doug smith training

People who put limits on your goals are not helping you. -- doug smith I'm not saying that anything is possible. Whether or not that's true is not the point. Have you ever been seriously slowed down by someone who lacked any confidence in your own abilities? Has anyone ever rained on your parade? Silly, isn't it. It's your parade. It's your goal. It's your effort. Whether or not you can do anything is hardly the point. The point is that your goal is YOUR GOAL. And you CAN achieve it. -- doug smith

Yes can be a trap. We want to please, so we say yes. We want to be great team players, so we say yes. We want to be exemplary family members, so we say yes. Have you ever worn yourself out with your own yes yes yes? Yes. Me, too. Sometimes we've got to say no. No to the goal that someone else wants us to complete but that interferes with our own goals. No to the task that should be done by someone else. No to the questionable ethical (or clearly unethical) demand. No. Unless we have the courage to say no, our yes always belongs to someone else. Let's own our own yes by owning our own no. -- doug smith

Trust your ambition but do the work. -- doug smith Dreams are great, and yet it takes more. Ambition is powerful, and yet it takes more. It takes a detailed and powerful plan. It takes working each step of that plan. Even when people resist and even when team members act like anything but team members. Do the work. Build the relationship. Spend time and grow. Trust your ambition, but do the work. -- doug smith

Improve and move in the direction of happiness. -- doug smith We have the choice of so many directions. Decisions confront us everyday. Reactions tempt us into emotions we can barely control. Name an emotion, I've chosen it, and probably so have you. Why not choose a better direction? Why not step toward what works? Why not move in the direction of happiness. It may take work. It will certainly take practice. But we can do it. You can do it. Improve and move in the direction of happiness. Isn't that where you want to be? -- doug smith

Appreciation for a smile leads to more smiles. Smile! -- doug smith

Wisdom does not judge. -- doug smith We're all good at judging. I judge all the time - not as much as I used to, though. My goal is to stop judging altogether because it just doesn't give me what I want. People do not respond to it. People do not change their behavior. Judgement just makes us bitter because it doesn't work. I'm not saying that there is no place for judging. Justice is (sadly) as important as peace. You cannot have one without the other if judgment is needed and lacking. We just don't gain anything from being our own personal judges. The bitterness remains, and so does the cause of the reaction. I'm working instead on maintaining unconditional positive regard. People will make mistakes, sometimes even on purpose. Some people will try to take away things of value. They just don't know, or they just don't care. Will my judgment change them? Most certainly, no. Will my unconditional positive regard change them? Probably not. But

Remember, the root cause of a problem might be in more than one garden. -- doug smith Have you ever solved a problem multiple times? The same problem? It looked solved, it felt solved, and yet just when you least expected it the problem returns bigger and badder than ever. Until we get to the root cause of a problem, the symptoms might be slightly eased up, but the problem remains. When we come up with solutions, it's worth it to ask, many times, "are we sure we've found the root cause of the problem?" How sure are you? How is it that you are sure? Are there any additional hidden causes? Keep digging. -- doug smith