Save Your Drama for Your Mama by Charlie Sheppard - Book review

Save Your Drama For Your Mama

Drama or Leadership is a Choice

By: Charlie Sheppard

Published: April 1, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 0988172003
ISBN-13: 978-0988172005
Publisher: AChoice Publishing











"The basic premise of this book is that you really need to understand the patterns of drama that limit your full expression of leadership and with that understanding you can make a new choice", writes speaker, educator, and founder and managing partner of Sheppard Partners, Charlie Sheppard, in his insightful and transformational book Save Your Drama For Your Mama: Drama or Leadership is a Choice. The author describes how drama and leadership fall into two distinct patterns, and as a result leadership becomes a real and effective personal choice that can be made at any time during one's life.

Charlie Sheppard understands that drama is the direct opposite of leadership. The author also reminds readers that leadership is a choice, that requires a conscious decision, to avoid drama and all the negativity, victim hood, and adversarial thinking that accompanies that drama. Charlie Sheppard calls these traps the Drama Triangle, and offers methods for overcoming this dependency, and the false sense of no control over one's own life.

In place of the Drama Triangle, the author presents the Leadership Triangle, where a person trusts their own perspective, and assumes real control over their own choices, and the results that stem from those choices.

Charlie Sheppard (photo left) recognizes that at its most fundamental level, leadership is about making choices. The author provides evidence that if a person become immersed in the Drama Triangle, they surrender that ability to make choices. Instead of making the decisions that have a powerful impact on their lives or careers, they abdicate those decisions to others who may not have their best interests at heart. Rather than continuing to endure this sense of powerlessness, loss of control, and dependency, a person must change their internal locus of control.

Charlie Sheppard demonstrates how escape the trap and make the decision to move to the Leadership Triangle. At the very heart of the book, is understanding and acting upon your own ability to choose to be the leader of your own life and career choices. The author provides a complete examination of the challenge posed by drama, and how to transition to empowered leadership, as follows:

* How drama was born
* Your brain on drama
* Opposing triangles
* Perceptions and intentions
* Who is driving the bus
* The trap of the drama triangle
* Accountability: Accept it or avoid it
* Your energy is produced by your thoughts
* Victim or visionary
* The adversary or the catalyst
* Rescuer or coach
* Leadership is a choice

For me, the power of the book is how Charlie Sheppard combines a comprehensive overview of the personal trap created by drama, with the empowering choice of leadership to take control of your life and career. The author goes beyond the usual superficial treatment of drama, and goes to the core of why drama exists, how it traps people, and why escaping that trap is so difficult for many people. To underline these challenges presented by the drama trap, Charlie Sheppard provides the latest findings in neuroscience regarding the rewiring of the brain done through drama; and offers additional information about how the brain can be rewired once again with the empowerment of leadership.

Charlie Sheppard offers actionable advice for avoiding both the creation of drama, and for being drawn into the drama caused by others. The author explains how easy it is for a person to find themselves embroiled in drama through choosing to do so. The key is that there is also the choice of leadership to escape the drama trap. The author shares the tools, techniques, and exercises for making the decision for leadership in one's life, career, and organization as a whole.

I highly recommend the empowering and life changing book Save Your Drama For Your Mama: Drama or Leadership is a Choice by Charlie Sheppard, to anyone at any stage of their life or career who is seeking a viable and effective road map for navigating the path away from the Drama Triangle to entering the Leadership Triangle. This book provides the guidance for choosing to leave the drama behind and become a true leader and visionary.