When I was sixteen years old my parents and I drove, in their 1979 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon, from our home in Georgia to Yellowstone National Park. My older sister was working around the Old Faithful Inn area. She booked us a week-long stay there. As a teenager it was my first experience witnessing the Old Faithful Geyser. It was right outside our lodge. It was an experience I never forgot. An Old Faithful eruption can last...
Steven Spielberg dropped out of high school in his sophomore year. He was persuaded to come back and placed in a class for the learning disabled. He lasted a month and dropped out of school forever. When Thomas Edison was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. Albert Einstein was four years old before he could speak. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had “no good ideas.” Winston Churchill failed the 6th...
The Atlanta Fulton County stadium, originally built in 1965, costing $18 million, took just under a year to build. And it took 27 seconds to bring it down with close to 1,250 pounds of dynamite and 350 pounds of charge. The explosives sent an estimated 140 million pounds of concrete and steel plummeting to the field the Atlanta Braves and Falcons once called home. The stadium was mighty in size and reputation, seating 60,000 people and...
“Our most successful leaders are people who put other people first … in the long run, that’s exactly what makes them successful.” ~Blake Roney, American businessman A worker was driving his company’s large commercial truck to the recycle station for emptying, when he noticed an older gentleman sitting on a bench on the side of the service road. The gentleman looked tired and dazed. The worker slowed down, stopped, and asked the older gentleman if he was okay....
“In a culture where people believe that working hard can overcome any obstacle, reality teaches us that we have limitations. We burn out.” ~Jay Wren It’s real and it can happen to even the best leader. Burnout is very common particularly in high performance leaders with as many as 72% of them admitting to it openly. In my experience, it is my best leaders I have to watch out for when it comes to burn out. They...
"Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win." ~Max McKeown We all know the stress and frustration of having to adapt our personal and professional schedules due to an unexpected occurrence. Your team is no different. In our industry change is inevitable and happens at a moment's notice. During a typical workday how does your team deal with unexpected change or roadblocks, a.k.a. “zingers?” Did it come with a lot of...
“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” ~William Shakespeare Have you ever been asked to run an area you have never run before and have no idea how to do it? It’s a scary feeling…to know you DON’T know. You have to remember, you may not know how to do everything, but there is a reason why you were asked to over see it. If we...
“Pushing yourself to be the best is unsustainable. Simply push yourself to be better than the day before.” ~Simon Sinek In the Book Chop Wood Carry Water, Joshua Metcalf uses the story of one boy’s journey, John, to become a samurai warrior. In one part of the story John is learning how to overcome discouragement and how he can be his own worst enemy by how he thinks and conducts his self-talk. Akira, John’s teacher, shares with John...
“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.” ~ John Maxwell The old saying goes, team leaders’ attitudes are caught more than they are taught. It is very true. Picking your next team leader will make a difference not only in your production and growth, but also in the culture of the team and organization. Pick wisely. Unfortunately, thinking negatively is second nature...
“Behavior precedes belief - that is, most people must engage in a behavior before they accept that it is beneficial; then they see the results, and then they believe that it is the right thing to do...