My Riffs

Truth is like a mirror. Truth can be a sword too. Truth can also be love. But in helping ourselves, truth is a mirror. Winston Churchill said "People occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing even happened".  When confronted with truth as a mirror, we are forced to see ourselves as we actually are, not what we think we are. This truth can cause us to hurry off and ignore what we've seen or it can cause us to look ourselves straight in the mirror and level up.

In doing lots of running I've learned pace is important. If you start too fast you may not be able to complete, or you will slow down to a crawl. But if it's a short run, you can start fast and keep up the pace. On a long run, you need to slow down and maintain a more constant pace. Pace yourself in life too. Don't go too fast or too slow. Find the pace that works for you and will allow you to endure to the end.

We need something to focus on. We need a destination, or maybe we could call it a goal. Without a purpose, people get lost. One thing that's necessary to learn though is to learn to enjoy the journey. It's gonna take twists and turns, ups and downs, and you have to learn to enjoy it. Because the journey is always full of surprises, both good and bad, you have to learn to enjoy the ride.

Isolation has become quite a common word this year. Isolation is a terrible thing. I read a quote today that said  "We discover who we are, not in isolation, but in connection. Isolation leads to self-deception". It's no wonder the world is seeing so much craziness this year. We have deeply messed with the social order that civilization has existed upon. Social distancing and isolation are causing a ruckus. Don't allow yourself to be isolated. Find some good, honest friends and connect with them as much as possible.

One letter difference but two drastically different outcomes. 2020 has been full of difficulties for so many people. Will the circumstances make us bitter or better? We do have a choice in the matter.

The best teachers are still students. They’re constantly updating themselves and learning. In order to teach you have to be a good student. And it’s best to remain a student even when you’re a teacher. 

Force is something that should be used sparingly. If you have to resort to force some thing(s) have gone wrong previously in the process.

This quote I read today was a good reminder of living intentional.  “No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts”  - Marcus Aurelius

Be that person who is quick to give a kind word. I can think of times in my life when someone told me "you're gonna be a success" or "you got what it takes" and it actually made a difference. What if there's someone in your life that needs to hear those words?

The beauty of art is that there's no formula to it. It is somewhat subjective. Not everyone appreciates art of course, but that just means art is subjective. An abstract painting can mean something to someone and nothing to someone else. And that's the beauty of art, not everyone will appreciate a musical piece, but those who do will appreciate it a lot. 

There is great utility in making the complex simple. Arguably, this is one reason Apple has been a successful company. It's an extraordinary skill to distill complexities into simpler forms. It's like a combination of the following skills: - Analytical - Communication - Logic - Pattern recognition

Instincts tell us to look out for number one. And we need to. It’s a life sustaining instinct. So putting others before us doesn’t generally come natural. It takes work and practice to do so.  When we learn to put others first, we learn a great secret in a fulfilling life. 

Dreams can come true. There's two keys in making that happen. 1. Your heart will eventually get what it wants. So your heart needs to be set on it. 2. Work. Dreams take lots of work to achieve. If you're not willing to put in the work, you likely won't achieve your dream.

We don't go looking for things to get bad for us. But inevitably we go through tough things. Tough things that we may even label as bad. But there's so much strength to gain when things get "bad". There's so many lessons to learn when things get "bad". As former SEAL, Jocko says, "when things get bad... GOOD!" Good because it's an opportunity.

This will tell you a lot about yourself. Ask yourself and honestly answer, what feels better, to receive something or to give something? Work towards being a giver, not a receiver. The truest blessing is in giving not receiving.

I realized why people hate the President or Prime Minister so much. It's because they want to blame that person for all the problems they either have or see. Rather than taking responsibility for their problems or thee problems they see, it's easier to blame someone else. And no better person than the one at the top.

I heard it said that the price of wisdom is pain. I think that's quite true. Wisdom never comes cheap or easy. It usually comes through some tough life experiences. And some people don't come out of those life experiences with wisdom. They come out with bitterness, resentment or sometimes just end up defeated. But there is wisdom to gain in these situations. So in pain or difficult circumstances, fleece all the wisdom you can from it.

The best way to do something it out of joy. Doing it out of duty can’t compare. 

Life is... what you make it. Both bad and good things happen to both bad and good people. But life is still what you make it. 

Ignoring problems never helps deal with the problem. We don't need to seek out every problem and deal with it. But for problems that we're connected to, ignoring them won't help. Problems tend to grow until dealt with. You'll never be problem free, but it's best to deal with problems as quickly as possible. Ignoring problems is one way to feed them.

There's a song that has a lyric that says "I've been down so long, being down don't bother me". Life has highs and lows. But you can't live in the lows too long. You have to figure out how to get out of that low. Lows become ruts fast. You can't stay down long, because it just get harder to get out of the low. Make sure being down bothers you a whole lot. Being down should never be accepted. Fight being down and get up!

Negativity is possibly the lowest common denominator for humans. It's not a good place to live. It's not a good place to connect with others. If you're connecting based on negativity that's a low denominator (or something to share in common). Raise the bar and connect on as high of a level as possible.

Nightmares can be scary. But they're often not based in reality.  Daydreams can be more scary because they're based in reality. I'm talking about allowing your self to dream big. They can be more frightening. Many people don't day dream big, because it's too frightening.

Compelling is the strongest form of motivation. You can push people to motivate them, but when you can find a way to compel them, that’s the best method. 

A kind word can go a long way. If you wanna help someone, try a sincere, kind word. 

There is such thing as healthy conflict. It's just a tough thing to keep it healthy. It takes two mature parties to keep conflict healthy. This goes for politics, groups, relationships and couples. Once conflict becomes unhealthy it's best to disengage until it can be healthy again. Healthy conflict can be a very productive tool.

If you want it to grow, give it energy.  This works two ways though. If you give the wrong things energy, they sure enough will grow. Don't put energy into the wrong things and put all your energy into the right things. 

You can find lots of firsts in life. Today was the first of the month of October. A perfectly good to start something new or possibly stop something not worthwhile. There’s plenty of opportunities for starts, to start over again in life.  Here’s a good way to start again... say sorry. That’s a good way to start over.  Here’s another way to start again. Get up the next day and adjust what went wrong or what you didn’t like about today.  Here’s another faster way, start the next breath you take. Don’t even wait for the calendar to turn or the sun to rise the next day. Just start with your next breath.