Totally Random!

I won a radio giveaway today! I know! Completely hilarious - the local adult contemporary station does a "My 5 at 5" thing (the station is 104.3MYfm) where listeners can submit their favorite/top 5 songs & if yours is chosen you win! Well, I happened to be listening at home the other day at that time, figured I could come up with 5 songs, logged on & submitted. I had heard a fav song of mine recently - Life in a Northern Town by Dream Academy and figured I might be able to find other 'directional' songs to submit for a theme. My final list also included West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys, Wild Wild West by Escape Club, Morning Train by Sheena Easton (I know I cheated a little), and Paint the Silence by South (again cheating, I know!). Well, the station substituted Rag Doll by Aerosmith for my south choice but I'm totally okay with that because I love Aerosmith! And the kicker is I got two tickets to the Melisssa Etheridge concert on Friday at the Greek Theater in LA, plus admittance to the private patio pre-party! Don't know who I'm taking yet, I'm not a huge Melissa Etheridge fan but it's a free concert - heck yeah! I love totally random!

Emerging Leaders Week 2

Week 2 was fantastic! I started the week getting organized - reviewing last week & preparing for the upcoming week. First class of the week was "Leading the Disney Way". We spent the morning covering the 12 Disney Leadership Compentencies. Some are easier to apply in Entertainment than others. But all good to know for general leaderships purposes. The late morning/early afternoon covered Behavioral Profiles. I am completely blanking on the name of the system we used but the four profiles are Director, Socializer, Thinker, & Relater, with those same subdivisions - I am a Directing Relater. If you are interested, I will be happy to pass along the info - it all quite revealing. Really we all have all four profiles within our personalities & the dominant one can change depending on the situation, etc., but it's an interesting way of breaking down leadership & how one can change their approach depending on the type of profile they are interacting with at that moment. The afternoon focused on putting the day's knowledge to use in a team as we tried to "escape from the jungle". Each team had to assemble a helicopter using the 92 pieces at our table. My team finished first! We worked really well together. All in all it was a quite informative day.

The next class was "FOCUS - Acheiving your Highest Priorities" - all about managing your time. It used the Franklin Covey system as it basis. We talked about the pyramid process - identifying our values, using those values to set our goals, which helps us to plan weekly, and then plan daily. Again, if you're interested, I can pass along the info. Some of the principals I agree with and some I know I just can't commit to - which is a big piece of the process. But I am committed to doing my absolute best for the three weeks our instructor wanted us to commit to.

The rest of my time during the week was focused on internalizing & processing these classes. I also spent some time working on my project pitch. On Saturday I got to shadow the stage manager on "Remember...Dreams Come True" - Fireworks Spectacular. It was pretty much a typical stage manager type shift. The interesting bits were during the show, listening to the Pyro Team deal with the wind contingencies & which product to pull, etc.

Now I'm starting my 3rd week - working on my project, got a bit of homework, some more shadow experiences, and more classes! So far... so good!

I donated my hair!

A group of stage managers at Disney decided early this year to donate our hair to charity. I've been growing mine out since last July and two days ago went to the salon to make my donation. 11 inches donated, 12-13 inches cut total. Most of the group is donating to Locks of Love (www.locksoflove.org); my salon donates to Wigs for Kids (www.wigsforkids.org). My stylist also donated the cost of the cut with the hair!

It feels fantastic to have given to such a great cause & to have finally gotten all that weight off! I'm loving my new do - it the shortest hair I've had since I was 5 years old. I still don't totally recognize my reflection in the mirror.

Emerging Leaders Week 1 Done!

After week 1, I can say I'm really enjoing it. We started with a class called "Walt Disney & You". It was a great way to start off, reminding me of why I always wanted to work for Disney - the pride of knowing you are working for a highly respected & quality company. The next day's class was "Leadership 101" which is a brand new class to their program. They created it due to feedback from previous program sessions. It was a great introduction to the overall qualities & aspects to leadership, i.e. manage vs. lead, motivating, inspiring trust, seeing the big picture.

Also, last week I shadowed several different leadership positions throughout their day. I followed Entertainment 1 Day, Tech 1 Day, & Entertainment 1 Night. All were very enlightening, if only in small ways, but also very entertaining. This week, I've got two more classes - "Leading the Disney Way" & "Focus - Acheiving Your Highest Priorities", and I'm shadowing the Remember (fireworks) Stage Manager. I think my favorite upcoming opportunity is that I get to attend the Disney Leadership Conference Sept 3-4. I'll be attending sessions led my the executives of the company & sessions specific to growing my leadership skills. It's an incredible opportunity & I'm super excited.

So far no homework, but that'll change pretty quick. Also, trying to get started on my project. I've got my idea & am putting together my pitch. Then once it's approved, I get to go about making the idea a reality, and then putting together the whole experience into a 20 minute presentation to share with the class at the end of the program.

Stay tuned for more weekly updates! Granted, they aren't super exciting seeing as they are about Leadership, but it's my life for the next 12 weeks.

Summer Picture Time

So here's some pictures of what I've been up to this summer, including Grad Nites, more Born To Ride the Waves photos, friends in Romeo & Juliet, family, etc. Enjoy!