Tag: Love

100 Things I Freaking Love!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the method of modern love. Because love is the most powerful, valuable and positive emotion in our treasure chest. I have had daily reminders of how short life really is. (And not just for Kevin Hart.) So you need to make the most of your time on Earth. Spend as much time as you can doing the things you love, in places you love, with people you love. Like Doc, Isaac, Gopher, Julie and Captain Stubing.

To take stock of the things I love, I have created this list. I encourage you to take an hour to write down 100 things you love, too. Not only will it force you to think about your favorite people, places, and things, but it will also help serve as a map to live a life you love.

I did this exercise a few years ago. You can see my 2021 list here. I didn’t look at it before writing this list. So it will be interesting to see what did and didn’t make both lists.

Here’s what I came up with in 2025. There are many more things that could be on this list. Because there is so much to love in life. Never forget that.

Things I love in 2025, In A Particular Order.

  1. My wife Dawn
  2. My kids Ava, Johann and Magnus
  3. My parents, Robert and Jill Albrecht
  4. My sisters Heather, Alison and Donielle (that’s not a typo). And I love our crazy birthday story!
  5. Waking up before my alarm
  6. Creative ideas
  7. Putting a smile on my face when I first wake up.
  8. Making grumpy people smile.
  9. Helping my clients grow their businesses
  10. Reading graduate level books
  11. Skiing with my son Magnus
  12. Listening to my son Johann play piano or saxophone
  13. My home weight room. I can blast my own music and yell. It has a great vibe.
  14. Running my Ariens snowblower through a fresh snowfall. This line has been brought to you by Ariens.
  15. The taste of maple sap form a galvanized bucket. (Real Vermont Boy Stuff.)
  16. Mountain Biking
  17. Pizza
  18. Compound interest
  19. Hummingbirds
  20. Northern lights
  21. Boogie Boarding
  22. Printing photos from my adventures and hanging them on my wall as a reminder to really live
  23. Writing newsletters, blog posts, and books. Oh My!
  24. Seeing my people in real life
  25. Making a new friend on an airplane
  26. G-Shock Watches
  27. American Giant Hoodies
  28. My Topo Design Mountain pants (they don’t make them anymore.)
  29. My hiking boots
  30. Moonlight cross country skiing with my Dad in Vermont
  31. A Paris dinner cruise
  32. Floating down the Aare River in Bern, Switzerland
  33. The crazy traffic in Bangalore, India
  34. Bryce Canyon
  35. The Narrows at Zion National Park
  36. Seeing Bears in the Wild (when I’m not holding a salmon)
  37. Laughing until I cry
  38. My Jeep Rubicon
  39. The Weaponry
  40. The color red.
  41. Trucker hats
  42. My Halo pizza oven
  43. Making minds sparkle
  44. Giving keynote speeches
  45. Family reunions
  46. Guys trips
  47. My home theater
  48. Frozen bananas
  49. Getting upgraded to first class on Delta flights
  50. The Salt Lake City Airport
  51. Coaching my daughter Ava in track and field
  52. Coaching my son Magnus in football
  53. Buffalo (the animals and the wings)
  54. When things go wrong and you get a good story out of it
  55. A good comeback, in sports and in life
  56. Chocolate milk
  57. My wedding day (But once was enough.)
  58. My Grandparents
  59. My Aunts and Uncles
  60. Cousins (The relatives. Not the subs.)
  61. Black olives
  62. Grilled Cheese sandwiches
  63. Music Concerts
  64. Snowmobiling
  65. Chicago
  66. Hilton Head Island
  67. A great photo I was lucky enough to catch
  68. My Atlanta friends
  69. My friends from home in the Upper Valley
  70. Turks and Caicos
  71. Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk
  72. Vermont
  73. Ginger Beer
  74. Breakfast burritos
  75. Sunrises and Sunsets
  76. Great Comedians
  77. Great Churros
  78. Long road trips
  79. Baseball and football cards from the 1980s
  80. My Gerber tool
  81. Throwing the discus
  82. My Mack Weldon Atlas Bag
  83. The Republic of Tea Ginger Peach,
  84. Darn Tough Socks
  85. Atomic Habits by James Clear
  86. Connecting dots
  87. Simon Pearce glass
  88. Being totally present
  89. Roller Coasters
  90. The Last Dance documentary series
  91. Yahtzee (especially when I get Yahtzee twice in one game)
  92. The museum of memories I am building in my mind
  93. My John Deere lawn tractor.
  94. Mt. Rainier
  95. Sweet Tea
  96. A New York Strip (The steak. Don’t be pervy.)
  97. Fishing in the rain
  98. Maui Jim Sun glasses
  99. Luftballoons
  100. Someone else having hiccups
  101. Dalmatians

Key Takeaway

Fill your life with the things you love. The people, places, activities, feelings, foods, and drinks you love will lead you to a life you love. And life is too short to fill with anything else.

*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.

Keys to a Successful Marriage or Business Relationship: Lessons from My Grandfather.

Marriage is a fascinating human experience. It’s both highly rewarding and challenging. Yet while most couples put a lot of preparation into the wedding day, few put much, if any effort into preparing for the marriage itself. Which is why half of marriages end in I don’t. And a healthy percentage of the other half of marriages aren’t as healthy as they could be.

The Program

To help prepare for our marriage, my wife Dawn and I listened to an audio program called Marathon Marriage. We learned the many lessons and philosophies of the program and did all of the exercises shared in the 4 CD set. (At least it wasn’t on 8-track cassettes.) It was a good reminder that just as you need to prepare to run a successful marathon, you need to prepare for a long and successful marriage. So we stocked up on plenty of Gatorade and snacks. And we felt like we had a good game plan.

The Mentors

Then, on our wedding day I wanted to cram in one last bit of preparation. So I scheduled breakfast with my three marriage mentors, which included my dad and my two grandfathers (who would all laugh me off the family tree for calling them my marriage mentors). At the time, my parents had been married 32 years. My two sets of grandparents had been hitched for 61 and 63 years.

After we sat down at Emma Krumbees in Wausau, Wisconsin and worked through some Northwoods pancakes and sausage, I decided it was time for the knowledge share. I asked The Paternity Council, ‘What is the key to making a marriage great?’  With 156 years of experience at the table, I was about to get the fatherlode of great advice.

Then my 86-year-old maternal grandfather, Kenny Sprau, crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair and shared,

‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’

Um… WTF Grampy?  61 years of trial and error, nine kids and a World War, and that’s all you’ve got?  I wanted to give him a mulligan and see if he could hit it past the ladies’ tee this time. But he went on. ‘You have to keep doing the things that got you to this point.’

My Grampy, Kenneth Adam Sprau. (Thanks for the hair.)

Perspective On The Advice

While at the time the 29-year-old me was totally underwhelmed by the advice, over the past 22 years I have developed a deep appreciation for what Grampy Sprau said. Because when we are dating, we are at our best. The unfortunate tendency is to drop the hard work, energy, attention, and charm we put into the relationship after the contract is signed. Without pouring that effort, care and prioritization into the relationship, the relationship isn’t as healthy and strong as it was during your courtship and engagement. Which is kind of like leaving the cap off a bottle of soda-pop, only to realize that it’s the cap that keeps the soda popping.

Over our 22 years of marriage, I have recognized plenty of times when I was not putting in the same kind of attention and prioritization into our relationship as I did when we were just kids in the heartland, like in that little ditty ’bout Jack and Diane. It gets much harder alongside the demands of raising children, building a successful career, growing a business, and the effort required to fend off the Dad bod creep. But whenever I find that my attention to my bride has slipped (or I am reminded by my bride that my attention to my bride has slipped), I use Grampy Sprau’s advice, to help make the appropriate adjustments and corrections.

Applying The Advice To Business

Eight years after launching the advertising and ideas agency, The Weaponry, I have discovered that Grampy Sprau’s advice holds true in business as well as marriage.  You need to treat your potential clients and partners well. Act as if you would like nothing more than to spend the rest of your time together. Listen. Make them laugh. Show them you are interesting, kind and thoughtful. And then after you get the contract signed, keep doing what you’ve been doing.

In business, as in marriage, listening and collaborating are valuable approaches to your growth strategy. Clients and spouses alike really like that stuff. (Crazy right?)  When you respond favorably to a client’s request, they generate something called ‘good feelings’ about you.  And these ‘good feelings’ make them want to see you more and work with you more. And the result is business growth.

The opposite is also true.  If you are the all-time best seller at The Jerk Store, no one wants to be around you. This is true of both the individual and the organization.

If you recognize complacency, apathy or combativeness between your organization and your clients or between you and your spouse, stamp that out like a flaming bag of dog poo on your front porch. The behavior may feel justified today. But you’ll regret the justice leveled tomorrow when you’re trading the offspring in the McDonald’s parking lot.

Key Takeaway

Treat your spouse the way you did when you were dating. Treat your current business like new business. Never take either of them for granted. Work to re-win them every day. Even after you put a ring on it.

Thanks for the wise advice, Grampy.

*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.

10 Questions I’m asking myself in my most important performance review.

My daughter Ava graduated from high school a month ago. It opened an interesting new chapter for our family. By all accounts, we are a close family. And we have been since Ava, the first of our 3 children, was born. Next month Ava will leave home to attend college at The University of Wisconsin in Madison. To have a member of our nuclear family of 5 leave the reactor is going to change things. And I hope I don’t Chernolbyl.

There are a lot of exciting unknowns ahead that are fun to ponder. What will her career path be like? Who will she meet along the way? Where will she live? Will she make enough money to put me in the good retirement home and buy me the fancy cremation?

But as I prepare for Ava to leave home next month I find myself reflecting. I’ve asked a lot of questions about the past 18 years and how I have performed in my role as a parent. I’ve given myself a performance review. And I am sharing it with you.

Ava and I after she broke her high school’s 44-year-old discus record.

10 Questions I asked myself as my child prepares to leave home.

  1. Did I spend enough time with Ava? The answer here is complex. Yes, I spent enough time with my daughter. As her high school track and field coach I got far more quality time with Ava than most parents do. Yes, I will always want more. But our time was enough to create a strong bond, to teach, learn and laugh together. I will miss our time together and hope she comes home regularly so we can enjoy more.
  2. Did I set a good example? Yes and no. Certainly, I set a good example in many ways. I was an involved parent in all areas of her first 18 years. I showed her how to work hard, how to make friends and how to make money. But I could have set a better example of how to keep your cool. To be slower to anger when frustrated. I could have used fewer naughty words in front of her. And I could have been stricter about her using naughty words. (But sometimes naughty words express feelings best.)
  3. Did we create enough memories? Yes. This one is a slam dunk. We piled up the memories. Holidays, travel, traditions, sports, adventures, and all the funny unique things along the way. If there is one area of parenting I think I got right, this is it.
  4. Did I pass along my values? Yes. My wife Dawn and I place a high value on values. Our family has The Albrecht’s 5 Most Important Things. My kids know they need to be Smart, Nice, Brave, Funny and Adventurous. We preached this constantly and underscored the importance of each value. When there was some sort of misstep or shortcoming it could always be connected to not adhering to one of the 5 Most Important Things.
  5. Did I make her laugh enough? I’m pretty sure I met my quota. We laugh a lot at our house. It’s one of my favorite things. Ava has a strong sense of humor and we can find lots of reasons to laugh. Even when looking back at the things that were originally painful or embarrassing.
  6. Did I teach her to say I am sorry? I think so. Dawn and I are good at this. It’s important to demonstrate that when you hurt someone’s feelings, were rude, mean or insensitive you should acknowledge it. Even when it was unintentional. And saying you are sorry helps change the whole memory of experiences and relationships, because we rewire the memory once there has been a positive resolution. But just because we taught Ava how to say I’m sorry doesn’t mean she will. She’s stubborn.
  7. Did I teach her enough about money? Yes. I read Rich Dad. Poor Dad. to Ava when she was in elementary school, my dear Watson. I have emphasized the importance of knowing the difference between an asset and a liability. Ava has had a job since 6th or 7th grade. She leaves home with a bank account at The UW Credit Union. She has her own credit card that she uses monthly for small responsible purchases to build her credit. She owns stock in 4 different companies and has seen the value of investing. She knows she needs to make her money work for her, and not just work for money. (If you need to become smarter about money I suggest reading Rich Dad. Poor Dad., Think and Grow Rich, and The Richest Man In Babylon. All of them are easy and informative reads.)
  8. Did I take advantage of the opportunities over the past 18 years? I think so. We spent quality time together. We adventured and traveled. I coached Ava throughout high school. Which created many opportunities to learn about hard work, goal setting, determination, disappointment, resilience and the joy of winning and attaining goals. But we never did a Daddy-Daughter Dance. I probably need more time to see what opportunities I missed.
  9. Is she prepared for her next chapter? Yes. She is about as prepared as a well-cared-for child can be before leaving home. Had we neglected her and forced her to raise herself she may be more prepared for everything to come next. But she would also likely have resentment and other scars. So I think we found a happy medium.
  10. What might I do better with my 2 teenage boys still at home? I could be more patient. Slower to get frustrated or angered. I could teach them more life skills. Tire changing, basic plumbing and electrical work. How to ask your waiter to replace the food that wasn’t quite right.

Key Takeaway

We all take on many roles. It’s valuable to reflect on our performance in each to become better parents, spouses, friends, neighbors volunteers and any other job we take on. It is not through experience, but through reflecting on our experiences that we gain wisdom. So make sure to take time to look back. It ensures that you will be even better at your roles in the future.

I think this girl is going to be alright.

*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.

How I found work I love and love it more each day.

I love my work. I always have. When I was in college I drew out a chart that listed things I was good at and things that I thought I could get paid to do. My career treasure map pointed me towards becoming a creative person at an advertising agency. I had no idea what those people were really called. Turns out they are basically called creative people at advertising agencies.

I started my career as a young copywriter. I loved that I got paid to be creative. I loved writing. I loved making something out of nothing. I loved seeing my work on tv, on billboards, and in magazines. Perhaps most of all, I loved the dress code. You definitely had to wear clothes. But what kind and how much was totally up to you.

As my carer advanced I loved my work even more. I loved directing creative teams. I loved the strategic thinking and problem-solving that fed the process and drove client success. I loved traveling to amazing locations and developing deep new friendships with clients. I found they deepened quickly when you face life-threatening conditions together in a blizzard at 10,000 feet with no matches and no way to call for help. #BadSituationGoodStory

I loved pitching new business. I loved putting on a show and sharing my love for smart ideas that help develop brands and grow businesses. And I loved hearing, “Adam’s got a lot of energy!’

When I became a Chief Creative Officer I loved leading a creative team across multiple offices. I loved the opportunity to help create culture and processes and Weness. I loved digging into how the entire business worked and influencing major decisions and initiatives. #MoreCowbell

Then, when I became an entrepreneur I loved creating The Weaponry, an advertising and ideas agency. It has been the most exciting chapter of my career. I got to bring everything I had learned over the first 19 years of my career together, and create a new team without baggage or historical limitation. I loved creating The Weaponry brand and assembling a team of Weapons that clients love. I didn’t love the name The Weaponry while trying to enter India at 2 am and appearing to be a threat to their national security. #BadSituationGoodStory

I loved writing my first book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? I loved the entire process and all that I learned. I have loved talking about the book and the lessons in it that have been so valuable to me. And I love signing copies for people with personal messages the way I used to sign high school yearbooks. Only with less, ‘Science class with you was hilarious!’

However, my absolute favorite day of my career came in the first week of June 2000. I got on the elevator at work that day and saw a beautiful woman on the right side of the packed elevator. When she smiled at me my whole life changed. Birds sang. Fireworks fired. And I forgot what floor I was going to. That new coworker, Dawn, and I began dating 6 weeks later. One week after that we told each other we were in love and started talking about marriage. Then came Ava, Johann and Magnus in a baby carriage.

Dawn and I have now been married for 20 amazing years. She inspires me to work hard. She has been my biggest cheerleader. (Measured in cheer, not in pounds.) And when I brought up the idea of launching The Weaponry she was fully supportive. Despite the fact that she had the most to lose. She could tell how much I love this stuff. And when you love your work this much, the work loves you back.

Key Takeaway

Find work you love. Find a place you love to do that work. Surround yourself with people you love and who love you. It’s a recipe for a life you’ll love. Happy Valentines 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.

10 things Dads should teach their kids to love.

Over the past 16 years, I have learned a lot about what it takes to be a good Dad. Most of what I now know I have learned by making mistakes. Like the time I dropped my 6-month-old over a railing at the Zoo. I knew I had made a mistake when everyone around me started screaming. #truestory

One of the things I’ve learned is that to be a good father you should spend more time with your kids than writing blog posts on Father’s Day. So let’s get right to the list.

10 things Dads should teach their kids to love.

  1. Books

Collect Books. Read to your kids. Let them see you reading. Dads who read books keep getting smarter, more creative and more capable. It’s a great way to teach kids to fill their free time with something positive. I recommend the books with more words than pictures, but do what you have to do.

2. Alarm Clocks

Love your alarm clock. Set it every day. Let your kids know that the alarm clock helps you get the most out of every day. Let them see you get up and get productive in the morning. It will teach them to find gold in those golden morning hours.

3. Their Mom

The greatest gift a Dad can give his kids is to love their Mom. Treat her with respect and kindness, even if you are no longer together. If you are still together gross your kids out with how much you love their Mom. It’s like forcing them to eat really healthy food that they think is icky, but is really good for them.

4. Travel

Show your kids the world. Roadtrips. Camping trips. Trips to the store. Sunday drives. Overseas trips. They all count. Show your kids new places and it will spark new ideas, new understanding, and a new appetite to see even more.

5. Hard Work

Teach your kids how hard work leads to great results. Show them that there is no elevator to the top. You have to take the stairs. And if they see you taking the stairs 2 or 3 steps at a time they will too.

6. Encouragement

Kids who receive encouragement encourage others too. It’s one of the best ways you can improve the world through your children. You can do it. I know you can!

7. Saving Money

A kid doesn’t need a role model to know how to spend money. But as a Dad, you can teach them the critically important value of saving. Teach them to accumulate money by always saving part of what they earn. So like 50 Cent, they can watch the money pile up. And as the money piles up so do your options and your peace of mind.

Bonus: Read Rich Dad. Poor Dad. to your kids. I have read that book to each of my kids. It’s the best way to teach them about money.

8. Laughter

The world is full of funny stuff. Enjoy it. Laugh loud and often. Teach your kids to laugh at all that goes wrong. It is the best medicine. And while it may be addicting, it doesn’t cause constipation.

9. Donating

Teach your kids to love donating to causes they care about. Show them how to give without expectations of a return. There are endless ways to give. Share your time, talents and treasure. Or, if you are like my Dad, give blood as often as they will let you. That stuff is more valuable than gold to a fellow human in need.

10. Friendship

Be a good friend to your friends. Collect and maintain as many great friendships as you can. Let your kids see you connect and share love with others outside your family. It will teach them to connect and extend their love too.

Happy Father’s Day!

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my new book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media. It makes a great belated Father’s Day gift. Or a great be-earlied Father’s Day gift for next year.

What makes a couple last for the long haul.

Happy Valentine’s Day! As I drove to work this morning on our annual celebration of love I thought about my wife Dawn, our 21 Valentine’s Days together and the importance of finding the right partner to do life with.

Some people say that you should find someone like you, who shares your same likes, values and styles. You know these people when you see them. Because they are wearing the same clothes.

Other people believe that opposites attract. Like magnets. Or cops and robbers. These people think that it is our differences that make us interesting and holistically compatible.

These are both good theories. But neither one is quite right.

To be truly compatible over the long haul you have a Y-type relationship.

To understand this relationship, simply look at the letter Y. It will show you everything you need to know about creating a strong, long-lasting relationship.

The Y Relationship

To be a highly compatible couple you have to have strong, shared foundational beliefs. This is the base of the Y. It is made of your most important values, and ideals. They may include your views on money, religion, whoopie, parenting, and what home feels like to you. Including which way the toilet paper roll should be placed on the TP holder.

But upon that solid foundation, you need healthy, divergent, balancing elements. This is the top of the Y. This is created by the areas where you differ in style, temperament, strengths, and biases. These differences enable you to take on anything that comes your way. It ensures that the relationship has what it needs to face all challenges. Through these balanced strengths, you can help each other navigate the great challenges and opportunities of life. Plus, it helps you crush at games of trivia.

Key Takeway

It is a combination of alignment and balance that makes a couple work. Celebrate your similarities. But appreciate your differences. Together, they help couples thrive through thick and thin. Thanks to your balanced approaches and perspective, you will both grow more capable, more intelligent and more understanding with each new year you celebrate together. Happy Valentines Day. May you enjoy many, many more.

+ Thank you Dawn Albrecht for completing my Y. Finding you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

Dawn and I, celebrating the new glass we picked up when we were back home in Vermont last summer. The cover pic was from one of our first trips to Vermont in 2001.

100 Things I love.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I have been thinking a lot about love this weekend. Love is the most powerful and most positive emotion in our collection. To make the most of your time on Earth you should spend as much time as you can doing things you love, with people love, in places you love.

The first step is to know what you really love. Today, take an hour to write down 100 things you love. Not only will it force you to think about your favorite people, places, and things, it will serve as a guide, and show you how to live a life you love.

Here’s what I came up with. Surely there are many more things that should be on this list that I didn’t come up with in my limited time this morning. (And I’ll stop calling you Shirley.)

100 Things I Love (in no particular order, except the first ones.)

  1. My wife Dawn
  2. My kids Ava, Johann and Magnus
  3. My Mama, Dad and Sisters
  4. The rest of my ginormous family.
  5. My work
  6. Sweet Tea
  7. Hammocks
  8. Cliff jumping
  9. Road tripping
  10. Vermont
  11. Fishing
  12. Glacier National Park
  13. Boogie boarding
  14. Pizza
  15. Great puns
  16. Snowmobiling
  17. Laughing
  18. Making people laugh
  19. Mountain biking
  20. A great church service
  21. Great books
  22. Weddings
  23. Shawshank Redemption
  24. Lobster
  25. Hiking in the mountains
  26. Sunrises
  27. Black olives
  28. Elkton, Minnesota
  29. Thanksgiving
  30. Stompers
  31. Playing the card game Pit
  32. Throwing the discus
  33. Cheese curds (squeaky or fried)
  34. India
  35. Winning new business
  36. Running into people I know in random places
  37. Inside jokes
  38. My best friends from high school
  39. Outside voices
  40. The fresh tortilla chips from the Whole Foods in Dublin, Ohio
  41. Sabra Field art
  42. Wisconsin Badger football games
  43. Simon Pearce Glass
  44. Needing 4 wheel drive
  45. Montreal
  46. The Art Institute of Chicago
  47. Perfectly ripe pears
  48. Snowfall measured in feet
  49. My college track teammates
  50. Hilton Head Island
  51. ACDC
  52. Zucker Brother’s movies
  53. Canoeing
  54. Game night
  55. Roller coasters
  56. New York strip steaks
  57. Iceland
  58. My Madison Hall friends in ATL
  59. My funniest stories
  60. Investments that paid off
  61. Hearing that someone found value in something I wrote or said
  62. Energizing people
  63. Game of Thrones
  64. Real maple syrup
  65. Driving a tractor
  66. The smell of roses
  67. Handing out bonus checks
  68. A great quote
  69. The Patriots winning the Super Bowl (never gets old)
  70. Flip flops
  71. A great baseball cap
  72. Lifting weights
  73. My Dad’s Carmel Rolls
  74. A Red Sox World Series win
  75. Breaking Bad
  76. A military flyover
  77. Cheesecake
  78. The grand finale at a fireworks show
  79. A great performance by my kids
  80. My wife’s smile
  81. A great creative presentation
  82. Water parks
  83. Owning my own business (The Weaponry)
  84. Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream
  85. Discovering common friends (meaning finding out people we both know, not finding commoners and befriending them.)
  86. Raincoats
  87. Boots of all sorts. (Except the monkey from Dora the Explora)
  88. G-Shock watches
  89. Making my own t-shirts
  90. Making my sisters snarf
  91. The show Yellowstone (The park isn’t too shabby either.)
  92. The How I Built This Podcast
  93. Anything with Will Ferrell
  94. American Giant hoodies
  95. My Gerber tool
  96. My Kraken belt buckle
  97. Mount Ranier
  98. Manhattan
  99. Convertibles
  100. Overdelivering
  101. Campfires
  102. People who read my blog posts all the way to the end.

Key Takeaway

Fill your life with the things you love. The people, places, activities, feelings, food, and drink you love will lead you to a life you love. And life is too short to fill with anything else.

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

Don’t lose sight of the WOW!

Do you remember the first time you ever flew in an airplane? It was crazy exciting, right? Remember how the plane began down the runway, slowly at first, then gaining speed until the plane’s nose levitated. Then the rear wheels left contact with the runway and things got quiet, and smooth, and it all blew your mind?

I remember that. Then I started flying so much for work that I would read, work, talk to my seatmate or rearrange my sock drawer during takeoff. I had become immune to the magic.

Then one day about 15 years ago I recognized just how crazy it was that I could yawn through an airplane takeoff. That day I decided to become a born again flying virgin. Every time I have launched to the sky since then, even as a Delta Gold or Platinum Medallion flier, I have stopped what I am doing at takeoff, and experienced the thrust, lift and other-worldliness of the experience as if it were the first time.

Holy David Copperfield!

Today I remind you that the entire world is mind-blowingly magical. Unbelievable things are happening all around you. Look outside. The sunrise, sunset, skies and storms are all sorts are phenomenal.

Watching your garden transform from dirt to sprouts to vegetables and fruit is awe-inspiring. The way the foliage transforms each fall from green to red or yellow or orange is no less miraculous than the caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

That mobile phone that is surely within arms reach of you right now provides access to every bit of information and entertainment ever known And yet it doesn’t have a cord, or pipe or conveyor belt to connect it to anything!  Somehow it all flows through the ether. WTF?

 

Do you realize that the automobile you drive is like a magic carpet that will take you anywhere on the continent that you want to go?!? Imagine time traveling back to any period in time before 150 years ago and seeing the look on people’s faces as you drove by in your car! Even if you drive a Yugo.

Those clothes you are wearing were somehow transformed from plants or animals or chemicals or all of the above into something soft and attractive and shaped just like you! Seriously!?!

Humans

Don’t even get me started on humans. Humans are the most amazing, beautiful and complicated of all machines. And somehow we all stack into a set of our relatives like Russian Nesting Dolls. Which means you were somehow inside both of your parents, and their parents and their parents, and on an on until the beginning of humans! Even if you are not Russian! Nyet. I can’t fathom that.

 

All businesses, teams, organizations, nations are created by humans. Somehow we have figured out how to collect, organize and activate groups of humans to do amazing things together.  From dancing to designing and operating the International Space Station, we have found millions of ways to work together to create things that are totally unnecessary to providing food, shelter and clothing. How cool are we!?!

Dawn

Today is my lovely wife Dawn’s birthday. I have been awed by her since I first saw her. I will never forget that moment. Today we have a wonderful life full of amazing everyday adventures. We have three little miracles named Ava, Johann and Magnus. And I am thankful everyday for the indescribable joy that fills our lives. And it’s all because, on this planet of billions, Dawn’s life-path crossed mine 17 years ago. Thank God.

 

 

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This is what Dawn looks like at dusk in Paris.

So as you go about your day, don’t miss the Wow. It is literally everywhere. Our entire world is full of magic. It is easy to overlook. Because there is just so much of it. Even right next to you, today, at home.