My Riffs

The reason leaders are so important could be looked at mathematically. They’re important because most people are followers. So a leaders influence is huge. Who are you following? Or who are you leading? And if you’re leading, are you taking them to a better place?

Times are changing. the economy is getting worse. It's bleak and scary for many. Everyone is (or should be) tightening up their budget. But I urge everyone, don't close your funnel! There are more needs than maybe ever before in our lifetimes. If you don't have financial means to give, that's fine. There are needs beyond finances. Pick up a phone, write a letter, sing a song, wave at a neighbour. If you can, send someone money or supplies. Tip the delivery person. This is a time to ramp generosity up, not down.

With COVID-19 sweeping the world, the government is determining what is considered essential. Certain businesses and industries are being deemed essential and thus remaining operational in this time of crisis. How are liquor stores essential? If anything they will add to the problems we are facing. Anyway... that was a rabbit trail :) What in our lives is essential? We're so fortunate and blessed, we forget what we actually need. This crisis is reminding us of what actually is essential. Here's my list of essentials: - Faith - Friendship/relationship - Purpose - Food - Clothing - Shelter That's really the essentials, everything else is bonus.

With all the good reminders right now to keep our hands clean, let's not neglect our hearts. It's a time of great need, let's make sure our hearts are clean and ready to be given to those in need.

What does it mean to be seasoned? To have gone through many seasons of life and hopefully have gained wisdom, knowledge and patience through it. It also means to go through many things we may not like, but they end up making us better. Food seasonings don't generally taste good on their own. The things we go through in life don't feel good on their own. But food seasonings end up making the whole dish taste better. And the things we go through in life that don't feel good end up making us a better whole person. So the situation may not be easily palatable but it can make us into a well seasoned individual.

Failing isn't the worst thing that can happen. Not trying is way worse than failing. Failing isn't an end. It's a pivot point.

Startups founded during the last recession (2008 - 2010): Uber Airbnb Slack Pinterest WhatsApp Square Venmo Source: https://twitter.com/lewishowes/status/1242467877191475202?s=21 What could you build? When markets are down startup costs are down. You may never have a cheaper entry point into a business that you'll have in the next few months.

Winston Churchill seemed to know a thing or two about managing crisis. He was a leader at one of the darkest times in history and led a country from the edges of defeat to victory. Churchill said to never let a good crisis go to waste. Crisis are good opportunities for refinement. They're good opportunity to force us to re-think things. They're a good opportunity for us to learn and to usher in paradigm shifts. What can we learn and what can we change today? What have we been doing wrong and how do we fix it? What could we do better? Let the lessons of todays crisis fuel tomorrows victories.

What's important doesn't really change. However, what we think is important changes often. Situations like we find ourselves in today with the world essentially on lockdown help remind us what's important again.

There's a worldwide health scare. It sounds like it's relatively easy to catch coronavirus, you can catch it much the same as you catch any flu bug. One type of contagiousness that we don’t talk about enough is the social contagion. In many ways it’s more destructive than a viral contagion. I’ve read recently how social contagions is the reason for MANY gender dysphoria cases. Peer pressure is real. And we all have it (provided almost everyone has peers). Who you hang around is EXTREMELY important. You will catch something from them. Let your circle be made of people who have good things to catch. Everyone is contagious. Stick close to healthy people and catch what they have.

Moments of crisis like we’re in now place extra focus on leadership. People look to leaders for answers and direction. We’re looking for political and medical leaders to provide us with direction and answers. Leaders set the tone. It’s important for leaders in moments like this to set the right tone. Leaders are responsible for culture. Leaders are to cultivate hope and to create healthy cultures, especially in times of crisis.

We are living in unprecedented times. And we could take that and be paralyzed by fear, because there are many unknowns. But this time is ripe with opportunity. Suddenly you may have that extra time you always wanted. There may be opportunity now to strengthen yourself. To rest, to heal. There is opportunity to connect with people that maybe we haven't touched base with recently. There's opportunity to learn something new, maybe a language or do an online course. Don't waste this time. Search for opportunities. There's much opportunity to spread love and care. If you can't think of anything else this is a prime opportunity.

Each of us have the ability to propagate fear or faith. Propagating fear doesn't help anything or anyone. I think the choice is simple on what we should propagate.

I love quotes, I post them a lot. They sometimes inspire me or provoke some good thoughts. Right now there's a lot of people talking. Talking about this Coronavirus thing. Some think it's the end of the world. Some think it's not really a big deal. Some think the government is behind it. Nobody really knows. It's almost all guesses. What I respect are those who are doing things in this time though. Talk doesn't hold much value right now. Action does. I appreciate the first responders, doctors nurses and even politicians who are working to help people.

Two lessons I've learned in the last week. 1. You can't take anything for granted. Suddenly toilet paper is the most important commodity. Personally, I couldn't have fathomed that ever. That was a basic that I took for granted. 2. Things can change fast. Basically one week ago life was completely status quo. Today it's anything but status quo.

We're literally living in unprecedented times today. Don't sit back and waste away this time. There is so much learning to be done right now. What are you learning about? I'm learning about what I'm truly afraid of. I'm learning what's truly valuable to me. I'm learning how prepared I am for emergencies. I'm learning about some of my weaknesses. I'm learning how to sift through information. I'm learning how to slow down. I'm learning some patience. I'm learning what my priorities have been and what they should be. I'm learning about how the world works (somewhat, cause it's complex beyond understanding). I'm learning a lot about other people. I'm learning how to be uncomfortable. I'm learning how to not take so many things for granted. I'm learning to navigate through complex situations way out of my control. Don't let this opportunity to learn and grow pass you by. Don't spend this time ...

The best vision isn’t to see what is. It’s to see what can be.

It’s okay to change your mind. It’s actually quite brave and smart to change your mind when presented with a better truth. It’s brave to say you were wrong. It’s not okay to be constantly changing your mind though. When you learn something or find a better truth, don’t let your pride hold you back from embracing that.

Wow! It's been an insane week!  I haven't experienced anything remotely like this in my life. I would say the world hasn't seen something like this in many regards since world wars. I'm not comparing this to world wars, but the world-wide fear maybe hasn't been like since since world war. Random thoughts... I do believe the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is uncharted territory. Nobody really knows anything for sure. We're all guessing. But we should  pay attention to medical professionals. You can't deny the data. If anything the numbers are much higher than what is being officially reported. We're looking at exponential growth, not linear. Our world isn't used to not having instant answers. This is very uncomfortable not being able to have the exact, full answers. You can't google this one and have the answer(s). Our world isn't used to being patient. But this is forcing patience. Information ...

What can you do when things get out of control? Reign in everything you have control over. You can't take charge of a storm, but you can take charge of your response to the storm.

We can think about doing something. We can talk about doing something. And we can actually do something. Most people think about doing something. Some people talk about doing something. Few people actually do something.

Are things in your life out of control? Or even are things not what they should be? Maybe your not controlling the things that you have full control over. Because when we reign in and take control of the things within our ability, we suddenly have a lot more control over things than we realized. What's the things we absolutely have control over? Here's a few I can think of: - Our thoughts. We 100% can control our thinking, and more importantly need to learn to do so. - Our diet. For almost everyone we have complete control over what we eat. And what we eat deeply effects us. - Our actions. This one is obvious. - Our consumption. What media, what entertainment are we consuming? - Our physical condition. To a large degree we are in control of our physical condition. How much do we exercise? How good is our hygiene? Take control of these things and you will find you're far down a good path.

Some people live life just going around trying to destroy. It’s such a underwhelming way to live. Building is so much more fun. It may be harder (criticism and destroying is somewhat easier), but it’s much more rewarding. If you don’t like something someone is doing, build something better. That’s the better way of “destroying”. And be kind while doing so :)

Life has a way. Life is every single emotion and everything you can imagine. It’s up and down. It’s happy and sad. It’s crazy yet predictable. It’s awesome and yet very tough and gruelling. One key thing I’ve discovered to navigate all the complexities of life is the ability to bend but not break. There’s many things and circumstances in life that could/would break you. But you have to learn to bend but not break. The strongest trees bend to survive high winds. The trees that can’t bend, blow over or snap. And I think that’s a fairly accurate analogy to getting through tough times in life. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is bend.

There's other ways to litter besides leaving trash outside on the ground. You can drop negative thoughts into peoples heads. You can criticize something trying to ruin it. You can tear somebody down. Those are worse littering offences.

Pride is deadly. The saying that pride comes before a fall is absolutely true. (that saying comes as a paraphrase from a scripture). The more full of ourselves we get, the larger then fall we're setting ourselves up for. But there is reasons to have some pride. It just has to be the right kind. Take pride in your work. Take pride in anything good you've done. Take pride in being a peacemaker. Take pride in the part you've played in others accomplishments. Those are the places where pride is done right. The funny thing about pride done right, it's pretty much always silent. It's not a boisterous pride. It's a quiet pride where you know you've done a good job and you really don't need anyone else to notice or praise you.

Mere hard work isn't enough. Braun alone can't be useful. You can't steamroll your way through everything with hard work. You won't be efficient and you'll end up making a mess while wearing yourself out. Yes you need to work hard. But you need hard work done smart. And you also need discipline. Discipline makes sure you're doing things right. Discipline means you will show up and be dependable.

The only old dog you can't teach new tricks to is the old dog who believes he can't learn new tricks. It may get harder but it's still possible.

There's plenty of voices out there. There's plenty of people who are more than happy to share with you their opinions. There's plenty of people who think they can and should give you advice. And the voices we choose to listen to majorly impact us. Did I listen to voices of doubt, negativity, discouragement and hate? Or did I listen to voices of faith, hope, trust and encouragement? Because I will likely let those voices influence my decisions. One of the important voices is our own too. What are we telling ourselves? Are we saying we can accomplish something or are we telling ourself we're not good enough? Are we saying that things are going to work out okay or are we telling ourselves everything is futile? Don't be afraid to shut out voices of harm in your life. They don't deserve your time.

"We become what we think about all day long" - Ralph Waldo Emerson What we dwell on, or what we think is of utmost importance. Sometimes we need to purposely clean up our thought life. Clean out the negativity, jealousy, anger, etc. Because those are the things we are becoming. Eventually the mouth will start speaking these thoughts. Then our actions will start matching our words. Good thoughts lead to good behaviour.