The Magic (WT702)

The Magic (WT702)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 8 Dec, 2023 | Blog, Leadership, Mindset

WT 702 The Magic

Right now, I wish I had an affiliate link to Amazon or Audible.

I’m recommending you get “The Magic” by Rhonda Byrne.

The book had been sitting in my library for quite some time and I hadn’t gotten around to reading it, until it was recommended by one of my mentors in an online group.

Magically, the group turned into a team, aptly named “Team Magic” and we agreed to work through the book together.

It truly was a magical experience.

Having an online group provided support, encouragement, motivation and accountability.

Each day we would post an image or message showing the task completed for that day.

Yesterday I completed the book and the tasks and I have to say, my mindset and results did magically change.

So, apart from the book recommendation, today’s thought is also about the power of teamwork.

Our virtual team included people in all different states in Australia and also overseas. Being online meant that we could post at any time that was convenient and team members could respond whenever it suited them.

Without the team, I may not have been totally committed.  In fact, I insisted Ross do the activities as well so whilst he wasn’t posting in the What’s App group, he too completed the book.

Magical outcomes occurred. Ross had advertised a motorbike for sale and whilst there had been some initial interest, as soon as the magic kicked in he sold the bike – easily and effortlessly.

There’s a saying, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Working with a team takes you farther. For many of us, we will do the things we might not feel like doing because we don’t want to let the team down. Of course, this benefits us because we get the thing done.

Working with a team also enables you to learn different things because we all have different perceptions and different values. What you miss, someone else might pick up and share, so you now have double the knowledge.

When you’re learning something new, being part of a team also enables you to practise in a safe environment.

I’ve been so impressed with the experience, I even encouraged one of my clients to start and offered to be her accountability partner.

Why? Because I know, if you do the work, you’ll get the results. If you have an accountability partner, you’ll do the work when you don’t feel like it. If you have an accountability partner you can support each other when needed.

My wish for you is that you find a team to help you achieve what you want to achieve.  It can be for a specific timeframe such as days, weeks or months.  I’ve also been a member of teams that have been meeting for over 10 years.

What is it that you want to achieve? What results do you want?

Are you getting them by yourself and if not, how about inviting others to be part of your team.

Now’s the time to step up and become the leader. Remember, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

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

The Awe of Expertise (WT701)

The Awe of Expertise (WT701)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 1 Dec, 2023 | Blog, Business

WT 701 In awe of expertise

When I first started my business, I was blown away by the knowledge and expertise that people have in their respective industries.

Seventeen years later, I’m still in awe of your expertise.

I was coaching with a client and he was sharing the challenges he was experiencing with designing and fitting out a new retail shop.

He had engaged a builder and an engineer and was thankful for their expertise and advice.

The builder advised that new supports were required to hold up the roof. He encouraged the retailer, by explaining that it was “now or never” because he thought the retailer would be very unlikely to add the supports once the shop had been fitted out.

Of course this added additional time and expense to the project, however it could have been a lot worse had the builder not shared his expertise.

Another example comes from a landscape gardener. The home owner wanted to bring the garden back to life. The gardener surveyed the surrounds and asked whether the home had been painted a particular colour in years gone by.

“Yes, it was. How do you know that?” asked the home owner.

“See this part of the garden, where the soil has been compacted down, we can see the old paint, which would have been covered by the soil”, answered the gardener.

Fascinating! Simply fascinating.

And here’s a curly example. Talking to an employee in the marine industry, she shared that when scheduling boats to be serviced, they had to be aware of the relationships between the boat owners and not schedule services for boats where the owners did not like each other. Yes, that’s a thing.

This week, I want you to think about all the intellectual property you have. Become aware of how much you know and how your expertise is so helpful to those of us who don’t have it.

This is the reason for business. Businesses provide the solutions for things we know nothing or very little about.

According to Benjamin J. Harvey of Authentic Education, businesses exist to eliminate thoughts and feelings for their customers. For example, “The garden is overgrown. It’s full of weeds. It will take me months to get it back in order. I don’t have the time. I don’t know what to plant. I’m embarrassed that it looks like this.” 

You get the idea.  By providing the solution to fix the garden, the gardener eliminated all the negative thoughts and feelings for the home owner.

How about you?  What thoughts and feelings are you eliminating?

For me, as a leadership coach, my interest, passion and expertise is in helping leaders and managers to eliminate feelings of stress and overwhelm and lack of confidence when it comes to leading and managing their teams.

I am constantly amazed at what people know. How about you?

Think of any service you need and think about the level of expertise the supplier has, from your accountant to your cleaner to your grocery shop or pharmacist.

This is one of the things I love about working with such diverse businesses and people. I get to learn a little about what they know and do and I’m so impressed with the level of expertise people have in their chosen field or industry.

What do you know that people outside your industry don’t know?

Be proud of that.

Be grateful for what you know.

The world needs you.

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

I Still Want You To Do It (WT700)

I Still Want You To Do It (WT700)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 24 Nov, 2023 | Blog, Leadership, Mindset

WT 700 I still want you to do it

In our Mastermind meeting this week, one of the participants was talking about her experience interviewing potential financial planners to help her. We’ll call her Robyn.

Robyn’s looking at selling her business in a few years and wants to know the best strategy and timing to maximise her return on her investment and minimise the tax to pay.

She shared with me that she had met with three different planners and still could not decide which one to work with.

What we discovered was that they had failed to demonstrate to her that they knew what they were doing and that they could help her.

Robyn expressed that they may not want to tell her the strategy etc. until she has signed up because:

  1. That’s how they make their money
  2. They may think she will get the information and do it herself.

“I don’t want to do it”, she said.  “But I do want to know they can do it.”

This is where case studies and testimonials can be very helpful.

Your potential clients are looking for confidence. They want to know that you have helped others in a similar situation so therefore you might be able to help them.

A picture came into my mind as were talking.

It’d be like interviewing a cleaner to clean your house or office. They can tell you how they’re going to clean, what chemicals they’re going to use, how often they’ll clean certain areas etc. and even though they may have told you the “how”, it doesn’t mean you want to do it.   Giving you their strategy and technique gives you the confidence that they know what they’re doing so you can engage them.

It’s a similar thing with the financial planners.  Robyn doesn’t want the knowledge to be able to go and do it herself. She wants the confidence that they know what they are doing. She wants to feel comfortable that they can advise her on the best strategy and that they have the technical expertise to help her.

Sometimes, as service providers, we can get caught up thinking we can’t share what we know in case others will take the knowledge and use it and therefore not engage us.  This is scarcity thinking. For the most part, your prospective clients don’t want to do the work, they want to engage you, so give them a good reason to.

Give them confidence you can help them. Share what you know that will be most helpful to them and provide examples of how you have helped others in the same situation.

As one of my other clients says, “selling is a transference of confidence”. He or she who has the most confidence gets the business.

Might be time to take a look at your offer and how you present it.

Are you instilling confidence in your prospective clients?

Are you demonstrating to them that you have the knowledge, skills and expertise to help them?

P.S. Our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience and Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series will both start in February 2024. Early bird discounts apply, so keep an eye out for more information to come.

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

What Story Are You Making Up? (WT699)

What Story Are You Making Up? (WT699)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 17 Nov, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

WT 699 What story are you making up

As humans, we need to make sense of our world and what happens to us.

In order to close the loops in our minds we tend to make up stories to explain what’s happening to us.

Let me give you an example:

Ross and went to the gym and later, over coffee, Ross asked me how I felt on a particular machine at the gym that morning.

“Ok”, I said. “Why do you ask?”

“You know the settings were different on each side of the machine?” he sort of asked but really told me.

“Oh. I just thought my left arm was weaker than my right.”

He laughed. “No, the settings were completely different, which caused one arm to work harder than the other.”

One thing led to another and we found ourselves discussing how much we make up in our own minds to explain events.

The conversation then moved to the work by Michael A. Singer from his book “The Untethered Soul” where Michael explains how our minds work and how it is futile to fight with our mind.

Essentially, we are asking our minds to make us feel okay; to make it so that everyone likes us and so the mind has to think about this constantly. It argues with itself and according to Singer, “If you fight with your mind, you lose.”

You might try suppressing the thoughts, but that only works for a little while and eventually the thoughts surface and come back at you at a later time.

The way to resolve the issue is to observe your mind. Become the one who watches. When you observe you can see that your mind is working overtime to make everything ok.

The trick is to gently disengage from it. Separate yourself from your thinking mind, because it is not you. You are the one who watches the mind.

You won’t quiet the mind, so don’t try. Rather, don’t listen. Relax and simply observe.

Your mission this week is to observe the stories your mind is making up.

Observe the fights that occur in your mind and simply let go.

Let me know how you go.

P.S. Our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience and Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series will both start in February 2024. Early bird discounts apply, so keep an eye out for more information to come.

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

How Do You Feel? (WT698)

How Do You Feel? (WT698)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 10 Nov, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

WT 698 How do you feel

How did you wake up today?

How do you feel?

Thinking I was being funny, when a yoga teacher asked me one time, (very early in the morning), how I felt, I answered that “I didn’t know yet”. I now realise the folly of this type of comment. It’s not funny.

I can’t remember which book or program I’ve been working on lately, (I often have multiple going at the same time) but one of them gave me a real wake up call about my language when I start the day.

 According to the teachings, most of us depend on external cues to decide how the day is going to go for us.

Ouch!

As an example, say you get on the scales. Depending on the number you are looking at, you may feel happy, sad, angry or indifferent.

Your emotions are being dictated by external factors.

Instead, how about we decide how we’re going to feel when we wake up and how the day will go from there.

Ross and I have just completed Louise Hay’s 21 Day Mirror Work Challenge. The objective is to get ourselves to love ourselves more; to be less critical and judgemental because if we criticise ourselves, we’re more likely to be criticising and judging others.

When we criticise and judge others, we’re not happy and grateful and when we’re not happy and grateful, we attract shitty things into our lives.

So, in this short but very very powerful thought this week, I want to you to start to notice a couple of things:

  1. Are you choosing internal or external factors to determine how your day goes?
  2. Are you being kind to yourself and loving yourself when you look in the mirror or are you criticising and judging yourself?
  3. Are you choosing to be grateful for what you have and what you expect to come or are you pushing it away by being critical and judgemental?

That’s it.  A week of awareness and if you find you’re on the critical and ungrateful side, simply be aware and change your thoughts and focus.  This will change your feelings and your feelings and thoughts together will change what you experience.

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

Don’t Do That (WT697)

Don’t Do That (WT697)

Blog

by Shirley Dalton | 3 Nov, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

WT 697 Don't do that

Last week I shared that I was anxious about going to the gym.

I also mentioned that I had been waiting for over a week for someone to call me to book in a training session.

Here’s the rest of the story.

If you’re in business or customer service, don’t do this:

On the day we joined, I asked if someone could show me how to use the equipment.

The lady on reception said to go on to the website and book in a session.

A few days later I went to the website.

I couldn’t see where to book it in.

I sent a message through the contact page.

I got an automatic reply and a personal reply from the lady on reception.

“Someone would call me within 3 business days.”

It was Thursday, so I figured Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Monday and Tuesday came and went.

I had been holding off going to the gym, waiting to be shown how to safely use the equipment.

I couldn’t wait any longer, so I went on the Thursday. It was now a week since I had submitted my request.

I mentioned this to the lady on reception.

“I’ll follow it up”, she said.

The next day we went back to the gym.

We were heading out the door and the receptionist called to us, “I followed up your request”, she said.

“Oh good, thank you”, I replied.

During my workout I had noticed signs with contact details and information about the trainers.

I told the receptionist I had noted the numbers.

“I got in touch with Mary (not her real name)”, she said.

“She’s full up and can’t take on any more clients, so James (not his real name), will hopefully give you a call today.”

“Ok, thanks.”

The day came and went and James didn’t call.

Finally on Saturday, I got an sms message from James.

Using SMS is not my ideal form of communication, however James is young and that seems to be the way they communicate, so we organised to meet the following Monday.

James showed me through the equipment and was quite patient as I wrote my notes in an old fashioned exercise book with a pen.

Now that you have the background information, the point I want to make is “don’t do that”. Don’t do what Mary did.

Even though she was fully booked, the courteous thing to do would have been to contact me, even by SMS and say, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. I am fully booked. I’ll organise for another trainer to help you.”

Communication is key. Even if it’s bad news, it’s better than no news.

Don’t do that.

Don’t leave your potential clients waiting.

Mary might be the best trainer in the world and based on that, I wouldn’t recommend her. In fact, I’d share my negative experience, (as I am now).

It doesn’t take much to communicate with people, especially potential clients.

Look after people. Help people.

When I was working at the tutoring organisation we trained the franchisees to be honest in their assessments of the children. If the children didn’t need tutoring, to say so. One franchisee did this and told us that as a result of being honest, his potential client (who did not sign up) referred 5 others who did enrol.

Don’t ignore your potential customers or current customers.

Honest and timely communication goes a long long way.

Don’t do what Mary did.

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

Pin It on Pinterest