My Riffs

[fawr-ti-tood, -tyood] noun mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously:  Ex. Never once did her fortitude waver during that long illness -- We usually learn this OTJ (on the job), but it sticks with us forever.

You behaviour is often inadvertently governed by your intention of being in something for the short term or long term. A careful observer could even make some assessments about your long term intentions based on your behaviour. There's a lot more to it than just this however... Short term intentions are characterized by more selfish, irrational and even destructive behaviour. Long term intentions are characterized by more patient, forward thinking and self-less behaviour. If you're in something for the short term, you are generally in if for the quick win or "what's in it for me". The short term rarely requires sacrifice. If you're in something for the long term, you're generally in it for the long term gain, which always means a degree of sacrifice and hardship for future benefit. Self gain and no sacrifice - in it for the short term. Sacrifice and selfless behaviour = in it for the long term.

Leadership isn't a science, it's more of an art. Sometimes there's some science behind the art, but overall it's an art. It's an art to know things like: When to use force and when to be gentle When to push and when to pull When to move and when to stay When to give and when to take When to add and when to take away How to articulate How to organize How to cast vision This art takes practice and self-awareness.

The true currency beneath every commonly traded currency is, trust. We trade goods and services based really on trust, not currency. When trust breaks, everything it was supporting falls apart. Think of devalued currencies and what happened in those countries. When trust breaks, it's much harder to repair than a just a traded currency. We trade using trust. We trade truth through trust too. Every truth transaction should be 50% truth and 50% love. When this ratio is off one of two things happens: a. In the case of too much love, the truth suffers and renders efforts much less effective because not enough truth was given. b. In the case of when there's too much truth, the love suffers and the message is usually rejected. In both cases when there isn't balance between the two, we risk losing the real currency, trust. Losing trust renders us ineffective.

The roughest ride's are often ones we drag ourselves through. It's situations where we don't have to be sitting in the back of the truck and being jarred at every bump in the road. If we can learn to rise above the bumpy ride, it will make our life a whole lot less chaotic. There are times we can rise above a situation. There are times we absolutely must rise above and stop letting every bump jolt. The skill of knowing what to worry about, what to let us effect us and what to let go of, can help us have a much smoother life.

How often should you be updating yourself? How often should you be updating your systems, processes and procedures? How often should you be updating your methods? All the time.

The more reactive decisions you make, the fewer measured decisions you've previously made. Reactive decisions are weak because they are forced and thus limited. And they lead to weakness. Measured decisions are almost always from a position of strength and lead to a position of strength Shy away from being reactionary. Shy away from living a reactionary life. Make measured, strong decisions and you won't be forced into reactionary ones. .

We generally start with what we want or what we want to accomplish, without really really considering why. But the why is the most important part. In any function, whether it be our personal life or in a group or organization, the most important aspect to address is the why, or "The Vision". If this piece is missing, everything below it will eventually fail. Levels of Function 1. There has to be a large, compelling "why" or "vision". 2. It has to be well articulated and/or communicated. This is the "how". 3. This will be a call to action and the "what". At each point there needs to be a dotted line clearly pointing back to the overall vision. There needs to be constant, clear point backs to the highest level of function, vision. Why, how, what. Vision, articulation, action. Vision is the highest level of function.

Everyone has a story. It's their story. Those nearest to them may understand their story. Those further away may not be able to understand their story. When we can't understand someone's story, we so often marginalize them or turn them into something bad. This doesn't validate wrong actions. This means we misunderstand people. Doing wrong is always wrong. But the more we know somebodies story, the more we understand how they did wrong. But this isn't the kind of understand I'm referring to here... The worst is when we do not understand ones story and marginalize them simply because we will not allow ourselves to understand their story. They may be doing good things, but we choose to turn them into something bad, simply because their story is different from ours. And because their story isn't the same as ours, that makes us acutely uncomfortable at times. Understanding is a choice. Start with someones story, understand it. When we understand, we don...

When something new or different is done, a precedent is set. And those precedents shape the future. They set a course. This is why companies will spend millions of dollars sometimes fighting a lawsuit, in order to not set a precedent. It is often cheaper for them to spend millions fighting a lawsuit than to set a bad precedent. The moral of this story? Be careful when doing something new or different. Especially if it's a decision against your conscience or framework of values. You don't want to set a precedent where going against your values becomes easier. If anything set a precedent for upholding your values. Once the precedent is set for going against your values, it's very hard to reset the precedent in line with it's previous place.

Learning is often a painful thing. But going through the pain reveals lessons to us we never would have known going through an easy lesson. Pain is part of life, we shouldn't run from it. It's what makes us human. Use pain to learn and grow.

Being articulate is one of the most underrated skills. If someone can clearly articulate their ideas and beliefs, they have a huge advantage over those who can't. But articulation requires practice and testing. Practice to refine your articulation skills. And keep refining them. Write and speak until you become fluent in articulating your ideas. Then testing whether you're articulation has worked. By asking questions.

There is a deficit of good fathers today. Fathers are the pillars of the home and family. Happy Father's Day to all the pillars out there!

Knowing when is one of the most difficult things to know in life. Many products have failed, simply because it wasn't the right time. Many ideas have failed, simply because it wasn't the right time. Unfortunately there's no guidebook or formula to knowing when. It takes knowledge, wisdom, sensitivity and courage to make our best guess at when.

Love and control are often confused, but they're opposites. Not opposites in the sense of love and hate, but opposite in the sense that love is freeing, not controlling. Loving something best means setting it free. And if it loves you it will return or never leave.

This is a question I often ask myself. We all hold things as truths or facts, but we're all wrong on or about something. Where am I wrong? These are often hard things to find. We have the hardest time seeing ourselves clearly. A trusted set of outside eyes who we trust and can speak to us can often reveal where were wrong.

There's probably some super brilliant people in the world who will never make a dent. They have knowledge that could shape our world. But if you don't act on your knowledge, what good is it? If knowledge doesn't become a passion, what good is the knowledge?

It's going to happen. At some point, you will be misunderstood. It will be your ideas, your vision, your actions... It will happen. How do you become understood? Being misunderstood is a very difficult thing to wrestle with. It often hurts and causes us to self-doubt. It's challenging and there's no shortcut to making yourself go from misunderstood to understood. You have to let time prove yourself. Your idea, or your actions, or your vision is like planting a tree. It may start out as a seedling, and that's usually where people misunderstand. You can't make others see what isn't yet there always. Sometimes your seedling will be misunderstood (and other times people will get your vision/idea/action). But this topic is about those times where you will be misunderstood.. Time will prove your idea right. If someone misunderstands you at the seedling stage, don't kill the seedling! Cultivate it, grow it carefully. The best way to be understood in this situ...

What I am dreaming about is the true guiding force of my life. Your dreams guide and form your thoughts. So before you're even spending time thinking about something, make sure you're dreaming properly. And if your not thinking right, chances are your dreams need to be re-formed.

No rewards come without risk. It's an impossibility. This should change the way we look at risks. Being foolish shouldn't be confused with taking risks. They're completely different things. Taking a risk is what must be done to get the desired reward. Risks sometimes aren't popular. Risks are usually scary. But to get reward risk has to be taken. 

Why have more when we can have less? That seems to be how so many live. We can have more but we choose less. We choose less by being negative. We choose less by being pessimistic. We choose less by not trusting. We choose less by not giving. We choose less by not giving. We choose less by surviving not  living.

Any idea taken to it's extreme is dangerous. When an idea (even a great one) become imbalanced, it becomes dangerous. It's easy to dismiss an idea, reasoning that the idea is dangerous. But often the dismissal is because we are thinking of the idea only in it's extremity. As with all things in life, balance always needs to regulate. Ideas are the same. There is always danger in taking anything to any of it's extremities. Diets, hobbies, work, play, relationships... On and on. Extreme's are rarely if ever good places to dwell. Whatever end of the extreme you find yourself on, it's likely not the ideal spot. Extremities are dangerous and should only be visited temporarily if visited at all.

Success is a bit of an elusive thing. It's defined different by different people. It takes different routes for different people. I'm not sure if there is enough in common to define between all the different ways to success other than "doing the right thing". So the keys to success look different for everyone. But the keys always have this thing binding them together, doing the right thing. Success isn't something that can be simplified to a quote. But it's doing a whole lot of small things and then larger things right. It's about making the right decision(s). The keys to success are bound by doing the right thing. Doing right is governed by the principle of what's makes things and people better. Do the right thing. Always. No matter what.

The most beautiful things are rarely created that way. They've usually been born out of the ugly. Butterflies. Kind people. Heros. Something about going through the ugly and coming out on the other side makes for beauty. Beauty isn't always in having it all together, but maybe moreso in what you've been through.

I made a mistake that taught me a lesson. There was an artist I liked and listened to a lot. I watched a video of him singing live and he was really struggling singing in tune. I assumed that he couldn't actually sing in tune and his recordings were all fixed to make him sound in tune. Then I saw him live, and saw he had no problem singing in tune live. I had to reverse my assumption. In the video I watched, he more likely was struggling hearing himself, which made him struggle staying in tune. This taught me to be careful in making assumptions about things. I could have gone on my whole life thinking this artist couldn't sing in tune, and I would have been completely wrong. My sampling size was tiny. Once my sampling size of his singing was larger I could make a more informed and accurate assessment. We go through life labelling and assuming based on so little information. We often don't know the full story of why someone is behaving as they are, or if they are m...

How do we help others? It seems the best way is often to help those who are in similar spots or those who are in spots we've been in. It's more challenging to help those who we cannot empathize with. So to focus your help on those who are in situations and places you have been in yourself may be the best use of your help.

Oftentimes consistency outweighs everything. If consistency isn't in place, what you do may not matter. If you can't be consistent, then you can't be anything.

Competing against others is a no win proposition. You'll always find someone who will make you look bad cause they're beating you. And you could also find someone who you're beating. It doesn't matter where you're at. So the best competition is yourself. Making sure you're better than the person you were yesterday. Or making sure you're living up to the person you can be. That's often more challenging anyway. Being the best version of ourself is extremely difficult, but what we should be aiming at.

Where we can be effective is something that changes throughout life. You may be highly effective in one area only to one day have that effectiveness dry up. Your reach changes, your sphere of influence changes as the world changes, as you age, as people around you change. This isn't a negative thing though. It means always keeping your hand on the pulse of change. Knowing where to make your mark. Accepting when a shift in focus is needed. Life is so seasonal, or even daily. Learning how to ride and navigate the seasons, where to put your focus and energy is a huge part of navigating seasons. At no point in life should one lose their effectiveness, it just will change and shift.

Disproving someone's idea does not strengthen your idea. Disproving someone's character does not strengthen your character or ideas. The better way to prove yourself or your ideas is to simply strengthen your idea on it's own. Disproving may be a means needed, but not the end all be all. Disproving when needed should lead to strengthening of your ideas or your character. Tearing down some things is admittedly needful, but tearing down is not the way to build yourself or to prove your idea. If an idea has merit, it will stand on it's own, despite contrary thoughts. It may require clarification and strengthening, but invest in building the idea rather than destroying other ideas. That's a better use of time and energy.