My Riffs

Being true means living honestly and living out your principles.  It’s easy to be influenced by fears or pressures. But be true. Live out your principals no matter who disagrees. It causes too much damage to live against your principals.  

We seek comfort and coddling. We will even go extreme length for comfort and coddling. How many times will we drive a parking lot just to find a spot a few feet closer? We want comfort and to be told we're okay. And we need that assurance. But we also need to know we can be better. Getting better can't happen in comfort. But we don't get uncomfortable often enough.  Reject unnecessary comforts, or enjoy them in small measures. Know coddling from appreciation. We need appreciation but we also need to hear when we can be better. A coddled individual cannot handle challenge. Get uncomfortable, stretch, grow and search for your weaknesses in order to address them.

Peace isn’t burying a problem . That only delays and magnifies the problem.   Peace is intentional elimination of contention. Avoidance isn’t peace.  Peace is usually found on the other side of some form of confrontation. 

Thanking someone will increase the chances of them doing it again or doing more. Be liberal with thanking people. Appreciation and recognition of a job well done will go far!

Getting better requires being around better. Surrounding yourself with better people will elevate you.  Your circle can lower you or raise you.  You can choose your friends and by doing so choose where you’re going.  

Do you want to grow? Get uncomfortable. You won't grow from a place of comfort. Push your comfort zone to extend yourself. You will grow into where you extend yourself. I like to run, to run faster and better I have to get uncomfortable. A comfortable run won't net me much benefit. An uncomfortable run has lots of potential benefit. 

Staying in your safe place comes with risk. Risk of not discovering. You have to venture out in order to discover. You won't know there's better unless you venture out and discover. Is it risky? Yeah but it's just as risky to stay put.

Get ahead when you can. Starting behind is demoralizing. Try and jump out ahead whenever possible. A head start will take a lot of pressure off. Plan and get ahead. 

Real power is truth in kindness. You can accomplish a lot with truth in kindness. 

How do you know you’re getting smarter? You may make the same mistakes less. Smarter means you learn to avoid needless pain. Smarter means you treat people with more respect. Smarter means you listen more and speak less. 

The past can weigh a lot. Lay it down. Move on. It's unchangeable. Move on.

A great way to motivate is to celebrate. People respond to celebration more than criticism. Celebrate the things they do well instead of criticizing what they may have missed. 

Your knowledge will grow as your listening skills increase.  You learn more when you listen well.  Listen and then act. You learn even more when you do. 

Today I was working on a task and took my eyes off it for too long. It required me to go back and do it again. Lesson learned, keep your eyes on the task or you may end up making it worse. Don't start something you can't see through to completion or hand off. It may end up taking more work and costing more than you set out to spend.

Nobody can get it right 100% of the time. That means we will fail. We have to give ourselves the grace and patience when we do. It's how we get better, by trying and practicing. When we fail we can get better and learn. If you don't try anything you can't really make mistakes. So mistakes are part of trying. Give yourself the grace to make a mistake.

Your treasure will be where your heart is. Your heart will get what it wants. And your treasure will flow to where your heart is. Your heart is your steering wheel. That means keep your heart pure. 

You can see what you wanna see. Looking for bad will turn up bad. Looking for good will turn up good. Bad can't be ignored completely, but it doesn't have to be what's looked for.

Find your people. You'll know they're your people when... You're not afraid to share your faults and failures You're not afraid to share dreams They can tell you the truth with kindness You leave time with them feeling better Gravitate to these types of people. They will make you better.

Stronger means pain. Stronger means endurance. Stronger means discipline. Stronger means difficult decisions. Stronger means saying no to a lot. Stronger doesn't happen naturally. Weaker happens naturally. Stronger means getting better. It's the way forward.

Some things just take time. There's no way to speed them up and if you can it only slows down the process. Impatience and hurry can do more damage than the original hurt. Healing and growing things need time and space to do their work. They need to be tended to, but hurrying them is damaging.

Speak truth so you can live with yourself. It’s also your best chance to help make positive effects on others. Never lie, but also make sure to speak truth. We can speak around the truth or we can speak the direct truth. 

We can reflect light or absorb darkness.  Light makes us and others better. Darkness is like quicksand and will eventually pull us down.  Speak light. Think light. Be around light. Darkness is too heavy. 

Get ahead of what you can. You’ll be better able to handle what comes when you get ahead of it. 

Train your brain to be grateful. Train it to find the good. We default to what’s wrong and the negative. So we have to flex our mind to get it stronger. 

To get to your destinations you have to be resilient. Life is full of surprises and challenges. We won't get to where we're heading without some setbacks, hurts, losses, disappointments and plan changes. But how resilient are you? That's the important factor here. Progress isn't linear but it's resilience that keeps the trend going in the right direction.

We have limited energy, both daily and on a whole. If we spend our days wasting energy on things that are drains, we will run down entirely. Save your energy for things that matter. Be very wise in giving your energy away. 

The substance will eventually come out. You can dress something up but eventually the substance will be exposed. What your made of will at some point be shown. Work on the inner person, it’s what people will see and what will make you who you are. 

Making peace doesn't always equal no conflict. Sometimes peace requires conflict and conflict resolution. To make peace you may have to go to battle. Don't go to battle just to have conflict, go to battle to achieve peace.