There Are Always More Options (WT680)

There Are Always More Options (WT680)

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by Shirley Dalton | 7 Jul, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

WT 680 There are always more options

This week’s thought is for those who may get disheartened thinking that you only have one option and if you get a “No” that it’s the end of your desire.

Not true. There are always more options.

I’m in the midst of writing my next book, “Leaders are Listeners”. I wanted to make sure that I don’t infringe copyright and that I acknowledge my mentors and coaches and other great resources.

The book includes some concepts and activities from the Leading Yourself and Leading Others experience.

You might be thinking, “Why would you include activities from your Leadership experience in your book? Shouldn’t that be reserved for participants only?”

The answer is “No”. Think about it this way. If you like a musician or a band, you buy the album or listen to Spotify etc. however most of us still want to go to the concerts and see them live.

This happened for me with Jack Canfield’s book, “The Success Principles – How to Get From Where You Are Now To Where You Want To Be”. Ross bought it for my birthday and I was so excited by all the activities he shared in his book, that the very next year, we headed to Scottsdale, Arizona to join his week-long course, “Breakthrough to Success”.

As I reviewed the content that I wanted to include, there were some concepts that were part of a program that I had been trained and accredited to teach but I didn’t want to include them all.

Without asking, I assumed that I would have to leave them out.

Here’s the thing, there are always more options. Sometimes it takes someone else to see them and show you.

In my case, I was offered two options, one of which suited me perfectly.

If you’re currently telling yourself “No” and giving up on something you want, please take another look.  Talk to others who may see things from a completely different perspective.

Remember, there are always more options and if you’re committed, truly committed, the answers will appear.

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

To AI or Not to AI (WT679)

To AI or Not to AI (WT679)

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by Shirley Dalton | 30 Jun, 2023 | Blog, Business, Systems and Processes

WT 679 To AI or not to AI

You’ve probably heard all the hype and excitement lately about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ChatGPT4 in particular, so I thought I’d trial ChatGPT4 to write my Weekly Thought.

Here’s what I asked:

“i write weekly thoughts. they are a dose of inspiration, education and support. Please write me a 200 word article on the difference between having ai write my thought and me actually writing the thought.”

I can’t help myself. Even though I know it is a machine, I still use my manners. Mum would kill me if I was impolite at any time.

The article that came back was too long, so I asked for it to be reduced to 100 words.

Here’s the response:

Title: The Essence of Thought: AI Assistance versus Human Expression

In the realm of thought creation, a juxtaposition arises between AI-generated and human-written musings. While AI can produce coherent content, the distinction lies in the authenticity and emotional depth present in human expression. Human thoughts are infused with personal experiences, unique perspectives, and genuine vulnerability, fostering connections on a deeper level. The act of personal creation taps into imagination, intuition, and introspection, allowing for exploration, inspiration, and cognitive growth. Collaborative synergy further enhances human-written thoughts, as diverse perspectives and feedback foster evolution and innovation. Embrace the symbiotic relationship between AI and human creativity, combining their strengths to shape a world where thoughts thrive with a harmonious blend of technology and the human spirit.

Wowza!

That’s certainly not something I would write.

Firstly, there are too many polysyllabic words (words with more than two syllables). When writing in Plain English, we want to use less syllables, e.g. instead of “receive” use “get”.

Sentences should be limited to no more than 14 words, which is why my Weekly Thoughts often have one sentence to a line.

When communicating, you need to write for your reader and the Weekly Thoughts are not meant for publishing in an academic journal.

They are simply my thoughts that I share in the hope they inspire you or educate you and certainly encourage you to think about the topic.

Whilst I am a fan of ChatGPT4 for creating checklists and giving me content, I won’t be using it to write my Weekly Thoughts. Afterall, writing the thoughts is like journaling and it’s a form of therapy for me.

And just in case you’re wondering what GPT means, it’s “Generative Pre-trained Transformer” and it’s used to generate human-like text, complete sentences, or even whole articles based on a given prompt or context. GPT models excel at tasks such as text completion, language translation, question-answering, summarization, and generating conversational responses. They leverage the knowledge and patterns learned during pre-training to generate creative and contextually relevant outputs. (Source ChatGPT4)

There you have it, to AI or not to AI. For me, it’s a blend of both, just like ChatGPT4 said:

Embrace the symbiotic relationship between AI and human creativity, combining their strengths to shape a world where thoughts thrive with a harmonious blend of technology and the human spirit.

P.S. Today is the last day to save with the Early Bird Discount for the next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience in August. Find out more here https://shirleydalton.com/leading-yourself-leading-others-may2020/.

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

You Gotta Keep At It (WT678)

You Gotta Keep At It (WT678)

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by Shirley Dalton | 23 Jun, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

WT 678 You have to keep at it

You may have heard the term “overnight success story” in the media from time to time.

The interesting thing is that most “overnight” successes have taken 10-20 years.

Now, that’s not to dishearten you, rather I want to encourage you to keep going.

If you’ve started something, don’t give up if it’s not an overnight success.

I’ve been running the leadership experiences for over 10 years and there were times when I could have called it quits and now we receive so many referrals from past students, we would be doing our clients a disservice if we stopped. Same with the Weekly Thoughts.

You gotta keep at it, whatever “it” is for you.

Here’s what inspired this story:

A friend of mine, who is a very very successful businessperson, was telling me about a recent class she attended and the decision the teacher had to make about going forward.

The teacher had recently started the classes, even though she was not from Newcastle and had little to no network to draw upon for support.

It was taking the teacher a while to recruit students and of course she had to pay for the hire of the venue, so initially she was not even covering her costs.

Add to this her offer to provide two free lessons for each student, it was not stacking up to be a good business investment.

She was at the crossroads. She had invested some money into letterbox drops and had an outdoor sign made that advertised her classes. The venue wanted her to keep going.

In his song, Willie Nelson advises us that we have to “know when to hold them and know when to fold them”.

Sometimes it feels like a hard decision to make. Sometimes the logical facts say “Quit. Give Up. It’s not worth going on.”

And yet, for the successful businesses, many are successful because the owners committed and persevered. 

If it’s what you want to do, you’ve gotta keep at it.

Have faith and keep going.

P.S. If you’ve been thinking about joining the next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience in August. Contact me urgently to Save $1,000. Early bird discount ends 30th June. Find out more here https://shirleydalton.com/leading-yourself-leading-others-may2020/.

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

My Beautiful Bookcases (WT677)

My Beautiful Bookcases (WT677)

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by Shirley Dalton | 16 Jun, 2023 | Blog, Mindset, Teamwork

WT 677 My beautiful bookcase

Firstly, congratulations to Joanne Danckwardt. Joanne is the lucky winner of The Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series to celebrate our 13 years of Weekly Thoughts.

Secondly, thank you for your beautiful messages last week. I appreciate and enjoy receiving your feedback.

Now to this week’s thought – my beautiful bookcases.

Well, they will be when they’re finished.

There’s a couple of messages to this week:

  1. How to lose a customer
  2. The power of teamwork
  3. A lesson in patience
  4. The beauty of craftsmanship

When I packed up my books before we went travelling, I had 500. I think that number has now grown to over 600, so you can imagine my excitement when Ross said he would make me some bookcases. Finally, I could unpack the 14+ boxes of books.

I was over the moon, until he took me to the plywood shop and showed me what they would be made of.

Besides that, we arrived at the shop at 12:15pm on a Saturday and they closed at 12:30pm. The salesperson was totally disinterested and kept looking at the clock, until finally I asked, “Did we come at the wrong time?”

“Yes”, he replied. “I’m about to start packing up in 5 minutes.”

I convinced Ross to look elsewhere and we went to Bunnings.

“Oooooh, look at this wood Ross”, I motioned for him to cover over.

It was beautiful wood and was on sale.

We figured out how much we needed, a total of 39 pieces and don’t forget the varnish or the backing plywood.

Clapping my hands together, I thought we would get them made over the rest of the weekend. I have to say my patience was tested. When I want something done, I want it done. How about you?

Two weeks later and they are still in construction, despite both of us working on them consistently.  Ross cut the boards to size and sanded and I painted. It was great to work together and we got so much more done by teaming up and doing the work we each enjoyed and were good at.

It was also tempting to rush and rationalise a poor job, “it’s only a bookcase and it will be covered in books”.

Whilst we still have a way to go, I am sooooo happy to see them come together. The bookcases (3 of them) are being made with love and look amazing. I can’t wait to get my books out, (my babies) and display them on my beautiful bookcases.

How about you? Have you got a special piece of furniture or something you’ve made or had made for you? How about working as a team?  What does that feel like for you?

P.S. Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience starts Thursday 3rd August. Save $1,000. Early bird discount ends 30th June. Thursdays, 3rd, 17th, 24th and 31st August. Find out more here https://shirleydalton.com/leading-yourself-leading-others-may2020/.

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

Are You Shirleying Me? (WT676)

Are You Shirleying Me? (WT676)

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by Shirley Dalton | 9 Jun, 2023 | Blog, Communication Skills, Leadership, Systems and Processes

WT 676 Are you Shirleying me?

Thirteen years Lucky!

Today we celebrate 13 years of Weekly Thoughts.

I can hardly believe it myself. Cancel Cancel that negative thought.

I am so proud to say I have not missed one week in all that time and today is no exception, so here’s your thought.

I was coaching this week with a client, we’ll call him Jack, who was explaining how he did his best to reassure one of his employees that everything would be alright. The business is undergoing some changes. The client is a Coach personality and the catch phrase of the Coach is “we’ll figure it out”.

The employee is a Counsellor type personality and that phrase does not reassure them. The Counsellor wants certainty. The Counsellor wants a plan. The Counsellor wants to know it has been figured out before taking action NOT taking action and figuring it out.

I listened to Jack and when he had finished describing the situation, I reminded him that even though his intention was pure, telling a Counsellor type personality that they’d figure it out was actually a roadblock. It stops the conversation.

It didn’t come as any surprise to me that their conversation ended up with the Counsellor walking off, leaving the situation unresolved.

Fortunately, both Jack and the employee have completed my Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience, so I reminded Jack of the skill of active listening.

Jack’s eyes widened as he got the Aha. “Yes, of course. OMG! Right, active listening. I’m going back to work and I’m going to active listen”.

Bravo!

So we practised to refresh his skills.

A few hours later I received a text message. “Employee to Jack, ‘Are You Shirleying me here?’ Thanks. Appreciate you.”

That little text message made me so happy. It brought tears to my eyes. It’s the reason I do what I do. I want you to be able to listen to each other; to really hear and understand each other and to be able to demonstrate that to each other. I want you to be able to get what you want and to have deep meaningful relationships and conversations with each other.

My belief is that there is nothing that can’t be cleared up in conversation. It just takes you to be willing to have the conversation; to revisit the conversation and to listen; really listen to understand what’s going on for the other.

We’re all different personalities so it also helps to understand that too, both for your personality type and the other.

If you’d like to learn or improve your skills, the next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience starts in August. Early bird discount ends 30th June. Click here for more information https://shirleydalton.com/leading-yourself-leading-others-may2020/.

I’d love for you and your team to be able to recognise and appreciate when you’re being “Shirley’d”.

And to celebrate 13 years of a weekly dose of inspiration, education and support, I am giving away a spot in our next Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series. Retailing at $1997, it’s a 9 week online course led by me where I teach you my methodology for streamlining operations and you practise and we debrief your work so that you are getting it done during the course.

If this is of interest to you, all you need to do is reply to this email and answer the question, “What do you get out of reading the Weekly Thoughts each week?”

The winner will be announced next week.

Thank you sooooooo much for being part of my community. I am so grateful to you because without you, there would be no-one to write for.

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

P.S. Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience starts Thursday 3rd August. Save $1,000. Early bird discount ends 30th June. Thursdays, 3rd, 17th, 24th and 31st August. Find out more here https://shirleydalton.com/leading-yourself-leading-others-may2020/.

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