My Riffs

If something is in disrepair, fix it. Don’t leave things in disrepair. It will beg for more disrepair. If you fix the little things, you should avoid big things breaking. Big breaks usually come after smaller things have been left in disrepair. 

Progress is uncomfortable. If it was comfortable it wouldn’t progress. You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Then you can move forward. 

Emotions make a horrible masters but are good servants. We’re given emotions for good reasons. But when emotions take the role of our master, it sets things backwards. We drive our emotions, not the other way around.  

Your emotions are to inform you. But not drive you. Emotions inform you of deeper information, but shouldn’t have their hands in the wheel. They’re informational not directional. 

Stand firm for the things that you believe in. Be flexible in the things that aren’t as important. Digging in on things that don’t matter doesn’t make you a better person. Learning to be flexible but also standing firm is maturity. 

Dream! Day dream! It's important to dream. Don't allow fear to stop you from dreaming.

Appreciate what you have. It's not guaranteed you will always have it. So appreciate it while you have it.

It’s better to fan the flames of a small spark than trying to ignite a wet blanket. If you see something good in someone, fan that! Don’t try and make them do something if you see a spark. Use your energy to fan that spark and have it grow!

Build people up. They don’t need you to tear them down. People usually know where they’re wrong, they’re looking for someone to build them up so they have the strength to change. 

Always be kind. Even when you have to be firm, be kind. That doesn’t me getting trampled on though. Be kind but don’t allow yourself to be used or abused. 

We waste too much… time on social media. Energy on perceived wrongs. What we don’t have. The past. What might go wrong. All these things rob us of the here and now. Be very selfish over your energy and time. Don’t sink it into things that don’t matter. 

It’s the opportunities we don’t take that we will regret more than anything. Don’t skip on opportunities. They turn into your biggest regrets. 

Honesty is truly the best policy. I’ve learned though that honesty isn’t simply “not lying”. Honesty means sharing what you need to share. Being dishonest can look like being silent sometimes. To be honest often means speaking up and speaking out. Always with love and kindness though. True honesty is served best with love. 

Some things can spiral out of control fast. Recognize them and react fast and early before they get out of control. Wisdom is knowing when to react fast and when to go slow. 

Tough situations will prove a lot. They will expose what we’re made of. Tough situations have a way of bringing out either the best or worst in us. Who we are and what we’ve been working on inside is who we become in tough times. Do the inner work long before the tough time and you’ll get through it and be better for it. 

One of the worst things about the digital world is we lose sight of what's actually important in life. What takes place on the screens in front of us feels all so important, but in reality it's not. The digital world makes our lives better in many areas, but we have to be careful because in the areas it makes out life worse, it makes our lives much worse.

You will find time for the things that are important to you. So review where you spend your time and you’ll learn a lot about your values. 

Help, but don’t enable. If you’re enabling dysfunction, then you’re not helping. Help those who can’t help themselves. Help those who aren’t strong enough to do it on their own. Help those you love who just need a kind gesture. Just don’t enable bad behaviour with your help. 

Laughter is known as the best medicine, and it very well may be. But it may be the connection and friendship that really is the best medicine. So create deep connections and that may be the real best medicine ever. 

Use your words to build. Don't waste words to tear down. Don't' waste words at all. Use your words to build people up. Even if something needs to be said that's unpleasant, you can still build.

Prepare. You don’t have to over prepare, but if you know something is coming, it’s necessary to prepare. It’s negligent to not prepare. People who succeed are usually prepared. 

It’s so easy to just give things the minimal effort. But what if we started giving our best in more things? Just giving it a better effort in some small things. Maybe mundane things. But if we have them just a better effort we may have a bigger effect than we realize. 

Minimize the unnecessary but expand the necessary. Relationships are necessary. Stuff isn’t necessary. Expand the people you know and minimize the stuff you accumulate. 

You get to decide. We have to train ourselves that our impulses, our weaknesses don’t get to decide. We get to. If we follow our impulses we have little strength. But when you decide what you’re going to do, you build strength.  

We need wisdom when we speak. But we also cannot hold things inside too much or too long. Holding things inside is only a delay and magnification process. There has to be some form of processing or letting out. Find someone safe to talk to. Find a safe way to get your thoughts and feelings out. Suppressing them doesn't work. 

Criticism without solutions doesn't add value. If you want to criticize something, make sure you have some solutions. Otherwise, you're not adding any value. Add value, and do it by contributing solutions.

How do you improve? Lots of small but repeatable good habits. Some situations call for large scale changes. But to make improvement sustainable it has to be small and repeatable. Incremental changes are long lasting changes. 

It takes a mature and wise mind to see past someone’s faults and see the good in them. You can hold that in a balance, their good and their bad. Immature thinking tends to paint them based on their worst trait. Wisdom realizes that they’re more than their weakness