My Riffs

Pain is there for a reason.  Pain can teach us a great deal. We may not want to go through the pain again, but we’re grateful for the lessons we’ve learned and the strength we’ve gained.  Pain lets us know where limits are. Pain lets us know something is wrong. Pain lets us know we can be fragile no matter how tough we may think we are.  Pain can lead to gain. It’s all in our attitude towards pain. 

Keep pushing.  Don’t sit back and relax. At least not for long.  Sitting back means moving back. Push forward. 

Some days are just special. It's good to slow down and acknowledge those days. There's enough negativity and bad news. When there's something good to celebrate, go all in!

When I get better, you get better.  We can lift each other up and we can drag each other down.  Get better and others get better.  Surround yourself with those that are getting better. 

Learn the art of conversation.  You will learn a whole lot just conversing with people.  Everybody has something to teach us, so speak to people. Ask questions and learn. 

Doing nothing is tiring.  But the better way to get tired is to be productive.  There’s time and place to rest and do nothing.  But doing something meaningful is the best way to get tired. 

I’ve wasted way too many days.  I’ve lived too long as if I have unlimited time.  Let’s live like time is short. Let’s do the things we should do knowing time is short. That will be a better guide as to what’s important and necessary. 

Be interesting, but also be really boring. Boring as in go to bed early. Get up early. Eat healthy. Read books. Go for walks. Have healthy habits. Those simple and possibly boring things will make you strong. No need to be wild and erratic. There's time for spontaneity, but do a lot of boring things. The mundane, hard work you put in incrementally makes you better.

There’s really no shortcut. There’s just cheating yourself.  It takes work. The more you lean into that the better off you’ll be. Accept the work and just do it. Shortcuts seem promising but they don’t end up where you wanna be. Do the work. Embrace the work and the work will get you to where you need to be. 

Division leads to failure.  Unity leads to success.  Division isn’t a good leadership tactic. Try uniting, don’t feed division. 

A mistake becomes a choice when you make it twice.  A mistake you accept becomes a habit. Use a mistake to learn and adjust. 

It’s so easy to slip.  When we do well we tend to slip backwards.  Don’t let yourself slip. The progress you’ve made, don’t go backwards. Progress isn’t linear and sometimes we can’t help to go backwards or sideways. But don’t allow the trajectory to continue. Get back on track and aimed in the right direction asap.  If you’re slipping, aim forward and you’ll get there even if it’s two steps forward and one back. Keep aiming forward. 

There must be higher principals that guide us.  When we’re in moral dilemmas or simply difficult situations we must have higher principals that we operate by.  People without principals live by all their lower level instincts. 

Peace requires action sometimes. Otherwise it’s just peace faking. Not peace making.  Peace making may require hard conversations that don’t feel like peace first. 

It's a special kind of person who just can find a way. They're the person who can think outside the box, who can pivot, who is creative and who can endure. It's a mix of skills that anyone can learn though. Our biggest hold back is ourselves. If we take the limits off ourselves we can become a person who can navigate complexities and always find a way.

Endurance is an underrated skill.  Many start strong and fall off.  But people who can start and endure make it to the finish lines. 

Someone has to have a vision.  Aimless people are dangerous.  It takes someone with a vision to lead and provide an elevated purpose.  If you have a vision for how things can be better, share it! You don’t know how big of an effect it could have. 

Everyone wants to feel good.  How you feel depends on what you’re consuming primarily.  It’s impossible to feel truly good when you feed yourself junk. That goes for junk thoughts, junk words, junk entertainment and yeah event junk food.  Wanna feel better? Start feeding yourself better. 

What needs to get done, just do it.  Delay usually makes it more difficult.  So just get it done. You won’t regret it and you’ll gain some momentum. 

The saying is something along the lines of people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.  Our effectiveness with people is more effective when we show we care. So caring for people is more important than sharing our opinions and suggestions.  Care first. Help will flow from there. 

Fear fails us.  Fear is meant to inform us, but it fails us when it drives us. 

To learn effectively you have to be willing to learn.  Life offers many free lessons. The more you take for free the better you’ll learn. If you reject learning you’ll only learn through hard lessons. 

My decisions do affect you. Have you ever been driving and someone throws on the brakes ahead of you and suddenly people all have to do the same behind? On the road, what other people do effects us quickly and deeply. Life is much the same. My words, actions and behaviours have a spill over effect. If everyone behaved in such a way of being mindful of this principle, we would have far fewer negative incidents.  My decisions effect you. Your decisions affect me. Let's make decisions based on if we're making things better or worse.

What needless weights we carry. It's usually a choice to carry the things we carry. Sometimes the weight even becomes part of our identity. The thing about weight is it gets heavier the longer you carry it.  The other thing about weight is, you can lay it down whenever you decide to. So let go of the needless weights. Don't worry about who will carry it or where it will be dropped. Just lay it down, let it go and move forward lighter.

We waste so much time waiting. There’s a time and place to wait. But we still waste so much time just waiting.  Waiting for our turn, or waiting for someone else to do it.  What if we actioned everything we wanted to do? What if we became a people of action? Words, ideas and plans are fantastic. But they’re only as good as the action they inspire.  Go, do it!!

A break isn’t quitting.  A break can fix you. If you need a break, take one. Don’t quit though. Know how long your break will be. Then get back at it!

Do the hard work. Most people avoid the hard work.  Take the hard work on. You’ll be the better for it. Easy work won’t make you much better. Hard work will, if you stick with it. 

Lead. Live in a way that makes others better.  It doesn’t matter how many people are following you, it just matters that you lead.  One person can change the world.  That may be you or it could be the person following you.  So lead, be an example! 

Sometimes change happens in the blink of an eye.  And you have to adjust quickly.  You can’t entirely prepare for such rapid change, we rarely know what’s coming.  But live life with gratitude for every good moment.  Hold loosely the things that don’t truly matter.  Clutch tightly the ones that do matter.