My Riffs

Our choices in friends is one of the most determinant factors in where we go and who we become. This cannot be understated. It is a HUGE deal. Pick friends who have the values and characteristics of who you want to become. Because you will become like them.

We all have resources. Those resources are as diverse. They can be material goods, intellectual property, finances or things like time. Whichever resource you're shortest on should be the one you are paying the most attention to. If you're shortest on time, it's best to pay attention to what you're spending your time on. If you're shortest on money, pay attention to what you're spending money on. You use resources to gain from. When you run out of resources you lose the ability to gain. Watching your resources and re-evaluating them keeps your in the positive. Some resources are non-renewable.

Sometimes the best thing you can do to help someone is to send them love. There's a lack of love today and it's created a huge deficit. You can't love too much. Be liberal in love. 

We were all given a voice. Use it for good. Use it to build and not tear down. Use it to encourage. Use it to help. 

All work and no play makes for a very unbalanced life. A very unbalanced life ensures a very unhealthy life. 

In some things you just push on through. You soldier on. You grit your teeth and get through it. Sometimes you just have to push through it. This doesn't mean you try and knock down doors that aren't for you. It means sometimes we don't feel like doing the things we need to do, but we push though and do them.

Everything we do is a risk. Inaction is a risk as well. Inaction can be measured as opportunity cost. So life is about balancing risks. Sometimes you have to take risks and they don't seem to pay off. The good news is, most risks that we take are recoverable. Many successful business people have previously gone bankrupt. They took a risk and failed, but they were able to recover from it. Take risks, but calculate them carefully. Have backup plans, but be willing to abandon your plans when they don't go as planned :) The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. But also, the bigger the risk of failing. Being risk adverse may be safe but it lowers your ceiling. The point of this is to highlight that everything is a risk. So choose which risk makes most sense for you.

When we learn something new, there are always fundamentals. You learn the fundamentals, then you can build on them. We get in trouble when we get away from the fundamentals. They are intended to be more or less static. Things break down when you get away from the fundamentals as it becomes something it wasn't intended to be.

Be truthful, but also be accurate. It’s possible to be truthful but not so accurate. But it’s impossible to be accurate but not truthful. 

Eagles soar high above everything. They aren't weighed down by what's going on down and around them. They soar above it all. It's a trait that we can learn and example. 

An end is a beginning too. Switching our focus from the past to the future is where things change. 

Don't wait too late to celebrate something or someone. We often wait too late to celebrate.

It's easy to make the assumption different is better. A different car we can assume is gonna be a better car. A different job we can assume will be a better job. A different address we can assume will be a better address. This isn't always the case though. Assuming different is better can be a huge mistake. Better is better, but different doesn't equal better. Different can equal better, but is doesn't automatically mean better. And that's where the mistake is, in assuming different is better.

Hope is so vital to living. When people lose hope, they lose their lives. But hope on it's own it's enough. You have to hope for the best in order to posture yourself for the best. Will there be disappointments? No doubt. But if you don't posture yourself properly by hope, you won't just stumble into good things. Hope precedes good.

The bar is sometimes set by us and it's often set by others. When were in charge of setting the bar, we have to keep in mind those coming after. If they miss the bar, how far will they fall? Will they be able to recover from missing it? They may need a challenge, but not a challenge that will demoralize them.

We physically tend to accumulate too much stuff. It doesn't take long after a thorough cleaning for your house to start getting cluttered again. Or at least some part(s) of it. We are just like that too. We tend to take on too much baggage and need to rid ourselves of it. The baggage is rarely healthy. Just like spring cleaning and cleaning out physical closets, we need to constantly be ridding ourselves of baggage. Hurts, regrets, bitterness, jealousies, resentments, holding onto the past, etc. These things weigh us down and if we're not careful that can stop us completely.

There’s so much debate. Everywhere you look people are debating stuff. The problem with debates is they rarely change anyone’s mind. About anything. The best way to debate is action. Just show what’s right rather than just tell it.  

The more divided focus gets, the lower the output quality.

If you’re gonna “what if” then you need to “what if” both sides. We usually only “what if” the negative and exclude the positive. Don’t forget to “what if” the positive too! Or it’s unbalanced. 

Love has many different faces. Sometimes it’s giving. Sometimes it’s listening. Sometimes it’s encouraging. One thing it always is is prioritizing others needs.

The strongest people I've come across are always the kindest and most gentle. The reason is clear, their gained strength is used to control themselves. True strength isn't crushing somebody. True strength is in being kind to somebody.

We tend to believe the first thing we hear, read or see. The first news report, the first witness report, the first camera angle we see. But what makes the first one any more legitimate than the others?  It pays to slow down and be slow to make judgements. The first news report read isn’t always the most accurate. The first witness isn’t always the most truthful. The first idea we were taught isn’t always the best.  Slow down and learn to gather all the facts before making judgments. Be willing to change your mind as more data is gathered and more information is found. 

Learning to control one single thing will give you power over your entire life. That one thing is your mind. If you can control the mind, you can control the heart, you can control your actions and you can control your emotions. If you can control yourself to that degree, you have found enough control to live a good life. Much of what makes us unhappy is the lack of thought control. Control your mind and you control your world.

It’s said power corrupts. For sure unchecked power corrupts. It’s necessary to be careful in what you have power over. It may be tempting to be unjust when you hold unchecked power. But really strength isn’t unchecked power, it’s knowing when to exert your power. 

Guard closely what your heart fixes on. Because your heart will eventually get what it wants. 

We tend to either vilify or romanticize the past. There seems to be little in between. But most likely the past was more nuanced than being terrible or amazing. We tend to use blanket statements and generalizations too often. This means we mischaracterize so much.  Moving away from blanket statements helps us clarify things. Clarity is much more useful than generalizations. 

In the summer you don’t go skiing. In the winter you don’t go outdoor swimming. Our lives are impacted strongly by our environments.  Create a health environment so you can have every opportunity to flourish.