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My Beautiful Bookcases (WT677)

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

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:

How to lose a customer
The power of teamwork
A lesson in patience
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 3^rd August. Save $1,000. Early bird discount ends 30^th June. Thursdays, 3^rd, 17^th, 24^th and 31^st 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)

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

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 30^th 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.

If You Want It, Let People Know (WT675)

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by Shirley Dalton | 2 Jun, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

When it comes to goal achievement, I’ve been taught a couple of different philosophies.

Some say tell everyone, others say tell no-one. The reason, they say, for not telling anyone is that you don’t want the naysayers dampening your enthusiasm or sabotaging your efforts, or worse, talking you out of what you want.

My mum used to say, “Opinions are like bums, everyone’s got one”, reinforcing the idea that we shouldn’t share our hopes, dreams and goals for fear that others will have an opinion about it.

For me, it depends on the goal. Some goals are worthy of letting others know, so they can help you. Others, that may be a little out of the ordinary may be best kept to yourself until they show signs of being achieved.

Here’s an example of wanting something and letting people know.

When we bought the house last year it had a dilapidated old pergola area out the back on top of pavers. It was ugly, rotting and a safety issue.

Ross started to pull it down.

As he removed the shingles from the roof and the rotting deck, we could see that the frame of the pergola was structurally sound.

“Rather than pull it all down, what if we turned it into a fernery?” I suggested.

Ross thought about it and decided that could work. It would be Ross’ fernery because he has been loving growing his vegetables and flowers recently.

“How about we have a game with the fernery?” I continued.

“What sort of game?” he asked.

“Well, what if we made a rule that all the plants that grow in the fernery are from cuttings or seeds or gifts from others and that we don’t purchase any plants for it.”

He thought about it and agreed and yesterday he was given some cuttings and seeds that had been sprouted by Peta. He was over the moon. “Our first plants for the fernery, thank you Peta.”

The fernery is going to be a very special space because it will contain plants that were given with love and that have a story behind them. We imagine ourselves sharing it and telling others where each of the plants came from.

Whenever it’s appropriate, we share about the vision for the fernery and we’ve been amazed at the support and encouragement we’ve received. It’s also amazing to see how many others are into gardening and very happy to share what they know.

So, back to you. What’s something you want that you are happy to share with others? What’s something that you would like support with? What’s that something special that you want to create?

If you want it, let people know.

P.S. Our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience starts Thursday 3^rd August. Save $1,000. Early bird discount ends 30^th June. Thursdays, 3^rd, 17^th, 24^th and 31^st 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.

The Goal Isn’t Big Enough (WT674)

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by Shirley Dalton | 26 May, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

Ross and I have been thinking about and discussing our goals since we completed The Silva Method Mind Control course a few weeks ago.

We’ve been keen to implement our new tools to create and manifest what we want.

Something I discovered as I was working on my goals was that they were not big enough to be motivating or exciting.

I was discussing this with a colleague and mentioned that having a goal of 12 people in my August Leading Yourself and Leading Others experience wasn’t a big enough goal.

I recalled the goal we had of buying the motorhome and going travelling. We visualised. We acted as if. We went to caravan and camping shows. We joined the Caravan Association, even before we had purchased Contessa (the motorhome). We were totally focused on the what and the why. We didn’t concern ourselves with the how and miraculously everything fell into place.

It was a similar situation with buying our home. We wrote down a list of all the things we wanted in the home including the aspect, the number of bedrooms, the outlook etc. and miraculously it appeared.

In both cases we had made a decision and set worthy goals.

Back to my colleague, he suggested I reframe the goal for Leading Yourself and Leading Others and set a goal to serve 200 people over the next 2 years or even 1000 people over the next 5 years. Now that’s a worthy goal.

That’s a big enough goal.

That lights me up. That gets me into action because I love working with people and sharing what I have learned. My mission is to inspire, educate and support you to be, do, have and feel what you want. Oh wow! When I imagine helping that many people I get goose bumps (or spiritual bumps as Jeanine Sciacca calls them). They’re like a message from the universe that this is a spiritual truth.

So, with my decision made to help at least that many people over the next few years, I am asking for your help. Who do you know who could use a dose of Shirley or as clients say, Get Shirlified?

I’m now in action. I’m visualising. I’m marketing. I’m having those conversations because that’s a goal worth pursuing.

I imagine a world where we can all have what we want.

I imagine a world where we are all assertive and when we express our desires, the people in our network support us. They say, “Great, how I can help you get there or get that?”

I imagine a world where we have great relationships because we listen to each other and we speak our truth and we know how to fight clean.

That’s my mission, vision and goal.

What’s yours?

Is it big enough to get you into action or more importantly, as my mentor Lou Heckler once said, if it doesn’t scare you, it’s not big enough.

Reply to this email and let me know what your goal is. I’d love to support you.

P.S. Our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience starts Thursday 3^rd August. Early bird discount will end 30^th June. Mark your calendar for Thursdays, 3^rd, 17^th, 24^th and 31^st August. More details 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.

Mind Control – Yours or Mine (WT673)

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by Shirley Dalton | 19 May, 2023 | Blog, Mindset

You know how Ross and I love to learn and grow and develop.

Last weekend we travelled to Sydney to complete the 4 day immersion into The Silva Mind Control Method.

I was surprised and fascinated at how many people backed away from me a little, when I mentioned what we were studying.

“Who’s mind control?” they would ask.

Smiling, I replied, “My mind. I can’t control your mind, nor would I want to.”

The Silva Method was developed by Jose Silva back in the 1940’s and he began teaching in the mid 1960’s. Since then, millions of people, ordinary people, business people, medical people, academic people have graduated.

Don’t be frightened by the words, “mind control”. This isn’t something out of a fictional sci-fi movie.

Mind control is about controlling our thoughts. It’s about paying attention to the words we say.

It’s about creating the life we want to create.

It includes learning about energy and how everything is connected. It’s about understanding the various frequencies of our brainwaves and how best to use them: Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta.

One fascinating study we watched on video demonstrated what Cleve Backster calls “Primary Perception” or the connection between all living things. He conducted an experiment where he observed a plant’s response to the death of a brine shrimp in another room through the use of a polygraph.

His results convinced him that plants demonstrated telepathic awareness. He argued that plants perceived human intentions, and as he began to investigate further, he also reported finding that other human thoughts and emotions caused reactions in plants, which could be recorded by a polygraph instrument.

There have been mixed reactions to Backster’s claims, however during the weekend, we developed our own intuitive processes to be able to find answers to questions and challenges we have.

This might sound a bit “woo woo” to you, however Ross and I believe this is knowledge that all of us can benefit from.

Another comment from the facilitator that also helped me to further understand the difference between conscious manifestation and surrendering to life is what she called “the paradox of universal laws”. Universal laws seem to exhibit paradoxes, where for example, we can manifest and create what we want and at the same time also acknowledge and accept that at times we need to surrender.

So, what’s the point of this week’s thought?

To open your mind and awareness. To encourage you to think outside the box. To cheer you on as you create and manifest the life, business, career, health, relationships and abundance that you desire.

I’m off now to relax and go deep into the alpha state where possibilities become manifest.

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

Me Too Is A Roadblock (WT672)

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by Shirley Dalton | 12 May, 2023 | Blog, Communication Skills, Mindset

Ever have one of those conversations where you regret not listening more?

That happened to me this week.

I was on a call with a colleague and I asked how she was.

“I’m feeling quite overwhelmed today”, she said with a sigh.

“Oh, tell me about it”, I jumped in. “Me too.”

The conversation moved on to other topics.

We hung up.

I heard this voice in my head, “Me too is a roadblock.”

O.M.G. I then spent the rest of the day belting myself up for not doing the one thing I am supposed to be good at and that I teach and that is, active listen.

Without thinking I used a roadblock.

A roadblock stops the flow of conversation.

It doesn’t help anyone.

It doesn’t help the relationship either.

According to Gordon International Training, there are 12 different types of roadblocks.

“Me too” could be classed as “Reassuring or Sympathising” which is one of the 12.

It’s important to understand that sympathising, praising, agreeing, changing topics etc. whilst we mean well, are not helpful when people are experiencing challenges and what they need is someone to listen to them.

One of the best things I learned when I did my Lifeline Telephone Counselling training was that the person with the problem is the best person to solve it because they know all the reasons why your solution won’t work.

Please use today’s thought as a reminder to listen more; to be present and give your attention to others.

Saying “Me too” is a roadblock.

P.S. Our next Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series starts on Thursday 1^st June. Reply to this email if you’d like more information or to register your interest. It’s conducted online for 90 mins each week and is practical and experiential. At the end of the 9 weeks you’ll have created a workflow for your business, a special type of job description to make it easy to supervise and drafted well written procedures. If you, your section or business needs streamlining and improving efficiency and productivity, this is the course for you.

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)

Are You Shirleying Me? (WT676)

If You Want It, Let People Know (WT675)

The Goal Isn’t Big Enough (WT674)

Mind Control – Yours or Mine (WT673)

Me Too Is A Roadblock (WT672)

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