Tag: results

My two-word formula for success at anything.

I have spent my whole life alphabetically advantaged. Adam Albrecht appears near the top of every list whether you decide to organize people by first name, last name, or the more rarely-used, 3rd letter of the first name.

I love my initials. AA. I sign my emails and notes with -AA. It’s symmetrical and primary. It would work well as a name for a ranch. (The kind with cattle, not the kind that Paul Newman makes.)

My favorite batteries are AA. My favorite company swag comes from American Airlines. And if I ever become ambitious enough to start drinking alcohol, and then ambitious enough to stop drinking alcohol, I am going to join AA, and wear all of their swag. I’ll be the most non-anonymous AA member of all time.

But AA is not just my initials. It is also shorthand for my formula for success.

That simple yet powerful formula is Action & Analysis.

To be successful you have to take Action. You have to verb. You have to do. You have to try. Action is the fuel that creates results.

But once you have taken Action, you have to perform an Analysis. You need to study the results. You need to evaluate the outcome. You need to learn what worked and what didn’t. You have to learn which jokes landed, and which ones were only funny in your head. (It was the 3rd- letter-of-the-first-name thing wasn’t it?)

Then you adjust your aim, reload, and fire more action at your target. Then analyze again. And repeat.

Action & Analysis is a simple formula for success. It has been proven in action, and through analysis. And it never fails.

Key Takeaway

To become the best version of yourself you need Action and Analysis. Do what you think you should do. Then analyze the outcome. Adjust according to your learnings. Then take action again. Success leaves clues. Failure steers us. Reflecting on experience leads to wisdom. Repeat the process over and over and over. All the way to success. -AA

*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.

Enjoy the great results of taking just a little action every day.

Success is a stacking exercise. It is about taking a little action every day. (The way Elvis Costello wrote the book.) Just take a little action, day after day. And watch the results stack up.

Here are the types of actions you should take every day.

Reading. Read a page a day, 5 pages a day, or 10 pages a day. At 5 pages each day you will read over 1500 pages in a year. At 10 pages you will read 3650. That’s a lot of knowledge gain in the membrane.

Exercise: Exercise strengthens your body and helps you burn calories. By taking a little action every day, you stack strength gains and weight loss, or weight control. And look better naked.

Meet Someone New. If you stack a new person into your life every day you will meet 365 new people this year. That would transform your life, both personally and professionally. It would also increase the cost of your Christmas cards. And you would need a bigger budget for ham sandwiches at your funeral. But the rest is upside.

Reach out to someone in your friend circle or network every day. Make contact, rekindle a friendship, or start a conversation every day. That’s relationship maintenance. And it’s just as important as making new friends, in the same way that it used to be important to not just take pictures, but get the film developed back before digital photography came along and ruined my analogy.

Write. A journal, book, plan, blog, play, movie, whatever. Writing a little each day will help you create. And it will help you improve your own thinking. Writing my ideas down helps me more than it helps those who read what I write. Sorry.

A step on a master plan. You have a big plan, goal, or idea. I know you do. Commit to taking one action towards it every day and that master plan will come to life. That’s exactly how I built my business, The Weaponry, from dust. It’s how I wrote my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? And it’s how Eric B. and Rakim went from thinking of a master plan to getting paid in full.

Play an instrument: Playing an instrument every day for just 5 or 10 minutes will stack into a valuable and enjoyable skill. Anyone can do it. You can teach yourself with learn-to-play books and online videos. Start now and you’ll be able to play Christmas songs by Christmas time. Especially if you play a kazoo.

Learn a new word in a different language. When you travel internationally you realize how many words there are to know beyond your native tongue. If you add 365 new words in Spanish, Chinese, French, Norwegian, or the language of your choice each year you would add significantly to your understanding of the world and your ability to communicate with people. Plus it’s the best way to avoid ordering Veau or Escargot if you are not into such things.

Key Takeaway

The rewards of simple actions, done every day, stack into huge and powerful piles of value. Just like money saved and invested. And little by little, they transform your life. So start today. It doesn’t take much. It just takes a little every 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.

All successful results are a product of these 2 simple factors.

I have competed all my life. As an athlete. As a businessman. And as a coach. I have seen how some teams and businesses always generate great results, while others never do. (Coughing: Cleveland Browns.)

I have learned what it takes to achieve great results. And like Bennifer, Hall & Oates, and Gin n’ Juice, successful results are a product of two things.

The System and The Subject.

The System is the way of doing things.

It is the process. The expectations. The values. The technique. It is the school of thought. The philosophies. It is the declared purpose and priorities. It is the tolerances permitted. It is the culture. It is the rituals and norms. And the people with other names besides Norm.

The Subject is the person being coached, led or taught.

Subjects vary in skills, talent, commitment, attitude, experience, determination, resolve and grit. They vary in natural ability and capacity. They vary in tolerance for pain and suffering. They vary in height, weight and speed. And subjects vary in loyalty, royalty, and the price they are willing to pay.

What This Means.

The system will determine how much you can get out of the subject.

The subject will determine how much you can get out of the system.

A better system will generate better results for a subject.

A better subject will generate better results within a system.

Key Takeaway

For the team to create the greatest results, continuously improve your system, and attract better subjects. For the individual to achieve the greatest results, find the greatest system.

*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.

The 7 simple steps of the self-improvement process.

If you want to get better at anything it is important to understand the self-improvement process. Like a week, and a house full of dwarfs, it is made of 7 parts.

1. Desire is the root of all self-improvement.

If you have no desires you have no life force pushing you to improve or achieve. Or reproduce. So make sure you have a desire. Like U2. Or that streetcar in New Orleans.

2. Your desire leads to goals.

Goals are your wants clearly stated. This gives you a target. Which provides focus and direction. Or obsession. Like Calvin Klein.

3. Goals lead to plans.

Plans define a course of action to bridge the gap between you and your goals. The plan declares how you will get to your goal. It determines how you will change yourself or the world to obtain your goal. So make sure you plan, Stan.

4. Plans drive your calendar.

Your calendar determines what you need to do and when. The when, or the time you carve out to act, is critical. Time is the stage for change. You must first find and protect the time needed to act. Just like an Under Armor athlete must protect this house.

5. Your calendar drives your actions.

Action is the key ingredient of progress. It is the doing. Action is the step on the 1000-mile journey. Repeated actions create habits. Habits create more action. And more action and more action, Jackson.

6. Your actions drive your results.

Your actions create progress and momentum. Actions build the bridge. As you build the bridge you reduce the gap between you and your desire.

7. Your results deliver your desires.

Performing the right actions for long enough will create the results needed to attain the things you desire. Keep going. And keep investing your time until you get what you want.

Key Takeaway

Desire –> Goal –> Plan –> Calendar –> Action –> Result –> Attainment

Remember, the process is simple. Not easy.

If you know someone who could benefit from this formula, 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.

One of the best things you can do right now is plant radishes.

When I was a boy my family always planted a garden. Ok, that may be an understatement. We were the only family I knew that had fresh cow manure delivered by the truckload to be spread over our sprawling vegetable garden. Which meant that when spring was in the air it was really in the air at my house.

When I bought my first home I proudly continued my family’s gardening tradition. However, I buy my cow manure by the bag, not the big rig. It helps maintain more neighborly relations.

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My baby sister Donielle and one of our monster, manure-powered heads of broccoli. 

The Benefits

Vegetables you grow yourself taste better. Which alone would be enough reason to grow your own. But there is more. You can save yourself a lot of money growing your own fruits and vegetables. You feel safer eating your own harvest because you know how the plants were raised. And today, the garden feels like a safer place to go for produce than the local grocery store. Which looks like it has been taken over by masked suburban bandits, all trying their hardest to stay 6 feet away from each other.

Filling the Cornucopia

Each year my wife Dawn and I plant tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in the backyard garden boxes we built ourselves. We plant carrots, peas, beans, lettuce, onions, pumpkins and squash.

The Radishes

But my favorite things to plant every spring are radishes. I love the taste of radishes. They are full of flavor. And these bright red spheres of spice add color and personality to both the garden and to our plates.

But that’s not what I love most about radishes.

close up photo of radishes
You look radishing…

Time Passages

After we plant most of our vegetables we have to wait months to harvest them. Typically that means 60, 70, 80 or even 110 days of tending to them before we get eat. 

But radishes are different.

Ready Already

Radishes are ready quickly. Usually in just 20 days. Which makes radishes like short term goals. They offer a quick sense of progress and a tasty reward far before the other vegetables are ready. Radishes keep us motivated and satisfied until the peas, beans and lettuce are ready to step up to the plate. (See what I did there?)

Life Lessons

Gardening is like life and business. You must sow seeds before you reap rewards. Gardening requires long term thinking. There is watering, weeding, and fertilizing required along the way. And you only get out of it what you put into it.

agriculture bowl close up cooking
Life isn’t always a bowl of cherries. It starts as a bowl of radishes.

Reward Season

To get us to our long term goals we all need short term goals along the way. We need to see quick progress. Especially now. We know that our world and our economy will bounce back eventually. But we could use some quick wins. Some short term progress. Something tasty and rewarding to sink our teeth into sooner than later. So make sure you are planting seeds in both your personal and professional life that you can harvest and enjoy quickly. Preferably something legal in all 50 states.

Key Takeaway

As humans we need quick, positive reinforcement. We need these wins now to remind us that we are making progress over the short term. Which gives us the fortitude we need for the long term. The tomatoes, peppers, and pumpkins will all come eventually. But right now the radishes will help get us through.

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

If you want results do what my son does.

When I first became a parent I was prepared to drop knowledge on my kids. I had prepared a syllabus of over 30 years worth of life lessons. They were sorted into 3 files. The first was labeled Smart Things I Did. The second was labeled Dumb Things I Did That You Should Avoid. And the third file was simply labeled Bill Cosby.

Magnus

What I wasn’t prepared for were are all of the lessons that my children would teach me. My latest lessons have come from my 9-year old son Magnus. Magnus, has taught me a lot about socializing. He has a remarkable ability to make instantaneous friendships anywhere. His social intelligence is as good as the best adults I know. He’s like a little Dale Carnegie on the playground, just winning little friends and influencing little people.

Losing Teeth

But as impressive as Magnus is at socializing, he is world class at losing teeth. It’s an odd thing to be great at, I know. But lately Magnus has lost teeth at a meth addict rate. I think he has lost 8 teeth in the last 2 months. In fact, I don’t know how he actually chews anything anymore. #popsiclesfordinner

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Me and Magnus and all of our hair at the top of the Astoria Column in Astoria, Oregon. 

Talk Is Cheap

However, it is not his quantity of tooth loss that impresses me. It is the style. You know how I know when Magnus has a loose tooth? He puts the tooth in my hand. Before that he doesn’t talk about it, complain about it or brag about it. He says nothing until the tooth is out. Even then he doesn’t really talk about it. He just shows me the results, and smiles an ever toothlessier smile. And every time he surprises me (and the Tooth Fairy) with absolutely no advanced warning, I am more impressed by his ability to quietly take care of business.

The Reminder

I meet people all the time who go on and on, (like Steven Bishop, down in Jamaica, with lots of pretty women), about their big dreams, lofty goals and ambitious plans. But talk doesn’t bring a dream to life. Discussions don’t achieve goals. And ambition doesn’t execute a plan. Talk is the cheapest of all commodities. Action is the the most valuable. And it’s the only currency you can use to buy your goals and dreams.

Key Takeaway

Success requires action. To be successful do more. Talk less. Complain less. Analyze less. And focus on results. Don’t tell the world what you are going to do. Show them what you’ve done. Then, after the work is all done, you can sit back and enjoy the rewards. Just like my son Magnus does.

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

 

 

How to get greater results from your reading.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.