Tag: motivation

How to turn your social media feeds into powerful sources of good.

I am an unapologetic consumer of social media. I haven’t proven it with an egg timer, but I bet I spend more time on the socials than I do watching television. It’s a pretty easy bet. Because other than the political coverage last Tuesday night, I don’t think I have watched more than an hour of TV in the past week.

Social media gets a bad reputation. Like Joan Jett. But the social media you consume is a result of the choices you make, the feeds you follow and maybe the parental controls your caring Mom and Dad set. (Your welcome kids. And thanks for reading.)

I laugh when I hear how negative social media is. Because the social media feeds I follow are rich sources of positivity, creativity and humor. (Check out my Instagram story today at @adamalbrecht for a good giggle I found.)

I follow people and brands that share good with the world. I get inspiration, encouragement and awe from my social media. I use my accounts like magnets that attract the good, the beautiful and the motivational. And if the people or organizations I follow start sharing poo I delete them like a typo.

Mr. Goodbody said You are what you eat. Because the food you consume creates you. The same holds true of the content you consume. It creates your attitude, your energy, and your inspiration. Choose carefully and you can turn your social media into a perpetual force for good.

Key Takeaway

Don’t blame social media for being negative. You can find the negative if you want to. But you are the bouncer in your social mediaverse. You get to choose who gets in and who doesn’t. Think of your social media feeds as the people in your inner circle. Bring the uplifting, supportive and inspiring feeds in. Toss the negative, hateful and harmful elements out. You’ll be surprised to see how powerful and positive your social media force can be.

*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 new book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

For more, you can find me at @adamalbrecht on IG and Twitter. I’m active on LinkedIn, Facebook, and BeReal. I dabble on Snapchat and TikTok. And if you are a Badger athlete you’ll find me on Badger Connect.

Why you should declare your lifespan today.

You are a lean, mean, scheduling machine.

When you have both a destination and an arrival time, you can easily figure out when you need to leave to get to the destination on time.

When you have work to do and a deadline to meet, you know how to complete the work on time.

It’s simple.

The amount of work to be done, and the time allotted, determine the pace. (But not the Picante sauce.)

Pace = Effort / Time

This is the basic computation we do every day to accomplish everything.

It determines how much time we allot to commute to work.

It determines how much time we need to run an errand. Or exercise. Or make whoopee.

When you know the task to complete and the time that task requires you know your start time and your pace.

Life Goals

But when you apply this innate ability to schedule and complete activities to your life goals there is a problem.

Because you don’t know the deadline.

So you don’t know how much time you have to complete the task.

Which means that you can’t determine your start time.

And you can’t determine your pace.

As a result, there is no sense of urgency.

Even to your biggest, most important goals.

The Fix

But there is a simple fix.

Declare your lifespan.

Determine the age that you will die, or no longer be capable of performing the task or achieving your goals.

This exercise helps you live more effectively.

Determine if you will have 100 years or 80 or 60 or 40 or 25.

A declared lifespan provides the proper motivation.

Equally important, it provides the math your brain needs to figure out how to get from point A to point B on time.

It makes your life-goals urgent. Like Foreigner.

Then you can get to work. And achieve your goals within the time you have left.

The deadline is the only way to make the required pace tangible. (Which I always think sounds like the ability to turn into a tangerine.)

It’s Go Time

Set your own death timer and you will find yourself moving faster.

My assumed death provided the timeline I needed to launch my own business.

My assumed death motivated me to write and publish a book.

My assumed death is driving my financial savings, investing and spending.

My assumed death is driving my travel plans.

My false deadlines are making life manageable, goals achievable and days productive. Which makes false deadlines far more attractive than false eyelashes. (What’s up with those thangs?)

Key Takeaway

Declare how much time you have left. It will provide the missing data you need in order to schedule and pace the rest of your life. It will motivate you. And it will enable you to achieve your dreams. It is one of the greatest gifts you will ever give yourself. Because the best way to spend your time is knowing that you are quickly running out of it.

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

+For more of the best life lessons the universe has shared with me, check out my new book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Your motivation works like lava.

Motivation comes in unexpected ways. Motivation is always in you, either in a dormant or active state. Like lava. (Or magma to be geologically correct. Which is like being politically correct. Only you’re trying not to offend the more sensitive rocks.)

There are times when you don’t feel your own motivation at all. But there are other times you’ll find your motivation hot and flowing, like red hot lava. When that happens you experience excitement and visions of new possibilities becoming reality.

When you feel that motivational lava flowing through you it is time to channel your inner Young MC and bust a move. It’s time to plan, call, create, write, organize, go, do, buy, move, schedule, or whatever your motivation requires you to do next.

Because here’s the important truth to remember about motivation:

You have to act before your motivational lava cools.

You get a small window to transform your hot motivation into results. The universe is constantly bombarding you with distractions. When they come along they cool your lava. And when your lava cools your inspiration and energy go dormant again too. Like the genie going back into the bottle. Or Lady and The Tramp going back into the Disney Vault.

Key Takeaway

Your motivation will ebb and flow. When it flows you have to ride the wave. Make as much progress as you can when you feel the heat of your own motivation. If you do, the progress itself will create more heat and more motivation. Which has the power to create transformational results. Just like lava.

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

If you like motivational ideas check out my new book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media. You should probably do it now before your lava cools.

Make bigger bets on yourself.

Investing is like betting with really good odds. The best investments happen when you know something the rest of the world doesn’t. Just ask Martha Stewart.

But the best odds of all come when you invest in yourself. Because when you invest in yourself, the odds are stacked in your favor. And you do all the stacking. Because you have complete control over yourself. Like Janet Jackson.

The Decider

You decide how much work you put in. You decide not to quit, give up, or cut corners. You force yourself to make things turn out right. You put yourself first. You decide not to embezzle from yourself. You also decide not to bedazzle yourself.

The Safe Bet

Betting on yourself is always the safe choice. Because you have control over the outcome. Better yet, you know the outcome you are looking for. (And the income you are looking for too.)

You are your own best resource. You are your own most reliable asset. Put all your eggs in your own basket. And then protects the basket as if it is your only job in life. Because it is.

More Biggie. Less Smalls.

Too often our bets on ourselves are too small. So think bigger. Go bigger. Because there is no better bet. Plus, the bigger the bet you make on yourself the more pressure you put on yourself to grow.

Spend more time investing in your education and self-improvement. Invest in a coach. And in resources that you can utilize to achieve more. Read. Network. Learn. Listen. You will discover how much more you are capable of if only you pushed yourself to do what you are capable of doing.

Key Takeaway

The safest bet you will ever make is on yourself. You control the odds, the effort and the outcome. It is a completely legal form of insider trading. So bet big on yourself. Push yourself. Tip the odds in your favor. And other people will line up to bet on you too.

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

Why you should have an excite hustle.

College is an exciting time. You get to pick a major that inspires you. Suddenly, it becomes fun to study and learn. You develop a vision of what your career will be like. And that vision provides motivation throughout your college experience.

More than 2 decades after graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison I can say that I have used the knowledge I gained while studying for my degrees in psychology and journalism every day of my advertising career.

The Great Compromise

But I noticed when I graduated that many of my classmates didn’t hold out for the jobs they really wanted. College debt, life expenses, nagging parents and a desire to simply get busy cause many, if not most college grads to take the first decent job to come along. Regardless of whether the job fit their original vision, major, or life plan.

This means that many of us end up in jobs or careers that don’t align with our greatest interests and deepest passions. That is okay. There are many good reasons we do this. But if you are not inspired or fulfilled by your day job, you should take on another project in your free time that fires you up like AC/DC in a high school weight room.

Excite Hustles

People often refer to these kind of side activities as side hustles. But I think of them as excite hustles. Because the best reason to take them on is that they give you something exciting to work on. They enable you to tap into your greatest interests, passions, and your desire for adventure, or self reliance.

Excite hustles can feel thrilling and dangerous because you feel like you are cheating on your day job. Because you are having a career affair with work that excites you more than your steady job. That is a great thing.

An excite hustle will wake you up early and keep you up late. It will call your name over the lunch hour, and during your commute. (I’m just kidding. No one commutes any more.)

An excite hustle provides even more reasons to look forward to the weekends. (Not The Weeknd. #ICantFeelMyFace) It will prevent you from filling your free time digitally grazing on your mobile device. It will prevent you from resenting your career, and going postal. (Can you still go postal if we don’t have post offices?)

An excite hustle is full of potential. It provides an outlet for your energy. It fans your flames. When you find your calling it creates a gravitational force that keeps drawing you forward to do more, create more and explore more. Like Roger Moore, Michael Moore, or Benjamin Moore.

My Excite Hustle

When I decided to launch my own advertising agency I created my ultimate excite hustle. I already loved my career, I just wanted an even greater challenge. And I found one. Today, as the Founder of The Weaponry, I couldn’t feel more excited about the work I do. I can’t wait to get to it each day. I approach each work challenge with enthusiasm. And at the end of each day I don’t feel spent. I feel invested and fulfilled.

Key Takeaway

If your day job doesn’t tap into your passions it’s time to find your excite hustle. Fill your free time with work that motivates you. That keeps you looking forward to more. And that makes you feel as if you are living into your vision for your life.

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

How to convert negative energy into positive results.

Dams take the potential power in water, focus it, harness it and use it to create electricity. We call it renewable energy, because the planet will always create more water. Wind turbines do the same thing. And because the Earth will continue to create more wind, there will always be more to harness. Plus, everyone knows it’s windy.

As humans, we can do the same thing. There are powerful forces on this planet that will never run dry. Forces like stress, rejection, failure, anger, teasing, bullying, disappointment and loneliness. And of course all the isms. Racism, sexism, fascism and the unappreciated euphemism. Instead of letting them wear and weaken you, harness their power. Like a turbine in a dam.

You can use negative fuel sources to fuel your positive response. These fuels can drive your most productive and meaningful actions. They can push you further, faster and longer. Like that stuff Lance Armstrong once swore he wasn’t using. #LiarLiarLycraOnFire  Use the negative energy to create endurance, passion, and commitment. When you think of slowing, suspending or stopping, the negative fuel will keep you keeping on.

When you develop the ability to harness and focus negative energy, every time bad things happen, good things follow. One step back is followed by many steps forward. Disappointment becomes drive. Rejection becomes response. Stress feeds success. Anger amplifies action.

The most successful people aren’t immune to negative forces. They use those forces to propel them forward. In many cases, the most enviable people have dealt with the most unenviable adversity. They have simply set their course and let the power that so many try to avoid fill their sails, and drive them towards their goals.

Key Takeaway

The world will provide you with an endless supply of negative energy. But you can transform it into an excellent source of energy for good. Harness it. Focus it. And it will power the most positive actions in your life.

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

Do you have enough pressure?

Pressure is your friend. It forces you to do things you might not have otherwise done. It forces you into action, or keeps you moving when you may have otherwise stopped. Pressure has been my single greatest ally on my entrepreneurial journey. And as I wrote the last line my trusty MacBook Pro started singing ‘What about me? It isn’t fair…‘

The fact that I began this entrepreneurial adventure with a mortgage, 3 kids and a wife I wanted to keep forced me to make things work. Two months after I established The Weaponry LLC I bought a second home and increased the pressure even more. Cue the David Bowie ringtone.

Pressure gets me out of bed early every day. It focuses me throughout the workday. And it keeps me fueled late at night when there are miles to go before I sleep. Because of the pressure I am accomplishing more than ever before. I can’t imagine what I wouldn’t have done without it.

Key Takeaway

Pressure is propulsion. Don’t avoid it. Seek it out. It makes you run faster, farther and with a greater sense of purpose. It forces you to consider all of your options and resources. It forces you to find solutions quickly. And it leads to results. Because there is no other option.

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

How to enjoy the best results from your reading.

 As I began planning to launch my advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry, in 2015, I could tell something was changing in me. In hindsight I now know that this is when I became an entrepreneur. I still had a full-time job, but I was creating The Weaponry in my spare time. I was transitioning from dreamer to doer.

I wrote the blog post below at that time. But I think about the basic lesson in this post often, and felt it was worth re-sharing. Especially since it was one of my very early blog posts, and very few people read it (Besides Joe, Jessa and Jeff, who all commented on it. Apparently it appeals to the J-crowd). 

Originally posted to The Perfect Agency Project on January 7th, 2016

books

I love to read.  Like most people I was born highly uneducated. Reading has become an instrumental part of my plan to overcome my early shortcomings. I love to learn and to become inspired. And if you are reading this I expect you do too.

I like reading classic literature because it makes me feel worldly. I liked reading the first three Harry Potter books because they made me feel magical. But then I realized my life is too short to read four more books about a fanciful wizard boy. Today I read a lot of books on self-improvement, business, and biographies. I also read healthy portions of magazines like Fast Company  and Inc because I find them both creatively stimulating and educational (and I like the pictures).

Your Reading Changes You

Several years ago I read an interesting quote from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones that said,

“You are the same today as you’ll be in five years except for two things: the books you read and the people you meet.”  -Charlie “Tremendous” Jones

This reading about reading encouraged Adam “Ordinary” Albrecht to read even more.

The Revelation

But today I’m trying to read less. Because I have found that too much reading leads to too little doing. If I fill my time with learning and inspiration I leave no time for action.

When I began The Perfect Agency Project I created a simple rule of thumb that influences my reading today:

Read just enough to learn something new and become inspired. Then act on it.

Since I started following this rule I have accomplished more. I’ve wasted less time. And I’m more excited about my work.

Let’s Go!

I think of reading now like a pregame speech. One that I listen to just long enough to become properly motivated. And as soon as I am lathered up, I jump to work, acting on the inspiration.

That’s when I start writing, planning, structuring, detailing, calling, creating, wizarding or potioning. And what I’ve found is that when I have one hour available, instead of one hour of reading, I can do 10 or 15 minutes of reading. And then I can spend the rest of the hour implementing. And the return on that one hour is significantly higher.

Key Takeaway

I encourage you to try this for a week. Read enough each day to want to do something new and exciting. Then do it. Then repeat the process. And let me know how it works for you. I’ll read at least part of whatever you write me.

I have a little surprise for one of my high school teachers.

My sophomore year in high school I had a teacher named Mr. Bohi. He was a large, bear of a man who spoke with booming confidence and authority. Originally from Iowa, his life path lead him to the Ivy League town of Hanover, New Hampshire. In Hanover he taught high school students lessons about humans, through the lens of history.  He also smiled at you when he was mad at you, which I found quite challenging to process.

Mr. Bohi was a great teacher who taught me a lot. But on the first day of class he said something that I strongly disagreed with. As he launched into his initial lesson, he pulled out a dollar bill, and made a stump speech about the power of money, and its enormous influence over world history.

He orated about the fallacy of money, saying that currency wasn’t real. That money is an illusion in our heads. And that a plain piece of paper was actually more valuable than a dollar bill. One of the things he said that day has bothered me for 30 years. So today I am putting this note in the mailbox and sending it to Mr. Bohi.

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I have thought about this since 1988. I  wrote this out almost a year and a half ago. And I will finally mail it today.

IMG_9603
This is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 104. I thought ‘Milk’ would have been a good nickname for a guy whose last name started with ‘Shake’.

 

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Maybe you can’t write a Shakespearean sonnet on a dollar bill. But I can. 

 

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By George, I wrote it!

I love doing what other people say can’t be done. I love solving problems that others think can’t be solved. As an entrepreneur and Founder of the advertising and idea agency The Weaponry, I appreciate a good challenge. And I realize it is my will to do things that makes them happen. Even if it takes 30 years.

*In case you couldn’t read my handwriting, this is what the note says:

Dear Mr. Bohi,

In 1988, in my first class with you, you said that money wasn’t that valuable.  Specifically, you told us we couldn’t write a Shakespearean sonnet on a dollar bill. I want you to know:

  1. I was listening.
  2. I remembered
  3. You were wrong.

Enjoy your dollar.

Adam R. Albrecht

HHS Class of ’91

 

How to invest in people the way Warren Buffet invests in stocks.

I like investing. I started investing in stocks not long after I landed my first job out of college. Back then I didn’t really know what I was doing. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t afraid. I kept reading, and listening and studying investment strategy. Today I have a solid, repeatable approach. That’s because I stole my strategy from Warren Buffet. Who stole his strategy from Benjamin Graham.

I bought Graham’s book, The Intelligent Investor, because I heard it was the bible on stock investing. I boiled the 600 page book down to this headline:

‘Buy when a stock is undervalued. Sell when it is overvalued.’

This strategy has served me well. I’m always looking to get in on a good company’s bad news. When banks were collapsing because of the mortgage crisis, I bought Huntington, Fifth Third and PNC stock. When there was oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico I bought BP. When Equifax was hacked, I was into Equifax stock. When there were diseases decimating the US chicken population I shouted, ‘Pass me a drumstick and some shares of Pilgrims Pride and Sanderson Farms!’

Investing in People

I invest in people the same way.  When people are hot, have the world by the bizzles and everyone wants to be close to them, I don’t need to be there too. I like to invest in people who have lost their jobs, hit icebergs, or are leaking oil. Those are the ones that really need to be infused with confidence and friendship. It is easy to divest when people hit all-time lows. But that’s when I like to double down.

People always rebound.

Your personal stock always rises again to reflect your true value. Which means that when you pick someone up who feels like they are sitting on the discard pile, the return on your invested time and attention truly appreciates. While you may have known things would get better for that person, they didn’t. Because when you feel like you are swirling around the toilet, it is hard to see past the very near term.

Take Away

Look for ways to invest in those that need it most. The good people, organizations, and teams that have fallen out of favor. Because the belief, support and confidence you invest  in them comes back to you in amazing ways. Oh, and if you have any undervalued stocks to pass my way, please post them in the comments section.

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