High Performance Leadership

  As far as you've come, there is more to go... High performance leaders push beyond the status quo. -- doug smith

  High performance leadership starts with preparation. Learning, practice, dialogue, planning -- having some idea of what to expect and how to react to surprises. Because leaders know that surprises go with the territory.  -- doug smith

  High performance leaders create success thru focus and action. Focus on what is most important. Act with relentless intention. One without the other goes nowhere. Both combined can go anywhere. -- doug smith

How powerful do you want to be? Or better still, how powerful do you want your leader to be -- the person you must answer to? High performance leaders do develop power. The key is to develop power responsibly, cooperatively, collaboratively. Otherwise, no matter how much power accrues, it eventually collapses. People may promote absolute power but they will all too soon tear it down. We don't like kinds and yet we keep trying to create them. Relax. Relate. Collaborate. -- doug smith  

What makes you happy? More importantly, who makes you happy? I spent a lot of time thinking that someone else could make me happy. Someone else could meet my needs, fill my dreams, solve my many puzzles. It didn't happen. It couldn't happen. I didn't figure that out all on my own -- it did take other people to help, so in a sense it isn't all up to you. And, yet it is. Our happiness, our mindfulness, our joyfulness is up to us. Take charge of your own happiness -- you'll like the power...and the results. -- doug smith

  How many times a year do you think you've been cheated? A dollar here, a dollar there...a promise or two down the road...we so often tell little lies and cheat just a little to try to get what we want. But as any cheater knows, anything obtained by cheating is temporary at best. People find out, and when they do, the pay-back far exceeds the benefit. When we cheat, other people are harmed of course, but worse perhaps is that we are also harmed. Our character, our word, our integrity, our peace of mind are all compromised by cutting corners or telling "innocent" lies. There are no innocent lies. When we cheat others, we cheat ourselves more. No more cheating. We're better than that. -- doug smith

  Do doubts trouble you? Oh my, have they ever troubled me! Constantly intruding and slowing me down, and yet never contributing to success in any way. I do my best these days to cast doubt aside.  Doubt is a reinforcing loop of doom. Who needs that? -- doug smith

  Creativity prods us to dig deeper than we've ever dug before. Dig deep. Deeper. Deeper still. -- doug smith