Confessions of An All-Night Concept Adrenaline Junky.

I admit it. I’m hooked.

I love the mad rush of having to rethink everything against an impossible deadline. To process huge amounts of information and ideas and distill all of it into something nobody else has seen, often working all night and presenting whole room full of ideas the next morning to a room full of skeptical executives…

It’s a crazy way to make a living, but what a blast.

Think back to college. Chances are you forgot most of the parties, but you remember those all night caffeine fueled cram sessions. You did a months worth of studying in one night, stumbled in and aced the test and passed out on a bench for 24 hours.

That’s the magic. All too often we stuck in our safe little 9 to 5 worlds and the adrenaline just dries up. We forget the rush of working without a net, against impossible odds and then nailing the damn thing to a tree.

I’m doing one of these things right now. Tonight. In a La Quinta (which, I’m told, is Spanish for “Next to Denny’s” which is absolutely true.) I’m doing a 24 Hour Brand for a great company in Houston, TX. I got to cheat a bit because I had a full two weeks to think about it. I got the assignment but already had travel booked and the client was out as well. So I kept it in my mind the whole time.

I call it Shower Time, or well, actually, a client coined the term many years ago. They knew all too well how I worked and figured I’d come up with a solution in the shower.

They were right.

So I got to pre-think of a solution, but today I spent three hours with company management, IT and sales. I learned about their frustrations, their lack of elevator pitch and their most important client personas. We narrowed their dream clients to two types and broke down how we can solve their problems.

Now I’ll dig deep into those dark recesses of my mind to find unique creative language and strategies to embed the right message into the right minds.

And I’ll do it tomorrow morning.

If I nail it, I’ll be solving a problem they’ve had for years. If I don’t, they don’t pay me and I go back to Austin.

GOD I love doing this! It’s better than Vegas because I’ve never lost the bet!

Check in tomorrow to see what happens.