doug smith training

Are you working on a really big goal? Bigger than career advancement, bigger than obtaining things, bigger than learning a new skill -- are you working on something that will change the world? I know that it's important to achieve little goals because they encourage us, they propel us forward, and they lead us to bigger goals. It's also important to keep in the plan some major life-changing goal. Some noble purpose that will construct your legacy and (more important than that) improve life for the generations who follow us. Does what you're working on have the potential to change the world? If not, what can you add to it that will? What should you be working on? Imagine a book written with you as the central character. What do you want to be known for? What is your mission? What is the theme of your story? And, most importantly, what's your next step? -- Doug Smith If you're interested in taking that next step contact me about attending or scheduling

Do your action plans ever weigh you down? I've been on projects where the action plans were so detailed, so precise, and so constricting that each task felt like a burden in my day. It took the fun right out of it. Yes, we do need detailed plans to achieve our goals. Yes, we do need to relentlessly follow our plans in order to overcome certain obstacles. But, we can have fun in the process. We can add our creativity. We can embrace new possibilities. We can improvise a new script when the old one seems stale. Goals are meant to give us more hope, not to chain us to a plan. When the plan slows us down, dance! Well, maybe not really dance. But I have been known to break into dance and noticed that it helps. What works for you to get your creative juices flowing? -- Doug Smith

How much energy will you give your most important goal today? How many tasks on your biggest goal's action plan will you complete? Centered leaders achieve their goals with clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion.  And, in order to put those high performance leadership skills into motion they create clear plans and then act relentlessly on those plans every day. What's your next big goal task? -- Doug Smith

Do you work on your top three goals every day? I'm working to get better at this: creating focus on the three most important goals every day. Not just having the goals in front of me but doing something to move them forward. Our top three goals need our attention and energy every day. Not just when we feel like it. Not just when someone reminds us. Not just when we don't have any other choice. Every day. I'll work on that today. How about you? -- Doug Smith

How many unachieved goals have you left behind? I'm not judging because I've left plenty of goals behind. Some deserved to be left behind. Some goals never made sense and never got the energy they needed to be achieved. But some -- some goals that were supposed to be important to me withered on the vine until they became untenable, unachievable, inedible. Don't you hate it when that happens? Treat your goals seriously and they'll payoff. Ignore them and well, they won't. What's your choice today? -- Doug Smith

Would you like to see a much less violent world? While that is a monumental task and probably too big for any one of us, there's no reason to do nothing. There are things that we could do to reduce the violence in the world. The only thing stopping us from moving forward on these things is our willingness. Let's take a first step. Here are some ideas: Reduce violence: let's not put anymore guns in move ads. Ever. Reduce violence: for every movie death, show the funeral (this is not my idea but I don't remember who proposed it -- I do think it would reduce the shootings in films) Reduce violence: no more pre-emptive attacks. Ever. Reduce violence: make weapons the only thing that's forbidden to cross borders. Reduce violence: teach a balanced view of history. That's a start. What ideas do you have? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Do you rely on an online platform to hold your content, your ideas, your opinions? Are you counting on it always being there? It's easy to rely on a resource that seems plentiful, easy, and even free. Easy, but not safe. Platforms come and go. Platforms change without asking us, sometimes taking the convenience, facility, or economy away. That's aggravating and you know what? It's sure to happen. I've been sharing ideas on training for a long time, and I've seen big changes or disappearance from some of my favorite platforms. I thought they'd be there. I counted on their archives. I didn't have to budget for their expense. But the changed, and I've at times had to scramble to rearrange my records. Some ideas and articles I've been able to adjust and change to other storage areas, but some have literally disappeared with no record of having ever existed, no matter how much work they were or how proud I was of them. For example, I contributed tons

Are you telling the truth? Don't you feel like asking that sometimes when the person you are talking to seems to be spinning the truth? Sometimes we are so close to our version of the truth that we fail to see it could be only our version of the truth. It might not be true at all -- certainly not for others. The best way around that is to stay curious. Stay curious about what other people say. Stay curious about what we say. Even stay curious about what we think. Every idea we clutch in our tight little hands comes to us filtered by factors we've forgotten about long ago: culture, ego, gender, parenting, schooling, experience, ethnicity...so many details strained thru lenses we don't even know are there. Let's work a little more to stay curious. Sometimes we're so good at spinning the truth that we don't even know it's not true anymore. That's not helpful or useful. It doesn't have to take long but it does take some serious mindful awaren

Do you bounce back after making a mistake? We must. If we are truly growing, truly taking chances, truly making a difference we will make mistakes. I've made plenty in my days in the world - little ones like not talking to someone right away who enters a room and big ones like missing what a client really wants out of an event. I've learned from each and every mistake and would like to think that I'm better because of them. But at the time, don't they hurt? Yes. Centered leaders develop the resilience and flexibility to overcome mistakes. What will you do to develop more of that resilience today? -- Doug Smith

Do you show up on time? How do you feel when you're in charge of something and people choose NOT to show up on time? Not everyone - some people respect you enough and your work to show up on time. But what about those who make other choices? What about those who have de-prioritized your event? Yesterday I facilitated a training program on time management. Some people thought it was funny to say "I don't have time for time management." That's OK. I get it. Managing time is hard. It's a challenge in today's world of multi-tasking and parallel meetings. And yet, tossing the blame onto others won't manage your activities for you, will it? Not only were some people late for my time management workshop - some didn't show up until after lunch, when it was more than half over. Then, they wondered why they didn't find what they needed. Learning is an investment. Learning is a discipline. Managing time is all about managing yourself, and having t

Are you still discovering who you are? Do you have any big theories or processes that you are still working out? One of my big unifying theory-processes-notions centers around what I call centered leadership. It's different than the centered leadership identified in a recent book by the same title (I've read that book and it is filled with great insights and I don't disagree with any of it -- it's just that it was develop outside of what I have been thinking of as centered leadership. I did try to adapt away from my thinking but it's no use, I'm heavily intellectually invested in this now so I parallel my way thru any diversions). The purpose of this blog entry is just to capture another related notion with some connectedness. It's the psychological idea often referred to as the "Big 5". Good heavens, I have another notion I've been calling the Big 5 that has NOTHING to do with any of this but I won't let that deter me (my Big 5 is a

Do you have a list of goals? If that list is short enough you could be working on those goals every day. One of my goals is to help as many people as possible achieve as many noble goals as possible as quickly as possible. How about you? -- Doug Smith If you're interested in learning more about how to achieve your goals, check out our webinar here .