Greenlights

Memorable quotes and takeaways

Keep your ego in check.

Aim to be less Impressed, more involved.

First, I earn it for you, then I earn it for me, in the end, I earn it for we.

“Knowing who we are is hard. Eliminate who we’re not first, and we’ll find ourselves where we need to be.”

"All I want is what I can see. All I can see is right in front of me."

“Don’t walk into a place like you wanna buy it, walk in like you own it.”

“We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we fuck up, we get fucked, we get sick, we don’t get what we want, we cross thousands of “could have done better”s and “wish that wouldn’t have happened”s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often.”

“I believe the truth is only offensive when we're lying.”

“I'm not perfect; no, I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I do. I've just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on.”

“We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”

“When we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we create a fictitious ceiling. A restriction over the expectations that we have over our own performance in that moment. We get tense. We focus on the outcome instead of the activity and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result or it's too good to be true. But it doesn't and it isn't. And it's not our right to believe it does or is.

Don't create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss... Who are we to think we don't deserve these fortunes when they're in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven't earned them?

If we stay and process within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we're not thinking of the finish line. We're not looking at the clock. We’re not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. We are performing in real time where the approach is the destination.”

“Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”

“The question we need to ask ourselves is: what is success to us? More money? That's fine. A healthy family? A happy marriage? Helping others? To be famous? Spiritually sound? To express ourselves? To create art? To leave the world a better place than we found it?

What is success to me? Continue to ask yourself that question. How are you prosperous? What is your relevance?

Your answer may change over time and that's fine but do yourself this favor – whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that would jeopardize your soul. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Don't depend on drinking the Kool-Aid – it's popular, tastes sweet today, but it will give you cavities tomorrow.

Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill. But first answer the question.”

“We all have scars, we gonna have more. Rather than struggle against time and waste it, let’s dance with time and redeem it. Cause we don’t live longer when we try not to die. We live longer when we are too busy living.”

“Me? I haven't made all A's in the art of living. But I give a damn. And I'll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”

“A denied expectation hurts more than a denied hope, while a fulfilled hope makes us happier than a fulfilled expectation.”

“I’d rather lose money havin fun than make money being bored,”

“All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”

“Make my life my favorite movie. Live my favorite character. Write my own script. Direct my own story. Be my biography. Make my own documentary on me. Non-fiction, live, not recorded. Time to catch that hero I've been chasing. See if the sun will melt the wax that holds my wings or if the heat is just a mirage. Live my legacy now. Quit acting like me. Be me.”

“God's lucky. The goddess of luck is fortune. Fortune is the sister of fate. Fate is the divine order. And the divine order is God. So as far as I can tell if you believe in luck you believe in God.”

“No longer chasing butterflies, Camila and I planted our garden so they could come to us.”

“Life is our resume. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”

“I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.”

“I have a lot of proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy.”

“To lose the power of confrontation is to lose the power of unity.”

“Sometimes which choice you make is not as important as making a choice and committing to it.”

“Catching greenlights is about skill: intent, context, consideration, endurance, anticipation, resilience, speed, and discipline. We can catch more greenlights by simply identifying where the red lights are in our life, and then change course to hit fewer of them.”

“because we quit early or we didn’t take the necessary risk to get it. The more boots we put in the back side of our if onlys, the more we will get what we want. Don’t walk the it’s too late it’s too soon tightrope until you die.”

“Guilt and regret kill many a man before their time.”

“We’e all encountered those people who out of the corner of our eye, from across the street, at magic hour appear astoundingly attractive, even god or goddess like: the way they move, the way the light hits them, invokes reverence and all, the impression. And then we got a closer look. Damn it. Let down. Good from afar, but far from good. Some people will never be more attractive than in that first impression, from a distance, in that light, at that time, in that way we saw them, when our hopes became highest and our wish fullfillment was fully let it. They will never look better than in that initial fuzzy edge clingups, impressions. The white shot. Some relationships are better in a white shot. More impressive in the impressions. Like in-laws, best to only see an hour a day, like neighbors, its while we have walls and fences, like that long distance romance that fell apart when you moved in together, like that summer fling that only lasted through August, that friend that became a lover that you now miss as a friend, like ourselves when we are a fraud. They are better from a distance, with less frequency, with less intimacy. Sometimes we need more space, it’s romance, it’s imagination. Distance is the flirt in a wing, it is frivolous, its mysterious, a fantasy, a constant honeymoon because we can’t quite see it, we aren’t quite sure about it, we don’t quite know it. It’s a fuck, it’s detachment, it’s separate, it’s public, it’s carefree, it’s painless, it’s for rent. And we like it that way, because sometimes it is better with the lights dimmed.”

“Now you can shut that door on me or we can walk through it together.”

“The inevitability of a situation is not relative; when we accept the outcome of a given situation as inevitable, then how we choose to deal with it is relative.”

“We want lovers, friends, recruits, soldiers, and affiliations that support who we are. People, individuals, believe in themselves, want to survive, and on a Darwinistic level at least, want to have more, of ourselves. Initially, this is a visual choice. The where, what, when, and who…to our why. Upon closer inspection, which is the upfall of the politically correct culture of today, we learn to measure people on the competence of their values that we most value. When we do this, the politics of gender, race, and slanderous slang take a back seat to the importance of the values we share. The more we travel, the more we realize how similar our human needs are. We want to be loved, have a family, community, have something to look forward to. These basic needs are present in all socioeconomic and cultural civilizations. I have seen many tribes in the deserts of Northern Africa who, with nine children and no electricity, had more joy, love, honor, and laughter than the majority of the most materially rich people I’ve ever met. We have the choice to love, befriend, recruit, call to arms, associate, and support who we believe in, and more importantly, who, we believe, believes in us.”

“The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterday’s red light leads us to a greenlight. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”

“God, when I cross the truth, give me the awareness to receive it the consciousness to recognize it the presence to personalize it the patience to preserve it and the courage to live it.”

“We read, we wrote, we prayed, we cried, we listened,we screamed, we spoke out, we marched, we helped others in need. But how much do we change for good? It’s sake and forever? For those of us who survived, when and how we see the benefits of what we went through during those turbulent times is relative. But if we work individually to make justified changes for more value driven and righteous tomorrow, the redlight year that 2020 was will one day in the rear view mirror of life inevitably turn green. And perhaps be seen as one of our finest hours.”

“We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows.”

“For two years I led the Under-12 soccer league in red cards, as a goalie.”

“There is nothing wrong with smokin a little fun stuff and playing your drums naked at night in your own home; who do they think they are comin in your house like that?!”

“They are not trying to win arguments of right or wrong. They are trying to understand each other.”

“if we work individually to make the justified changes for a more value-driven and righteous tomorrow, the red-light year that 2020 was will one day, in the rearview mirror of life, inevitably turn green, and perhaps be seen as one of our finest hours.”

“Time to catch the hero I’ve been chasing, see if the sun will melt the wax that holds my wings or if the heat is just a mirage.”

“Dear New Orleans, What a big, beautiful mess you are. A giant flashing yellow light—proceed with caution, but proceed. Not overly ambitious, you have a strong identity, and don’t look outside yourself for intrigue, evolution, or monikers of progress. Proud of who you are, you know your flavor, it’s your very own, and if people want to come taste it, you welcome them without solicitation. Your hours trickle by, Tuesdays and Saturdays more similar than anywhere else. Your seasons slide into one another. You’re the Big Easy…home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where a libation greets you on a Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night. Home of the front porch, not the back. This engineering feat provides so much of your sense of community and fellowship as you relax facing the street and your neighbors across it. Rather than retreating into the seclusion of the backyard, you engage with the goings-on of the world around you, on your front porch. Private properties hospitably trespass on each other and lend across borders where a 9:00 A.M. alarm clock is church bells, sirens, and a slow-moving eight-buck-an-hour carpenter nailing a windowpane two doors down. You don’t sweat details or misdemeanors, and since everybody’s getting away with something anyway, the rest just wanna be on the winning side. And if you can swing the swindle, good for you, because you love to gamble and rules are made to be broken, so don’t preach about them, abide. Peddlin worship and litigation, where else do the dead rest eye to eye with the livin? You’re a right-brain city. Don’t show up wearing your morals on your sleeve ’less you wanna get your arm burned. The humidity suppresses most reason so if you’re crossing a one-way street, it’s best to look both ways. Mother Nature rules, the natural law capital “Q” Queen reigns supreme, a science to the animals, an overbearing and inconsiderate bitch to us bipeds. But you forgive her, and quickly, cus you know any disdain with her wrath will reap more: bad luck, voodoo, karma. So you roll with it, meander rather, slowly forward, takin it all in stride, never sweating the details. Your art is in your overgrowth. Mother Nature wears the crown around here, her royalty rules, and unlike in England, she has both influence and power. You don’t use vacuum cleaners, no, you use brooms and rakes to manicure. Where it falls is where it lays, the swerve around the pothole, the duck beneath the branch, the poverty and the murder rate, all of it, just how it is and how it turned out. Like a gumbo, your medley’s in the mix. —June 7, 2013, New Orleans, La.”

“When we truly latch on to the fact that we are going to die at some point in time, we have more presence in this one. Reach beyond your grasp, have immortal finish lines, and turn your red light green because a roof is a man-made thing.”

“It is not about win or lose, it is about do you accept the challenge,”

“Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”

“When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze. When you’re stuck in the storm, pray for luck and make the best of it.”

“Days of prosperity make us forget adversity. Good times seems out of reach during the bad ones. Both can seem like final destinations, the summation of our days. Then the cosmic joker plays with our ways. Yesterday's condition no longer remains. All commas, no periods, all stops, no stays, the pleasure's for rent, but so is the pain.”

“I come from a long line of rule breakers. Outlaw libertarians who vote red down the line because they believe it’ll keep fewer outlaws from trespassing on their territory.”

“We have to prepare to have freedom.”

“I’ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond.”

“If everything we did was right, we’d never know what was wrong.”

“Great leaders are not always in front, they also know who to follow.”

“It was time to trade in any red sport cars I sill had.”

“He talked to me about the mystery of marriage, and how when two people who are meant to be together unite, the adventure of livin side by side does not steal the individual’s sense of self, rather it enlightens and informs it.”

“The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us—the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things—the sooner we get better at them. We must be more than just happy to be here.”

“Like a good southern boy should, I'll start with my mom. She's a true baller, living proof that the value of denial depends on one's level of commitment to it. She beat two types of cancer on nothing more than aspirin and denial. She's a woman that says I'm going to before she can, I would before she could, and I'll be there before she's invited. Fiercely loyal to convenience and controversy, she's always had an adversarial relationship with context and consideration because they ask permission. She might not be the smartest person in the room but she ain't crying. She's 88 now, and seldom do I go to bed after her or wake up before her. Her curfew when she was growing up was when she danced holes big enough in the feet of her pantyhose that came up around her ankles. Nobody forgives himself quicker than she does and therefore, she carries zero stress. I once asked her if she ever went to bed with any regrets. She quickly told me, ‘Oh every night son, I just forget him by the time I wake up.’ She always told us, ‘Don't you walk into a place like you want to buy it, walk in like you own it.’ Obviously, her favorite word in the English language is ‘Yes.”

“If you are there, God,” I prayed, “I hope you appreciate a man who won’t retreat from the sweat it takes to gain self-determination. I hope you will reward a man who has decided to quit hiding behind the fatal blind belief that it’s all in your hands.”

“The future is the monster, not the boogeyman under the bed. The past is just something we're trying to outrun tomorrow. The monster is the future. The unknown. The boundaries not yet crossed. The challenge not yet met. The potential not yet realized. The dragon not yet tamed. On a one way collision course with no turning back. The future, the monster, is always waiting for us, and always sees us a-comin'. So we should lift our heads, look it in the eye, and watch it heed.”

“Then we return to civilization, able to better tend to our tendencies. Why? Because we took a walkabout.”

“If everything we did was right, we’d never know what was wrong.” I’d been on the receiving end of a few of these humble pie interventions but not this year; no, my family knew I was going through a challenging time.”

“Loose lips sink ships,”

“Guilt and regret kill many a man before their time. Get off the ride. You are the author of the book of your life. Turn the page.”

“I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.”

“We must be aware of what we attract in life because it is no accident or coincidence. The spider waits in his web for dinner to come. Yes, we must chase what we want, seek it out, cast our lines in the water, but sometimes we don’t need to make things happen. Our souls are infinitely magnetic.”

“it was an important part of her independence,”

“we are not here to tolerate our difference, we are here to accept them. We are not here to celebrate our sameness, we are here to salute our distinctions. We are not born into equal circumstances but to equal abilities, but we should have equal opportunities. As individuals we unite in our values.”

“I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I do. I’ve just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on.”

“I do know that there are a lot of things I didn’t do as a kid that I shouldn’t have done, because I didn’t want to get my ass whupped. I also know that I did a lot of things as a kid that I should have done, because I wanted my parents’ praise and adulation. Consequences, they work both ways.”

“If thine eye be single, Thy whole body will be full of light.”

“The Soul Objective. Begin with the end in mind. What’s your story?”

“Time and truth. Two constants you can rely on. One shows up for the first time every time while the other never leaves.”

“the realizations arrived quickly, the learning took time, and the livin was the hardest part. I found myself right where I left me.”

“My first twenty years were where I learned the value of values. Through discipline and deep affection, I learned respect, accountability, creativity, courage, perseverance, fairness, service, good humor, and a spirit of adventure in ways that some people might consider abusive, but I remember as tough love, and I wouldn’t give back one ass whupping I ever got for the value of the values my parents impressed upon me. I thank them for that.”

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” Gore Vidal (1925- ) You’ve got to know who you are before you know what you want to say then not give a damn. But knowing who you are is the base that everything else comes from. I’ve got more style now than ever before but I’m still adding to my style. **You know who you are when you become independent enough to believe your own thoughts and become responsible for your actions and you not only “believe” what you want but you live what you believe. LIVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE…“LIVE THE QUESTIONS FIRST, THEN WHAT YOU BELIEVE” (slight changes)…THEN YOU HAVE YOUR OWN PERSONAL STYLE”….. MDM. That was fun”

“Rather than cover their eyes from ugly truths, I want to cover their eyes from fictional fantasies that will handicap their ability to negotiate tomorrow’s reality.”

“My twenties and thirties were contradictory decades, years when I eliminated conditions and truths that went against my grain. The value in this conservative era was that it safeguarded me from fatal character debits early in life. It was a time when I was often more concerned with not running red lights than I was with investing in the greenlights. I did what I wanted, I learned to live. I survived. My forties were a much more affirming decade, years when I started to play offense with truths I had learned and put them into action. An era where I doubled down on what fed me. The value of this liberal age was that it illuminated my most life-endorsing character assets. It was a time when I not only cruised through more greenlights because I had eliminated more red and yellow ones, but a time when I created more greenlights to travel through. A time when past reds and yellows finally turned green, as old hardships revealed themselves as good fortune, a time when the greenlights beamed brighter because I gave them more power to shine. I did what I needed, I lived to learn. I thrived. As I approach the next chapter of truths to cross, the only thing I know for sure is that I will recalibrate again,”

“Why? Because at halftime they put a ceiling, a roof, a limit on their belief in themselves, aka the “prevent defense.”

“Unimpressed with my success”

“I believe the truth is only offensive when we’re lying.”

“The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life.”

“We have to prepare to have freedom. We have to do the work to then do the job. We have to prepare for the job so we can be free to do the work.”

“Me? I haven't made all As in the art of living. But I give a damn. And I'll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”

“I come from a family of disciplinarians where you better follow the rules, until you’re man enough to break em.”

“Nothing will bring you back down to earth like spitting a loogie in your own face.”

“She’s a woman that says “I’m gonna” before she can, “I would” before she could, and “I’ll be there” before she’s invited.”

“I had branded affirmative humor and delusional optimism, I had kept as much masculinity in the neutered rom-com male as you could, and I had succeeded in giving the audience what they wanted.”

“I come from a loving family. We may not have always liked each other but we always loved each other. We hug and kiss and wrestle and fight. We don't hold a grudge. I come from a long line of rule breakers, outlaw libertarians who vote red down the line because they believe it'll keep pure outlaws from trespassing on their territory. I come from a family of disciplinarians where you better follow the rules until you're man enough to break them, where you did what mom and dad said ‘because I said so,’ and if you didn't, you didn't get grounded, you got the belt or a backhand because it gets your attention quicker and doesn't take away your most precious resource: time. I come from a family who took you across town to your favorite cheeseburger and milkshake joint to celebrate your lesson learned immediately following your corporal correction.I come from a family that might penalize you for breaking the rules but definitely punish you for getting caught. We know that what tickles us often bruises others because we deal or deny it. We're the last to cry uncle to bad luck. It's a philosophy that has made me a hustler in both senses of the word. I work hard and I like to grift. It's a philosophy that's also led to some great stories.”

“Like a good southern boy should, I'll start with my mom. She's a true baller, living proof that the value of denial depends on one's level of commitment to it. She beat two types of cancer on nothing more than aspirin and denial. She's a woman that says I'm going to before she can, I would before she could, and I'll be there before she's invited. Fiercely loyal to convenience and controversy, she's always had an adversarial relationship with context and consideration because they ask permission. She might not be the smartest person in the room but she ain't crying. She's 88 now, and seldom do I go to bed after her or wake up before her. Her curfew when she was growing up was when she danced holes big enough in the feet of her pantyhose that came up around her ankles. Nobody forgives themselves quicker than she does and therefore, she carries zero stress. I once asked her if she ever went to bed with any regrets. She quickly told me, ‘Oh every night son, I just forget him by the time I wake up.’ She always told us, ‘Don't you walk into a place like you want to buy it, walk in like you own it.’ Obviously, her favorite word in the English language is ‘Yes.”

“Don’t create imaginary constraints.”

“Too many options can make a tyrant out of any of us, so we should get rid of the excess in our lives that keep us from being more of ourselves. When we decrease the options that don’t feed us, we eventually, almost accidentally, have more options in front of us that do.”

“So, here I am, fifty years in, looking back to look forward.”

“You know how it is, when you're up to nothin no good's usually next.”

“She always told us, “Don’t walk into a place like you wanna buy it, walk in like you own it.”

“We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”

“Slightly calloused on the surface, we know that what tickles us often bruises others—because we deal with or deny it, we’re the last to cry uncle to bad luck.”

“I’ll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”

“God, when I cross the truth, give me the awareness to receive it the consciousness to recognize it the presence to personalize it the patience to preserve it and the courage to live it”

“No one can live up to the pedestal we put them on if we always put them on one.”

“I’ve always needed work for my own sense of self-significance.”

“Nobody forgives themselves quicker than she does and therefore she carries zero stress.”

“we don’t live longer when we try not to die, we live longer when we’re too busy livin.”