Get Back Up When You're Down!

I'm happy to share this guest appearance from my good friend and fraternity brother, David Spiegel because it's a great article and well, he mentions me.

"Life is like a roll of toilet paper.The closer you get to the end,the faster it seems to go."

-John Maxwell

I love my song choice for my Sunday Song of the Day today, Corner of the Sky from Pippin.The song transports me back in time. Pippin may very well have been the first show I saw on Broadway.I had become involved in musical theater when I went to college. Growing up a stones throw away from the Big Apple, it seems strange that I had never seen a Broadway show until then.We had just struck set on our latest stage triumph,Celebration, a musical by the same gentlemen who brought us The Fantastiks.

For a college fraternity, we did an amazing job, assembling a cast and crew that to this day still fascinates me.The show has a magical quality about it. Those of us involved in this production all have fond memories of just how magical and transformative our production was.

Opening night soon became closing night as an outbreak of spinal meningitis shut down the campus at the then Trenton State College known today as The College of New Jersey today. Little did we know, as our leader, my friend, brother and mentor Doug Smith, his shaking hand holding a cigarette near his head literally lighting it on fire, announced that after months of planning, rehearsing,set building and all of the rest of that which goes into a production of this magnitude, that what seemed tragic to those of us involved in this, would be the stepping stone to greatness for a good many of us.

I remember leaving campus that night heading to our impromptu cast party.Spinal meningitis or not...we were going to have a cast party! It was a wet, blowy rainy night and the bill board announcing our yearly Fall production had been blown over. As my frat brother Rick and I drove past it, he stopped the car. We got out, stood the 4 x 8 hand painted plywood sign back up and set it proudly back up at the main entrance to the campus. As we headed away, he turned to me and said "well, there it is...life in a nutshell. Just like that sign, it's not about getting knocked down, it's all about getting back up!"

Booyah!

Fast forward a few short weeks later. Here I was sitting and waiting for the curtain to rise on my first Broadway show adventure. In the opening ensemble number, a young Ben Vereen pulled a handkerchief through his hand placed on the floor and magically the stage gave rise to scrims and a set that just blew me away. I literally fell from my seat to my knees.

I knew in that moment that magic was possible.

Soon, I was back on campus. The decision was made to start rebuilding what we had lost in the Fall fiasco with an unprecedented Spring production. Since Mr.'s Jones and Schmidt (the writers of Celebration) had been with us when this journey began, they might as well be our muse for the second act, so we chose The Fantastiks.

The rest is just so much more Phi Mu Alpha lore and legend. The following Fall we tackled Cabaret, a moment in my personal timeline that to this day sets the standard against which I measure any and all of my successes. Successes all born from what at that time felt like the end of the world.

Little did we know just how seminal an event like this could and would be.

It set me on my course to find my Corner of the Sky!

-- David Spiegel

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Get Going!

What goal are you working on? Maybe you don't spend every minute of every day working on your goals. I certainly don't. But when I do work on my goals they propel me forward. They get me going. Find your favorite goal. Work on it. Even if you start with the smallest task. Put one task after the other like little steps leading to a lofty elevation. Goals get us going. Because standing still goes nowhere. -- Doug Smith

Focused Truth

Focused leaders have zero time for inauthentic messages. They tell the truth unconditionally and insist on the truth consistently. Be a leader who can handle the truth. Be a leader who tells the truth. -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Expanding Capacity

High performance leaders expand capacity by constantly developing their people. How does your team grow? How can you get more done with less? There are many answers to the question of increasing capacity and responsible leaders explore them all, including improving processes and design. It's also important to constantly develop your people People who feel valued and who are constantly growing develop new ideas. They fix problems. They engage in processes and structures and find better ways to get things done. People who are developing stop tolerating defects and instead work toward optimizing their environment. They raise their capacity and increase the value of the team. What are you doing to develop your people? How much more capacity could your team have with people who were fully engaged, truly energized, and growing? -- Douglas Brent Smith Learn more in the workshop: Building Your Team

Start With Decisions

Do you share leadership? The most powerful teams share leadership responsibilities AND attitude. When you develop a team where people feel empowered to take charge, take responsibility, and take ownership you then no longer need to do all the difficult work. Delegation becomes easier. Collaboration feels more natural. Start with decisions. It's fast and easy as a leader to make all of the big decisions, but when you include your team in the conversations it takes to gain mutually shared understandings and collaborative decisions, you no longer have to "sell" your decisions --- people simply know what you as a team have decided and act accordingly. No passive aggressive resistance, no passengers on your team "bus" -- just fully engaged team members. Start with collaborative decisions. The rest will be much easier. -- Doug Smith

A Step In The Process

Does change sometimes surprise you? It is always all of a sudden, or does change sometimes sneak its way in a little at a time? Sometimes a problem is just a step in the process to the next big change. Should you resist it, or should you embrace your newest change? Is it a problem to be solved, or a possibility to be explored? Discovering the difference changes everything. Sometimes our perspective can shift from "the end of an era" to "just another step in the process" of becoming who we need to be. How do you prepare for that? -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Solving Problems and Perspective

Have you noticed how much our ability to solve problems relies on our perspective? Sometimes we get too tight to think. Sometimes our thinking is so narrow that even the walls seem to close in on us as we struggle with a persistent problem. It costs almost nothing to take a fifteen and think it over. Talk with a trusted friend. Maybe the conversation will be about the problem at hand or maybe it will be about something else. Take a break. Many problems look smaller after a cup of coffee and a friendly conversation. Isn't it worth a try? -- Douglas Brent Smith Workshops and Teleclasses for Front Line Supervisors

Life Never Stops Teaching

Which learning curve are you climbing? The lessons keep coming. When we keep growing, our energy sparks with new creativity, new courage, new compassion, and new clarity. When we keep growing, life's adventure brings more smiles than troubles. High performance leaders make it a point to keep learning. That means taking on the tough assignments. That means listening to the needs of your team and building on their ideas. That means constantly debriefing, decoding, and deciding. There's a lesson in all of this somewhere. Centered leaders find the lesson and grow. Life never stops teaching. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

More Than Convenience

This is probably get some disagreement. We've come to rely so much on one particular trait of business, probably even more than price. Convenience. We make so many decisions based on how EASY a transaction is. It's so much EASIER than ever before and we've all been spoiled by click-and-ship that anything with any friction whatsoever gets passed over. That's an understandable decision, but not always the best one. Convenience is great, but no substitute for quality. Hamburgers are convenient but wouldn't you rather eat a steak? (please excuse me my vegetarian and vegan friends.) Social media is convenient but how about the depth and richness of a long face to face conversation with a dear friend? I advocate that we consider other measures in our important decisions. Measures other than convenience: Quality Durability Care Beauty Drama What would you add to the list? Convenience is a poor measure of quality. Let's consider everything else that makes business -- a...

Unlimited Creativity

Do you ever worry about using up your creativity? There's no need: you have an unlimited supply. Maybe it hides sometimes (mine does, like a funky little mouse who will only come out for a cookie) and maybe it goes days on end invisible, but it is still there, as deep as ever, and available for you. When we need to solve problems, when we need new ways to achieve our goals, when we need to make something more fun or interesting so that people will get involved, our creativity is there waiting to activate something wonderful. Sing the song. Draw the picture. Dance the dance. Your creativity is unlimited. Learn more, do more, rinse and repeat. The fun, the brilliance, the excitement is yours for the taking. -- Douglas Brent Smith

High Performance Leadership

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