Skip to main content

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


key words:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Measures Matter

Some people measure quantify first and quality later. Some people measure money first and impact to the team later (not even second!). How you measure productivity might determine your character and your reputation. Put people first.  -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Your Reputation

More authority means higher levels of responsibility. More power requires more service to others, not less. What you do with your power is who you will be known as. Also, how you use the power you have creates who people will remember you as. How do you want to be remembered? -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

For example

Get good at something that won't obsolete itself. For example: emotional intelligence creating great conversations encouraging people leadership What would you add to the list? Which ones are you developing? -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

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  
Post a Comment
Read more

Show Up!

  "You've got to be there. Big decisions are being made!" my former boss told me a long time ago. "If your voice is in the room you might be heard..." It was good advice then and it still is. Show up. When there's a goal you're working on and an opportunity appears to advance that goal -- show up. When changes are being made that will affect you -- show up! When it matters to you -- show up. You won't always get what you want by showing up, but you never will if you don't! -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

The Problem With Compromises

Think about the last time you compromised on something. Whether it was a big compromise or a little compromise, how do you feel about it now? While we often call it "meet in the middle" it seldom does. Compromises are not automatically fair, no matter how implied that fairness is. Someone usually gets more out of a compromise than the person they are "compromising" with. If the low end is you, you don't like it -- and you remember that. If the top end of the compromise is you, you probably forget all about it even though the inequity simmers in the background.  Compromises must be constantly revisited because they are inevitably unfair. If you get the chance to balance things out, your relationship will prosper. If you miss that chance, the relationship will suffer. What's your choice? -- doug smith 
Post a Comment
Read more

High Performance Leadership Combination

We can rationalize anything without making it justified. Leaders should always ask: who is this good for other than me?  High performance leadership does NOT mean performance at any cost. It means performance that serves a noble cause while also benefiting people. High performance leadership is a combination. Results without relationships are shallow and temporary. Take care of both, and you'll be a high performance leader. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Decide

What do you want? Are you getting what you want? Intention is direction. Decide. And, then go. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more