So you’re in advertising? Get over it — most people are more appalled than impressed.

And can you blame ’em? Seen any good commercials on TV lately?

If you measure your success against people less talented than yourself, you’ll never reach your potential.

If you measure your success against people more talented than yourself, you’ll always be disappointed.

New Year’s Eve: overrated or awesome?

Encouragement and threats are thinly veiled guises of one another.

Twas the Headline before Christmas and all through the house, not an idea was stirring.

Challenge yourself.

There’s no time like the present, and no present like time off.

What would you be doing right now if your internet were out indefinitely?

Today’s prevailing sentiment: Whatever.

Your abilities are the product of a confluence of disparate influences and the timing of their actualization.

Ten years ago, I couldn’t have written that headline.

Inspiration wanes. So while you wait, doubting yourself and sucking, do something else.

There is nothing linear about an advertising career.

What would you rather be, incredibly talented or ignorant of the need to be?

Ultimately, resiliency will serve you better than tenacity.

Cockiness is often arrogance expressed. It can also be a symptom of insecurity, self-doubt or a need to be loved. Don’t assume.

If you wear hats, would you please wash them. That dirty lid ain’t cool. And it smells.

Don’t compare. Other people’s success is irrelevant to and completely independent of yours.

One year ago today, I started this blog on a whim. Is it time for a change?

If you work harder on questions you won’t need to struggle as much to create answers.

A lack of effort would be a shitty thing to regret.

Your craft cannot be taken too seriously.

Despite the monotony that defines a workaday lifestyle, no two days are ever truly the same.

What’s the best decision you’ve ever made not to do something?

Opposite opinions are often both right.

My DVR is the only piece of technology that actually works for me.

(My cell phone interrupts annoyingly, my computers are cold taskmasters, and my game consoles are gathering dust.)

Is an “other-guy” ad really the best thing you can come up with?

An “Other Guy Ad” (as defined by yours truly) is an ad that features either a world without the product or the competitor’s product. So the whole thing is the opposite of the benefit.

I have grown weary of this creative gimmick / technique / crutch / template / default “solution”.

You can only return to the well so many times until you need to dig a new one.

How do you define success?

Burnout is real. Pace yourself, or you’ll pay dearly.

If you have talent, a solution is inevitable if not imminent.

Almost every day, I consider making my blog post my last.

If mankind were ever able to invent a time machine, it would already exist.

What are you looking forward to?

This blog represents me as an advertising professional. That’s why you won’t find a single post about my politics.

You will be judged by your facebook status.

Before you brainstorm, brandstorm.

(By that I mean talk about the brand and its promise before jumping to ideas for ads and whatnot.)

The creative process behaves the same way as evolution, so be sure to give your ideas a chance to mutate and evolve in execution.

Penmanship is a lost art. Will you miss it?

No matter how miserable your latest challenge is, it will eventually be water under the bridge.

Believe in your ideas. Especially the huge, outrageous ones.

You may not feel it yet, but after today, culture, society, ideas and communication will never be the same.

Your voice and your opinion matter. Vote.

Has an ad ever been so bad or good that it actually scared you?

Here’s one attempt from a pal of mine at Goodby.

Ideas are like cows. They are infinitely more palatable after they’re sliced up and cooked.

Think more about thought itself — both yours and others’.

Facebook makes email look like my grandfather’s fountain pen and monogrammed note paper.

The better you are at wrangling time, the better off your entire life will be.

Bonus Weekend Post: If you are new to this blog, scroll down and read your way up. I was much better ten months ago.

So you’ve been out, well, indulging. When you get back to your place, you make a bee line for what snack?

Sleep deprivation leads to headlines like this.

You are not the only one struggling; everyone is fighting some internal battle every day.

Take full advantage of the city in which you live.

Never broadcast your foibles, especially if unsolicited.

Would you rather have a partner who isn’t as smart as you are (but doesn’t mess things up), or a partner who is smarter than you?

A hamburger without Tabasco™ is like warm beer.

I don’t love advertising nearly as much as a person with an ad blog should.

Inspiration doesn’t come. It’s discovered on the journey.

Find the guts to take care of yourself.

What distracts you most from working?

Keep your promises, no matter how long it takes to fulfill them.

Think of your partner’s worst idea as a sudoku puzzle longing to be turned into something worthwhile.

Worrying is usually worse than the thing you’re worrying about.

I’m half the man I used to be. But only on paper.

I have to work two jobs to make a living as a teacher. What dream career would you choose, even if it meant you had to work two jobs?

Writers: Stuck? Change the font and point size you’re writing in.

Rust and mucus have gunked up my mental gears somethin’ awful. Writing this post was like forcing a racquetball into the thumb hole of a bowling ball.

It can always be worse.

I don’t do so well with chaos, but for some reason I regularly seek it out.

For what are you most grateful?

Every minute counts. But the last few before a deadline are worth way more.

Knowing you’re right doesn’t make it so.

It’s never too late to turn ninety degrees. Hell, I didn’t read a book until college.

Know your limits. That knowledge will liberate you.

What was the highlight of your week?

Learn to describe why you feel like you do, and you’ll be a major step closer to solving it (if it’s bad) or sustaining it (if it’s good).

Find someone you trust that you can talk to. Nobody should have to navigate this trip alone.

A great writer can write him or herself out of anything.

I’m not saying I’m a great writer, but I just realized that I have written:

Radio and TV commercials and print ads. Web content for clients, two employers and one past employer. The annual report for the busiest airport in the world. A eulogy delivered to 600 people, a wedding ceremony, twenty graduation speeches and a self-indulgent daily blog, the readers of which likely need it very little.

But hey, if I have a problem, what do I do? Start a-writin’.

Take a moment out of your day, to thank whatever god you believe in, for caffeine.

Do you have anything to say to me that you are afraid to say? Do you have anything to say to anyone that you haven’t said?

Revel in what you have.

Memories are flimsy and unreliable. (Especially compared to a pen and paper.)

Imitate. But only to get the motor running. Then you’ll need to travel under your own power.

Down time is absolutely part of the process.

Not counting the internet, what’s the most important invention of your lifetime? To you.

Nobody can tell the difference between laziness and a lack of talent.

Relax. No career decision is forever.

I know, I know. This is reminiscent of my post of July 8th. But it deserves an encore in this rewritten form.

Always bring something to the table.

90% of failure is due to a lack of a defined goal.

My new approach to email: Twice a day, with a closed door and a hot espresso, I clear out my inbox. Do you have a time-saving trick?

You may be better off if you think less and feel more.

Fail hugely.

The smarter the insight, the easier it is to nail the execution.

Don’t use alt or guerrilla just to extend a product. Use them to extend a promise.

So I started watching Mad Men, albeit a year late. Do you think we’re in a better decade to be in advertising, or was the 60’s a better time? Why?

Always ask for a better deal.

I’m back. But I’m not making any promises.

This blog is now officially on a summer hiatus. Do you care? Will you miss it? What will you read?

Be nice to people. In twenty years, you may run into them in a Chick-fil-A.

That happened to me Monday. I saw a client I worked with nineteen years ago. We chatted over free lemonade refills.

There is no right answer. There are thousands.

Everything is temporary.

On you marks. Get set. Think!

It’s Independence Day. So why do I feel so trapped by this blog?

Know when to say No.

Vacation: good.

Posting to you today from beautiful, sunny, Portland, Maine.

There are people who are terrified on roller coasters, and others who smile for the entire ride.

Your client knows his business better than you ever will.

Do you know when you have a good idea, or do you more often discover it later in your notes?

My breaking point is the precise moment when pressure turns to stress.

You can change people’s minds. How effin’ cool is that.

It never truly gets easier. It just goes by faster.

Want to be more creative? First, create a tougher problem.

For you, is pressure a fuel or an impediment? And does it always cause stress?

Nothing inspirational today. I’ve given enough this week.

Be more economical.

Ultimately, the sole goal of hard work is to create options.

Then you can pick whichever idea or job or home or city, wine, entrée, bed sheets, camera, HDTV, season tickets, cabana, flight or headline you want.

Writer’s block is never an option (or viable excuse for anything).

Solve your own damn problems. That’s your job. And it’s the reason four resourceful Circus students are on their way to Cannes.

Click here for the whole story, as told by Andy on his blog.

Does your family understand what you do (or will do) for a living?

Random tip: How to adjust your side mirrors.

Speaking of peripheral vision, don’t just make it so you can see down the edge of your car from your seat. From the driver’s seat, lean over to your right and adjust the mirror out so you can just see the edge of the car when you’re leaning. That way, when you’re sitting back and driving, your mirror will show your blind spot. Do the same for the left side. You’ll notice a huge difference, especially on the freeway.

The better ideas are just outside of your periphery. So turn 80, not 8, degrees.

In the time it took you to hunt for the elusive Big Idea, you could have made a good idea breathtakingly great.

I’d bet the Ten Commandments, handed to Moses on Mount Sinai, were perfectly kerned.

What do you do if your partner doesn’t get your idea? What if your creative director, teacher or client doesn’t?

When you’re concepting, don’t think about execution. Once you start executing, think of nothing else.

The harder it is to make an idea work, the less deserving it is of your effort.

Just because you can create a blog in six minutes doesn’t mean you should.

Switch jobs for the money. Then call to let me know how that’s working for you.

I love the way a freshly sharpened pencil feels on paper, but I still write mostly with a keyboard. How do you preserve your thoughts?

Your partner doesn’t give a shit about your career.

Only in advertising can half an hour more effort mean the difference between the bliss of success and the misery of mediocrity.

It’s up to you.

If you can succeed without setting aside lots of time to work at it, then you are a better person than I am.

I recently rediscovered the wonderful mental lubricant called Pandora. What’s your favorite mental jump-starter?

Get back to work. There’s nothing to see here.

Yesterday my three-year-old son asked me, “Daddy, how do grownups know what to do?”

I just couldn’t resist posting that one.

I literally cannot remember the last time I made it through a whole day without seeing a typo or misuse of our language.

One route to great creative runs straight through Embarrassment.

Are you a person who stays in touch with friends from your past? If so, how?

If you’re waiting for what you really want, you’re gonna be waiting a long, long time.

The future is a lot more intimidating as a unit than as a series of units.

Random Tip of the Day: Add cocoa to Starbucks coffee. It’s right there by the sugar.

You will ultimately be judged more by how than what.

What is your favorite city, and what are the top three reasons it’s your favorite?

My favorite city remains New York.

Reasons:

  • Food

  • Public transportation

  • It’s stocked with the most talented people on earth

The people are way more important than everything else.

Think before you hit “Send.”

Keep a pen and pad on you at all times. Because your best ideas are irrelevant if no one sees them.

Some places just have better creative energy than others.

So I’m headed to New York (not to be confused with Liberty City).

What is your go-to guilty pleasure? (Besides porn, of course.)

Thank you, Liza, for your help with today’s question. You’ve earned your T.A.’s merit sash.

Clients. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.

You are obligated to identify, nurture and pursue your passion.

Your mistakes are rarely as apparent or egregious as you think they are.

If I see one more gag-inducing BEEF ad featuring a raw meat mountain oozing buttercheese, I swear I’ll puke all over the magazine, wall and floor.

Click here, but grab a bucket first.

I am way too busy to do half the things I used to do. What do you wish you still had time for?

Keep thinking. A better idea is still out there.

Show respect. Even to the most vapid AE.

100th post: Executing an idea well is a hundred times more work than coming up with the concept.

Stupid ideas are the seeds of brilliant ones.

What are your two most frequently visited Internet destinations? Be honest.

There’s no such thing as an irrelevant tangent.

As a creative, your job is to make someone feel your strategy without their seeing it.

Never fall in love with your own ideas. Your objectivity is way more important.

I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

But you must have known that I am not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Would you prefer to have total creative freedom at a meager salary, or be paid shitloads of money in an environment run by suits?

There’s a big difference between thinking a lot and over thinking.

Your goal should be to be different, not correct.

We’re all in this alone.

One thing is for sure: There will be drama.

What are the last book you read, the best book you’ve read, and the book sitting there on your nightstand waiting to be read?

Email is an unreliable vehicle for sarcasm.

Wonderful words: Grist. Clasp. Conduit. Sucky words: Beret. Slap. Dabble.

Never undervalue your talent. It’s your sustenance and the most reasonable justification for your salary.

Don’t overvalue your talent. Every agency is packed with it, and you’re expected to apply yours every day.

Writing this blog saves me $125 a week in psychotherapy. What keeps you sane?

The most observant creative wins.

One man’s quirkiness is another man’s livelihood.

Know whom you’re talking to.

In a perfect world, ideas are worth more than executions. In the real world, there are clients.

Based solely on its consistent delivery of a simple promise, what is your favorite brand? And what is its promise?

For me, that’s an easy one: Nintendo. Nintendo’s focus on accessible fun has never wavered. And playing a Nintendo game still delivers a sense of wonder and excitement that its competitors have never managed to achieve. Just hearing the name “Nintendo” makes me happy. Can’t say the same for Sony or (yikes!) Microsoft.

A good mentor is worth more than money or awards (and will probably help you get more of both).

Your grandmother is thrilled just to see you. Your partners expect more.

Complain less, and be more resourceful.

I have actually been to a village in Africa built entirely out of sticks and cow shit. Homes. Made of shit. 

See? One way or another, everything’s about advertising.

Believe in yourself, because nobody else really cares what you do.

Does originality truly exist, or are we just rearranging stuff?

A brilliant excuse is worse than a lame, off-strategy, pun filled noncept.

There were already too few hours in a day, and then they pull this Daylight Saving Time bullshit. Am I the only one who still hasn’t recovered?

Correct grammar is not optional!

I’m pretty sure my inability to think is directly related to my inability to sleep. But I’m so tired, I could be totally wrong.

Friday Question: Can you tell when you’ve hit the wall? What does it feel like?

As you can tell by the time stamp of this post, I ignore the wall at all costs.

Note to bloggers: Your anonymity confounds and disappoints me.

Since I am a teacher, a father and an advertising copywriter, I spend almost all of my time solving other people’s problems.

Be of your time.

Whether you’ve designed it or not, everything you do (including the type in your emails) is designed.

Friday Question: How much influence does your environment have on your process and productivity?

Destiny is a myth.

If you want something done, give it to the busiest person you know.

   This is a paraphrased quote from my late grandfather, Meyer Balser, who had lots of these quips. Another great one was, “McDonald’s has the best flapjacks in the City of Atlanta!”

The unemployed are a phone call away from being underpaid.

Your affection for puns is nothing to be ashamed of.

Your turn: There’s a fine line between ______ and ______?

There’s a fine line between honesty and hubris.

There’s a fine line between innocence and willful disobedience.

There’s a fine line between process and procrastination.

There’s a fine line between edgy and clueless.

So far, what neither ad- nor design-related project has inspired you the most?

A few years ago I had an hour or so to kill on Manhattan’s upper east side when I noticed The Guggenheim was having a Frank Gehry exhibition.

It rocked my world. I could see, right there on tables and in sketches, how the most creative mind in architecture created, from idea stage to fully realized buildings. I was moved to see both his brilliance and how his creative process is so similar to ours as ad and design creatives. 

Then, a year or so later, I saw that Gehry had designed the trophy for the World Cup of Hockey. Not just another building, the trophy was a dramatic, soaring confluence of Gehry’s talent and his passion for a sport. 

Marry someone smarter than you.

I realize this is only possible for half of us.

Do what you do so well it looks like you’re showing off.

The successful dig minutiae.

In a street fight, I bet Smart Copy kicks Visual Solution’s ass.

What is your all-time favorite band name, agency name or font name?

Inspiration has its own timetable.

To my knowledge, Photoshop has never come up with a good idea.

The ethics you choose to follow now will follow you forever.

Never underestimate the underdog.

That applies to designers, art directors, copywriters and sports teams. 

Friday Question: After smiling, what’s the first thing you do when that killer idea pops into your head?

It’s impossible for you to manage your partner. Don’t even try.

However, you should try very hard to manage the page together.

Comic Sans is the typeface of the Antichrist.

If I am elected, I will see that every man, woman and child gets a headline.

Writing more makes you right more.

This blog is an ambitious experiment. How long do you think I can keep it up?

I have no idea why I got into this thing, and now I have no idea how to get out.

This blog may be ugly, but at least it uses real apostrophes.

There’s a difference between what’s right and what isn't.

Don’t take your friends for granted. One day, they may need you.

If you haven’t already, you will work for an asshole.

If you haven’t already, you will work with a hack.

How long do you you think you could go without a computer?

My Mac is fried. It can’t connect to the internet, some apps won’t open, and it restarts from sleep instead of waking up. I wonder if I could just ditch the whole computer thing and go some silicon version of vegan.

Six months from today, I’ll be 44. I can’t believe how stupid I still feel.

Learn to trust your gut. You’ll have a much better life.

A daily blog is a daily hassle.

Start over. A lot.

Please describe your relationship with your computer.

   I have a love/hate thing going on with my computer. It’s useful and entertaining, but it’s also a ball and chain. 

Feed your passions. One day, they’ll feed you.

Expectations suck.

Listen.

Brevity is underrated.

From whom or what have you learned the most?

   Every time I have to write a bio, I mention my kids. 

   My role as a father has been my proudest, and my kids have taught me some of my most important life lessons. Plus, they’re hilarious.

   So who (or what) has taught or inspired you?

In advertising, your ability to succeed is based 10% on your talent and 90% on how well you deal with idiots and egos.

I digress for a living.

Doers do. Talkers make resolutions.