My Riffs

Our perceptive systems are only capable of so much. We can see, hear and even feel something but not be able to fully perceive the full complexities of it. Everything around us is much more complex than what meets the eye, or even to what we can initially perceive. What we see and experience on a day to day basis is real, but infinitely more complex than our perception systems are picking up on. For this reason, we need to be slow to judgement and slow to definitions. There is high probability that we are not able to fully perceive the complexities of a given thing. It is important in understanding something that we take time and study it and try and understand the inherent complexities. It's important to glean understanding from other peoples perspectives. The background differences and understandings of someone else can help fill in the voids of our own understandings and help us understand more fully the complexities of something. So, be slow to judge. Be slow to claim u...

Most humans operate from the assumption that someone else or something else is always the problem. What if we changed that default assumption to, we may be the problem...? If we're always trying to blame someone else, we likely will never get any traction on the issue. When we accept responsibility for the problem, we can get much more traction on the problem.

Oftentimes getting out in front of something is a wise plan. You generally are better equipped to handle things when you're out in front of it. When you've planned ahead and when you're prepared you have better chances of succeeding. But getting out too far in advance can present problems. By the time "it" gets to you, "it" may have changed. Your plan may no longer be valid. And that is the danger and risk in getting out ahead of something. There's a fine balance of getting out in front of something.

It's the daily things that grind into us a path or pattern. The banks of rivers are formed by years of water flow.  Deep canyons are formed the same way. What we do on a a day to day basis forms deep patterns that shape us. So if you're doing things that should be repeated, continue and let that be what shapes you. If you're not doing things that should be repeatable, change that tomorrow. And then let it carry forward every day from there.

You can fit most of what you need in a suitcase. The rest is really just wants. If you don't really need all your wants, how much do we really need? We all have more than we need. Learning contentment is a worthy pursuit and a valuable,  rewarding one. When we can learn enough is enough we can find some really joy there.

You can know for sure, your foundation will be tested. You just don't know when. Establish your foundation and know what it's contents are. You want to build prior to it being tested. A solid foundation is unlikely to crack or crumble when tested, but a semi formed foundation will crumble at the slightest test. Build in advance. Build well. Build carefully.

Undertaking the task of trying to understand people is one of the most important things you can do. If you can understand people (generally) you will understand the world. People are more interesting and rewarding than things. Study, try to understand and invest in people. It will be the most rewarding and important thing you can do.

Helping other people in the most effective way looks and sounds an awful lot like loving them. In fact, that is the best way to help someone. The reason being, love takes on many different forms depending on the circumstance. Love can mean a hug, a supportive word, a constructive critical word, financial support, housing, clothing, praying... All kinds of different forms love can manifest itself. So in helping someone, if we focus on loving them, these things will come naturally. Instead of fixing them, just love them and see where that leads in terms of how the love is expressed.

If you can do it, you will do it. If you will it, you can do it. Where there's a will there's a way. The way may not be orthodox or easy, but there's a way. You just have to find it. The way through things is through them, not out of them. So you can or you can't depending on if you will.

There is little need to worry about what is going to happen tomorrow. There are enough things to worry about today. Worrying about tomorrow takes away from today and decreases our engagement and effectiveness with today. You only have today right now. So maximize what you do today, worry about what you need to do today. Plan for tomorrow, but worry about today. The best way to control tomorrow is to take control of today and shape tomorrow, today.

The past is something interesting, of which we can draw good and bad from. It's something we both should look back to but never look back at in some instances. The past is the best predictor of the future. But watching the past can make us miss the future. We can pine for the past and lose out on the potentials of the future. There is a fine tension between recognizing the past, but letting it go and looking ahead and reaching forward to the future. Holding that in balance is much more difficult than it sounds. Sometimes we want to completely let go of the past, and in some aspects that's needed, but in other aspects retaining parts of the past are mission critical. Sometimes we don't want to let go of the past and we never reach for fear of letting go of what we already know and are comfortable with and jumping into the unknown. Risks must be taken. Measured risks of course. Not reckless risks. Life without risks will cause stagnation and decline. The pas...

So much of life is balance between two extremes. Life has this odd binary sort of structure whereby to receive one good thing, you have to accept one "bad" thing. To experience something good, you have to have experienced something bad. Or else the good would be meaningless. So, if we learn to understand that the bad is part of life, and the bad is what gives good it's meaning, it's a lot easier to handle. To appreciate light you have to experience dark. To appreciate joy you have to experience pain. To appreciate happiness you have to experience sadnes. To appreciate flourishing you have to experience famine. To appreciate warmth you have to experience cold. To appreciate life you have to have seen death. So don't treat the bad as just bad. The bad is what allows for the good. It's part of the binary natural balance of life.

Vision is the highest level of function. Below that is a plan. But who will carry out the work? Who will execute the plan? If they don't buy into or understand the vision , how can they execute the work effectively? The doers of the plan need to buy in and be invested in all aspects function. As much as possible. Doug the work needs to be much more than just doing the work. It needs to be excited from a place of investment and understanding. Working vs. Understanding and buying into what one is working on are two different things.

The best way to speak to someone or into their life or problem is to first listen. If you give someone your ears, the likely will accept your voice. If you listen first, you can also better address them knowing more about them and what they think and feel. Listen in order to speak.

The story is quite stereotypical... The young person starts out with many ideas of how they're gonna change the world. Then life, circumstances, oppositions wear that person down into a cynical being, or at the least, a being who gives up on changing the world. It's both sad and understandable at the same time. This is a fairly common commentary too. Some people do succeed in changing the world, but most fall off into cynicism or apathy. I believe the anecdote for this commentary is teaching people at a young age to change themselves primarily and firstly, then if things fall into place, change the world. It's not meant to take away their dreams, but to help focus on the more beneficial thing and the thing with the greater return on investment, changing yourself. For you can't change the world if you haven't changed yourself first. As one gets older who has worked on changing themselves, I believe the natural cynicism can be greatly countered. Changing you...

There is only forward and reverse, real natural doesn't exist. Forward is progress, momentum, change, purpose and vision. Reverse is regression, stagnant and lack of vision. Neutral isn't a position though. Because neutral leads to regression, always. A neutral position never moves to progression. Progression requires intentionality, and neutrality is nearly the opposite of intentionality. If one is "coasting", the next stage is regression. The only way forward is forward. Neutral is never the way forward. If in neutral, that should be a large red flag alerting that the next stage is reverse. When in reverse it is a whole lot more difficult to shift to forward movement. It's a whole lots easier to shift to forward movement from a neutral position.

Strangely enough, honesty doesn't come naturally. It's something we have to work at. Especially honesty to ourselves.  It takes a lot of practice to become a primarily honest person. You have to check yourself on every thought and every word until you get in a habit of being honest. Especially with the thinking. We let so many thoughts pass though our head and accept them as fact, but they're neither truth nor fact. Auditing your every though and word consistently until it becomes habit is what will make you an honest person. Honesty is a platform with which you can better yourself and better the world around you. Without the platform of honesty, there is no base with which to better the world and yourself. 

Spoken communication is great, but not perfect. Every communication medium has it's strengths and weaknesses, but dialogue is probably on top of the heap when it comes to communication methods. It's the best, especially face to face. Face to face the minimal about of miscommunication generally happens. What is absolutely fundamental about proper dialogue is, it fixes us. Without good dialogue, our ideas and thinking is very difficult to fix. It's the good dialogue that challenges what we are thinking. It's good dialogue that shapes our thinking. Allowing for open dialogue helps human beings formulate opinions that are well constructed and relatively balanced. People rarely change their mind overnight, but rather it takes time for people to slowly shape and change their thinking. So good dialogue is generally what forms and shapes these changes. Shutting down dialogue will hamper this and make people more rigid, less balanced and much thinner in depth with their ...

One of the simplest and best ways to learn is through just asking. Asking your friends, coworkers or acquaintances what they think about a given subject. Because of every persons unique perspective, there is much nuance and much to learn in each individual viewpoint. If you have an open mind, you will likely learn whatever they are speaking about, and also that you don't know it all. Hearing others speak and having good dialogue with them had been one of the best learning tools. There is much to gain in this learning method. At the very least you will understand other people's perspectives, whether they seem to be correct or not. Knowing even this much is a huge step forward in learning.

Two individuals can go through the same thing, but the outcome is different. This is both normal and okay. Somehow we expect those who have been through the same or similar events as ourselves to come out with the same opinions or views. But views will vary by individual. We cannot always expect everyone to see things our way. In fact, a lot of the time, people won't. Allowing variety of opinions and views allows for balance. Being close minded to the variety hurts everyone. Your experience may not be someone else's, and neither should you expect it to be. It's so difficult, but it helps to try and not judge the world from only our perspective. We often fail to realize that someone else may feel completely different about things than us, and they're not wrong.

It is our limitations that define our existence. Some of the very things we dislike in life are in fact the very things that make our existence possible. Things like discomfort, sickness and suffering are the very things that make our existence. If we didn't have such limitations, we wouldn't be human beings. Like everything in life, our existence is held in a balance between the "good" things and the "bad" things. It takes one extreme to produce the other. If we want good things, there has to be the opposite. So if we can accept that our limitations are what define us, we can ride the ups and downs of life a little more smoothly. Accepting that the downs of life are what allow for the ups makes for an easier ride.

Managers are often being pushed to get more from their employees. More commitment, more productivity, more roles and responsibilities. Parents are often trying to figure out how to get more from their children, especially in terms of obedience. The problem is, the more you ask of someone, the easier it becomes for them to fail or let down. Asking more of someone could potentially be setting them up to fail. This doesn't mean that people don't often have more to give, but rather that the manner in which you ask of people to give more must be done properly. Demands and pushing rarely yield good long term results and often tarnish the culture or atmosphere. The better way to extract more from children or employees is to get their buy in. To give them purpose. If they are involved in the planning and design stages of things, they will likely buy into implementation. An invested person is going to give more than a person with demands placed on them.

Each member in a community is an input point. Each person does two things operationally in a community: 1. Adds something to the community 2. Is an input to allow external things into the community So a community is a somewhat fluid group held together by a common ideal or a set of common ideals. The person is shaped by their ideas and the community is shaped by the ideals of their leader but also the individuals in the community. So what each person believes is important. What every person allows themselves to accumulate is ultimately something they allow into the community. Openness done right in a community allows for fellow members to openly check and balance one another out. The input points then have checks and balances placed against them to filter the potential unwanted external factors.

Today's challenge is the challenge of yesterday. How do I be just a bit better than I was yesterday? How do I handle situations a bit better than yesterday? How do I be a bit bigger in terms of maturity than I was yesterday? How do I be a bit more unselfish than I was yesterday? The small day to day changes are what really form our character. So when the big situations and challenges arrive we pass them because we've been passing the daily challenges.

It is interesting to explore what people value. You can generally make some assumptions about one values, based on where they spend their time. Those who place high value on a career are usually found working. Those who place high value on relationships are usually found investing time in those relationships. Etc. You will spend time on what you value. If you're not sure what your highest values are, look where you spend your time, that will tell you. If you're balance is off and you're not spending adequate time on what you truly value, an adjustment should be made. It likely means an investment is being made in an area that is not of highest importance. Time is one of our most valuable resources, it must be treated with much care and spent wisely.

As a parent the temptation is to try and lead my children to being the same as me. That however is an unfair goal as no two people are alike. The world they will grow up in will be far different from the one I grew up in. They will deal with challenges I never dealt with. So in that, one of the best things I can do for them is to help them build a value foundation. To help them self actualize. To help them develop proper opinions. The world they will be navigating will look different and my toolset may not do in their world. But I'm confident my values and fundamentals will suffice and ultimately will be what will allow them to flourish. Leading to help one self actualize is one of the greatest things you can do for someone.

In building a plan, engage your team. The plan will be bought into and carried out by the team and be made successful by the team. If they team invests in and contributes to the vision, they will take ownership. Ownership of the plan will give far better results than simply having people carry out the plan out without the investment.

The strength of a community is in its connection points. The connection points where members can connect in values, communications, purpose and in geography are directly related to the success or failure of the community. The fewer the connections points, the fewer footholds for members to be held by. The more connections points, the more opportunities to retain. Connection points are unifying points. Connections points allow for the cohesion whereby the strength of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Life is meant to be shared. Moments are best used when they're shared. Material possessions are best used when they're shared. The more you share, the more you get. Not material gain, but more importantly satisfaction and significance.

The negativity bias in humans is something undeniable. It's something that is explainable and there's plenty to read about it if interested. In simplest terms, it's a mechanism that is intended to protect us, but it often overtakes our overriding outlook on things. Learning to manage our bias toward negativity is something that comes with learning self awareness. It's something that comes as we learn to be honest with ourselves. The negative bias is a tool we can use to protect ourselves, but it's a tool that can equally harm us. As with so many things in life, balance is they key.

The complex isn't what's profound. It's the simple that is profound. Profoundness is the basic, most stable and foundational. Solid truths aren't based on complexities. Solid truths are based on simple and easy to understand principles.