doug smith training

The best goals give you room to breathe. Set a goal. Work the goal. Stay flexible and nimble in the process. The best goals give you room to breathe. What goal are you working on today? -- doug smith

Tease a little creative spark out even when darkness covers over you and that spark will light the way. -- doug smith

Have you ever known someone who is brilliant and yet doesn't get stuff done? They have wonderful ideas. Their concepts are fascinating. Their insights might even be useful. But until someone actually does something, brilliance is just a tease. In project management, problem solving, achieving your goals - in LIFE, commitment outranks brilliance. How committed are you to your goals? -- doug smith

What does ambition give you? I suppose that it depends on what you want, but it certainly gives you a start. It doesn't get it done, though. Ambition needs fuel. Ambition needs attention. Ambition needs work. Ambition responds best to seriously hard work. How is that working for you today? -- doug smith

"You bring out the best in yourself by looking for the best in others." Gene Bedley

Goals are achieved thru clarity, persistence, assistance, and action. What have you done on your most important goal today? -- doug smith

I've been following Pat Flynn's income stream whenever I can lately and learning much about online businesses. He often says that we need to be comfortable going from "disaster to master" in our efforts to build success. Before you get to mastery, you make a bunch of mistakes along the way. And, he's right. My experience has been that you WILL make lots of mistakes along the way. We learn, we grow, we do better the next time. Overcoming the urge to be perfect before moving has been one of my biggest challenges. Imperfection is part of the experiment. We try, we fall, we get back up. We learn, we grow, we do better the next time. It never stops -- and that's half the fun. -- doug smith

won't ask what your favorite four-letter word is. Let's keep it clean. But I will share my favorite four letter word: DONE After a great project, with hard work, and shared effort, checking that punch list last box brings a smile to my face. DONE After that, I like another four letter word (no, not that one!) -- GOAL. Setting goals, working goals, helping people achieve their goals: it's what I do. All of that means that to hit that great word DONE in connection with your GOAL you've got to do the work. Act relentlessly on your plan and navigate the trouble that's bound to come. Come to think of it, that's another great four letter word: WORK So there you have it. Set the GOAL. Do the WORK. And get it DONE. Waiting for someone else to do what needs to be done does not get it done. It's up to you. -- doug smith

Do you rely on the same methods of work over and over again? Have you been using the same tools for years without reflecting on why? My dad was a weekend woodworker. He worked in a glass factory as a supervisor most of his life, but he was also a skilled craftsmen. He even built our house. He didn't know everything about every craft, but he found ways to learn. He mainly learned by helping. When the contracted plumber installed the plumbing in the house he was building, he helped the plumber. When the electrician installed all of the wiring and circuits and kept everything up to code, my dad helped. He followed orders. He did the heavy lifting. He listened attentively. And, he helped. Not so that he could install plumbing or electricity in future houses (he never did) but so that he could FIX whatever malfunction occurred later in his own home. He saw which tools he'd need. He learned how to think thru a problem. He found the boundaries of his knowledge so that he'd know wh

How have you been lately? Disrupted, interrupted, upset? It's a journey through more surprises than any of us figured on. Predictable perhaps, planned for, umm, no. We deal with one crisis after another, day after day. As a dear friend of mine once said (and I paraphrase) "you can have a problem and your upset, or you can have your problem and no upset. Either way you have to deal with it. Why not deal with one problem instead of two?" Things will throw us off-center. There's no benefit to getting upset about being upset. Instead, redirect back to the center. Breathe. -- doug smith

When you make a leadership decision, what factors do you consider? Impact to the bottom line? Impact to your team members? Whether or not your boss will appreciate the decision? That's all important. That's all worth considering. But there's something else, isn't there? A key question for every leadership decision: how will this affect my customers? Because after all, where would you be without your customers? -- doug smith

What is coaching? High performance leaders do lots of coaching. If you asked your team members which would they prefer more, coaching or commanding, what do you think they'd say? Probably, coaching. Coaching is helping someone improve their performance without crushing their spirit. Coaching is providing candid feedback without causing scars. Coaching is knowing how much to push and how much to hold up. Coaching is a balance of challenge and support. Coaching is encouraging, and when necessary redirecting. If you want to lead in ways that people respond, coaching is you're calling. Who are you coaching today? -- doug smith