You know animals can teach us a lot about life.

It was Good Friday and Ross and I were relaxing in the loungeroom when we noticed three kookaburras sitting on the railing on the front verandah.

They weren’t there long before they were joined by magpies, a currawong and a butcher bird.

Now, ordinarily Ross and I would not feed birds because we recalled a sign in a Queensland national park when we were travelling that said, “A fed bird is a dead bird”.

So generally, we won’t feed birds.

For some reason, on this day, Ross had some left over meat and so he threw it on the verandah.

The kookaburras jumped in, grabbed what they could, flew off and proceeded to shake their beaks to kill their prize.

The butcher bird also took flight, grabbed a piece and flew off.

Not so the magpies and currawong.

They hesitated.

They were on high alert.

They kept looking this way and that.

To Ross and I there was clearly no danger.

They could have quickly swooped down, grabbed their share and flown off.

Still they waited.

Still they hesitated, until finally one of the magpies made a daring dash.

With prize in mouth, the magpie took off.

I didn’t see it again until a week later when I heard a commotion outside.

As I looked out the window, the magpie was scolding its young and pushing it away as it ran across the yard with its stash from a few days before.

The magpie then hid its stash under the bushes on the other side of the yard.

So what are they teaching us?

Apart from “Don’t feed the birds”, they are teaching us not to wait, rather to just jump in.

If fear is holding you back, you are likely to miss out.

If there is something you want, I encourage you to just jump in and go for it.

The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll get your prize.

In fact, I have a poster in my room that was a gift from a podcast guest, that says, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear”.

Just jump in.

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P.P.S.  If you are feeling fearful and you would like to release that fear, we have a transformational tool that can help. Contact us if you’d like to know more.

Before we get into this week’s thought, I just want to acknowledge the readers who answered the challenge last week and messaged me with the tasks they wanted to be held accountable for.

Well done! All were completed in the week, so just to remind us of the benefit of having a coach, I call it the “BAQS System” because a coach, has your “back”. A coach can help to:

1. Identify your Blind Spots
2. Be your Accountability partner
3. Ask quality Questions, and
4. Provide suggestion on Strategies that you may not have thought of.

Now to this week:

This week I presented the first of 6 online presentations.

Whilst I’ve practised and practised and practised, I still felt very nervous.

One strategy that I use to reduce the nervousness is to repeat over and over, “If You Get Nervous, Focus On Service”. I believe this originally came from Doreen Virtue.

So let’s unpack that.

Often our nervousness comes because we are focussing on ourselves. We are concerned to:

1. Look good
2. To have others think well of us
3. To not make mistakes

This is the wrong focus to have.

Ask yourself, why are you doing the thing that makes you nervous?

In most cases, it’s because you want to help others.

This could be through an uplifting song or play. It could be teaching and presenting some information. It could be speaking in public. It could be playing a sport.

No matter what the motivation is, keep in mind, “If you get nervous, focus on service”.
Focus on the people that you can help and why you are helping them.

Focus on the audience for your concert or play.

Focus on your team and/or the spectators when playing a sport.

This little mantra and change of focus and mindset works.

Forget about yourself and focus on the reason why you are doing it and for whom.

Let me know what makes you feel nervous and how you can apply this great little reminder.

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P.P.S. Go to https://ShirleyDalton.com/Events to register for my upcoming Live online ZOOM presentations, “5 Pillars To Become An Effective Leader” and “Reset Your Mindset: 4 Steps to Change Your Thoughts and Change Your Life”.  There’s nothing to buy.  Just pure content that I want you to have so you can create what it is you want.

I confess, up until recently I haven’t been someone who placed a great deal of importance on practise.

I’d put a bit of effort into something and then “wing” the rest of it, often with less than optimal results.

More recently I’ve gained a huge appreciation for practise and the reason for that is because I am understanding more about how our brains work.

Practising increases the traffic in our neural networks. The more traffic, the quicker we act and the quicker we learn.

I’ve been working with clients lately helping them to create new neural pathways, in other words, to rewire their brains.

At first, it is challenging when the neural pathway doesn’t exist. It’s like being asked to create a path in a jungle that is totally overgrown and all you have is a machete.

And bit by bit, you clear the trees and undergrowth until you forge a path and as many more people travel on the path, the path becomes much easier to use and eventually could become a highway.

So too with our brains. We need to create the neural pathways to be able to take action towards the things we want.

When we practise we are creating the path.

And, the way we practise is the way we perform.

For example, if I’m practising giving a presentation and I keep stopping and starting to change my words or because I forgot a sentence or decide to change a powerpoint slide, then that’s the way I will perform.

When you practise, practise the complete thing, not parts of it. Practise in smaller time frames and then increase the time.

As you practise the whole thing, you learn. You hear the words you say and they will get stored in your cellular memory.

This week I’m practising for a one hour presentation I’m giving next week called “The 5 Pillars To Become an Effective Leader”.

What are you practising for?

Regards Shirley

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Last week I presented two x 2 hour webinars, “Reset Your Mindset: 4 Steps to Change Your Thoughts and Change Your Life”.

It was the first time I had presented these webinars and I was quite nervous.

In the month leading up to the presentations I had to learn new software.

I practised and practised to give myself the best chance of success. As we discussed in the webinar, the more we do something the more myelin we produce around our neurons and the more myelin, the quicker the response & habit formation. (In fact, it can be the difference between your neuron firing 100 times faster or slower.)

After the second presentation was over I shared with Ross what I thought I could have done to improve.

Even though the feedback from attendees was very positive, I was critical of myself.

As I spoke, Ross listened and then when I finished he shared that he had heard an interview with Tom Brady, arguably the best NFL quarterback ever. Ross continued, “Brady has been in 10 Superbowl competitions, of which he was on the winning team for 7. When asked about his successes, Brady replied that he didn’t remember the 7 (wins), only the 3 (losses).”

I find this interesting that we often focus on what we don’t do or don’t achieve rather than what we do.

In our Leading Yourself and Leading Others experience participants have to keep a diary of compliments and criticisms (for want of more politically correct words) that they and others give to them over a 7 day period.

Overwhelmingly the feedback from participants is how often they are the ones who are doing the criticising and how often they do receive compliments and yet they don’t seem to take these on board.

So my point this week, and I’m listening too, is to focus on the 7, not the 3.

Try it for yourself this week.

Take a piece of paper or whatever electronic gadget you use and rule up two columns. Write two headings:

1. Compliments/Appreciation
2. Criticisms/Negative Thoughts

Be alert to comments that you get from others and also your thoughts.  Every time you identify a compliment or positive thought make a note in that column. Similarly, every time you receive criticism or have a negative thought about yourself, enter a point in that column.

At the end of week take a look at the number of comments and/or thoughts you have received.

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