So, what I am going to do next (which my team doesn’t know yet, but will shortly) is have them write. It’s way overdue and I hope they find this an exciting challenge. Some will fight it and come up with a bunch of reason why they can’t. Before they even try I’ll list them for them ahead of time so they don’t have to bother.

I am one of those people who is hardwired to try and impart myself onto others. This can be noble or narcissistic but most likely both. I love inspiration, quotes, affecting others, coaching, and looking for ways to make meaningful change in my world.

I can’t believe I became the kind of person who listens to self-help books. I never thought I’d be one of “those” people. But I most definitely am. One glance at my Audible App and there’s no denying it. According to Audible, I’ve been listening to self-help books since 2018. Approximately half of the books I listen to could be described as self-help. But every time I type “self-help,” I make this face in my head: 😬 It has a really negative connotation to it. Why does the word "self-help" make us want to cringe?

We are proud to introduce you to The Fourth Annual 5+8 Gift Guide and the wonderful people who swear by them.

This is probably my favorite blog subject line. It's borderline clickbait, but I assure you there is a very real story about a show called Bikini Destination. My first full-time job was at a place called Broadcast News Channel. If that sounds like a fake broadcasting company to you, then you are correct and shrewder than 24-year-old Adam was…

While the pandemic is still ravaging many countries (it's really bad), our world is rapidly returning to normalish. It's getting so normal, so fast, it's almost a little uncomfortable. After all, we were promised that nothing would ever be the same, but I am skeptical if the "new normal" is going to happen or if it's going to look an awful lot like the old normal. I can't do much about that, but I can ensure it won't be the same around here. We talked about it, and we decided to keep the new stuff we like and bin the stuff that sucked. Here are a few ways we're working on keeping our "new normal" for good.

My team and I have been committed to posting content over the last 5+ years, and we now post on Words Plus Internet, email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TikTok, and Medium. And I still get that shred of doubt before almost every post. We are not widely followed on any of those platforms by the way, and we don’t care. We write, we talk, we draw, we make videos, and we create. We do it because it’s a lot of fun and because we believe it's worth it.

I wrote this down months ago: "I’m going to stop using my age as an excuse not to be awesome." I didn’t know why then, but I think I do now. I like to make fun of my age and openly discuss the arrival of my irrelevance. This is a self-preservation tactic, and I want to stop. There are no rules except for the ones we make for ourselves—which are not real rules. Two people who are the exact same age could believe "I am too young" and "I am too old," respectively. That's hilarity and insanity. Asking yourself, "Am I too old for this?" should only be answered by your self.

We recently started an apprentice program for those looking to learn more about advertising, branding, and agency life—but this is not about that. This is about one woman who torpedoed her own interview to ask two of our designers a vulnerable question: "Why won’t anyone hire me?" Katy and Sharon were not exactly sure what to say, but they came to me afterward and asked that I speak with her. I did. She asked me the same thing. She had been rejected for full-time positions—which she was more than qualified for—over and over again, and she had had enough of the auto-rejection emails and the polite excuses. She asked for the truth, so I told her. “You’re older, and your work is starting to look old, too.”