High Performance Leadership

Whether you're flying or falling, land on love. Start to finish, it's your best choice. -- doug smith

Life is filled with disappointments. We can wallow in them or we can swim thru them to the other side. On the other side is an answer. If it's not the right answer, it's still the perfect answer because it leads to whatever is next. High performance leaders remember a key ingredient is love. When we encourage, when we coach, when we poke and prod and push, we do best when we remember to keep love in it. The kind of love that remembers that some part of everyone is broken in some way and maybe, just maybe, our little love is the glue that can hold it together. Come to love when it's tough. Come to love when it's harsh. Come to love when you're broken. Come to love when the only love you can think about walks out the door and slams it tight. It's not over for you, for your team, or for your hopes and dreams. The seeds are still there, in your own little love. Because your little love is huge. Because your little love will see you thru. And because it is a...

It's not always easy. We don't always succeed. There is so much distance between some of us that the easier path is to isolate, seclude, allude, and dig in. Hiding from the truth does not keep it at bay. Pretending that ignorance is fine is...not. I have often failed to understand someone -- sometimes for lack of trying enough and sometimes because they were not telling me the truth when I thought that they were. But making the effort -- that's where I rest today. It's not enough to hope I've got it right. I must work at it, dig deeper, ask better questions, and stop judging. All tough, but helpful. All the tools of love. Understanding someone is an act of love. Do you understand? -- doug smith

Can you be a high performance leader without loving your gig? I've know some great leaders in my life. Some were happy. Some were not. The ones who seemed to live the happiest of lives not only worked harder than anyone else around them (the price of leadership) they also loved what they did. They loved their field of play, their work, their calling, with  an unrelenting passion. When a leader can give all there is to give out of love, it makes the hard work and service of leadership more than worth it -- it makes it a joy. Leaders do need more than love. They do need ambition, hard work, discipline, education, and sometimes a little luck comes in hand. But they do need love. Love isn't always enough, but it always belongs in the mix. -- doug smith

Unconditional love's payoffs take time. At first, it can feel like you've given way too much. For a time, it can seem like an imbalance that will never center itself again. The wings are heavy, the time feels hard. Let the conditions go. Let the symptoms go. Let the time relax. Unconditional love may sometimes feel like it costs more than it gives -- until it doesn't. Hang in there. -- doug smith

I'm going to keep this short today, because if you and I can do this, we will make something (maybe a lot of things) better today: Double down on love. There is never too much. Now, you know what to do. Me, too. Let's get started. -- Doug Smith

How does friendship influence your work? I've had some great friends at jobs I've held. They did more than was expected of them and proved helpful to me on many occasions, especially in working to achieve goals. Friends outside of work are just as important, and maybe more so. Friends give us strength. Friends give us hope. Friends give us support when the rest of the world seems too harsh for words. Friends laugh with us, stay with us as we cry, and hold fast when the winds of fortune blow the hardest. It's sometimes amazing how much a friend can help to move a goal forward. With expertise, patience, skill, practice, persistence...and mostly, with the love of a friend. -- Doug Smith

Is your partner perfect? Are you? I've made enough mistakes in my life and in my relationships to know that the search for perfection is illusive at best and at worst, frustrating. There are no perfect people out there waiting for us, to fall in love with us, to fix us, to bring us what we need, to fulfill our dreams. But that's OK. In fact, that's wonderful. We don't need a perfect person in order to create love. Love creates the perfect person. -- Douglas Brent Smith