Blog
How Much Courage Does it Take? (WT428)
You know from the past few weeks that Ross and I have been travelling throughout NSW on a roadshow with the Association of Consulting Surveyors. We had some time before travelling to the next town so we decided to explore. I just love being able to be spontaneous. We passed a sign on the road that read, “Bonegilla Migrant Experience”. Having worked with the late Dagnija (pronounced Dugnea) McGrath, Co-Founder of Kip McGrath Education Centres, who as a child came to Australia from Latvia and found herself in a migrant camp, I was curious to see for myself. Wow! The...
You Have to Trust (WT427)
This week presented two opportunities for powerful lessons about trust. The first came as participants in my workshops reflected on their behaviours and outcomes for one of the games. Working in pairs, they competed against each other to produce a standard product in the shortest amount of time. The successful teams found that they divided the product into sections and delegated its construction to individual team members. The not so successful teams tended to have both people working on the same thing at the same time. The teams that delegated the tasks found that they had to trust that the...
What is a Dollar Worth? (WT426)
I was shopping for some lollies (candy) to make up some party bags for some friends of ours who were visiting from the US. As a Last Minute Lucy, you can imagine I didn’t have a lot of time to get the goods. Standing at the register to pay, the lollies were advertised as 3 for $5 but the cash register showed $6. The cashier called for help. “It’s okay. It’s only $1”, I said. “I’ll just pay the $6.” “No. No. If you’re entitled, I want you to have the $1”, he replied. Inwardly, I groaned. “Do you know what a dollar is worth to me in terms of time?” I thought to myself. And there I stood for a...
Where are the Cyber Police? (WT425)
For many people, August 2018 has been a difficult month. Astrologers have warned of the tricky effects from eclipses as the energy for the planet shifts. I was a little more than interested when I heard one Astrologer say that some of the effects could include cyber hacking because that’s exactly what happened to me. I received a number of messages through my website from concerned people asking me to produce a receipt for a credit card charge that read “Shirley Dalton Newcastle”. I was shocked. They weren’t my customers and I hadn’t charged their cards, let alone received any of the...
Learn It With a Story (WT424)
A friend of mine, Janet, recently enrolled in a program with Jim Kwik to enhance memory and learning strategies. Part of her homework was to teach someone what she was learning. Of course I was a willing participant, both from a learning perspective and also to support her and be her Accountability Buddy. Since I too am required to share, I thought it would be a good topic this week. Here’s a little story I made up. Read the story and I’ll explain what it really means. “The SALT got poured over the chocolate coated MAGNUM icecream and fell into the TIN FOIL that was...
What Do You Need to Measure? (WT423)
You’ve heard the saying, “What gets measured, gets managed”. I confess I didn’t quite understand the impact of this statement until recently. I set myself a goal of doing exercise at least 4 times each week. Of course I never feel like doing exercise; it’s very easy for me to make something else more important. Consequently I wasn’t meeting my goal. I decided to use the calendar on the wall and simply place a “tick” on the days I did exercise. It soon became very obvious how many days I was wimping out. Being able to see the ticks (or lack of) actually...
What’s Your Criteria? (WT422)
Warning! This week is a bit of a rant but it also holds a very important message for you if you have customers. For the past 5 or more years I’ve had a merchant facility with the nab bank and eWay to accept online payments and payment by credit card (and yes I am naming and shaming). Last month I was shocked to look at my statement that showed that I was being charged 3.32%, 7.14% and a whopping 14% on some credit cards for payments from my customers. I rang eWay to enquire about the rates. “Oh, that’s not us. Those rates are set by the nab.” I rang nab. “Oh, that’s not us. You’ll have...
If You Don’t Train Them (WT421)
I was sitting in the waiting room. The phone rang. The junior answered. I didn’t hear what the caller asked, but I could guess based on the answer. “It will be $50”. My guess was that the caller asked how much the service would be. As soon they got the answer they hung up. If you were the owner or manager of this business, would you be happy if you overheard that conversation? I know I wouldn’t be and yet you can’t blame the junior. The junior did what she was asked; she answered the question about cost. If you don’t train your people, you can’t be angry when they...
You Must Write it Down (WT420)
According to Brian Tracy, the best research shows that, less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals, and less than 1 percent review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis. If we use these statistics as a generalisation, it shows that very few people write down their goals. Now I am not about to tell you to create sophisticated goals or spreadsheets or budgets; it’s not my thing. What I will say though is you have to write it down. If you want something, you have to write it down somewhere. Somewhere being the important point. One of...
We Do Without Doing (WT419)
This week’s thought is short and sharp and maybe a little challenging. Every now and then I feel the need to consult an oracle and since I am not a member of a particular church, I use various affirmation cards and The Book of Runes. This week, I selected a rune and read the message. It seemed fairly apt for where I was at, however the last sentence really resonated with me, “We do without doing and everything gets done.” I sat on the bed to digest this. In my heart, I know this to be true. In my head, I want to control things and know HOW...