My Riffs

Be careful of what you allow to become normal. Because when something becomes normal, your guard is down. So only allow things that are safe to become normal in your life. If something undesirable is happening, make sure you don't give in and allow it to become the normal. You are lowering your quality of life then. Make sure what you allow as normal strengths, not weakens, you.

It's impossible to have something be born or created without some form of chaos first. So in dealing with chaos, there needs to be an element of patience, because something new is going to emerge.

In conflict resolution the best approach is to de-escalate. Always try and turn the temperature down. Don’t match the temperature of the aggravated party, lower it. This is WAY harder to do in practice though. It takes a level of self discipline that is learned through much, much practice.

Being misunderstood is very frustrating to deal with. At times there seems to be a disconnect from our intentions to people's understanding of our intentions. But you can never be fully understood because no other person walks in your shoes. So if you spend time trying to be understood, do it knowing that no one person can fully understand you.

If you're not going to do something well, just don't do it. But if you're going to do something, do it well. There's no other way to do something. Many times nothing is better than half baked.

In order to output, you must receive some input. It's not always a 1:1 ratio, but you must receive input. You can be as productive as can be, but at some point you need to receive. Make sure you're receiving from good sources.

The mission isn’t always what is stated. The mission is revealed in where the resources are spent.  Defence, energy, time, money. Want to understand what your real goals are if you're unsure? Look at where these resources are spent.

When considering work, career and a job, don't force it. As much as you can, let your career choose you. They say if you do what you love, you will never work another day in your life. For instance, if you really thrive on talking to people, make sure your job is something where those skills can flourish. If you like to work alone and are really good at focusing on single tasks, move toward a career where you can do that. Yes, strengthen those skills where you're weak as you can, but don't spend most of your time operating in those weak areas.

The grind can make you dull or sharp. It depends on how you let the grind rub on you.

When we don't know our value or worth, we can let others determine that for us. And all it takes is the wrong person at the wrong moment to devalue us. You can't leave your value in other peoples hands, its too unpredictable and unreliable. Know your value, and don't let others push their valuation on you. This doesn't mean don't listen to people and their feedback, but it means don't allow people to de-value you, and don't feel obligated to always prove your worth to everyone. It's a futile endevaour.

A good attitude may not fix your current situation or problem, but it sure won’t make it worse. A bad attitude likely will make it worse though.

The people we proclaim as successful so often have only found success in one small area of their life, at the cost of other areas. They're super successful in one area of their life and so many look at them as a complete success. But maybe we should examine success closer. If you become good at one thing in your life, but fail in other areas is that a success. Examine the lives of so many "successful" people. Many, many areas of their life are sub par, if not a complete wreck. They may be great at a skill, and maybe better than anyone else alive, but they often don't have a successful home life, or personal life. Let's examine success closer before elevating such people. I think the most successful people have a very balanced life. Home, work, family, spiritual, and these types of successes we will never hear about. Or they live next door to us.

Sometimes I find myself getting so focused I am excluding necessary things. Maybe you can call that OCD? Focus on the right things, but not at the cost of the other necessary things.

Your reputation is of utmost importance. Your reputation is the basis of trust both given and taken from you. You lose your reputation and you lose trust. When you lose trust you lose all your currency with which to trade with. Losing trust means losing influence, losing relationship and sometimes eventually losing yourself (because you need other people). However, there are limits to reputation. There comes times when doing something merely to keep your reputation is the wrong thing. Your reputation can become harmful sometimes. Here's an example: Someone may have a reputation for being "strict". There may come time to show be leniant, but keeping your reputation seems like the more important thing to do, and in the process you may damage something. Parts of our reputation need to be flexible. Our character and moral parts of our reputation can never flex, but other aspects of it may need to flex in order to accommodate every changing situations. Don't pu...

Being aimless is nearly as bad as being completely lost. Those who are aimless get into as much or more trouble than those who are lost.

To succeed at almost anything, it must become a habit. Doing something once or twice rarely makes a lasting impact. It's your habits that form who you are, what you're good at, where you're going and what you will succeed at. So in attaining any goal, make sure it becomes a habit.

We mistakenly gauge ourselves by those surrounding us. What they’re saying, thinking and doing greatly effects us. And we gauge ourselves by it.  We then become imitators.  The better way to gauge ourselves is by looking honestly in the mirror. Sure, use others as a casual reference, but look openly and honestly into a mirror for true feedback. 

Not all seasons of life are equal. Some lesser seasons of life cause us to pine for other seasons of life. But when we spend time pining over a different season of life, we take away from our ability to be effective and control the current season. Pining can effectively cause us to lose control over the current season of life.

I had a great blog post idea hit me this morning. By this afternoon I totally forgot what it was. There’s lots of ideas out there. But they require us to reach out and make them reality. Today I could have made it reality had I wrote it down. Now it’s just another un-acted upon idea.

Before to get in the public eye you had to work hard. You had to be a major actor to be on a big stage, or on the big screen. To be a major author you had to work hard to get published. To be a major musician or singer it took incredibly hard work. Today at the click of a button you can put yourself out in front of hundreds, thousands or millions of people. The system has changed and some of the self regulation is gone. Today we have celebrities that are famous for nothing other than being a socialite. So many people are working, striving and pushing to be publicly noticed. There is a ton of effort being put into being noticed by others. Moreso than ever in history. The odds used to be low that you would be noticed. They're a lot higher today, and so many people are trying to get noticed above all else. This makes for great opportunity for those who do real quality work to separate themselves from the pack. It may not seem to make sense, but the more people you have vying...

Just cause you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. The areas you say no in life are important. To both yourself and others. Sure you could do something, but whose opportunity to learn it are you taking away? Sure you could do something, but what won't you then be doing?

Pet peeves and dislikes are like a magnet. In a weird way we're drawn to them. They pull from us rants, rage and the behaviour of bashing. But it's unwise to bash that which you are trying to reach or change. Use the dislike you have inside to form a positive reach. Pull the person or situation from bad to good rather than try and bash it from bad to good.

The most powerful stories are the ones that the teller has lived through. We all have ideas and opinions, but what's most powerful is testimony. Words are powerful, but can be so cheap. Experience isn't cheap.

The past is over. It doesn't have to dictate today. So forgetting what previously has happened, what now? It's a different answer when you forget the past. And it's always a better answer.

Bad things happen. No matter how hard you try to mitigate bad things, they will always happen. There is utility in bad though. Mining the bad to gain something is a learned skill. The tendency is to try and throw away everything associated with the bad. But in doing so, we through away much opportunity. Mine the bad to gain something. And there is always something to mine.

We often aim for a perfect situation. We sometimes go into things thinking it will be just perfect. A new job, a relationship, a material possession, a new situation... But what will you do when you realize it isn't perfect?

Most of what we need to know is taught in kindergarten.  Listen before we speak. Everyone is important. Be kind to others. Eat. Play. Letters. Numbers. What if we stayed true to some of these basics our whole life? We get too sophisticated with the kindness aspects. We get too choosey with preferring others. Let's all go back to kindergarten basics. It would be a step up for us collectively.

Stopping isn't going to help anything, unless you're not heading anywhere. If you're aimless, maybe stop. But when going through things, stopping isn't going to help anything. Going through it, not stopping, is going to help. When things get tough, it's time to go harder, not stop.

Chances are, give  the complex beings we are, we’re neglecting ourselves somewhere. Be it, mentally, physically or spiritually. There is probably an area each of us aren’t investing enough in. When we lack too much in any one area, it will pull us down in the other areas.

Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing. Know when to stop a good thing before it no longer becomes a good thing.

Happy 151st birthday, Canada! I'm grateful to live in the Country I live. We're blessed above and beyond much of the world. Here's a memory from last Canada Day.