Tag: self improvement

A lesson from the most overlooked event in track and field.

I love track and field. I first got involved in the sport as a freshman in high school, mostly because I was terrible at baseball. But also because it was co-ed. And, I thought the fact that it was a no-cut sport significantly improved my chances of actually making the team.

Trying Everything

I have competed in a wide variety of track and field events. My resume includes the 100 meters, 400 meters, 1600 meters, high jump, long jump, shot put, discus, javelin, hammer, 35-pound weight, 110 meter hurdles, 4×100 meter relay, 4×400 meter relay, and, yes, even the pole vault (which I approached more like the high jump with a stick).

I liked every event I ever competed in. I love the energy and atmosphere at track meets. But you know when track and field becomes really fun?

The Second Meet.

The second meet is the most important and impactful event in a track athlete’s career. In your first meet you are just setting a baseline. But once you get to your second meet you walk in with a time, distance or height to beat. And most of the time, the results in the second meet are a rewarding step forward from the first meet.

In track and field, every result is measured in minutes and seconds, or feet and inches. Which means that your linear progression is clear and quantifiable. Your undeniable improvement in the second meet gets you thinking about the third meet. It makes you think about practicing more, training harder, lifting weights, warming up smarter and getting some better hype music. You start wondering just how much better you can get. The seeds of self-improvement are planted, fertilized and watered in that second meet.

The Broader Lesson

This is not just a track and field thing. This is a life thing. The same principle applies to our careers, our relationships, our responsibilities and our hobbies. Our first attempts simply set a baseline. The second time we do anything we start the improvement process. We recognize that as we pour more energy, time and focus into any activity we get better and better. This is true of presenting a closing argument in court, hiring good employees and folding fitted sheets (although my wife, Dawn is so good at the fitted sheet thing that I focus on the closing arguments in court instead).

Key Takeaway

Don’t be afraid to try something new because you think you will be bad at it. You will be bad at it. Or at least you will be the worst you will ever be. But that first attempt creates a starting point. The climb from there is both exciting and rewarding. As you improve, remember that first attempt. Recognize how far you have come since you first started. It is one of the most rewarding reflections in life.

*To see if these posts improve over time, please consider subscribing to this blog. Like the measurements of my track and field days, I now track follows, likes and comments to see if I am getting better. And like track and field, I am happy blogging is a no-cut sport.

Why you should put a smile on every time you get your dial on.

Have you ever thought about how you look when you make a phone call? It is easy to think that your appearance doesn’t matter. After all, the person on the other end of the call doesn’t see you. Unless you are a Close Caller. Which is like a Close Talker, only you use your phone, because you can. Which is weird.

But your appearance on a phone call does matter. Because how you look influences how you feel. Even if you are thousands of miles away, the person on the other end of the conversation will pick up on how you feel. And it will influence what they send back to you.

You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile.

When I make or take a phone call, I always put a smile on my face before I start talking. It magically brightens my mood. Because smiling is the ultimate human happiness hack. You don’t have to be happy to smile. You can smile to be happy.

In fact, many a scientific study have proven that your responses to questions are significantly more positive when you hold a pencil between your teeth the broad way. Holding a pencil this way forces you to smile. And the forced smile has the same effect as the real thing. And while Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell would have you believe there ain’t nothing like the real thing (baby), Guy Smiley and Happy Gilmore would disagree.

When you put a smile on your face before a phone call it makes good things happen. It influences what you say, how you say it, and how you respond to your telephonic partner. It makes the call more enjoyable for the other person. It helps you overcome anxiousness when making an important call. And if the call goes poorly, well, it’s easy to laugh it off if you are already in a smiling position.

Key Takeaway

Next time you pick up the phone, first pick up the corners of your mouth. Wearing a smile will positively impact everything about the call. It will make you sound warmer and more likable. It will influence the words you choose. It will leave a lasting impression on the person on the other end. It can even make them look forward to talking to you again.

If you want to try it now, put on a smile and call my number at 614-256-2850. If I don’t answer, leave a message and let me know you’re practicing your Smile Call. When I call you back you can bet I’ll be smiling too.

*If you’d rather not call me, but would still like to hear what I’m thinking, consider subscribing to this blog. If you want to read about another fun smiling technique I use, read Kickstart your day with this powerful and simple habit.

Who you should always compare yourself to.

I always say something ridiculous at the beginning of our quarterly meetings. Ok, even typing that sentence sounds ridiculous. For someone who started his advertising career as a precocious young copywriter, the idea of being a business owner who ‘begins quarterly meetings’ sounds kinda crazy. But I digress.

At the beginning of each quarter meeting at my advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry, I say,

“The Weaponry is a (insert ridiculously large revenue number) business, with (insert ridiculously large number) of offices, and (insert ridiculously large number) of employees. Our job, ladies and gentlemen, is to close the gap between The Weaponry I just described, and The Weaponry that exists today.”

We then identify the most important things the business must add, remove, implement, enhance or change in order to close the gap between who we are today and our ideal self. We use the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), as spelled out in Gino Wickman’s book Traction to help us do this.

Every Day I Write The Book.

We compare ourselves to The Ideal Weaponry constantly.  It’s our version of What Would Jesus Do? When making decisions about hiring, copier machines, our website, or business development, we constantly asks, What Would The Fully Formed, Fully Realized Version of The Weaponry Do. You know, the classic WWTFFFRVOTWD.

By creating a strong, tangible and detailed vision of your future self, you can mentally google any questions about your ideal state. Just ask yourself, ‘How does Future State You handle performance reviews?’ Or ‘How does Future State You invoice, or develop a pipeline of new business opportunities?’ When you ask such questions, you’ll usually find the answers sitting right there at the top of the search results. Because your ideal state is optimized for mental SEO.

I’m Talking About You Too (And Maybe U2)

This works for individuals too. By creating a strong image of your future self, you always have a great model to follow. When you stand back-to-back with your future self,  you can easily find the gaps in knowledge, professionalism, patience, trust or reliability that you need to close. This helps you focus your efforts on acquiring new knowledge, skills, and maybe updating your wardrobe.

Key Takeaway.

Don’t compare your business to a competitor. Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’s. The only organization you should be benchmarking against is your organization’s ideal state.  The only person you should be jealous of is Fully Formed You. These are the only comparisons that matter. And they are the only comparisons that you can do anything about. That’s why the guy sitting in my chair at my company’s quarterly meeting didn’t completely surprise me. I’ve been comparing myself to him my entire life.

How to prepare your mind for competition.

I love a good quote. In fact, I consider my susceptibility to a good quote one of my greatest assets. I love the way a powerful quote can summarize a complicated concept in a simple, memorable way. I regularly add these little gems to my personal guide-book. Then I pull them out to remind myself how to respond to challenging situations. Like starting a new business. Or Atlanta traffic.

Phil Knight

I recently came across a great quote from Nike Founder, Phil Knight. In his book Shoe Dog, Knight shares the challenges he faced when fighting for US distribution rights of the Japanese-made Tiger running shoes in the early 1960s. He was in a showdown with a formidable opponent who also wanted exclusive distribution rights. Which meant that Knight was going to have to compete to win.

phil.knight
Nike Founder, Phil Knight, who pioneered the concept of wearing a track jacket with a blazer. #SportsCoats

Here’s the quote:

“The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past.”   ― Phil Knight

To Compete You Must Forget

When you compete you can’t let past performances determine future outcomes. You have to expect the next performance will produce the desired outcome. It’s true in business. And it’s true in our personal lives.

Selective amnesia is a powerful thing. It gets you to try again, even if you have lost, or failed or suffered in the past. You can’t let a loss win. Forget it, and keep going. Get back up. Dust yourself off (if you live somewhere dusty). Then try again.

goats-competition-dispute.jpg
It’s easier to forget things if you bang your head until it no longer works. But I don’t recommend this technique for humans. And neither do former NFL players.

Key Takeaway

Forget your failures. Forget your rejections. Forget the losses, the suffering, the pain and this disappointment. Remember, every chance is an opportunity for a new and better outcome. Forgetting worked out nicely for Phil Knight. It will work out for you too.

*If you have a great quote relevant to competition, please share it in the comment section. If you want to see more of the quotes I find inspiring, consider subscribing to this blog.

 

Why walking in a blizzard is so good for you.

I recently found this post in my rough drafts folder. It was originally written in June of 2016, but never published. At the time, my advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry, was a startup in the first months of life. The swirling uncertainty of startup-ness surrounded us. And that can mess with you…

From June 10th, 2016

Today I had a long talk with a co-worker who was having a hard time at work. Which is understandable. Because startups are kinda hard. Launching a startup is like walking in a blizzard. Wind and snow are all up in your grill. It’s cold. Visibility goes into the toilet. It’s difficult to navigate in these conditions.

In the middle of a blizzard your survival instincts tell you to seek shelter. It’s natural to want to escape the relentless wind, disorienting snow and mounting drifts. Sitting by a crackling fire, drinking hot chocolate is far more appealing to most people.

But I like walking in blizzards. I like being out when no one else is. I like doing things that build my character, my will and my personal legend. In the same way a callus rises as the result of repeated friction, strength grows from pushing against resistance.

You have to keep walking. You must have faith that you know where you are heading. You have to take steps forward, even when it is hard. Blizzards of the wintry, professional and personal kind are temporary. Eventually the snow will stop falling. The wind will chill the eff out. And the sun will come out again. When that happens, where will you be? It’s a matter of what you did during the blizzard. If you keep pushing, you will find yourself far ahead of where you started, far ahead of those who sought shelter, and closer to your ultimate goal. You’ll find the ultimate rewards far outweigh the hot chocolate you sacrificed along the way.

*To learn what has happened to The Weaponry over the past year and a half, check out some other posts. To see what happens next, consider subscribing to this blog.

Only the paranoid survive.

I haven’t read Andy Grove’s book Only The Paranoid Survive. I don’t need to. I get everything I need to know from the title alone. If you want to survive in business you have to be paranoid.

Why I bring this up.

I am part of a CEO roundtable known as the Council of Small Business Executives (COSBE) in Milwaukee. We had our monthly meeting yesterday at my advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry. The theme of the meeting was clear. The CEOs in my group are all feeling paranoid.

But here’s the funny thing: none of us are in imminent danger. There is no grim reaper at the door preparing to cut our internet connections and leave our businesses for dead. Quite the opposite. Our futures all look bright. We continue to grow and add new clients. We are hitting exciting milestones that indicate our businesses are moving in the right direction.

Yet we all seem concerned that we are not doing enough. That we are not as productive as we could be. Or as aggressive as we should be. Or as focused. Or as successful. To a therapist we may all appear to have odd self-image issues. Or a lack of confidence. But that is not the case.

The Real Issue

We are doing exactly what you need to do to survive as an entrepreneur. You have to worry about issues before they become issues. You have to invest in relationships you don’t need today. You have to develop plans and infrastructure that aren’t critical right now.

You need to do the little things that are important but not urgent before they become urgent. Because if you wait until they are urgent it will probably be too late. Self-inflicted paranoia keeps you a step or two ahead of the real danger. It activates your fight or flight responses when there is no imminent fight. That’s how you prevent complacency. And that’s how you thrive.

Your personal life.

The same power of paranoia can also help your personal relationships, fitness and finances. If you are paranoid that you are not doing enough, you will invest action in each of these three critical areas before they become real problems.

Key Takeaway. 

Embrace your self-inflicted paranoia. It’s a great survival tool. By pulling the fire alarm in your head you’ll be prepared before any actual fire has a chance to block your escape route. Better yet, there is a good chance that fire will never happen.

*If you are paranoid that you will miss a post from this blog, please subscribe to receive each new update via email.

How to prevent your dreams from crashing into a ditch this year.

Have you engaged in some self-evaluation over the past week? I have. The start of a new year has a funny way of forcing us to take stock of what we have, how we look, the state of our careers, our relationships and the effects of our bad habits. Then, once a year, we take actions to course correct. But this once-a-year-course-correction approach is severely flawed. Almost as flawed as my ability to properly fold fitted sheets.

Life is a highway

Imagine your ideal life as a road. All you have to do is drive on it. Now, imagine you find yourself veering ever-so-slightly towards the ditch, or oncoming traffic. When should you make a course correction? As soon you recognize you are veering! But what if you don’t? What if you only steer once a year?

The problem with annual corrections

If you only make a course correction once a year, you will only ever make a maximum of 100 adjustments (and that’s making some generous assumptions about your longevity and the age at which you scribbled your first New Year’s resolution).

At just 100 adjustments over a lifetime, one of two things happens. You either veer far off course each year, or you travel really, really, really slowly to prevent winding up in the ditch before the end of the year. Either way, 100 lifetime corrections severely limits your ability to travel your ideal path.

Driver Safety Quiz

Question: How often do you need to make subtle adjustments when you are driving an actual car on an actual road?

Answer: Every few seconds.

What should you do instead?

It’s simple math.  An annual evaluation and course correction will allow you 100 chances to follow your true path. A monthly correction will provide you with 1200 chances.  Weekly evaluations provide 5200 lifetime adjustments. While a daily course correction will provide you with 36,500 chances to travel your true path (plus roughly 25 leap days which you can use as you please).

I’m not saying you need to course correct every day. I’m also not saying you shouldn’t.  But a weekly or monthly inventory check will dramatically improve your odds of attaining your goals and living into the life of your design.

So don’t wait until the end of the year. Start by re-evaluating your course today, one week into the new year. If you are not heading towards your own true north, make the necessary adjustments now. Keep recalibrating. And steer yourself exactly where you want to go.

*If you want to read a post from this blog more than once per year please subscribe to receive about two posts per week via email.

Why September 6th is the most important day of the year.

Happy New Year! That’s right, Tuesday September 6th is the real New Year’s Day. I know you’re probably wondering what the Dick Clark I’m talking about. Allow me to explain.

Americans traditionally celebrate the new year at the worst possible time. In January you are stumbling out of the most hectic and stressful time of the year. Which makes it a poor time to set new goals, quit bad habits and reinvent yourself.

The simple fact is that the fall, not spring, and certainly not January 1st is the best time for new beginnings.

If you were a tree, today is when your next ring would start to grow. Preschool starts in the fall. And so does Kindergarten, middle school, high school and college. Which means fall is the start of the next chapter for kids, parents and teachers alike. The day after Labor Day is the first day schools everywhere are back in session and fully engaged.

When summer break is over for kids summer vacations are over for adults. Which means that starting today we are all back to work. Our businesses are operating at full strength for the first time in 3 months. Factories are humming. Offices are buzzing. And farms are really farmy.

Churches now begin their regularly scheduled programs. So if you see a church, and see a steeple, open it up and you might see all the people.

The new television season starts now.  Both NCAA and NFL football kickoff now too.

This is a great time of year.

For those of you who used your summer vacation days well, you are hitting September 6th fully recharged. Not only did you take the last three months to fill up on Vitamin D, travel, relaxation and inspiration, you got a three-day weekend to top it all off.

Now that your tanks are full and you are refocused it is time to treat this like the new beginning you almost missed. Set new goals. Drop a bad habit. Pick a new challenge. Plan your next chapter. Grab that next rung. Or build your own ladder.

At The Perfect Agency Project we are fully engaged. Your team should be too. We’re all primed, rested and ready.  Let’s push hard. Have fun. And make this the best year ever. And here you thought today was just another Tuesday.

 

 

 

Why lying is so good for you.

I used to think I was an honest person. I can only think of one promise that I’ve made and not kept, since 8th grade. On the night I graduated from high school I promised my friend Simon Phillips that I would sign his yearbook. And I still haven’t done it. A few years ago I reached out to Simon through Facebook to apologize and to try to complete my obligation. Apparently he forgot all about my unkept promise. I have not.

But smack dab in the middle of what I had considered to be a very honest life I realized two shocking truths:

1. I tell lies all the time.

2. I have no idea how smack and dab came to qualify the middle of something.

The lies I’m talking about are not little white lies. Not exaggerations of something mostly true. They are complete and utter falsifications and fabrications. Big league lies.

My string of outlandish lies goes back to high school. I can remember saying that I was the boys high school state record holder in the discus. I first told this lie when I was a scrawny freshman who had only thrown the discus in one meet. And in that one meet my best throw was 60 feet shy of the state record! I was a liar. Yes, I was a liar. And my pants were certainly on fire.

The lies continued in college. After a couple of rough semesters academically my GPA indicated that I was a terrible college student. But I lied and said that I was a great college student who got great grades and made the Dean’s list. All lies.

Once I started my career in advertising the lies just kept coming. Before I even landed a job I started telling outlandish lies about my accomplishments, accolades and income. I was a one man lie-athon.

But a funny thing happened after I told all those lies.

They started coming true.

Sure enough, in the last track meet of my senior year I broke the state high school discus record by 3 feet.

In college, I followed up a couple of terrible academic semesters with 7 straight semesters that included making the Dean’s List, being named an Academic All-Big Ten athlete, achieving a GPA of at least 3.5 every semester and graduating with a GPA of 3.88 within my psychology and journalism majors.

In my advertising career the lies keep coming true too. I lied when as a young writer I said I could help attract fun clients to the agency  where I worked. Then I helped the agency pick up Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Sea•Doo watercraft, Evinrude outboard motors, as well as CanAm ATVs and the Spyder Roadster

Building on that success I then joined a relatively unknown regional agency and lied about how we were going to work with some of the world’s best brands. And over the next few years we won business with Nike, Coke, UPS, Nationwide, Chick-fil-a and Wells Fargo.

The truth is, you need to lie to achieve great things. You have to believe the unbelievable to achieve the unachievable. (That’s some Jessie Jackson-worthy rhyming, right!?!)

Whether you call it lying or living into your dreams or positive thinking or envisioning or auto suggestion, this powerful tool is about lying to yourself so convincingly that you make the lie a reality. Which is exactly what I am doing on my quest to create the perfect agency. I believe it can be done. And I believe I’m the right person to do it. Which is a huge, and completely unsubstantiated lie.

I don’t know of any other way to make great things happen but to tell myself they will, even when there is no basis for it in reality. So I encourage you to try lying to yourself today. If you don’t feel great, say you do. If you haven’t achieved great things, say you have. Say it often. Every morning and every night, in the mirror. Lie to yourself.  Lie until you don’t even realize what the truth is anymore. And then make it all come true.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a yearbook to sign.

 

How to make your dreams come true in 3 easy steps.

Do you have dreams?  I do. I dream all the time. You could say I’m dreamy. And I wish more people did. But I also know how to bring my dreams to life. I don’t just blow out birthday candles or wish upon stars or listen to Hall & Oates. While all of those activities may help, I use a simple technique that has proven effective thousands of times.

You may ask yourself why a guy who works in Advertising! would know how to make dreams come true. Well, my job as a creative is to dream of new things and then bring them to life. My proven Adam Albrecht Approach To Creating Things (I just made that up) follows a simple 3 step process. And this process applies to anything you want to create. A commercial. A home. A business. An invention. A baby. Or even a commercial about a home business that invents babies.

Today, the Perfect Agency Project hopes to make the world a better place and help make more of your dreams come true by sharing our process. So without further ado, here is how you can create anything you want through Adam Albrecht’s 3 Steps of Non-Religious Creation (I just rebranded it).

Step 1.  Envision The Dream.  

This is as simple as it sounds. This step is about letting your brain run and play. It is about building castles in your head. It is dreaming up the perfect cookie or car wash or app. Picture your ideal fill-in-the-blank. Create a clear image in your head first. Get it in HD if it is available in your area. The more detail the better. This should be fun. And remember not to dream too small.

Step 2.  Write it down.

This too is about as simple as it sounds. However, 99.9969% of dreams/ideas/visions never happen because they don’t make it to this step. They never get written down. They never get described. The never take any form in the physical world.

Simply talking about your dream doesn’t cut it. Talking is like dreaming aloud. So that still falls under Step 1. To make your dreams come true they have to make it to paper or pixels (this will now be known as The Paper or Pixel Principle). Writing the idea down creates the recipe, the blueprint, the formula, the instructions, the map. You get it.

I have notebooks throughout my home that are filled with dreams. I am certain that these notebooks are the most valuable items I own. Because in them are the descriptions, plans and sketches of great things just waiting for step 3!

But before we move on it is important to note that the more time your spend acting in step 2  the easier the final step is. In step 2 you can start small with a few notes and descriptions. But come back early and often to flesh out your idea (please don’t flush it out).

For example, if you’re making a recipe write down the ingredients and the place you plan to go shopping. If you’re building your dream home, sketch out a crude representation (not in oil). Write down the specialist you’ll need to help you. Write down the materials. And the resources you need to find in order to fill in the gaps in your knowledge or abilities. If you need help financing your dream this step is critical. Because it makes the dream real enough for others to see. This is the plan that others can support too.  Which is what makes KickStarter work.

Step 3.  Make it real.

Despite what you may think, this step is also easy when you follow the process. That is because your dream has already been created, twice.  First, in your head when you created your vision. Then when you wrote it down and created the recipe. Now you simply start cooking. Or moving. Or building. You should see the steps and functions required to make progress from step 2.  If not, bounce back to step 2 for a moment to write it out.

Keep moving. Dreams are like sharks: if they stop moving humans will make up sayings about them both. As long as you are working on one of the 3 steps you are making progress. Although the goal must always be to move forward to the next step in order to complete the process.

So there you have it.  Whether your dream is to build a great BLT, create a hilarious video or put a human on Mars the steps are the same. See it. Write it down. Make it for realsies. So get started today. Keep Moving. Create something great. And then send me a note to tell me all about it.