September 2016 - Take the Lead and Get A Life Elements

GET A LIFE

The BEING Element

TAKE THE LEAD

Fearless Leadership

We are super excited to announce we are one of the newest supporters for Time For Kids! They are the beneficiary of our annual fundraising event, Cocktails and Dreams. If you'd like to attend (we'll be there - we can't wait!) you can book online. 

Alternatively, you can make a donation via the event fundraising page (we intend to raise $10,000 in support of the children and young people they work with - go on and give 'em a hand!)

August 2016 - Take the Lead and Get A Life Elements

GET A LIFE

The BRAIN Element

TAKE THE LEAD

The 7 Elements of Leadership

Remember we have a workshop that is a day to design a life you love...check out our Ultimate Life Planning Workshop by CLICKING HERE.

July 2016 - Take the Lead and Get A Life Elements

TAKE THE LEAD

The 4 Fundamentals

GET A LIFE

The BODY Element

Remember we have a workshop that is a day to design a life you love...check out our Ultimate Life Planning Workshop by clicking here.

Becoming A Creative Problem Solver

by Amy Slattery

We have our annual breakfast coming up in Adelaide on the 2^nd of June so I was very excited to interview 2 of our guest speakers who will be joining us – Naomi Nwayco and Mike Simon.

As with a lot of things, there is so much gold in the conversations you have with people who are where you want to be (and in this case working towards a life of financial freedom), so the time I spent chatting to each of them before we started rolling was invaluable (I’ve recently bought a new house and now have a couple of ideas from Naomi on how I can make money from my new home)!

Both had some amazing qualities in common, what resonated with me were two things – an overwhelming sense of BELIEF that they really could ‘do it’ and that essentially they were problem solvers (a creative problem solver as Naomi would describe).

So from my moments of gold with Naomi and Mike I wanted to share with you my 7 Keys To Problem Solving.

1. Get Curious!

This is a new thing for me…I’ll be honest I’m conditioned as a ‘teller’ rather than a questioner, however in developing my coaching skills I have now become an annoying 5 year old child…”why is that”…”why do you think that”…”why”…”why”…”why”.  I am amazed at how asking ‘WHY’ questions can get you right to the root cause!  Be critical, avoid bias and ask open ended questions.

2. Look at the problem as a possible opportunity (the opportunity to help)

Problems can be a pain in the butt…if you think of them that way, but what if you just changed the way you think of a problem?  What if you saw them as an opportunity?  In business solving a client or customers problem/s is the reason we are in business!

3. Don’t get stuck in your own head

Past experiences, conditioning and our mindset can lead us down a certain solution path.  Having awareness and questioning yourself “am I being unbiased” or “am I using emotion rather than logic” or “are there other factors leading me towards that idea”.   Question yourself along the way!

4. Be an information gatherer

Look at all angles and pay attention to solutions that aren’t currently in use.  Now don’t fall prey to analysis paralysis!  Also get information from the right sources (I’m not going to get advice on a share portfolio from someone that doesn’t have their own…but not only that they need to be making money from it).

5. Sleep On It

Sometimes time is key!  For big decisions or big problems to be solved, sometimes you need some time.  Don’t be afraid to defer your judgment (unless of course it is life threatening!).  Letting the process simmer in your unconscious over a good nights sleep can lead to revelation in the morning (or commonly in that morning shower).

6. Worst Case Scenario

At the moment I am listening to 4 hour Work Week by Tim Ferris (highly recommend it).  I love that he talks about understanding the true worst case scenario – this is something I have been good at!  For example in launching The 7 Effect with Jodie, the worst case scenario was that if it didn’t work out I would find another job, if that took too long I could move in with mum and mooch off her for a bit until I got myself back on my feet – basically in the extreme case no one would DIE!

Consider what the worst case scenario could be, be mindful of what your own comfort zone could be stopping you from moving forward with - if your worst case scenario really isn’t that bad…a bruised ego…a red face…having to possibly ask for forgiveness later, then really that isn’t that bad.

*disclaimer of course in this process you don’t want to cause harm or bring hardship on to others.

7. Go with your gut!

Sometimes things are ‘go with your gut’ moments, you’ve asked the right questions, you’ve come up with some solutions…you’ve ticked all the boxes and now its time to go with your solution!  If your values are clear, a gut decision can sometimes be the best way to move forward.  Go with conviction and belief  in yourself!

Problems are a way of life, they are what make us grow, they test our strengths and our resilience.  Like a muscle the more you work on these skills the better you will become at solving them!

Remember a problem is only a problem if you think of it that way.

Sliding Doors

by Amy Slattery

Have you seen the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow and that lovable Scottish actor John Hannah (yes I have a slight crush...I think it's the accent)?

I love the idea of the movie that any choice, decision for any situation (within or out of your control) that may seem very insignificant at the time of making it, can lead to a completely different turn of events in our lives.  *Spoiler alert - in the movie the character Helen runs for her train, in one scenario the movie continues as if she had missed her train, watching the sliding doors close and the other, her life in which she had just made the train in time, beating the sliding doors and making it on the train.

The chain of events then plays out in both situations.  This gives a bit more of an ‘out of my control’ concept slightly, but it did get me thinking, what decisions or choices have I made that led me in the direction to be here at this point today?

It was actually over the Christmas holidays, surrounded by all the festive cheer, spending time with family & friends and feeling genuine gratitude for the life that I live.  That I was reminded of this movie… I had one of those ‘what if’ thoughts.

“What if I’d made the decision to live overseas again”, “What if I didn’t leave that job”, “What if I didn’t say yes to this or be open to that”…then I wouldn’t be right here, right now having the best time of my life!

WHAT IF!

The words WHAT and IF are two pretty innocent words, not much happening when they are by themselves… but then we humans decide to put them together and it can start a whole chain of events (but that’s another blog for another time).

At the time, I was more reflective of how I'd gotten to this point in my life, what decisions brought me here?  I have a wonderful loving husband, great family, and friends, my own business with my best friend and a genuinely pretty amazing life!  I see opportunities everywhere.  But what got me here?

So I thought I would share my 7 (yes it has to be 7) Sliding Doors moments, of course, there have been plenty more but these are the ‘bigger’ ones in my life.

7 Sliding Doors Moments

1.    Trying out for the Primary School Basketball Team – now this was many, many, many moons ago, however, I remember it because I was in primary school at the time when my year 6 teacher said I should try out for the town basketball team, all the other schools had people trying out.

Now I had NEVER played basketball at the time but thought (reluctantly) ‘ok if you think I should’ (I was probably more scared of disappointing the teacher if I said no haha).  So I tried out and amazing I got in!  It was one of those moments that's stuck with me as really did learn to appreciate the faith that others can have in you, it completely pushed me out of my comfort zone (especially at an age where the worry of what the other kids think and fitting in is very high). But it was great fun, I made new friends and going away on a sporting trip is always good!

2.    Saying no to a 'traditional' University course - you go to school, you get good grades, so you can get into University, so you can get a good job, then settle down, then start a family and live happily ever after right?  Not that there is anything wrong with that at all...it's the path I thought I would take, but then I changed my mind (eeek)!

I decided to go to hospitality school/college it was presented at an info session and that was it!  I was in (you would study on campus for 6 months – the college was run as if it was a hotel and then the next 6 months would be on placement… and it could be anywhere in the world, wherever you could get in!)  This sounded amazing to me!  So after a little nudging of my parents, I was able to attend.   I got to study and live 3 other cities while getting my qualifications, at the end I was offered a working visa in the USA and jumped straight on a plane for Chicago!  Definitely a small town girl in a big city there!  I remember landing the same night of their first heavy snow fall…coming from Katherine, NT I still remember the tears thinking what have I done...and OMG it is freezing!!!

3.    Taking on a role at a leadership company – after coming back from Chicago (September 11th happened while I was there = no visa extensions so I was homeward bound) I found myself working at a beautiful hotel in Adelaide.  I realised however that the way I was going to continue to grow and move up would be to move out!  So I started looking!  I was offered a job at a leadership training company, organizing and managing their events.  This was by far my biggest learning curve in life!  I learnt so much about myself in the 5+ years at that organisation and I loved working there.  When you get the opportunity to listen and learn from some of the most amazing presenters in the country you can't help but take it on board and grow yourself, I was definitely stretched and given amazing opportunities (again the faith they had in me...unbelievable)!

4.    Getting a Life – probably the biggest sliding door moment of my life, my 7-year relationship ended around the same time by Dad fell sick with cancer, and then suddenly passed away within a matter of months (as I write this it is just after the anniversary of his passing).  This led to a spiral of avoidance!  I did not deal well with what happened, I was working ridiculous hours during the week and then partying ridiculous hours on the weekend, I was completely running myself into the ground!
The turning point was when the company I worked for held a leadership conference in Adelaide – one of the speakers was Martyn Newman and he spoke and shared a story about Snow White Syndrome (the concept that for some of us we are lying on a slab waiting for Prince Charming to rescue us).  Where Jodie (my now business partner) had one of her famous aha moments!  We need to get off the slab!  The way we did this was through starting a goals club, you can read more about that here www.the7effect.com

The simple choice to move on from where I was lead to the biggest changes in my life to this point, I met Jodie, I worked for a wonderful family business, I grew personally and professionally more than I ever had, the goals club stretched me and kept me accountable to myself and others every month, every year and I achieved so may amazing things through it.

5.    Moving On – sometimes you need to make space for amazing things to happen!  That happened to me in 2013, the goals club that we had created came to an end and the possibility of making it a business came into play!  I remember Jodie messaging one day to catch up for dinner one night as she wanted to chat with me about something (Jodie had never done that before, so I thought it must be about getting The 7 Effect as a business off the ground).  I might have ruined Jodie’s well thought out speech by pretty much jumping in with a “yep I’m in” before we’d even ordered!  To be honest, I probably didn’t really know what I was getting myself into at the time, but I knew saying yes was the only option for me!  So the planning commenced.

I was still working at the leadership company, but it had started to become harder for me to align my values to what I was doing…so this was one of my harder moments… I resigned!  It was one of the hardest decisions I'd had to make, there was a sense of loyalty, a family culture, a reasonable amount of guilt…all of those emotions (the ones that are below the line and don't really serve us...but I still had them)!

I think it was about 2 weeks into ‘not working’ that I started to panic (what was I going to do! I needed some income until we were ready to get this business off the ground…I had money saved but didn’t really want to eat into that).  So I got the word out that I was looking and ended up talking to an event company, however then came the guilt!  I knew I wasn’t planning on working for them long term, I would be working on OUR business on the side until that was ready to move into.  So after some great advice from, Jodie who quite simply said: “tell them your plans, what you can offer and what you will do, and see what happens”…WHAT??  Tell them that I could work for 6 months, maybe more... as I am really working on starting my own business!

Well, would you believe it…it worked!  That was just what they needed to get through a crazy busy business time…BINGO!!  Huge life lesson learnt there...sometimes you can ask for what you want!

6.    The 7 Effect – so in May 2014 we launched full time with The 7 Effect, learning every day how to run this business, grow it and love the life that we live!  It is unbelievable that we are coming up to 2 years.  I know there were plenty of skeptics when we started – some well-meaning comments “wow that’s brave starting a business in this climate”, “so your just going to start full time in it”, “do you think it’s the right time”?

Well, I am glad I didn’t dwell on those What if’s!  We survived the dreaded 1-year milestone of starting a new small business and we have huge plans for the future!

7.    Saying Yes – There are so many moments, choices, opportunities and offers that have come my way over the past 30+ years, this blog post could be 10 pages long!  However, the general ‘theme’ is that most of the time I just said YES!

This yes would more often than not push me right outside my comfort zone!  Which my most recent sliding door has done...we come across so many people we work with who live in that infinity loop of time and money (not having enough of each or sacrificing one for the other), so when Jodie came to me after meeting one of our now clients with the opportunity to be independent distributors in a new business I just said yes!  It’s trying something different, it's out of my comfort zone, it's a new challenge, constant self-development and self-reflection but the huge opportunity is well worth it, using my leadership and coaching skills to develop a team which is very exciting and I am constantly learning something new!

So overall I have had 100’s of sliding door moments in my life (as we all do) and they have all taken me on different path's and lead me to where I am today, sometimes it's good to reflect on how you got to where you are, what you would do again, what you will say yes (or no) too, what you have learnt and come at it all from a place of gratitude.  If you are not where you want to be right now what doors can you open (or close) to get there?

Start by thinking about what it is you want to be doing, where do you want to be and what are some of the things you want to get out of this life…and let's have a look at how to get there!

Remember, Live life by design…not by default

Why do we care what other people think of us?

By Amy Slattery

 

It can be a bit of a confronting question as it's pretty easy to come out with “I don’t care what people think!” but when it really comes down to it…do you?  Do you really?

Why do you think we are so concerned with what people think of us?  Unfortunately some of the things we work though today are hard wired from too long ago to think about it, the need to be liked goes all the way back to the times of tribes…where literally if you were an outcast you could be excluded from the group and in those times alone could mean DEATH!

So its not unnatural to have the fear of acceptance and hence worrying what other people think of you, however if the fear is debilitating or stopping you from success or living to your full potential then its time to ask your self WHY!

When the fear of being judged, laughed at, talked about or excluded is there it can stop you from grabbing opportunities that come your way (sometimes stopping to think about what others will think can lead to an opportunity passing you by).  This can be true for things that bring us success even in times of wealth, money can be that dirty word sometimes – will people think I’m a snob if I earn a certain amount, live in a certain suburb, drive a certain car.  You can see how this can become a problem!

We focus a lot on goals at The 7 Effect and this fear really can stop people from achieving their goals…or setting goals around what other people will think, which tends to mean small and easily achievable goals.

You’ve probably heard that the number 1 fear for human beings is speaking in front of groups, this is before death which comes in at number 5 and loneliness coming in a number 7!  Which is scary to think that we are less afraid of dying all alone compared to the odd chance we might make a fool of ourself in front of others.

So although we have this hard wired aspect to ourselves there are things we can do!

Like most things the first step is self awareness – just stopping to ask yourself why you are feeling a certain way in situations can be a great start, than uneasy ‘gut’ feeling we sometimes have is a great physical symptom to get you to stop and access what is really going on. 

Focus on what in life do you value?  Getting clear on your values not only helps with that gut feeling of decision making but also the clearer you are, the more you will focus on what matters, if one of your values is happiness, focusing on that and why it’s a value can in turn stop you from worrying about how others see you in the happiness space.

Now’s the harder part – stop worrying about what others think!  Yikes how do I do that? I’ve come across people who will ask everyone they know for their opinion before making a decision, we all have the answers within us so why take a survey of all your friends before you make a decision?  This can also have a negative  affect on your friendship, if you then don’t take that persons advice (because you’ve asked around until you’ve found the answer you wanted) they might feel affronted “why did they bother asking me if they weren’t going to follow my advice?”  that’s a whole other blog so wont go into too much there!

This is going to be hard at first – but like anything the more your awareness grows, the more your confidence grows and you’ll probably find you start caring less about what others think when it comes down to it.  This is of course not in a cold hearted way at all (that’s again worrying that other people will think you aren’t caring and compassionate…the thing is if they are thinking that its really nothing you can do about it, that ball falls in their court and their belief system).

So to leave you with some actions:

1. 1.     Don’t ignore that gut feeling when a new opportunity comes your way
2. 2.     Ask yourself WHY you feel that way?
3. 3.     Does that feeling serve or hinder you?
4. 4.     Look to yourself for the answer rather than others
5. 5.     Get clear on your values and make them a focus
6. 6.     Let people see the real you
7. 7.     Be kind to yourself!  People will always have an opinion but the key is choosing what you do with that opinion!

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

Dr. Seuss

Live life by design, not by default!

 

Do you have the X Factor?

by Amy Slattery

Ok I’ll admit it…I love the X Factor *oh the shame…

But it did get me thinking about what we expect our life to become?  We live in a world where thanks to the various media streams we are bombarded with what seem like overnight success stories (or the chance of overnight lottery wins)…the high school kid making over $300K trading on his mobile phone, the email app that went from $0 to $200mil in 18 months, homeless artist now selling sketches for thousands! 

Don’t get me started on the various reality shows that seem to propel the normal everyday person into a superstar in the flash of an eye!

However what doesn’t shine like a neon light are all the hours and hard work along the way, the failures, the risks, the criticism, dusting yourself off and getting back too it.

When Jodie and I were launching The 7 Effect I was surprised on a lot of corners that well meaning contact “wow your brave launching a business in this economic climate”, “have you ever run your own business?”, “what will you do if it doesn’t work out”, “oh yeah I’ve seen lots of similar business online”.

Well meaning for the most part, but if I choose to listen to all of those comments with fear I would not be celebrating the life I live now.  We didn’t go into the business blindly, but it was a risk and we have learnt a lot along the way, but what didn’t waiver was our confidence that we will make it work and the worst case if it didn’t work out I’d find another job, or start something new.  There are always choices we can make with the information we are provided with.

So that brings me back to “What is your X Factor?”

Sometimes we can get a bit caught up in the fact that you need some superstar hidden talent with a back story to match the sadness of all of life’s tragedies to have something to offer, that we need to be ‘different’ to everyone else and have that edge.

Well I strongly believe that is not the case!

It makes me think of Thomas Edison and his invention of the light bulb…Edison didn’t actually come up with the whole concept, his was just the first to be proved practical, and affordable for use in the home (electric lights already existed on the streets).  So he improved on something that was already in play in the world rather than inventing something completely new.

Of course if you have a completely new idea then absolutely go for it…but if your innovation is improving on a need then that can be even better!  Check out the team at www.dreamfarm.com who’s business is completely on improving everyday kitchen and household appliances!

So if you can do anything today, set aside 10minutes to have a complete brain dump of what your strengths are, what skills do you have, what do you love to spend time on, if you could change something what would it be, how do/would people describe you…don’t let yourself get caught up in any if’s or but’s or negative self talk (play a bit of Eye of the Tiger just before if you need to).

After the 10 minutes is up give yourself a 5 minute breather, just walk around move around, stretch, star jumps (no judgment here).  Then come back to what you have written down.

Highlight 3 points you’ve put down and flesh them out with 3 actions underneath each that are things you can do to strengthen that description of yourself.

I.e. you might right down you are great at organizing things and love spending time with family and friends…so you might want a action item to set up a Family BBQ or a girls/boys night out?

Each week keep reviewing and developing from your initial list are focus on your strengths, skills and what you enjoy doing, the confidence will come and perhaps even a new idea!

Live life by design!

Amy