My Riffs

There’s the words you say but more importantly there’s the way you make them feel. The intention behind the words is what people feel. People pickup on how you feel more than what you say. You can’t hide behind words. People are intuitive enough to see beyond simply words. 

What you want out of a situation will be tied to what you put into it. You can put minimal into something and get lots out. Great rewards come with great sacrifices. If you really want something in return you need to put something proportional in. 

Words are powerful, yet they’re cheap. They’re cheap when they’re inflated. We inflate our worlds when we don’t back them up often. But when our words are backed by action and truth, they’re power. 

If you find yourself agreeing with everyone around you, make sure you’re not in an echo chamber. Make sure you’re in a healthy group that is based on truth and where other ideas don’t scare people. People with truth aren’t fearful of other ideas. 

Today many think influence is better the more quantity there is. But the better metric is quality. Large shallow influence can’t compare to deep influence in just a few. If you have influence (and we all do) focus on quality not quantity. You want to make people better not have more followers. 

In today’s instant gratification world, it’s harder to find perseverance. Those who have perseverance have a huge advantage. This one skill will give you an advantage over a huge majority of people and can be what separates you. 

We can only hold so much. But we really don’t like letting go do we? We may suspect we can hold something better but we are too scared to let go of what we’re already holding. Oftentimes we choose what we know over what we could be. Fear of letting go holds too many back from great destiny's. 

Hold your ground and hold room for people. People can feel when you’re holding room for them, it makes them feel important and valued. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your ground though. You can maintain your ground and hold space for others. The more firm you stand the more you can allow others to stand and it not rock you. 

To live life fully you gotta get out there and try things. Playing everything safe isn’t in fact safe. 

There’s hardly a danger like disconnectedness. Connection (to healthy people) provides safety.  

Not every situation is full of joy. But a lot more situations have joy to find than we realize. Our heads usually tend to look down, not up. But when we train ourselves to look up, we find joy in many more situations. Most bad situations have a silver lining that we can even find something good in. Train your eye to find the joy.

Your word has a value. Some peoples word is worth much and others not so much. Those whose word is worth much are the ones who keep their word. Those with worthless words don't keep their words. The value of your words go up the more you keep them.

What are you waiting for? Most of our excuses are pretty lame. We generally don’t have a really good reason why we’re waiting. Procrastination has stopped far more success than failure has. Procrastination is one of our greatest enemies. So stop waiting and GO GET IT!!!

Valentine’s Day is about love. Many people have a misplaced view of love. But any day where people are focused on love instead of hate is a good day. Happy Valentine’s Day all!!

What’s in your heart will be detected in your speech. If your heart is full of love and peace it will come out in your speech. If you’re full of hate and distrust your speech will give that away. Fill your heart with gratitude and it will be full of peace and joy. And that will be evident to everyone you come in contact with through your speech. 

It takes a moment to make a decision to change. The change may actually take a long time. But it takes a moment to decide to change, and that moment has to happen in order for change happen. 

If you're not grateful for something you will waste it. If I'm not grateful for today, I'm going to waste it. If I'm not grateful for my family and friends, I will waste the benefits of having them. Gratitude is the only way to live. That's not just a nice platitude, but it's a practical instruction on how to live your best and most fulfilled life. 

 Your community is of infinite value. You can have all the skills you want but without a community there nothing. Your community is your everything. It helps you and you help it. Finding a healthy community is maybe the most important relational thing you can do. 

If I don’t put in the time I won’t get out the return. There’s very few shortcuts in life. What we think is a shortcut is usually a compromise. Put in the time, sometimes grind it out, but do it. That’s where you gain value, in sacrifice. 

I have to remind myself, if I'm not reading, then I'm not learning. We learn by real life experience, but to accelerate that growth we have to read. When we read we get wisdoms and knowledge that other paid for with their time and resources. We get access to it simply by purchasing their book. With screens it seems books are less common, but they're no less important. I'm reminding myself to pick up books and keep learning and growing.

Some people are so knee jerk. They jump and do anything that comes to their mind. Those people need to slow down and think about things. But most people just think about doing lots of things, but never actually do much. They may have good ideas, good plans, but that's all they stay. It's much better to do. Not as the knee jerk person does, but as the person of action does. The person of action knows what they want and they go for it. They don't sit back and waffle in indecision. Thinking is good, but doing is better.

The smartest thing isn’t always to win. It’s to love. So someone may be quick witted and may be successful but if they don’t choose to love, their is very little smart happening. 

Your story can help other people. Stay in your story and never give up. It will come around one day that someone needs your story to keep going on in their own. 

If you're not growing, you're declining. So the only option is to grow. You grow by pushing yourself to learn new things, do new things, or do the same thing but even better. You grow by getting new friendships and influences that challenge you. The only option is to grow, unless you want to decline into irrelevance.

You have to get weak to get strong. You have to change to get better. You have to unlearn to learn. You have to give up to get. Few things improve by simply maintaining status quo. 

It's February and much of the world will celebrate Valentines day. But most people don't seem to know what true love is. The truest love is selfless, not selfish. The truest love is exhibited in forms that challenge us to be better people. Love will challenge us to go beyond our selfish barriers and extend and show grace to people when we may not feel like it. Love is the most powerful force there is and when you learn what true love is, you can reckon with the powerful force that is love.