Tag: positivity

Act As If.

Go through life as if all of your dreams have come true.

Or are coming true.

Act as if you are the you that you imagined you would be.*

Do the things that the person you want to be would do.

Make the decisions your ideal you would make.

Act as if you have the role you want. And maybe the roll you want. (Kaiser, Lobster, Tootsie)

Act as if you are the person who does what you want to do.

Talk the talk.

Walk the walk.

Think the way you want to be.

And you will become the person you think you are.

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. And consider subscribing to Adam’s Good Newsletter.

*The quadruple-you sentence. The Triple Lindy of sentences.

Wake Up And Take Control Of Your Day with This Simple Habit.

When I was a kid, I had a small, square alarm clock.

It was very simple.

It had a traditional analog face, with an hour hand and a minute hand. (They actually looked more like arms than hands. But I think that ship has sailed.)

On the back of the clock, there were two simple dials. One set the time. The other set the alarm.

On top, there was a single, mushroom-shaped button. (Which grew in the dark.)

You pulled the plastic mushroom up to set it.

You pushed it down to turn it off.

That’s all there was to it.

But what was really important about my alarm clock was its location, location, location.

I didn’t set it on my nightstand like normal alarmists.

I placed it on top of my dresser on the other side of the room.

Every morning when the alarm clock sounded, I hopped out of bed and hustled across the room to turn it off.

And just like that, I was up and out of bed for the day.

I never hit the non-existent snooze button.

I didn’t crawl back in bed.

I started my day.

The Adam Albrecht Approach to Alarm Clocking has trained me to get up and start my day the moment my alarm sounds for the rest of my life.

Go Ahead, Make Your Day.

By training yourself to start the day when your alarm goes off, every day, you train yourself to take control of your life.

Today, I have stacked a series of beneficial habits into my morning routine.

Here’s The First Hour+ Of My Day:

When my alarm goes off, I turn it off.

Then I put a big smile on my face for 10 seconds.

I get out of bed.

I make my half of the bed.

I go to the bathroom and drink a tall glass of water I set out the night before. (Which means today’s success began yesterday.)

I weigh myself. (The daily feedback helps me keep my weight between the ditches.)

I enter my weight in my Happy Scale app.

Then I sit down at my desk in my home office to write.

I write from 6:10am until 7 or 7:30am.

As a result of this morning routine, I wake up, smile, hydrate, track my weight, and produce new creative work every morning.

Not because I decide to each day.

But because I decided to once, 10 years ago.

By 7am, I am rolling. I have won the first hour of the day. And I roll into the rest of the day, and my next habit stacks, with momentum.

But it all starts with the way I respond to my alarm clock.

Key Takeaway

Get on top of your day before your day gets on top of you. When you control how you start each day, it helps you take control of your entire day. And when you are in control of your days, you are in control of your life. So get up when your alarm goes off. Set your alarm on the other side of the room if you have to. Put a big smile on your face. And go win the 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.And consider subscribing to Adam’s Good Newsletter.

Master Your Mindset: The Power of Thought Choices

Your brain is an amazing engine.

It is the ultimate hybrid machine. (Sorry Prius)

It runs on whatever you feed it. 

Positivity. Negativity. Enthusiasm. Cynicism.

Any ity, asm or ism.

Any octane.

Just pour it in the tank.

Your brain can churn it and burn it.

Or shake it and bake it.

You can set your brain to run on optimism.

Or you can set it to crank on pessimism.

It fires in both criticism and support mode.

It can process the profound and the petty. (Including Tom and Richard)

You can stoke your brain with greatness or gossip.

Happy thoughts or sad.

You get to decide.

Every day.

In every situation.

And if you choose a setting and a fuel that doesn’t serve you, you can change it at any time.

Key Takeaway

Your inputs determine your outputs.

And your mode determines your mood.

*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.

From Surviving to Thriving: The Power of Daily Commitment.

I have a plant in my office. I inherited it 25 years ago from a coworker who was leaving the company and moving to Canada. I don’t think she was dodging the draft. If I remember correctly, she had a thing for men in uniform on horses. And Tim Horton’s.

The plant in my office hasn’t been faring well.

To be fair, I have been watering the plant just enough to keep it alive.

As a result, it looks like a plant that has been watered just enough to keep it alive. Like the office plant version of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

But a couple of months ago I altered my plant care routine.

I committed to watering the plant every day. Or at least every day that I was in the office.

And an interesting thing happened.

By day three, I saw a noticeable difference in the plant’s posture. The spindly little fella stood taller. The leaves looked fuller. And prouder. And chlorophyllier.

By day five, I noticed a new leaf beginning to grow and unfurl.

And then another.

And then another.

As I have continued to water, dozens of new leaves have emerged and added a great deal of canopy to this once-struggling office mate of mine.

It’s like I was feeding the little guy plant Rogaine.

Today, the plant is thriving. It is providing more beauty, more greenery, and more oxygen in my office.

But more importantly, it is providing a valuable lesson.

My plant has reminded me that there is a major difference between living and thriving.

The plant serves as a daily reminder that you can put the minimum effort into your relationships and get the minimum out. Or you can pour as much as you can into your most valuable relationships every day and watch them thrive.

The plant’s regeneration also reminds me that when you put more into your health, fitness, spiritual life, passions, career, business and financial well-being, you get more out of all of them. That’s a heck of a valuable lesson to relearn from an adopted office plant and a daily dose of water.

Key Takeaway

To get more out of life, put more in. Pour more into your valued relationships, your health, and your professional endeavors. And watch them all thrive. Pour more into your faith, and God knows what will happen. And don’t forget to water your plants. Because the things you take care of take care of you.

*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.

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.

Happy 2025! Here are my 52 hopes for you this year.

A new year is the best gift you will ever get. Because it has more hope in it than the Hope Solo documentary on Netflix.

2025 offers you an opportunity to apply all of your experiences, self-reflection and learning to help you do everything better than you have ever done it before.

I hope that 2025 is your best year ever. Like, ever, ever.

I hope that you love your work and look forward to all 52 Mondays. Even the manic ones.

I hope your boss recognizes how fricken awesome you are. (Especially if you are your own boss.)

I hope you push yourself to become a more valuable asset to your organization. Because your value is directly related to your contribution.

I hope you develop a best friend at work. A Laverne to your Shirley. Or like those brothers on The Bear.

I hope you have great relationships with your family, and that you look forward to going home to them each day. And that you appreciate having a home to go home to. And that you are not too good for your home, like Happy Gilmore said.

I hope you make the most of your commute. They are secret gifts of time to learn, connect, prepare, decompress, or try to figure out what these obscure personalized license plates really mean.

I hope you visit your doctor once and your dentist twice.

I hope you see your therapist as much as you need to.

I hope you keep your weight in your acceptable zone until next eggnog and coookie season.

I hope you enjoy exercising as much as your body enjoys the benefits.

I hope you make new memories with old friends.

I hope your new friends start to feel like old friends. (Because of the growing familiarity, not the declining eyesight, hearing, and ability to climb steps.)

I hope you don’t take things personally.

I hope you swear less this year. You always have other options. (poo, darn, fudge, heckaroo.)

I hope you laugh more.

In fact, I hope you laugh until you cry several times this year.

And I hope you laugh until you blow liquids out of your nose at least once, thanks to unexpected hilarity.

I hope you are comfortable sharing the truth.

I hope you fondly remember the people you have lost, and it hurts your heart a little.

I hope you build momentum every day.

I hope that you recognize that you are writing the story of your life every day, like Elvis Costello. And that it is your job to make it a story worth reading.

I hope that you create and maintain great new habits. And that when you have to skip a day you get right back to it the next day.

I hope you spend more time in a different room than your phone.

And that you don’t look at your phone first thing in the morning.

I hope you see your people in real life. They are better than they are on the socials. And more interesting. Remember that social media is just a bridge between in-person experiences.

I hope you share lots of compliments because you are impressed by the people around you.

If you are not impressed by the people around you, I hope you surround yourself with better people. People who are easy to compliment.

I hope you go to your place of worship. God knows you need it.

I hope you remember to wear sunscreen. And maybe a floppy hat.

I hope you get prints made of your favorite photos and hang them on your wall. Don’t just settle for pics in digital form. Eventually, those printed photos will become your most valued possessions.

I hope you enjoy more game nights. Game night is when we really live.

I hope you experience the great joy in giving your time, talent or money. Teach your kids by example. Or teach other peoples’ kids if you don’t have your own.

I hope you find something you like enough to collect in reasonable quantities. (But don’t wind up on an episode of Hoarders.)

I hope you remember all of the important dates in your life.

I hope you read great books that improve you and the way you think about the world.

I hope you struggle and suffer just enough to be reminded how tough and capable you really are.

I hope you don’t give up when things get hard.

I hope you tell your closest friends and family members that you love them while you still can. That window closes without warning.

I hope you find splurges that are totally worth it. (And then tell me what they are.)

I hope you find great new music that makes it into your Spotify 2025 Wrapped. And I hope that you aren’t afraid to admit that Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgrave were all in your Top 5. (There, I admitted it…)

I hope you can understand some of the slang that kids are using today. But not all of it. Unless you are a kid.

I hope you find yourself in nature and stop to just listen.

I hope you use all of your vacation days, but none of your sick days.

I hope you get all the sleep you need.

But I hope you get rid of all the other things you don’t need.

I hope you forgive and move on.

I hope you experience thrills. Without spills.

But most of all, I hope you enjoy great happiness and share it with everyone you meet.

Happy 2025.

Let’s do this!

*If you know someone who could benefit from kicking off their 2025 with this New Year 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.

Why Everyone Needs a Wish List Beyond the Holidays

This holiday season many people have a wish list.

This is a list of things that you would like to have.

Or used to have. But you lost it. Like that loving feeling. Now it’s gone, gone, gone.

You share your wish list with the people who are apt to give you a gift.

Usually this is your family or friends.

But sometimes, it’s a bearded dude in a red suit who leads an army of magical elves.

(And sometimes that works out far better than logic would indicate.)

The wish list does 2 valuable things:

  1. It forces you to think about the things you need and want.
  2. It helps others get you the things you need or want.

But a powerful tool like a wish list shouldn’t be limited to the holidays.

And it shouldn’t just be something you offer other people.

You should create a wish list for yourself.

It should include the things you would like to have. Both needs and wants. Big and small

The things on your wish list could be:

  • Material
  • Psychological
  • Emotional
  • Physical
  • Spiritual
  • Relational
  • Financial
  • Brown paper packages tied up with string

By creating a wish list, you are identifying the things that would improve your life.

Once you know what those things are you can pursue them.

You can attract them.

You can recognize them when you see them.

You can appreciate them when they arrive.

This wish list can be used to improve your personal life.

But it can also improve your professional career.

Or your business.

Or your community.

Or your wardrobe.

Because when you become clear on the things you really want, you create your own gravitational pull.

That’s when the things you really want find a way to find you.

*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.

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

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

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

You get a shipload of time.

In fact, you get 111 hours free!

The Math

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can do nothing anytime.

Key Takeaway

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

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

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

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

I have started Adam’s Good Newsletter to share more positivity.

Hey Readers! I have started a newsletter called Adam’s Good Newsletter. You can cheat code to the newsletter right here, right now, like that arena hype song says. But if you want the backstory first, and who doesn’t like a good backstory, you can find it below.

The Backstory

The spring of 2020 was a dark time in America. COVID-19 was creeping across the country like a lung-infecting fog. Race-related issues were boiling over. And our presidential election was unfolding as one of the ugliest in American history.

The events of that spring scared the crap out of Americans. Which helped turn toilet paper into gold. During that dark and stormy time I recognized that we could all use more good news. So I committed to sharing only good, positive, uplifting stories, ideas and perspectives here in my blog.

As a result, I saw a surge in readership. People called, emailed and texted me telling me how much they appreciated the positive outlook I was sharing here. They told me they looked forward to my posts as a bright spot in their day. And they asked if I knew where they could find toilet paper.

Then, without telling anyone what I was doing, I started writing my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? I was committed to writing a book that would help readers learn a little, laugh a little, and lift a little.

18 months later the book was published and my life changed for the better. Suddenly I had speaking opportunities, TV and podcast interviews, and more interesting things to talk about at career day at my kids’ school. Readers sent me pictures of my book all over the world. Well not in North Korea. Or Antarctica. Or the Gulag. #BookGoals

Now, I had a blog and a book. But I became obsessed with a third vehicle for sharing positivity. Because somewhere between the simplicity of a blog post and the intensity of a book lies the newsletter. For years I wanted to create a fun newsletter to spread good news, ideas, recommendations, motivational quotes, photos, and a little more humor.

But I couldn’t find the time in my schedule to start the newsletter until June of this year, when I finally started publishing Adam’s Good Newsletter.

I just published the 4th edition. And If you have read this far you will like the newsletter. You can check it out by giving this link the old click-a-roo. You can also sign up to receive it fresh in your inbox, and check out past issues.

Please message me at adam@theweaponry if you would like to be added to the mailing list. (Also message me if you have found The Fountain of Youth or a Wonka Bar with the golden ticket.)

Additional Note:

I just created the literary equivalent of a Turducken. Because I stuffed both my book and my newsletter inside my blog. Boom!

The nice surprise at the end of my long day of trains, planes and automobiles.

Recently I had a long day of travel to the West Coast. It started with a 1-hour round-trip drive to drop off our Border Collie Lola at her Pet Lodge. Then we had a 1.5-hour drive to Chicago. Followed by a train ride from the remote parking lot to the terminal at O’Hare International Airport.

My family and I arrived 1.5 hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. But then the flight was delayed by 3 hours. Finally, after a 4.5-hour flight, we landed in the Pacific Northwest. (Note how adding the word Northwest dramatically changed the meaning of that last sentence.)

After we landed we proceeded to the rental car counter, picked up our car (not literally), and drove 30 minutes to the hotel. It had been quite a day. When I walked into the hotel I approached the front desk with a big smile and enthusiasm, which is my default mode. Immediately the two staff members at reception lit up and commented on how they loved my energy. Especially since it was well after 10pm.

The person checking me into my room asked to see my ID. I enthusiastically handed him my new license, which I had just renewed the week before. He exclaimed that I really brought the energy in my license photo too. The other person behind the front desk chimed in about it and mentioned that her driver’s license was from Hawaii. Which allowed me to drop some McLovin references. And we all had a SuperGoood laugh.

As we finished the check-in process the clerk handed me my room keys. They were to an upgraded room on the top floor of the hotel. Then he handed me my parking pass and said, ‘No charge for the parking tonight. Thank you for bringing such great energy to our hotel tonight.’

Key Takeaway

Your personal energy is one of the most valuable assets you can share with other people. You don’t have to be a rockstar or a motivational speaker to make people feel good. Just share your energy and your good attitude. It elevates moods. It transforms situations. It reminds us all what life feels like at its best. When you share your energy with the people around you, it helps them do the same. And the ripple effect helps make the world a better place. Heck, you might just get a better room and free parking 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 I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.