A couple of weeks ago, I saw the band Bombargo. They were playing a free concert in a park 2 miles from my house. The band is a bundle of energy and entertainment from the off-off Broadway, town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Which is also one of the cartooniest place names ever invented. The band was on their Disco Surf Rodeo Tour, because any one of those things on its own is just not enough.
For a flavor of their fun music, check out Let It Grow or Oxygen. (Songs I assume were inspired by The Lorax.)
An hour into their set, the band told an interesting story as they introduced one of their signature songs.
During the winter months, Saskatoon is often among the coldest places on the planet. And during one of those cold spells, the lead singer stopped by his brother-bandmate’s igloo home. His brother-bandmate was playing a new song idea on the piano. The lead singer really liked what he was playing and decided that they should write a song to it.
So they wrote the full song that day.
The next day, they recorded the song, shot a video for it, and shared it online.
Then something swiftdiculous happened. Taylor Swift, the most influential musician on the planet, heard the song, loved it, and added it to her Spotify playlist.
The song immediately blew up thanks to Swift’s endorsement.
The band shared that it was rare for them to work so fast and not tweak a song to death. But it was exactly this speed of creating and sharing that led to the success of the song Mr. No Good.
Reminder
Each of the ideas you bring to life is like a lottery ticket. It has the potential to pay off in a big way. So create it, share it and move on. Don’t analyze it to death. Great work doesn’t have to take a long time. Focus on creating work that you love. If you love it, there is a great chance that others will love it too.
Key Takeaway
Create things you love and share them quickly. It’s the key to being a successful artist, innovator, or entrepreneur. The world benefits from your ideas. And your ideas benefit from real-world exposure. Successful ideas are a percentage game. The more ideas you bring to life, the more likely you are to produce hits. And when you love your creations, there is a great chance others will too. So don’t die with your song in your head, your art in your heart or your startup in your soul.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Last week, I talked to my friend Ashley Skubon about her fun wine-focused business in Austin, Texas, called Snooti. Ashley and I worked together at Engauge. The first time I met Ashley, she said, ‘My name is Ashley, by the way.’ So naturally, I asked her if she was related to any other Bytheways.
I had seen through social media that Ashley and The Snooties had introduced some exciting new offerings recently, and I wanted to get the scoop.
During our conversation, she said something that has stayed with me.
As she told me the story about the big idea she recently launched, she shared that she felt that she had been playing small ball.
Which is a way of saying that she hadn’t been thinking big enough.
In baseball or softball terms, small ball is a careful approach that focuses on small opportunities for singles, walks, bunts and stolen bases. But when you play small ball, you are not swinging for the fences. You are not hitting home runs or grand slams. And AC/DC won’t sing songs about you.
The small ball mindset can keep you in the game. But it will also prevent you from recognizing when a home run opportunity is perfectly teed up for you.
Remember, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are American legends for their home run hitting prowess. While Brett Butler, the all-time leader in bunt hits, is the baseball player most likely to be confused with a character from Gone With the Wind. Or Grace Under Fire.
It is easy to buy into the safety of small-ball thinking. It keeps the lights on. It allows you to live to fight another day. But it doesn’t change the world. It won’t change your fortunes, your career or your tax bracket.
Key Takeaway
If you find you are playing small ball in life, in your career, as an entrepreneur, leader, innovator or artist, it’s time to carve out time to think bigger. Consider the smash hit opportunities right in front of you. See the benefits of your big swings. They can change your trajectory and your life in an instant.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
This year, I have had a tall flapjack stack of fun and interesting experiences outside of work.
I traveled to Nashville in May to visit colleges and enjoy some live music at the Grand Ole Opry. (Although I still have no idea what an opry is.)
I spent our family’s spring break in Arizona, splitting time between Scottsdale and Sedona. (I didn’t have time for standing on the corner in Winslow.)
I completed a circle tour of Lake Michigan, seeing many things that are not that far away by the way the crow flys or the salmon swims, but quite far away by the way the car drives.
I coached 2 great athletes at the Wisconsin State High School Track Championship on the other side of the state in La Crosse.
I attended a family reunion in southern Minnesota, in my mom’s hometown of Elkton, with a whole flock of reuning relatives.
How To Profit From Your Experiences
My goal, when I experience such things, is to come back different.
I don’t want these to be inert experiences.
You want the special experiences of your life to have impact.
You want them to expand your view of the world.
You want them to create new or deeper relationships.
You want new learning.
You want new ideas.
You want to grow through each one of your novel experiences and be better as a result. (Your novel experiences don’t have to include a novel.)
You want to be a different and more capable version of yourself after the experience than you were before. (And you want to maintain all of your limbs and phalanges.)
When you aim to grow, expand and improve through your experiences, you will always find your path to accomplish your aim.
You will spot things you have never seen before.
You will recognize the learning, the lessons and the insights when they arrive.
You will grab the opportunity to meet new people you encounter. And you will find that each new person you meet will change you in some way. Sometimes these changes are large and profound. Other times, they are small and seemingly insignificant. But if you genuinely try to get to know people in a greater way, you will walk away a greater person.
Key Takeaway
Throughout your human experience, always look for ways to grow. Collect and connect dots. Add new humans to your world. Expand your circle of friends. Upgrade your world view. Come back from your experiences and adventures smarter, wiser and more informed. It helps generate excitement and curiosity every time you leave home. And it brings you back better, wiser and more creative than you were when you left.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Two weeks ago, my daughter Ava and I traveled an hour and a half to attend a Wisconsin high school sectional track meet in Neenah, Wisconsin. (Which is near Pinta and Santa Maria, Wisconsin.)
The meet was the last stop before the state championship meet. I coach 2 athletes who were competing that day in the shot put and discus. Both throwers, Terron ‘And On’ McCall and Luka ‘Ivanarock’ Ivancevic, finished in the top 3 of both events and qualified for the state meet last weekend in La Crosse. Which makes this story a prequel to the post I shared earlier this week about the state meet.
However, just before the shot put was set to start, after all of the throwers were fully warmed, hyped and ready to rock, a thunderstorm rolled in, like a Garth Brooks song, and forced a 1.5-hour delay in the competition. Boo.
This was double boo for me, because I had to leave the meet at 6pm, no matter where we were in the competition. It was my son Johann’s 18th birthday. And we had a family dinner celebration back in Milwaukee.
Terron and Luka, after taking 1st and 2nd in the shot put and second and third in the discus. They qualified for the state meet in both events. Fun Fact: behind Luka’s head, you can see part of the sign for Neenah’s school mascot: The Hot Pockets. Their school song is simply the Hot Pockets jingle.
When it was clear that I would miss the boys’ shot put competition, my daughter Ava and I left the shelter of the shiny new Neenah High School and headed for the parking lot to jump in our Expedition and hurry home from our northern expedition.
However, between the school and the parking lot, I spotted two familiar faces. One belonged to my college track teammate Scott Hammer. Hammer coaches at West Bend West High School, which is in our conference. So I see him regularly throughout the spring. His son Carson is a great 800-meter runner and qualified for the state meet in the 4 X 800-meter relay.
The other familiar face belonged to Josh White, another college track teammate, and one of my roommates for 3 years of college.
My University of Wisconsin track & field teammates Scott ‘Hammer’ Hammer and Josh ‘Slosh’ White. (In college, everyone had a nickname. Hammer’s was pretty obvious.)
It had been a few years since Josh and I had seen each other. Following huge smiles and hugs we quickly caught up. We said funny things to make each other laugh. We have a lot of funny history. I shared that Ava would be living just a block from our old off-campus house in Madison next year.
We then told Ava a story about the night we threw our first college house party, and how the cops showed up at our door at 4am, telling us there had been noise complaints.
But the noise complaints were not related to the party, which was long over, and very underagey. The loud noise was my roommates and I singing loudly, and repeatedly as we tried to leave the perfect answering machine message on our house answering machine. It’s fun to be around someone with whom you have so much shared history. It’s also fun to spend time with someone who remembers answering machines.
But of course, our time was short. Ava and I had a birthday dinner to get to. As we said our goodbyes, Josh said, ‘It was so good to see you. Even just 5 minutes together was awesome.’
We had to hurry back to Milwaukee for dinner and fun with Johann, the newest adult Albrecht!
As we pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the car south on I-41 towards Brew City, I kept thinking about what Josh said. ‘Even just 5 minutes together was awesome.’
He was right. And I am so thankful he said it. I asked Ava if she remembered what Josh had said before we left. She remembered it word for word, just as I had. We both reflected on the power of that statement.
Reminder
You don’t need a lot of time to catch up. You don’t need a lot of time to have a positive impact on someone. Or to make progress on a challenge, or to make something important happen. 5 minutes well spent can create magic.
In 5 minutes you can:
Catch up with an old friend
Make a new friend
Have a career-altering interaction
Make Minute Rice
Discover the key to unlocking a problem
Connect important dots
Make a big decision
Learn an important lesson
Have an aha moment (And write Take On Me.)
Start a flywheel spinning
Have a breakthrough
Say your are sorry
Tell someone you miss them
Ask for that thing you really want and get it.
Do that simple thing you have been putting off for too long
It only takes 5 minutes to do something that has a major impact on your life, career, or the lives of others. Meaningful reconnections, introductions, breakthroughs, discoveries and actions can happen in a flash. Never underestimate the power of these short blocks of time. Life and success are not built on hour-long blocks. They are built in meaningful moments. Take advantage of those small opportunities, and they can positively impact the rest of your life in big ways.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Good ideas are everywhere. Like oxygen and excuses. That’s because people have good ideas all the time, and they are happy to share them with you. In fact, a good idea is the thing people are quickest to share. Because people don’t want to keep good ideas to themselves. It is only through sharing your good ideas that your ideas get validated, like parking. It is only through sharing a good idea that you are given credit for being smart, creative or insightful. Or for being good at evading the law.
Are You Gonna Come My Way?
People share their good ideas with me all the time. Some share because I am an entrepreneur. And entrepreneurs are known for bringing good ideas to life, like General Electric. People share with us either because they want advice on how to bring their idea to life, or because they are hoping that we will bring their idea to life because they don’t have the time, money or energy to do it themselves. Which is kind of like giving your idea up for adoption, because you know you are not fit to raise the idea on your own. Yet you don’t want to terminate your idea either. #ProIdea vs #MyIdeaMyChoice
Another reason people share their good ideas with me is because I am a professional creative thinker. I lead the advertising and ideas agency The Weaponry. So when you think of a great idea, you naturally want to share it with someone who will recognize it and appreciate you for coming up with it. People also know that I will have ideas on what they should do next. Kinda like the owl that those kids asked how many licks it took to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop. (Drop the answer in the comments if you know.)
The third and perhaps most important reason people share good ideas with me is because I am looking for them. It’s the law of attraction. They come my way because I am coming their way. And we meet in the middle, like Parker McCollum and Maren Morris.
Why You Should Harvest Good Ideas.
Ideas create opportunities. They make things easier. They make things more enjoyable. They create more Wow in your world. And they offer more ways to make money than The Mint. (Actually, The Mint only makes money the coiny way and the bulliony way.)
But good ideas also offer clues, instructions, blueprints or templates on how to create more good ideas. Because the same insight, combination, application or exploration that led to one good idea can help create more. You can always reverse engineer a good idea, and once you discover the process, you can apply it to create countless others. Which means that when you collect good ideas you are also collecting keys to unlock more good ideas.
Key Takeaway
To live a successful, creative and interesting life, become an idea harvester. Look for them. Go where they grow. Spend time with idea creators. And move through the world like a combine moves through a field of corn, wheat, soybeans, or AI-generated light bulb plants. Pick all the ideas you can. Collect them. Polish them. Combine them in new and novel ways. And they will create more value than anything else can.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
I have never liked brainstorming. Ok, that is not entirely true. At first, I loved brainstorming. You know, the classic meeting that sounds like barnstorming, but without the barns, biplanes and scarves. In brainstorming sessions, a group gathers in a conference room with markers and candy to generate a collective storm of creative ideas that come from the brain.
In the very beginning of my career, I loved these meetings because I was good at them. Brainstorming sessions allowed me to show off just how stormy my brain was. I would blast the room with my ideas. I would build on the ideas that others stormed. I felt like I was in my element. Like a hottie in a swimsuit contest in Panama City on Spring Break.
But then I started realizing what was really happening in those brainstorming sessions.
A small number of people shared a large number of ideas.
A large number of people shared a small number of ideas.
Too many people weren’t sharing any ideas. They were just eating the candy.
Boo.
The key to valuable ideation is volume and variance. You need to generate a lot of ideas. Because great ideas are a percentage of total ideas generated. You also need variance because you want different types and styles of ideas to compare and contrast with each other to weigh the relative benefits of each approach. If your volume is low, or your variance is low, your options are low. And your creative possibilities are limited.
Social dynamics also degrade the potential power of brainstorming sessions. The loudest and most influential people tend to Boss Hogg the air time. They create a hierarchy that prevents others from wanting to share ideas or stick their neck out with contrarian ideas. Which is what brainstorming sessions must have to provide maximum value.
Once I recognized how inefficient these group thinking sessions were I became a born-again non-brainstormer. And I have never liked them since.
A Better Solution
The best way to create the most ideas is to have people think on their own and write down as many ideas as possible. By ideating independently, each person maximizes their thinking time, which leads to more ideas, and a greater range of exploration. An hour spent with 10 people generating ideas independently means everyone has 1 hour of air time. That’s 10 hours of idea generation. Which beats 10 people together sharing 1 hour of air time every time. (See the talk show The View for proof.)
For maximum effectiveness, the ideas should be collected and shared anonymously, so they are evaluated without biases towards their creators. Once all of the ideas are available it is valuable to gather, evaluate, discuss and build on the ideas as a team. And you can still serve candy and sniff markers.
At The Weaponry, the advertising and ideas agency I lead, we’ve created something we call Seed Sessions. In these sessions, we share a broad range of pre-generated ideas that we call seeds. Each seed is shared as a slide with 3 elements.
The name of the idea
A short paragraph summarizing the essence of the idea
A visual representing the idea
In a Seed Session, we may sow anywhere from 20 to 40 seeds. We discuss the ideas and build on the favorites. Everyone in the room has the opportunity to feed and water them. We shine sun on the favorites. And by the end of the session, the seeds have grown into vibrant plants full of potential.
The Seed Session process offers a great way to maximize idea generation and utilize the collective intelligence of the group to identify and build on the best ideas. Which is exactly what brainstorming sessions are intended to do. *Unless brainstorming sessions were actually created by candy companies to sell more candy to adults.Which is a pretty sweet idea.
Key Takeaway
Great ideas create competitive advantages for organizations. To generate the best ideas you should maximize both the volume and variance of your ideas. This is best done through individual ideation, which maximizes thinking time and minimizes social inhibitors and biases. Share the generated ideas and build on them together. It’s the greatest way to harness the collective brain power of your team.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
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.
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.
Adam Albrecht Blog 