also enables me to invest in businesses when they are in the toilet. Which has led to several of my greatest returns. Pairing risk tolerance with research and good strategic thinking is a powerful recipe for success. If I ever write a cookbook full of recipes for success, I will include this recipe as a hot dish. If you want more rewards, take more risks.
7. Storytelling On day one of my career I would not have guessed that my storytelling skills would have made me money. But storytelling has been an extremely valuable strength for me. And it is a strength everyone should work on. It creates value in job interviews, when developing relationships, when writing books and when delivering speeches. It is central to marketing and advertising. And it is the best way to convey the rest of your valuable strengths to the world.
Key Takeaway
You must first add value before you can extract value. Which makes it important to know which of your strengths provide the most value to others. Develop your rare and valuable skills. Become sought after for your strengths. It is the best way to have the greatest impact on the world. And making a significant impact pays off in more ways than one.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
+Thanks for inviting me to talk Heather, Lindsey and Kirsten. And special thanks to Nate Uselding for suggesting me to the Ungerman team!
I had several conversations this week with dreamers. They all had interesting ideas that they wanted to bring to life. Which led to our discussions about the next steps on their journey.
Through my countless conversations, with dreamers, it is clear that we do a poor job of teaching people how to bring their dreams to life. Which means that most people have an easier time creating a human than creating a blog. Which is crazy. Or it’s a sign that God wanted more babies than blog posts.
I have spent my entire career bringing ideas to life. First, as a professional advertising creative, then as a t-shirt creator. I ramped up the degree of difficulty when I created The Weaponry, a full-service advertising and ideas agency. Most recently I published the book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? Then I made 80 real fortune cookies, with my real fortunes inside them.
I know how to make dreams a reality. I follow a simple process. And I want to make sure you know it too. Here it is.
5 simple steps to convert your dreams into reality.
1. Dream: Think of the fun, interesting, and rewarding things you would like to create or do. Most people who come to me to talk about their next steps have gotten this far. I’m guessing you’ve gotten this far, or you probably wouldn’t have been interested in this article. Because headlines help us decide. That’s the power of advertising.
2. Write: Get the dream out of your head and write it down. This creates the first real manifestation of your idea in the real world. It makes it tangible and detailed. This physical form of the idea is like a blueprint or a recipe card. Once you have the dream written down you can bring it to life. The more detail the better. You would be shocked how few people come to this step on their own. Most dreams never make it to written form. Yet it is the easiest part of the process. Easy like Sunday morning.
3. Research Once you have your dream written down, do a little research to educate yourself on the topic, process, industry, or whatever you need to learn to get the train moving. Google is your friend. (If you’d don’t know what Google is just google it.) But the key is to do a little research. Don’t analyze things to death. Learn just enough to get moving. Then go. If you are researching more than a week before you take your first steps you are procrastinating.
4. Deadline Give yourself a deadline. Dreams without a deadline are pure fantasy. To get into the non-fiction section you have to constrain your plans with a due date. Or a Do-date. Or a Zippity-do-date. Set a date to take your first action. And set a date for completion. If you really want results, create an entire timeline. And block time on your calendar to take action, Jackson. Again, none of this is hard.
5. Action Get to the doing. Take the very first action. When you do, the next action will magically appear. Like Platform Nine and 3 Quarters. Then just keep taking steps. Always have a bias towards action. Bloggers Note: I once dreamed of writing a blog. By the end of this month, I will have written 800 blog posts. Because I just keep taking action.
Key Takeaway
Bringing your dreams to life is easier than you think. Follow the process. The steps are not hard on their own. Just keep taking steps and soon your dream will be your reality. If your progress stalls, revisit the process. Your problem will be solved by taking steps 2, 3, 4 or 5.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
If you want a better, more interesting and more fulfilling life take on more personal projects. If you don’t, a disproportionate amount of your life will be taken up with your must-dos, and not your want-to-dos.
Personal projects allow you to take on exciting new roles in miniature. Because they let you dip your toe into a new world on a small scale. (Unless you have really big toes.)
Your personal projects are experiments. They let you test and learn. They let you take action and observe reactions. They enable you to adjust the variables to get new and better outcomes. No Bunsen burner required.
Your personal projects are small investments you place on yourself. With a small investment of time, money or energy you can generate significant personal returns, Jedi.
Matt Mullenweg says that WordPress, the platform this blog post is created and published on, was started as a project. It was simply interesting and enjoyable for him to develop. He never thought of it as a business. But that small project is now the hostess with the mostesss, as it now hosts more websites than any other platform in the world. Which allows millions of people to create their own personal projects.
My Projects.
I love starting personal projects. Here are a few of mine:
I love to regularly print original t-shirt designs that interest me. That has evolved into a business called Adam & Sleeve, and a whole bunch of fun shirts I love to wear.
I started an illustrated cartoon series called Kirky. Because I always thought that would be fun. And it has been. Thanks to Dan Koel for teaming up with me on this.
I began writing a blog in 2015. This is my 726th post. But who’s counting? (The WordPress platform counts them automatically.Thanks, Matt Mullenweg!)
I began taking on freelance advertising projects early in my carer. That eventually lead to me starting my own Advertising and Idea Agency called The Weaponry.
A few years ago I volunteered to coach a middle school track program a couple of days a week. That evolved into becoming a high school assistant track coach at Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin. Which led to me coaching a handful of other Milwaukee-area discus throwers and shot putters on the side. Which means that my side projects have spawned side projects.
Since the beginning of my career, I have regularly volunteered to give talks to college and high school students and professional groups. I have gotten pretty good at sharing a good and compelling story. Now businesses, schools, clubs, conferences, tradeshows and other organizations across the United States have invited me to come share what I know. (And I am always up for more.)
I volunteered to organize my high school reunion last year. A few months later I was hanging out in Hanover, New Hampshire with fellow Marauders who I hadn’t seen in decades. Thanks to Covid, we all walked away with a new appreciation for our time together, and some fun new stories to share from our shared experience.
Key Takeaway
Take on more personal projects. They are highly rewarding investments of your time and energy. They are great experiments that let you test, learn and improve. They can add great joy. They can unlock new doors and offer you more control over your life and time. When you take on a personal project it has the potential to both add to your story and change the course of your life. All you have to do is get started.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
In 2005 I went to Iceland during the summer solstice to film a TV show. It was an incredible experience. On the flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik, I watched what should have been the sunset through my airplane window. But instead of setting, the sun bounced off the horizon and went back up. And I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
The sun never set the entire week I was in Iceland. It never got dark. And we never got tired. It was fun and energizing, like being in Vegas. Except the buffets were mostly fish, lamb, and rhubarb.
The atmosphere created a natural high. It was as if we were binging life through the nonstop outdoor activity. However, I couldn’t help but wonder what the counterbalance to this experience was.
I asked our producer Sven (of course his name was Sven) what people did during the winter in Iceland when it was cold and dark for long stretches. He told me that winter was wonderful because people spent a lot of time on their projects. On creativity, reading, art, and making things. And keeping each other warm (wink wink).
Now is a great time to get comfortable and create. But don’t think too much about the weird bird statue in the corner.
The End Of Daylight Savings
Today marks the end of daylight saving time in the United States. Which means it will now be dark by the end of the typical workday. Plus temperatures are dropping and in many parts of the country, snow could arrive any day now. That is unless global warming gives Mother Nature Alzheimers and she forgets.
The Indoor Season
Today we all transition to our indoor season. Which should be just as exciting and interesting as the warm and sunshiney months. Because now is the perfect time to start new projects, or resume those important projects you couldn’t carry while wearing flips flops and bikinis or board shorts.
Create
Now is the time to focus on creating businesses, writing books, reimagining your home, painting, and drawing. Now is the time for making music and playing instruments, even if you’ve never done it before. Because you can learn anything online.
The indoor season is the perfect time to plan your next vacation, your next adventures, or the next chapter of your life. Enjoy the time to think, and to do all the things that thinking inspires you to do.
Key Takeaway
Reframe the way you see the darker and colder part of the year as the exciting indoor season. Embrace and enjoy all of the additive elements it offers. Tap into your creativity and make new things. Think, read, write, and learn. Challenge yourself to make progress towards larger life goals that demand the type of focus the indoor season affords. And let the sunshine of spring find an even better, happier more fulfilled version of you.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Sunday night I returned home from my summer vacation. And my head is filled with inspiration I picked up along the way. I consider vacations to be critical to my creativity.
To feed your creativity you have to do, see, hear, feel and taste interesting things. Then you put all of those experiences and knowledge into your processor. Which enables you to create valuable new connections that lead to new ideas and inspirations.
Here are 23 sources of inspiration I collected over the last 9 days:
The power and wonder of Niagara Falls. (And the natural ability for trinket shops to capitalize on natural wonders.)
2. How simply setting a time and place for a reunion can draw people together from all over the country. (It’s easier to create these events than you think.)
3. The thrill of learning how to wake surf, and seeing your children learn too.
4. The beauty and artistry of handblown glass at Simon Pearce. (But thinking it should really be called mouthblown glass. Or maybe lungblown.)
5. Visiting my childhood home in Norwich, Vermont, and seeing both the change and the unchanged.
6. The magnetism and fun of the Ben & Jerry’s factory.
7. The way smoke from wildfires in Oregon can eventually alter the sunlight in New England.
8. The energy of Church Street in Burlington, Vermont. (Yet there is no Church’s Chicken.)
9. A fun hike on Mt. Philo and the panoramic view of the Green Mountains, Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. (You can tell the Green Mountains from the Adirondacks by looking at the chairs.)
10. How amazing cleaned wedding bands look when you take them back to their birthplace to be polished up. (Not like Polish Sausage.)
11. Seeing Global Rescue’s new office space. GR was The Weaponry’s first client. Dan Richards and his team are thriving!
12. Partaking in the summer tradition of rock jumping at waterfalls into deep pools of icy cold water. And how natural swimming spots are better than man-or-woman-made spots.
13. The joy of coordinating an impromptu meetup on the side of the road with my baby sister who I hadn’t seen in 2 years because of Covid. We realized the Venn Diagram of our travels overlapped for a brief moment in Concord, New Hampshire.
14. Walking the Freedom Trail in Boston and remembering the power of rebellion.
15. Witnessing the power of the Witch Hunt by visiting Salem, Massachusetts. (Then signing up for a witch-hunting safety course.)
16. The polish and panache of the shops and establishments on Newberry Street in Boston.
17. The serendipity of running into friends and family on the street when I saw my cousin Brooks Albrecht randomly on the sidewalk in Boston.
18. The draw of a winner at Gillette Stadium and Patriot Place in Foxborough, MASS. (Go Pats!)
19. The natural beauty of Newport, Rhode Island, and the wow of the Mansions on the Cliff Walk. (People do the walking, not the mansions.)
20. The vibrancy of Dublin, Ohio, where our family called home for 7 years. Dublin continues to innovate and transform itself. (I think they are trying to woo us back.)
21. My friend Troy Allen’s establishments (Pins Mechanical, 16-Bit Arcade and No Soliciting.) I followed these concepts from idea to execution. To see them packed with people is a testament to great ideas executed well.)
22. Showing my family The Weaponry’s Columbus office for the first time.
23. An appreciation for home after an extended time away.
Key Takeaway
Take your vacation time. It is critical to your creativity, mental health, energy and inspiration. See and do new things. Revisit old favorites. Stimulate your brain. spend time with friends and family. Make new friends. And profit from it all in your professional and personal life.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Adam Albrecht Blog 