My Riffs

Make space. We don’t have to push out every person who has a different perspective. Make space for them. You won’t convert someone to a better idea without making space for them to feel safe enough to change their mind. 

Be good. So often we want to respond to ugliness with ugliness. But be good. Don’t perpetuate hate.  Do good. Be good. Do the right thing. Always. 

Most people don’t need my opinion.  The older I get the fewer opinions I even have to give What people want and need is my care. If people know I care, only then could they possibly be ready to accept something I have to share opinions on.  Good advice is, withhold your opinion unless asked. Instead, share your care. 

It’s a simple thing, but it does so much. Get outside, get a little sunshine. Go for a little walk. Simple and highly effective. 

It’s on the sender to make sure the communication is clear.  The communicator has to make sure the message is clear and received.  The art of communicating requires practice and refinement. Good communicators often practice and learn how to get better at it. It’s a practice well worth it.  

The work you do when nobody’s watching is what really matters. Because it shows what your constitution is.

Making friends usually requires being friendly. And being friendly means being warm and inviting.  It’s no easy task getting along with a cold person. Be warm and you’ll attract friendships. 

This phrase gets misused and misunderstood too much.  Some use it as licence to be their worst self. Others use it to be unwise with words or actions cause it’s just who they are. Wise people take it to mean be your best self, and don’t be nervous about what you’re not. Only you can be you, so be the best you and don’t worry about being just like someone else. 

How do you keep your thinking straight? Talk to and listen to other people and opinions.  Be willing to admit you’re wrong.  Be willing to change your opinion.  Don’t be afraid. 

I speak about living with gratitude often. Because it’s truly revolutionary.  In doing so, give gratitude often. Tell people that you’re grateful for them. Let them know they’re appreciated and important to you. That’s how you spread the spirit of gratitude. 

Make connections.  You’ll become better. Connect to better people and you’ll become better by associating with them.  Make connections and nurture them. It’s one of the most fulfilling things in life. 

Don’t waste any life by not living.  Live life. Life will be what you make it.  Drive, don’t be a passenger. 

Self awareness is akin to honesty.  Sometimes we don’t want too much self awareness or honesty. It can be overwhelming or disappointing. Or maybe it seems easier to not look to deep. But self awareness is the first step to self discipline. And self discipline is freedom. 

Do people around you get better or worse? I don't think there's an in between. You either are making people and their lives better around you, or you're making them worse. I'm talking about the ones close to you. You're either contributing or taking. You're either building up or tearing down. You know those people you hang around with who leave you feeling so much better? Be one of those people! Make people around you better. Don't drag them down with drama and insignificant nonsense.  Be a lifter. Make things and people better.

Embrace life. Both the ups and downs. Cause they’re both equally a part of life. If you’ve got a fighting chance, you’re alive. And that alone is good.  Embrace all parts of life. The easy but also the difficult. There’s something good in both. Or something to come of both.  Embrace life!

It’s easy to say hi. It’s easy to pat a back. And those things matter. But in doing so, make sure you connect. It doesn’t always require a long time, but it’s important to connect.  Connection happens when people feel your care. 

Find your why.  It makes your life have all the meaning you need. 

It’s connections that matter.  Real connections. In person, face to face connections.  That’s what really matters.  Technology allows us to connect with people we can’t physically connect with. And that’s a wonderful thing. And that connection is better than no connection. However, face to face can’t be replaced.  So your quality of life is tied directly to the connections you have and how often you make them. 

Make the most of daylight.  In 24 hours you only get so much day light.  In your lifespan, you only get so much daylight.  Don’t waste a moment of it.  Let there be purpose in your action. In rest, in leisure let there be purpose. In work and relationships, find purpose.  Daylight only lasts so long. 

What does money matter when you don't have health. And health is a complex thing. It's physical, yes, but also mental, emotional, and spiritual. If one has true health, that is their wealth.

Data is important. It helps us make decisions. But it's good to learn how to look past the data. There's usually more than just numbers. Understanding all the nuances behind the data is important. Decisions can be made based on data alone, and some should be. But some decisions can be made with data as a factor but accounting for other aspects too. A balanced decision is best, where head and heart can agree.

Find more mentors. Mentors don't have to have every answer. But they can provide support and guideance you can't have on your own.

Greatness often looks like hard work. It looks like lots of small, repeatable habits.  It looks like faithfulness.  Then when the big moments come, you’re prepared.  Greatness happens on the off days. On the days you don’t feel like working or showing up.  Greatness looks like a lot of preparation and hard work  

Is what you’re doing repeatable?  If not, it likely won’t change anything for you. Our life is changed yes by big decisions, but what really changes us is the repeatable habits we embrace. Good or bad, the habits we embrace will form who we are. 

What do you want your legacy to be? Is there a better legacy than kindness?

Family comes first. The reason is simple.  They’re the ones who maximize your efforts.  The love, time and focus you invest goes the furthest. Not in a transactional way, but in the way of purpose.  Our main purpose isn’t to generate wealth, or accumulate the largest social network. It’s not even to achieve personal accolades. Let everything you do lead and point to the benefit of your family. 

You can’t get through life without trust and faith.  A life absent of these elements is devoid of building blocks.  Trust and faith elevates. Trust and faith renews, restores and rebuilds. 

Say what you want and get it. If you don't aim at something, you won't get anything. Name what your after, make a goal and go for it.

Some people are so divisive. Always looking for differences and reasons to cut off.  Others are unifiers. They look for things that bring people together.  From any situation you can be either a uniter or a divider. 

One of the hardest things to do is to be fully present.  Distractions have never been greater.  Attention spans never shorter.  Our minds can’t stay focused on a single task for long. And so it’s difficult to be present in important moments in life.  It’s something to be aware of and keep practicing. Being fully present allows us to glean everything we can from the moment. Being semi-present makes it difficult to get much from the moment. Having one foot in the present and one in some other fleeting thought or notification is an unsteady foundation. Firmly be in the present, life will feel so much different. 

Keeping pace with everything is a guaranteed burnout.  Purposely slow down. Even daily. Find a time and space to disconnect, decompress and slow down.  The world moves too fast for us. We get far too much information in one day and feel the need to do far too much.  It’s okay to slow down. It’s the secret to productive longevity. 

If you want to experience more you have to get out.  Get out of your ruts. Get out of your limits. Take a detour from your mundane routines. Routines are good. But it’s also good to enhance them with some changes or experiences like a trip or different way or doing your routine.  Get out there, there’s lots to learn and explore. 

Hang on, it will pass.  Not every season in life is easy and desirable.  But hang on it will pass.  Today had a few storms blow through. It got dark, rainy and there was thunder, lightening and potential of tornados. But it passed. The evening was sunny and clear.  A good metaphor for life. It gets rough at times, but look ahead cause there will be sunshine again. 

You know what tasks feel the best to take care of? The ones we dread. The ones we’ve been putting off.  Purposely getting those undesirable tasks done gives us a boost and momentum.  So dive into the things you’ve been avoiding. 

What you say no to makes a huge difference in your yeses.  Saying no refines what is necessary and filters out the unnecessary. Saying no preserves your resources for your yes.  Don’t waste your yeses on frivolous activities that don’t support your big goals. Refine. Say no. Put that energy into the yeses that matter so much the more. 

A true friend will tell you where you can get better. They may do it kindly and subtly but a true friend will help you get better. 

What you love will always be revealed.  Your actions will reveal what you love and cherish.  Your love can only be hidden for a short time, it will be revealed. Set your love on things that are worth it. 

How you feel on the inside and how healthy you are on the inside will show on the outside.  If not immediately, eventually.  Do the inner work. Those around you will benefit. 

Be full of light. Shine light. Nobody needs darkness.  Radiate, reflect and shine light. 

Healing takes time. Healing isn’t always linear.  But healing will happen so long as you keep moving forward. Baby steps are great steps.  It’s worth the work. 

Edit and edit. It's okay if you don't get it right the first time. It's okay to refine. It's okay to start with less than ideal. The important thing is to start. While many are weighing, pausing and analyzing, you are working. So start. Work. Edit!

If unified, together can accomplish so much more than one.  Together you can accomplish more than just 1 + 1.  Together you can accomplish exponentially more. 

Real power is love. Hate can do lots of damage, but the more powerful thing is love. 

Leave everyone a bit better than you found them.  Say something nice. Do something nice.  Just do something small to make their day better.  That’s how you make the world a better place. 

Focus can be your best friend. Focus can help you accomplish a whole lot more in a shorter amount of time. However, focus is a scarce commodity today. Our attention spans are attuned to a few seconds at the most. It takes practice and discipline to strengthen your focus muscles beyond that couple seconds and truly focus on one task.

Make hay while it’s day.  Slacking off will cost you when the sun goes down. 

A good speech leads to action. Speech alone doesn’t mean much. Words can be cheap. But words can compel people to action.  Refine your speech. Speak truth in kindness. Speak life and positivity. It will cause positive action. 

Find friends. Find great friends.  Great friends will make you better be association. Spend time with them. Talk with them. Observe how they handle things.  

Save the fight to fight things that matter.  Fight laziness in yourself. Fight to provide for your family. Fight for justice. Fight for the person who can’t defend themselves.  Don’t fight social media battles. Don’t fight political battles. Fight for your family. 

Experiences really are the best when you can share them with someone else.  Some experiences have to be solo. But the best memories and experiences are things you’ve done family, friends and the ones you love.  

Work hard. Go the extra mile.  Don’t shortcut.  Do quality work.  Don’t allow laziness to settle in. 

Even on days that aren’t great, we can find so many blessings. One, two or a few things going wrong can’t outweigh all the good things.  Always keep focused on the good things. That will help soften the days when things may not go the best. 

Quality of life is directly proportional to quality of relationships.  Money isn’t proportional. Fame isn’t proportional. Possessions aren’t proportional.  Only relationships are. 

Don’t be a weight. Don’t be a downer. Be a lifter.  Lift people. Elevate situations. Provide value. Don’t drain. 

We only have right here right now. But that doesn’t mean we live only for the here and now.  We live for the future.  We live to make things better for tomorrow. For our children.  Living in anxiety about tomorrow is a waste of energy.  But living in the present to prepare for a better tomorrow if the best way. 

Don’t leave it to others to make it happen for you.  But also don’t think you can do it by yourself. We all need help. At some point you’ll need some help. Sure you can do things by yourself, but if you’re doing something great at some point you’ll need help. 

It’s Valentines and the day we designate for love.  If you haven’t been showing love prior to today though, today’s showing of love will be shallow. If it’s an outflow of true love it will make its mark. 

You have to take good care of yourself.  If you don’t, you won’t be able to take care of others.  So keep yourself healthy and strong, so you can be what other people need when they’re not healthy and strong. 

Getting ahead and getting out in front of something gives you a huge advantage.  Getting started is more important than making the perfect plan. Get started and adjust. Waiting for the perfect plan may set you too far behind to catch up. 

If you really want to learn, teach.  Teaching means you have to truly know. You can’t teach what you don’t know. 

It’s a noisy, noisy world. There’s very little place for quiet. There’s little place for solitude and contemplation. We don’t look inward. We look outside for validation and get it in echo chambers. We seek out those who agree with us and feed our egos. Discomfort is something we avoid at all costs. Silence is uncomfortable. But in the uncomfortable is where the gold is. The rest only holds fools gold.  Slow down and think. Slow down and dig deep.  Check your assumptions.  Be open to changing your mind.  Do the hard work.  That’s where the real important stuff happens. 

One lesson I’ve learned as a parent is kids will learns far more from my actions and behaviour than what I say.  What matters most is the example I’m setting. My words matter, but what’s being caught is what my behaviour says. 

It could change fast. Hold onto hope.  If something is out of your control, hold onto hope. Sometimes things change in an instant. Hope. 

It’s worth celebrating so many things. Life has so many gifts and wonderful things; take the time to celebrate them!

Your connections are your real value.  Strengthen your connections and strengthen your life. 

Thank people! We need lots of help, be grateful.  It will inspire more help and pay it forward. 

Words are so very important. But only if they lead to action. So action is more important than words. Doing something is better than saying it. Doing something proves and does more than just saying things.

Sometimes you just have to start to get it done.  That sounds like a dumb statement, but so often we freeze trying to figure everything out first. Then we never get it done. We don’t always have to have the complete plan or the perfect one. Start, adjust and get it done. 

You attract what you are. Negative people tend to attract negative people. Same goes for positive people.  So if you want to have positive friends, be a positive person!

Travel and learn. You’ll learn more by experiencing new things in new places. If you want to expand you have to travel. 

Anything good takes hard work. And is worth working hard for.  If it came easy it wouldn’t be worth much. 

Spread love. It’s simple. Just treat people like they matter and you care about them.  Spead love!

Light a fire in those around you.  A good fire of course.  Help people find their purpose and live it out. Light that fire in them. Your work will go far beyond yourselves and scale in multiples. 

We all will be tested. Our mettle will be revealed.  Build your inner person. What’s inside will be revealed. So work and build that character, it’s what will be revealed. 

You can feel when somebody is a happy person.  They feel good to be around. They’re lighter and make you feel better.  If you’re truly happy people around you will know.  Spread happiness simply by becoming a happy person. 

There’s only growth or decline.  Don’t stop, that means decline. 

You can make the same point different ways and have different outcomes. Same point, different outcomes.  A wise person can offer a critique in a way that sounds like encouragement. A less wise person will simply offer criticism.  The outcomes will be drastically different. 

We don’t have to do large and visible actions to make a difference. Little good acts make large differences.  Say something nice. Lend a hand. Be sincere.  That’s all it takes to make a difference. 

Aimlessness is dangerous. Have an aim. Make it a high aim. Don’t be upset if you don’t hit it. Just keep aiming high. 

In every situation you can fuel it or defuse it.  Make sure if you’re heaping more fuel, it’s doing something valuable and positive.  Otherwise, step back and let it die. Defuse.  Don’t fuel negativity. Starve it of fuel. It may take discipline because it’s easy to pour fuel on an angry fire. But hold off.  Save your fuel for something worthwhile. 

Stay open to people who need love.  Close the door on people bent on causing chaos.  Most people aren’t wanting to cause chaos. But there’s some who are. And you don’t need to give them an audience. You can kindly keep that door closed.  Stay open to those who need you love. Pour into them as you have capacity, don’t allow yourself to be drained. 

Before you make an impactful decision, measure twice.   Don’t freeze. But measure twice.  Some mistakes aren’t easy to recover a never fully recover. So measure twice. Think it through.  Respond don’t react. 

We don’t look for troubles. Troubles come.  Nobody welcomes troubles.  But when they come, the best way forward is through it.  Don’t buck your problems. Go through them. The best option you have is to handle them face forward. 

Sharing things that help and make a positive contribution to others is the best way to share.  Sharing our possessions is good. But sharing things that outlast possessions is better. 

The saying is true, people don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.  Show care first. People need that more than your knowledge. 

Technology has a way of taking us away from the moment. How much real life do I miss being present but not present. Technology has capitalized on the weaknesses in us to capture our attention inordinate amounts of time per day. It's to the point that in general, we're rarely truly present. It takes the true enjoyment of life right out of living. The constant scrolling and checking drains life of its inherent fulfilling ability. Slowly, bit by bit, we can back away from the device and pay attention to the more important things (mostly people) closest to us.  The internet fights can wait.

At some point in life you’ll be faced with the decision to get bitter or get better. You can’t get better when you’re bitter. And you won’t be bitter when you get better.  Life will get hard and be unfair at some point (or points).  You will have to decide if you’ll use that to get better or worse. 

In programming one of the biggest mistakes you can make is creating an infinite loop. The program will either freeze or crash.  In real life, comparison not only steals our joy but it also becomes an infinite loop. There’s no end to the comparison. We are always behind someone. We’re always harder off than someone else. And we keep on comparing to no end. It also ends in freezing or crashing.  Break free of the comparison loop.  Live your life. Compare against the best version of yourself only. 

To perform at a high level consistently you have to be doing a whole lot of smaller, low level tasks to sustain a high level of function.  The better you get at the small things, the better your support base. Master the simple but important tasks. Even the ones that aren’t exactly fun. But if they support your goals they’re vitally important. 

If you can do something with joy, it gets a whole lot better. If you’re miserable it’s absolutely torturous.  Do things that you can do with joy. If you hate something it makes it so much more difficult to do. 

Strengthen what remains.   What you have, make the best of. 

The best way to rebuild is in love.  If something is in disrepair, it’s lacked love.  Rebuild with love. 

Influence is to be used for good.  If you’re under someone else’s influence and it’s bad, leave.  Only surround yourself with good influences. 

There's something to be thankful for all the time. Losing sight of all the blessings and miracles in our life leads to bad places. The more we focus on the good the better we are; from a cellular level, manifest to the biggest areas of our life.

Stabilize and you will be able to do more.  It’s hard to accomplish something from an unstable base. 

A friend told me today, you can be right but completely wrong at the same time.  We can be factually correct but completely out of line and our hearts wrong. Which completely undoes being right.   So to be right, you have to be right inside. 

Things can change fast.  Hold on to hope. 

Whatever your New Year’s resolution may be, it has to be sustainable.  Our goals and resolutions have to stretch us, but they also have to be sustainable. 

It’s a new year.  Wishing everyone the absolute best 2026!