My Riffs

Are you a better version of yourself than you were in January? I think this recent crisis could have two opposite effects on people. 1. You can give in to your bad tendencies 2. You can push yourself to find ways to keep growing So, what have you done with nearly 8 weeks of being home?

Saying something bad about someone else never helps anything. Only unless people need to be aware of a dangerous person of course. By saying something bad about someone we’re not contributing anything to society. Inject positivity, the world doesn’t need any more character assassinations. Let’s build people up.

Something I've re-learned with Covid-19 is this: numbers can lie. There's a saying that says the numbers don't lie. But that's not accurate. You can twist numbers to say what you want them to say.

Sometimes you don't get it right your first try. Or second or third. Edison took over 3000 designs to get to a workable light bulb. Were the first 2999 tries a waste? Of course not. Don't be hard on yourself when you don't get it right. Just try again. Don't be so hard on others when they don't get it right too. Let them try again. There's something to glean the entire journey. Every loss can be a lesson.

I've seen it said the this COVID19 crisis is acting like an accelerator. They've said that it's accelerating businesses to move into technology faster than before. It's also accelerating the decline of things. Things that were going to fail in five to ten years are now going to fail in one. If this is accelerating some failures on your part, you need to change those things or habits immediately. If you see a failure approaching, try changing those habits immediately. On the other side, put into place some things that will accelerate positively. Learn a technology or skill that will be in demand going forward.

Heard this quote on IG tonight :) "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." - Martin Luther King

It's so easy to know why someone did or said something. At least we think it is. For example, "they said that to make me look bad" or "they did that to show me up". We think we instantly know another persons intent behind their words or actions. But it's not that easy. Even if you consider yourself intuitive. Intent is extremely hard to know. Consider this, sometimes we don't even know why we've done something. How many times have you asked yourself "why did I just do that?" or "why did I just say that?". And oftentimes we don't have a good answer for our behaviour. Knowing that, how much harder is it for us to judge the intentions of someone else? Most people act in good faith. So assuming they're out to get you, or they're out to cause problems is usually the wrong assumption. Plus it's a horrible way of living. Why spend your time figuring out the evil intents of every other human being? Just worry abo...

What you say matters. Very very much! But how you say it may matter more. I'm learning that how you say something in written form is even more challenging to communicate clearly. Written communication lacks all the non-verbal communication that happens face to face. So it's easy for the message to be missed or misconstrued.

Never in my lifetime have I seen greater need for critical thinking. You can choose your position and cherry pick your facts. There's an abundance of facts. It's easy to adopt the popular narrative or the narrative of your closest circle. Practice critical thinking, if you get good at it you will have a huge advantage. How to practice: - Learn to emotionally detach from controversial issues and examine them. - Learn to identify bias and filter data and opionion knowing the bias. - Learn to analyze data. You can make many different assumptions from the same data set. You can even make quite contrary assumptions from the same data set. - Learn to listen to opinions different from yours. It doesn't mean you have to accept them, but learn to listen to them and sort fact from fiction, good idea from bad idea. - Read, read, read and then listen, listen, listen. Then learn to articulate your view in writing or orally.

Why is faith so important? Yes, faith from a religious point of view, but even non-religious "faith". This quote sums is up quite well. "Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith." -Margaret Shepherd Many times in life we come up against what feels or seems like a brick wall. And sometimes only faith will take us forward. Or maybe more often, faith is the only thing that will get us going on our journey.

I finally raked up my leaves today from last fall. They're dead. Twice dead actually. But raking those leaves up today will allow the grass below to live. We're uncomfortable when something we're familiar with changes or passes. But with every change or every "death" of something, something new will be born. It hurts to see something go, but it's necessary for new to come. There's gonna be lot's of changes coming in the near future in the world. Out of all this bad, look for good to eventually find it's way out.

Sometimes courage isn’t big, flashy and daring. Sometimes courage is seemingly small and may fly under the radar. For someone, courage may be just showing up. Courage for someone else may be trusting again. Courage may be someone sharing their art. Courage could be sharing a weakness. Be courageous. And allow others to be courageous through your love.

By in large we act in our own best interests. And of course that's not a bad thing. It's called survival. I wonder though what it would look like if we acted in the best interests of everyone around us though. I suspect many of our behaviours would be different.

The good news in everything is simply that good always wins. Evil may triumph for a time, but good always wins. That's why it's so important to always try and find the good in everything. Because it's a lifeline you can hold onto that will eventually lead to better things.

This post is a copy + paste from Ashley T'neil Walea on her Instagram today (@ashleytneil): So many things had happened to bring me to that point. A series of doors slammed in my face that left me feeling so hurt and so broken. Ten years of pouring myself into a job that I loved more than life - door closed. The path I thought I was supposed to be on brought me to a dead end with no light at the end of the tunnel. April 16, 2018, I stepped into a room clad with blue walls and white desks with two words written on the dry erase board - Be Essential. Two years ago I began my journey with IBM. Fast forward to April 16, 2020 - I’m helping provide my set of clients - the Government, the Military, State Governments, Local Governments, Universities, and Hospitals - with the technology to combat COVID-19. How am I thriving in a world where I never thought I would be in and still feel dismissed from the only world I thought I’d be in? Joseph came to mind. He grew up part of an amazing...

I think complex problems require more complex fixes.  Simple problems usually require simple fixes.  Of course this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but I think it’s usually correct.  When you try to fix a complex problem with a simple solution it usually isn’t sufficient.  When you try and fix a simple problem with a complex solution you often end up creating a bigger problem.  The lesson? Spend lots of time fixing complex problems.  Don’t overcomplicate the fix to simple problems. 

As long as this has dragged on, this lockdown will end. It's time to think about what we want that to look like. Do you want to go back to the exact status quo? I think there's some things I want to do differently coming out of what we've been through. Some things to consider for when "normal" life resumes: - Were your investments and savings adequate? - Did you have enough friendships and relationships in place to get through the lockdown? - Are you current career related skills a good match for the current environment? And how can you further them? - Is your health where it should be?

One good definition of being smart would be: The ability to discard one of your present ideas/values/truths when presented with a better one. So many people are unwilling to discard what they think/know/value, even when presented with a better alternative. (Yes, there are for sure some unalterable and uncompromisable values)

The Easter story is largely about resurrection. Even if you're not religious it's a reminder about death. But not just that everything has an end and we're all gonna die. But rather, it reminds us that an end isn’t an end, it’s a new beginning.

Right now it's difficult to find all the good. I could write a much longer list than this of bad things happening. But there's a lot of good things happening, I just have to look harder. Here's a list in no particular order: - People are coming together in new ways. For example, people are volunteering to pickup and drop-off groceries to elderly people who are at risk for this Covid-19 virus. - Many companies are offering discounts and delivery services. - The medical community is working together like never before. There will be benefits from this going forward. - People are being forced to embrace technology in order to keep connected to others. This will help them once this is over. - Companies are adopting better technologies that allows their workers to work from home, which should help offer better work/life balance in the future. - Churches are starting to adopt technology are social media who maybe would not have previously. This is good because most church...

Jordan Peterson posted a quote from himself that said when things fall apart, that which has been left unattended rushes in. In life there will be times things fall apart. And what we’ve left unattended will rush in. Making daily habit of the most important things will prevent you from being overcome when things do break down.

The bad is always more entertaining. That's why the news media focuses on the bad. You have to intentionally push past the bad to find the good. In life and in every situation we seem to see the bad first, but have to work to see the good. Make it a habit to find the good in every situation. Because there's always good to be found.

Chaos is a place that eventually gives birth to new things. It will be interesting to see what will come from the current chaos. I can think of some negative things that will likely come of it. But I think there will be a lot of good things that come from it. We will have to revisit this months or maybe even a year or two down the road.

Milestones are important for measurement. You leave milestones so you can measure against yourself. Don’t judge yourself by others’ milestones but measure yourself against your own.

When you've made a mistake, what's the quickest way to recover from it? You admit you're wrong and own the mistake. Owning the mistake means taking responsibility for what has happened and to the best of your ability making it right. Never double down on the mistake. Own it and fix it.

You know what's frightening when you realize it? How fast we can get comfortable. A few weeks into 50% of the world quarantining and somehow we've already settled into a groove. I'm not saying we're enjoying it, but we've settled into a groove already. If you told me a year ago that we would be in a month plus of quarantine, I would have thought we would literally be going crazy three weeks in. Again, I'm not enjoying this, but we've settled in and it's almost already become normal. The point? What can settle for a whole lot less than we're capable of. And in doing so, we can even find a level of comfort. In fact, when we push ourselves to our fullest, it's quite uncomfortable. If you're comfortable, beware. There's a good chance you're not where you need to be.

This may not be the kindest phrase but there's some truth at the heart of it: Hanlon's razor is an aphorism and it says: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Now, I'm not saying we should be looking at people as stupid. But what I am saying is we should not assume someone has some type of malice towards us. There's a way better chance they haven't intended to be inconsiderate to you. It was simply an oversight.

If you don't think your actions are important consider the current world situation. Allegedly some person (or persons) ate some soup on the other side of the world which has resulted in the whole world shutting down and a mass pandemic. I know that's an overly simplistic view. However there's enough truth there to make the point. What we do can have ripple effects far beyond what we realize. Your actions are important. Be careful what you do.

I have a five month old son. If you could ask his thoughts of the world he would probably make a few of the following assertions: - It's always snowing (this feels pretty true in Calgary lol) - The world is loud and ruled by Princesses - Diapers are cool - Who needs teeth? His perspective is limited by what he has seen and experienced so far. We can lose perspective even at a mature age. In this unprecedented season it's easy to lose perspective. Especially when no clear end dates are in sight. But we know, this will pass. It's just a season. Each season has its purpose and place. Make sure you find the purpose of this season and you will reap the rewards in the following seasons.

One big mistake we can easily make is refusing to ever be wrong. Refusing to be wrong leads to two things: 1. Risk aversion. You will never take a risk because you never want to be "wrong". Because you never take a risk you never reach your potential. 2. Stunted growth. You can't grow if you never admit you're wrong. Growth often looks like: learning something new, admitting we're wrong then making adjustments. Admitting you were wrong isn't a mistake. The mistake is when we refuse to do so.