My indoctrination into advertising began in childhood when I was haunted by a man in a giant bird suit:

Eagle Man (the Myth. the Legend).

Eagle Man Auto Insurance understood the insight: the people of Chicago might not want to pay for car insurance, but they’ll buy it if they fear being hunted down by a man-sized eagle.

No one was safe from Eagle Man– especially the uninsured. He lands on a car, lays an egg, and out hatches a baby eagle holding a receipt with shockingly low rates.

That’s strategy.

And if you need an insight into literally the core of who I am as a person: Growing up we were so poor that my uncle risked his much needed minimum wage job at McDonald’s to steal hundreds, literally hundreds, of Monopoly promotion french fry boxes.

He then enlisted our entire family (children included) to peel the monopoly pieces off ‘til our little fingers were numb, driven by a desperate attempt to win a million dollars.

McDonald’s Monopoly fraud: I McLived it and I McLoved it.

We sat around the living room with our stolen treasure, carefully arranging pieces on the game board like some big family felony project. My grandma sat chain-smoking. In between cigarettes she would remind us that:

1. we are stupid.
2. they will trace the stolen goods back to my uncle.

Yet I could sense there was a twinkle in her eye. It was crazy, but crazy enough that it just might work.

Spoiler alert: it did not work!

We were unaware that the game was already rigged, and not just in the metaphorical sense of the odds being stacked against the underdog, but like actually, literally rigged. By a mob-connected ex-cop who was stealing the winning pieces and handing them out to his friends. Lol.

But in our ignorant bliss, we dared to dream a fever dream. And that night, and on many nights that had yet to come, I learned once more the value of hustling and thinking outside the (McDonald’s fry) box.

Anyway! I graduated book180 and all I got was this bitchin’ portfolio and an internship offer at FCB chicago.

Which I start this summer!

and that feels almost as good as winning a million dollars from french fries.