It’s Not Hard To Live In Peace (WT722)

It’s Not Hard To Live In Peace (WT722)

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by Shirley Dalton | 26 Apr, 2024 | Blog, Mindset

WT 722 It's Not Hard To Live In Peace

With everything that’s going on in the world at the moment, we could copy The Animals’ Playbook.

Ross and I just spent a few weeks in South Africa.

We were fortunate to be able to resit The Silva Mind Control Course at Cradle Moon.

Cradle Moon is a game park.

There are no predatory animals, however the animals that are there are wild and roam free.

In fact, one young boy was reminded, in no uncertain terms, that animals come first, when he tried to shoe away the zebras who came to drink from the pool.

As we sat in the conference room we could see the zebras marching around, stopping to graze and then moving on. Totally at peace and not in any hurry.

Sharing the park where we were staying were zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, monkeys, blesboks, springboks, impalas and a huge monitor lizard.

We also saw rhinos with babies and ostrich when we went further into the park on a game drive as well as the animals mentioned above.

According to Kruger National Park, “Most of Africa’s herbivores can be classified as either grazers of grass or browsers of leaves off trees. Some animals, like the elephant and impala, do both – depending on the availability of food.”

Which brings me to my point, it’s not hard to live in peace.

Sitting on the patio, waiting for the sun to set, we were in awe of the peaceful parade of animals as they grazed together.

They weren’t fighting for food, although we did see a bit of infighting for the attention of the females.

Because there were no predators in the park, i.e. no lions, cheetahs, leopards or hyenas, the grazing animals were safe.

They lived together harmoniously.

The giraffes ate the leaves from bushes with very big spikes. The monkeys ate what was available to them, including pinching toothpaste and sugar (cheeky monkeys). The impalas, blesboks, springboks and zebras ate the grass.

As species, they weren’t fighting for territory. They shared the territory.

I couldn’t help but wonder why we can’t do the same.

I would love to see a world where humans live together in peace.

Where we accept the differences and allow those that are different to us to live the way they want to live.

There is no right or wrong or judgement from the animals. They just mind their own business and carry on.

What do you think?

Do you think we could take a leaf out of their book (pardon the pun) and start to live in peace?

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Keep Your Records Up-To-Date (WT721)

Keep Your Records Up-To-Date (WT721)

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by Shirley Dalton | 19 Apr, 2024 | Blog, Systems and Processes

WT 721 Keep your records up to date

If you’ve ever done any advertising on Facebook, you might have heard the term “look alike audience”.

A look alike audience is an audience that Facebook creates for you based on an audience you already have.

I’ve been learning how to do Facebook advertising. It sounds easy and I so appreciate the work Kellie Obrien used to do for me because I’ve found it challenging.

One of my biggest challenges though wasn’t writing the copy or selecting audience interests. My biggest challenge was my lack of organised record keeping.

For someone who is a systems consultant and trainer, it’s embarrassing to admit that.

The thing that held me up with Facebook was the fact that I couldn’t easily export a list from my database.

It took me a few days to get the information together, wasting valuable time and resources, not to mention time to advertise the upcoming online courses for Leadership Fundamentals and The Loyal Lieutenant.

It was a great wake-up call to get my own systems in order.

It’s a bit like the plumber with the leaky taps at home or the carpenter with a million repair jobs to fix around his house.

Putting systems in place is critical to save time.

There’s an acronym for the word SYSTEMS which I think sums it up:

Save

Your

Self

Time

Energy

Money and

Stress.

Don’t get caught out like I did with an out-of-date database.

Keep your records up-to-date.

Create and implement systems.

I can tell you from experience, it’s costly if you don’t.

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Do The Next Task (WT720)

Do The Next Task (WT720)

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by Shirley Dalton | 12 Apr, 2024 | Blog, Systems and Processes

WT 720 Do the next task

I just love working with my clients.

I learn so much.

This week I want to share something I learned from Bob.

Bob is a leader who loves to share his wisdom and experience with his team and luckily for us, with me too.

Many years ago, Bob trained for the ironman competitions. His mentor at the time told him that if he missed a training session not to worry about it.

“It’s counter productive to try and catch it up, so the best thing is to move on to the next days training and do that well”, he said.

Bob adapted his training to his work.

He mentors his team and reminds them, that if they get behind in their schedule for any reason, not to go back to the unfinished task with a negative or tired mindset, but to move to the next task with a fresh mindset and energy.

If there is time, you can go back and catch up the task or continue tomorrow.

Unexpected things always happen at work and at home so whilst it’s good to have structure and a plan for your day, if you find yourself off course, keep going.

Do the next task.

Get your mind and energy back on the job.

It’s the quickest way to work effectively and efficiently.

Thank you Bob.

P. S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts.

I Made A Decision (WT719)

I Made A Decision (WT719)

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by Shirley Dalton | 5 Apr, 2024 | Blog, Mindset

WT 719 I made a decision

We had guests around for dinner the other night.

I made a quiche.

When we sat down to eat, one of the guests looked at my plate quizzically and then turned to me and said, “You’re eating eggs. I didn’t think you ate eggs”.

“I made a decision”, I replied.

“You made a decision?” he asked.

“That’s right. I decided I wanted to eat eggs again, so I decided I would.”

For those of you who are not aware, for about 15 years I’ve had an intolerance to eggs if they were not cooked with flour. I became nauseous if I ate quiche, scrambled or other breakfast eggs or mayonnaise.

Whilst I’m not rushing out to eat mayonnaise, once I decided I was going to eat eggs again, I started introducing small amounts of scrambled egg until I could eat a regular breakfast meal.

I was testing myself with the quiche and I am happy to say, I didn’t get sick.

Enough about my digestion and eating preferences.

What has this got to do with you?

Well, you too can make a decision.

You can decide to be happy. (I had that conversation with a party guest last weekend who told me she just wanted to be happy.)

You can decide to have a good relationship.

You can decide to have children.

You can decide to change jobs or careers.

There’s a great book by Raymond Charles Barker called “The Power of Decision”.

I urge you to get it and either read it or listen to it or both.

It will help you understand and apply the power of decision.

And one more example from a client who decided to reduce his weight.

“Shirley, I’ve found that when I start thinking about reducing my weight, even before I have taken action, just by the mere decision and thought I can lose 4 kilos.”

What is it you want?

What can you make a new decision about?

All it takes is to decide.

Let me know what your new decision is.

P. S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts.

Leaders Are Problem Solvers (WT718)

Leaders Are Problem Solvers (WT718)

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by Shirley Dalton | 29 Mar, 2024 | Blog, Leadership

WT 718 Leaders are Problem Solvers

I’ve got a question for you.

Do you think being a leader is innate or a learned skill?

I had an interesting discussion recently with a new client on this very topic.

He confidently told me that being a leader is innate. You are born with it.

I could feel my eyebrows lift.

He expanded on his reasons why this was so.

During his career, he had often been promoted to leadership and management roles.

He had had no formal training and had performed well.

“Well, I think we’re going to disagree on this”, I said.

“I teach leadership skills.”

“Oh”, he replied.

“If you think about what you told me about how you were promoted, much of it was because you solved problems. You didn’t wait to be asked. You just got in and did it.”

He agreed.

Leaders are problem solvers.

And I agree, some people do this naturally, but that doesn’t mean that people can’t learn to become leaders or improve their leadership skills.

It comes back to The 4 Stages of Learning. We don’t know what we don’t know (Consciously Incompetent).

If you’ve never had the opportunity to solve problems or you didn’t know that that was one of the criteria for leadership, how could you demonstrate leadership skills?

Once you do become of aware of it, you can now start solving problems.

No-one is fighting you for the leadership role.

We all want leaders.

We want people to take charge; to make us feel safe; to take responsibility; to hold us accountable.

In our Leadership experiences, we have a particular activity that demonstrates this very well. During this activity the group of individuals become a team.

Someone steps up as leader and often it’s the person who doesn’t see themselves as a natural leader. It’s the person who has little confidence in their ability to lead.

As we debrief the activity, they are genuinely surprised (and a bit proud) of what they achieved. This one activity helps them transform their identity to accept that they are indeed, a leader.

Leaders behave differently to followers.

Leaders can learn communication skills. How to say things so that they land well for the listener.

Leaders can learn to understand their people better.

Would you consider yourself to be a leader?

Are you a problem solver?

If you’d like to know more, check out some of the skills that are included in our Leadership Fundamentals experience. Conduct a little audit for yourself. Click here to find out.

If you celebrate Easter, I wish you a very happy Easter. If not, happy holidays.

P. S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts.

P.P.S. Our next LIVE online Leadership Fundamentals experience starts Tuesday 14th May, 2024. Click here for more information. Early Bird promotion where you pay for Silver and receive Gold finishes on Sunday 14th April, 2024 so be quick.

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