My Riffs

Your heart orients your life.  It's of upmost criticality to constantly be aware of your hearts orientation. And not only that, but to be constantly adjusting the direction of it to make sure it's heading in the right way. The heart sometimes needs to be regulated by the mind and other times the mind needs to be guided by the heart.  Your heart leads you. So make sure your heart is oriented correctly. 

We're sailors. We can orient our boat whatever way we need to, regardless of the wind. Sometimes the wind is at our back and propelling us forward. Sometimes it's coming right at us and forward progress is limited. But we can still forge ahead. The wind moves us, whether it's the wind we want or the wind we don't want. The wind can be situations. Good or bad, they can propel us forward if we orient our sails properly.

Learning can only happen when we acknowledge we don't know something. Or when we acknowledge that we may not fully understand something. Or when we acknowledge that our view on something could change provided we gain new information. Learning is severely hampered when our mode of operation is constantly trying to defend our belief systems. I recently read some wisdom, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood". All too often we are speaking and listening only to provide a rebuttal. When we do that, learning likely cannot happen.

We can't agree on everything. But agreeing to disagree is an agreement in itself, and sometimes the best option. To complicate things even more, there are degree's of agreement. Do we agree 10%, 50%, 90%? There are also time based agreements. I agree with that in some cases, or I agree with that some times. Agreeing to disagree isn't always a cut and dry disagreement, it may be more misalignment regarding the degrees or timing of agreements.

Your words carry weight. They are tools, and powerful tools at that. Your words not only can shape your own reality. They can shape and form others' reality too. Your simple kind words can lift a person from despair. Your words can destroy or build. The tone and how you say your words is equally important. Use building words, and use them in kindness. Use your speech to build up, not tear down. Even when you have to deconstruct something, you can do so in a manner that builds. Sometimes you can say one thing to someone, and it will change their world forever. Knowing that, we should never utter anything that could hurt someone's world. We should only ever say things that build and help them.

If you make a splash, it causes a ripple for me. So much our behaviour is predicated on the wrong assumption that "it's our life and we can do as we wish". There is undeniably truth to that statement, but it's ignorant of the ripples we cause for others. We are all much more interdependent than we would want to admit. Our action cause ripples for others. Others have to make adjustments or feel the effect of our actions. Our actions very much so have rippling consequences and effects. No ones life is lived in a silo. Your splash will cause a ripple for others.

The surface may show one thing, but what may be happening below the surface at the current level, may be something entirely different. This is to say, things aren't always simply as they appear. We seem to judge based on the surface rather than the current. We judge based on what we see happening, rather than what we observe happening below the surface. Below the surface items are likely closer to the truth. Below the surface are things like: - where it's heading - the struggles - character - consistency - strength - weaknesses and many other truths. The surface can provide some insight, but it cannot provide all insights and it may not reveal the complete truth. Eventually what happens at the current level will show symptoms at the surface level. Knowing that, it's still super important to pay attention to what's going on below the surface.

We can only produce the quality of output equal to the quality of our character. How well do you tend to the foundational things that make yourself you? Character, integrity, love, and etc. If your "soil" is toxic, you won't be able to produce or output things that are healthy. Tending to your "soil" of the base, foundational things determines your output. Bad soil produces bad food. Tend to your character often. Check it, fix it often. Listen well, others will probably help you see where he flaws in your foundation are. Ask a close loving friend. They can provide insight into the contents of your character that you cannot see. Tend to these things and you will output healthy things.

The further you are away from something, the less it matters. Conversely, the closer you are, the more it matters. The scariest is when you're close but don't care. Apathy may be one of the worst states to be in. Something to bear in mind always is, this matters to you due to proximity. If you were more removed it wouldn't matter as much. So the question is, in a balanced view, how much does it matter in the grand scheme of life?

How flexible is your system? That may be one of the best predictors of how long it will last. There is a correlation between longevity and flexibility. Conversely there is an opposite correlation between longevity and rigidness.

How do you generally improve things? Whether it be a process, a product or an idea, to make it better you must challenge what exists. Some may be afraid of the challenging process. The challenging process can be disruptive if it uncovers areas of improvement. I recently read that it's not change people are afraid of, it's uncertainty. So the challenging process can often create change, which means uncertainty. Most people don't like this, me included. But to get better, or to level up, you must do some hard things. And that starts with challenging things. You must ask hard questions. You must be prepared for some difficult or uncomfortable answers. You must speak truth. You must make some difficult changes. If you don't, the result is mediocrity and gradual decay. Mediocrity is the starting point for failure. So challenge things to keep them alive and make them better. Challenge things to keep them honest and true. Challenge things to make a better future. ...

Getting your thinking right is always the first step in anything.  That's why it's critical we're honest with ourselves.  If you're thinking isn't right, nothing will be right.  If you can conquer your mind, you can conquer anything.  Start by sorting out your thoughts. And that often may include talking through things with trustworthy and wise people. 

One of the most freeing things in the world is to let go. Not of the good and important, but the unnecessary. The guilt, the pettiness, the bitterness, the negativity, the pride, the prejudice, the past... These are the things to let go of, and often are the things we cling to most dearly. Letting go often means gain, not loss.

Isn't about being mindless. It's about being mindful. It's about being willing to examine new data.

You really say what you say by how you say it. You could say "Hello" to someone and it be said in the wrong way. Conversely, you can convey something along the lines of criticism to somebody, and it be taken totally willfully, because of how you said it. The words you say carry infinite weight and importance, but how we serve them is equally important. When in comes to words, presentation and delivery are equal to the product.

Everything undertaken in life becomes burdensome and the passion and fervour begins to die. How do you stoke the fires and fuels of passion? Changes. They don't have to be dramatic, and they shouldn't be rash or random. But changes can rekindle lost passions for even the same undertaking. The fewer changes you make, things may appear to be more stable, but what you're doing is slowly eroding. The right changes rebuild the foundation and help maintain longevity in the thing you're doing. Think of change as fuel.

You can't wait for the current challenge to end. But then what? There will be the next challenge and it may be greater. The current challenge is sufficient for today. And once the current challenge is done, you're not done with challenges. You simply move on to the next one. So no need to exasperate yourself trying to rush through your current challenge.

Distractions are what are so easy to focus on. You can go through life focusing on a broad swath of distractions. And never invest and focus on the important. The broader the focus, the less you can invest. Spreading your focus out is minimized your impact. So be intentional about what you focus on. Learn to ignore the distractions.

The ones who are behind the scenes making things happen are the biggest heroes. The moms, the workers, the ones not looking for public recognition, just the satisfaction of a job well done. These are the truest heroes. They are truly shaping tomorrow and not wasting time on their ego. Take time to recognize these heroes, because the world is a way worse place without them.

Humans need boundaries. When we are really young or unlearned, we need boundaries to be formed for us. And you will see younger people push up against those boundaries to test them and see if they hold, or if they really need to be there. The goal is to get people to a point where they can develop these boundaries on their own though, so at some point they stop pushing and testing every boundary, but that they learn to abide by the boundaries they have voluntarily set. It's part of salt-actualization and self-opining. This is where we need to help people develop to. You want your children to be good at decision making and boundary creating on their own. You cannot be there to set every boundary and make every decision for them. Getting them to a place where they are good at that on their own is the goal. This expands out further past just child raising, it goes for leaders and influencers. You want people to come to a point where they become well functioning, good decis...

What you consume will consume. A simple concept, but something worth being aware of. If we only consume the little and petty things in life, they will consume us. Which means, take all of our time and energy and prevent us from pursuing the bigger things. If we consume too much "junk", it will be "junk" that consumes us. Being aware of what were consuming can help us live healthier, in every aspect. We consume things through a variety of ways: - What we read - What we listen to - What we talk about - What we think about - What we spend time doing We become a slave to what we're consuming sort of speak. It is better to be a slave to the good and positive, uplifting and building things, rather than petty and negative. Investing in positive thinking, positive actions, good conversations is what we should be doing. We consume pettiness, we will be petty. We consume greatness, we will become great.

There will be a bitter pill for us all to swallow. Something in life that we cannot change. We will be faced with a decision to swallow the bitter pill or to let the bitter pill destroy us. Swallowing the bitter pill will be completely undesirable. It will be something you may despise. But if you fight it or refuse to own it, it will destroy you. Some things in life we cannot change. But we can always change ourselves. Changing ourselves when are forced to swallow a bitter pill is the ultimate test though. Spitting out the bitter pill will only cause us to become bitter ourselves though and leads to destruction. We have to just accept that there are some things in life we have to accept and they're ugly, and they're not what we want, but we have to accept them and change ourselves.

The milestones of life usually pass with little or no fanfare, and very often without us even recognizing it. This is why doing the right thing, always, is so important. Because it moves us forward step by step, which is how life works. We don't take very many giant steps in life, it's usually small footsteps until one day we look back and realize were much further along and learned to much more than we realized. We rarely pass a big milestone of life and feel like we've changed or learned something. It's usually in retrospect we learn this. So always do the right thing. One day you will realize you've grown more than you though. You will realize you're further ahead than you realized. Life is gradual, daily and incremental. Do the small things well and the milestones will be in your rearview mirror. Which is better than stopping and admiring the milestones. That just slows us down.

Information overload rules today. There is so much information out there, the challenge becomes sifting through the information to find what is true, valid, fair and unbiased. With information so readily available, we find ourselves in a  place where we can source or cherry pick the facts to support our pre-suppositions. And this is very dangerous. We no longer search for truth, we search for affirmation. Affirmation to support our pre-suppositions. This is a very dangerous thing. It means we can now go through our life feeling affirmed, when we may be wrong. It means that we can hide from the truth. The solution is to review all the facts and not cherry pick the ones we prefer. Cherry picking our data sets is intellectual cowardice, which is one of the worst forms of cowardice. Being intellectually honest means working through concepts, ideas and facts that we don't like and are uncomfortable with. But we come out in the end better for it.

If you think about it, we place so many expectations on others, mostly unspoken. The more we expect from others, the more likely we are to set ourselves up for disappointments. When we examine our expectations closer, we usually are expecting others be exactly like ourselves. It takes maturity to get to a place where you no longer expect people to be like yourself, but to be comfortable with people being who they are. If we simply stop expecting people to be like ourselves that alone will free them to exceed our expectations.

It's a lot easier to respect a narrow opinion when it comes from a broad perspective. A narrow opinion coming from a narrow perspective is a whole lot less easy to respect. A qualified opinion is a well informered opinion. Leaders need to work to allow those within their sphere of influence to come to a place of opinion. The leaders job is to inform and build the perspective and guide the opinion forming process. It's better to teach someone how to think than what to think.

The best ideas come from those hard spots in life. Business ideas. Ideas of change. Ideas of growth. Smooth sailing rarely births innovation. The seasons of life each provide opportunity. It's up to us to fleece each season for what it has to offer.

The best way to map your world is through discussion or dialogue if you prefer. Thinking is obviously critical. But discussions is where you refine your thoughts. It's super easy to go wrong in just thinking. But discussions challenge our thinking and refine incorrect thoughts or ideas we may have. To leave your thoughts simply as thoughts is dangerous. You may hold them as truths when they shouldn't be held in that regard. Talk to someone who disagrees with you. They will either help you see differently or confirm your thoughts.

How do you ensure you get the big things right? How do you ensure those under your influence and care get the big things right? Maybe the best way to get the big things right is to get a whole lot of smaller things right. If you can get lots of small things right, you will get the big things right. You cannot expect to get the big things right when you're getting the small things wrong. The small things may or may not be easy to get right, but they're super important. Getting the small things right makes it possible to get the big things right. Getting the small things wrong makes getting the big things right nearly impossible. Helps those under your influence get the small things right. The more small things they get right, the easier the big things will be for them.

Life is a lot like driving in cars. Sometimes you're in the drivers seat. Sometimes you're in the passengers seat. Sometimes there's accidents. Sometimes you're cruising. Sometimes there's potholes. Sometimes there's breakdowns. Sometimes you run out of gas. Sometimes you are climbing up hills is low gear. Sometimes you're flying down hills at top speed. Your destination not so much a place but more of a result.