My Riffs

Always be preparing. Don’t live in fear, but always be preparing for things to change and things to go wrong. It’s gonna happen, be as prepared as possible without living paranoid. 

If at first you don’t succeed, try again and again. Success comes to those who try again and don’t give up. 

 Communication requires what you're saying to be heard. Or else it doesn't count as communication unfortunately. It's on the speaker to get their message delivered. Of course there's circumstances where a recipient refuses, but other than that blatant type of disregard, it's all on the communicator to get their message across.

Smooth seas never made a good sailor, or something similar is the saying. The storms of life make us into better sailors. The storms are gonna come, so may as well use them to get better.

Living for yourself is the most extreme form of shallowness there is. The more you do to help others the more depth you have in life. 

Celebrate the little things and the little wins. Don’t overlook all the good small things that happen. It’s worth acknowledging them as it builds gratitude. 

Today was only successful if you showed love and touched somebody. Everything else we do should be a foundation to love and serve from. 

Change! And keep changing! Being set in your ways is no sign of strength or wisdom. Holding to your morals and values is wisdom and strength, but refusing to change is nothing but a sign of weakness and fear. So change and dong stop changing!

Life feels like highs and lows. It feels like fun times and painful times. The thing is, we need to know both sides of good and bad to appreciate the good. If things were always good, we wouldn’t appreciate them. So life is both sides. When things are good, appreciate it! When things are bad, breathe in deep because you’re living life and it will get better! Don’t get too high or too low because it will wear you out riding the ebbs and flows of life. As much as you’re able to, keep an even keel. 

It's hard for some people to say no. But every no means a yes to something else. So saying no means we can be better in the areas that are important to us. Learn to say no and how do it with grace.

We have to know what refuels us. It's important to go to those things that truly refuel us. Not bad distractions, but true things that refill us and make us better.

Pace yourself, if you don’t you’ll hit exhaustion. Proper pace is necessary for longevity. 

Gratitude is like exercise. There’s so many benefits it’s not easy to summarize the benefits down to just one thing. There’s so many benefits to gratitude that a life without is one devoid of much of its worth. 

Some days your best has to be enough. Some days your best is not as good as others. But if you give your best consistently it will be enough! Don’t ever give less than your best. 

Sometimes you have to push people. But more often it’s better to pull them with purpose. 

Going through something hard? There’s gold to be found. It may be nearly impossible to fathom it, but be assured there’s gold somewhere. Keep digging and searching. 

We can learn to live with our dysfunction. But it’s no way to live. Be better than that. Don’t allow yourself to learn to live with unnecessary burdens. Drop them and be better. It may initially be harder but it will be worth it. 

Stand for truth unwavering. Because no matter what comes, truth will eventually prevail. 

Your words are given to build people up. Don't waist a single breath using your words to tear someone down. Only build people up. There's never a time where your energy is better used destroying rather than building. Build, build and build. There's enough destroyers out there.

Hate is too heavy of a burden to carry. Life is also too short to carry hate. You'll be done wrong in life. It will happen but you don't have to shoulder the burden of hate, that's optional.

Listeners can accomplish as much or more than talkers. Words are ever so important, but if someone isn’t hearing the words it doesn’t matter. And many people simply need to be heard. 

Helping people is a nuanced thing. Sometimes you need to carry them. Sometimes you need to lead them to water. Sometimes you need to teach them to fish, but sometimes you need make a meal for them. A sharp EQ helps us clarify needs. Increasing our EQ makes us much better equipped to help others. 

Everyone has boundaries, at some point. The better we maintain them the better we are, provided they’re healthy boundaries. Rebuilding boundaries are harder than building them to start. Sometimes you have to fail at boundaries to learn they’re important. But once the lesson is learned, put up boundaries and enforce them. A city without borders isn’t a city. A person without borders is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Many things can be renewed. Sometimes we pronounce something done or useless before it's time. We may even tend to the same behaviours with people. But so many things can be made new. Many things can be regenerated or restored. Before throwing something or someone on the junk pile, maybe think about restoration.

Someone is looking to you. And if they’re not looking now, someone will be at some point. Be the best you and be what other people need, that’s the path to fulfilment and purpose. 

You're gonna have to trust someone. You can't go through life not trusting anyone. Life will be much harder for you if don't trust. Trust is earned, but you still need to trust some people.

Build bridges. You can always abandon them if you need. But you never know when you may need to cross something, so the more bridges you have, the better. You can't cross every river or gap on your own. Connect with as many people as you can to build as many bridges as possible.

There's little value in looking back. One of the better uses of looking back is simply to find more gratitude for where you are. But there's little use in looking back because there's nothing to change back there. Looking ahead is where the actionable life is. Looking back at accomplishments doesn't even provide much value because we still have to strive forward even after accomplishments. Looking back will only cause us to trip. Look up and look ahead.

Learn to turn the page. The longer you’re hung up on the past the longer it takes to move forward. There’s opportunity cost when you don’t move forward. You miss out on future opportunities when you stay stuck on the past. Turn the page, move forward and forget the past.