My Riffs

Your environment matters. You will take on your environment. We can change things about our environment possibly. But many environments we can’t change at all. So choose an environment that you want to reflect. 

If you spend enough time in a donut shop, you’re gonna end up eating a lot of donuts. If you spend enough time in a gym you’re gonna end up doing some exercise. The environments you choose do in fact have tons of bearing on your actions. Your environment consists of who you fellowship, where you physically spend time and what you feed yourself in terms of knowledge and media. 

In the summer you don’t go skiing. In the winter you don’t go outdoor swimming. Our lives are impacted strongly by our environments.  Create a health environment so you can have every opportunity to flourish.  

Your environment effects you. I was in a mall and the loud busy environment effected me. There was little I could do to effect the environment, but the environment effected me. Your environment is important in your health and life. Living in an unhealthy environment will make your life unhealthy. Change your environment to be what you need to sustain a healthy life. Your home should be your safe place and you can change it into a healthy, peaceful and safe space. You can't change every environment to be that, but you can change your primary environment to be so.

Your environment effects you. People have flourished in bad environments and people have failed in good environments regardless though. Environment may not be everything, but it’s improtant. It either makes things easier or harder on people. So people, choose your environment very carefully. And leaders, be very careful what type of environment you create. You will be effecting people by the environment you’ve created.

Sometimes life, or even people, pass us some nasty things. We can pass those along to the person or people next to us, or we can drop them and pass along something better.

Do people want to catch what you have? The better question may be, what is the character of the people who are wanting to catch what you have? If people aren't wanting to catch what you have, you need to change what you have. We all have an attitude to share. Is mine worth catching?

When something happens completely senseless and illogical, you struggle to understand the world. Today is such a day. What used to be rare acts of senseless violence and hatred are becoming a daily event. The world I grew up in isn't the same my children are growing up in. Today more than ever the important things in my life are people, not things. The relations and family we have should be held closer than ever and valued more than ever. The lessons to learn are hard to even sort through the emotions and senselessness to find, but the immediate lesson seems to be value and love those around you.

The gold is never at a superficial level. It has to be mined out. It takes work and refinement to make it sparkle. Gold isn’t easy to find, but it’s extremely valuable. There’s gold to mine and refine in everything. Find it. Dig.

Environment can aid or hamper development. Some children grow into adults lacking in key areas, all because their environment wasn't one where they fully developed. You do see circumstances where people are given a good environment and they don't develop. Or the opposite situation where someone in a bad environment grows into a well developed adult. Leaders need to be conscious of the environment they are creating, for leaders are responsible for the environment. Environment is set by the leaders.

It would be a good exercise to occasionally if not routinely try on shoes that are uncomfortable and don't fit. No, not physical shoes, but the metaphysical shoes of someone other than yourself. Try on the shoes of a homeless person. Try on the shoes of someone who you fundamentally disagree with. Try on the shoes of someone with a different religion, persuasion or belief system from yourself. Try on the shoes of a broken, hurting individual. Try on the shoes of someone with mental illness. Try on the shoes of someone with a terminal illness. Try on the shoes of someone who has lost something. Try on the shoes of your elders. Try on the shoes of the next generation. It's the oldest analogy out there possibly, but we shouldn't judge somebody until we've walked a mile in their shoes. At that point, I'm convinced all judgement would cease as we would understand, removing the ability to judge. Judgement shows lack of understanding. Wearing the uncomfor...

It's the pebbles in our shoes that distract and prevent us from accomplishing great things. It's not the boulders in our pathway. If we can learn to quickly remove the pebbles from our shoes and keep moving forward, that's how great things can be accomplished. It's hard to accomplish great things when we're distracted and focused on small, insignificant things or problems.

Nothing you see today can continue to exist in its current form. You can't reinvent the wheel, but you sure can invent better materials to make the wheel. The roads you drive on will eventually be replaced, and likely with better materials. The clothes you have on will wear out and eventually be something to laugh at. The phone you are using is already being replaced by the manufacturer with a much better phone. Same goes for whatever device you're reading this with. The big companies we know today (Apple, Google, Oil & Gas Companies) will be gone or it they're to survive, look completely different down the road. The processes, procedures and personnel your company is using today won't work in the future. The point? Don't buy into the notion that what you have can't and shouldn't change. Because it will. It's already over. What you have is in varying degrees, on its way to extinction. Methods, rules and traditions can, and will, chang...

This is a very non-technical thought on this topic. There is way better test research and data on this topic, some of which I've read. But the question of how much an environment plays one ones development is interesting. Here are some question I have. Can ones environment stifle their growth? Can one environment stop their growth? Does ones environment dictate who they will be? Does a certain environment create a predictable outcome? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions because for each question there are both yes and nos. Certain environments may be restrictive to growth, but an adaptable person can still find ways to grow. But they may be max out to where they can grow to. Certain environments may have the conditions in which to turn out a person of certain typical characteristics. But it cannot guarantee the outcome. Certain environments can completely restrict growth once growth has reached a certain point. My conclusion is, despite envinroenmen...