- You can't help but smile when you're down at Disney World. No matter what's going on in a person's life, everywhere you turn there is a kid and/or adult smiling. One smile that I don't think will drop from my mind for some time is when I first got there. Disney provides a shuttle service from the airport to any of their resorts. I hop on after being greeted by a number of different Disney people and take my seat. After finally being able to sit down and relax I hear a familiar song in the background ("You can fly" from Peter Pan) and close my eyes. Some rustling continues around me, bus driver comes on and says they'll be playing a video welcoming us to the park. I open my eyes back up to find an family with a young boy, maybe 9 or 10, sitting in front of me. I do the polite Jeff Spain nod and get ready for the video. The Disney theme starts up and I catch myself cracking a nostalgic smile. As I do, the kid in front of me, turns to his family, gives them an excited smile, then peers through the crack between the seats and flashes a smile my way. It'll be hard to forget until I have my own kids. Can't wait.
- A shoutout to Scott Victor who is participating in the Disney Internship program. Scott will be donning a cowboy hat everyday and saying "Howdy" as he greets visitors at the Fort Wilderness campground. Scott was the RA for the Business Leaders of Tomorrow group I advised this year. Was able to catch up with him and even got a tour of the campground and other parts of the property.
- If you are involved in any management or leadership development profession, take a look at how Disney does things. Part of the conference was a session about the Disney style of management and leadership and there are some great things that can be "borrowed" to help any manager or leader.
- How many people can say they've been to Disney World and Disneyland in the same week? You can tentatively add me to that list because tomorrow morning it's out to Los Angeles for some much needed family time including my cousin's wedding. An early congrats to Patrick and Andrea Manion!
Off to get my luggage thanks to flying standby on an earlier flight. Hope that it gets here! I'll have more updates next week from that side of the country. Until then, keep smiling:-) It's a small curve that can straighten a thousand things.
