About Shelley Butler: By title, Shelley is Dovico's CEO since 2020! If you follow Dovico’s social media channels, you would have seen her speak from the heart on many occasions on a variety of different topics. She spreads a message of compassion, health and love like no other. While her day-to-day work has her doing various operational tasks and making CEO-like decisions, her greatest work comes from ensuring that everyone has a stake in Dovico’s direction.
About Dovico: Since 1993, we have been helping thousands of customers around the world to deliver successful projects with Dovico Timesheet, a proven project time and cost-saving software. www.dovico.com
About Shelley Butler: By title, Shelley is Dovico's CEO since 2020! If you follow Dovico’s social media channels, you would have seen her speak from the heart on many occasions on a variety of different topics. She spreads a message of compassion, health and love like no other. While her day-to-day work has her doing various operational tasks and making CEO-like decisions, her greatest work comes from ensuring that everyone has a stake in Dovico’s direction.
About Dovico: Since 1993, we have been helping thousands of customers around the world to deliver successful projects with Dovico Timesheet, a proven project time and cost-saving software. www.dovico.com
Speaker 1:
Okay. So now I have the distinct pleasure of introducing our first speaker of the day. A woman that oozes love community, a quiet confidence and a bigger than life personality, a friend, a supporter, and our main stage sponsor of this year, a woman that does not like to be defined by her title, which is the CEO of Dova co she believes so intimately in leadership and community. And it perfectly sums up who Shelly Butler is a woman who lives to serve when she's not in her zone. Empowering everyone. She meets to be a leader. She's leading with love Shelley's in her other zone, enabling her healthy habits to lead her with daily exercise and journaling. Her most significant accomplishment is raising her daughter, Nicola, who just began her career as a school teacher, a previous self-describe deadhead who followed the grateful dead all over north America with her husband, please welcome to the stage Shelly Butler and her talk victim to victorious.
Speaker 2:
Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I am so grateful to be here with you all virtually I'm grateful. And I wanna thank you Terry Ann, because the bravery and the courage that you showed us all by putting on this event during this pandemic, this uncertain time, this anxious, stressful couple years, I wanna you so much. I'm grateful to be here with you all virtually and connected in the here and the now you see the biggest complaint that I've been hearing lately is I feel so disconnected in this last few years, years, I feel so disconnected. You know, Harvard just put out a study, an 80 year study that actually said that what the key to happiness is, is social connection, social connection. So we better figure it out if it has to do with our happiness and we all want that, we better figure it out. You see our beliefs tend to keep us stuck. Our belief about connection is about if I give you a hug, if I can look into your eyes, if I can touch you, that's our perception about connection. Our beliefs can keep us stuck. I know mine did years ago, I was invited to this leadership conference, an amazing, amazing opportunity for me. And it was at the Ritz Carleton in Toronto. And I was so nervous. I was feeling unworthy. I knew that everybody saw that I was broken. You see, this was a conference like no other that I had ever been to. I didn't actually get on that plane or actually buy my plane ticket until the very last minute, because my unworthiness held me back. I landed in Toronto. I walked into the Ritz Carlton and felt even smaller. This place was beautiful. Got in through the lobby. They took me up to my room. Yes. This place actually takes you to your room. Not only do, did they open the door and I walked into that room, but that hotel room consisted of three rooms. The bathroom mirror had a television in it. I was even smaller. I was not worthy. This conference was filled with millionaires and one billionaire. I wasn't even a thousandaire<affirmative>. So, um, I wasn't worthy to be there. The next morning came, I got dressed up. I went to the conference floor at the Ritz Carleton, opulence, beautiful food, everywhere, a Bri in the corner. I went there, the doors opened to the conference. I, the music was playing. It was crazy. People were running to the front, including myself. This conference was a lot of money, a lot of money. And, um, you know, I was going to sit as close to the front as I possibly could. And I made it and I sat down on my notes. The conference organizer got on the stage and came out larger than life. And he said for the next four days, it was a four day leadership conference for the next four days. We are going to show up in our truth and in our authenticity. And then in the next breath, he said, stand up and share your deepest, darkest secret. But the people around you, I mean, I'm already, I, I knew everybody knew I was broken. I wasn't feeling like I could do that, but everybody was stood up and everybody was doing it. What came to my mind was I'll forgive my rapist. I'm like, where did that come from? But I did. I stood up and I leaned in to the very first person I saw. And I said, I'll forgive my rapist to which she replied, I'll forgive my brother-in-law who killed my sister two weeks ago. What? I knew that I wasn't the only broken one. I wasn't the only one feeling the hurt, the embarrassment, the loss, the 99 other people that were there with me, the millionaires and the one billionaire were also feeling the same. We're also feeling the same connection was made. Connection was made. I lived in the world of victimhood for a really long time. I was the victim in victimhood. And I tell you right now that neighborhood is shady and you do not wanna stay there for very long. When you tell your truth, when you're being authentic, when you're being vulnerable, all of a sudden that narrative has less hold has less grasp on me. I was able to rid myself or begin to rid myself of that at narrative. So I say to you, connection is so important and we must find a way to connect. I was a victim of sexual abuse from the ages of about seven, eight to about 13 years old. I was broken. I was embarrassed. You know, you live of in a, a world of shame. And I lived there for a little while until I started to rid myself of that story that no longer served me. So let me just say to you now, those of you that are out there virtually in your jammies, um, do you feel a little more connected to me? So yes. I told you a story. I told you a story about the Ritz Carleton and the fact that we did, we got to w spur. I was there personally in her ear, but then I also told you a little bit about a personal story about me. My victimness, my victimhood. Can I get you to consider that we are a little more connected knowing that connectivity is so important? Connection is so important. We decided at Dova co to double down in it, to double down in people, first people over profit, even scary. We still have to pay our bills. Of course. And we were in a place doco that we certainly could, but we also knew that putting people first was going to be the winning ticket, the game changer. And it was, it was, you know, I just told you a story about me and how perhaps I wasn't showing up on the day to day because I had this narrative in my head of dirty girl of not worthy of a little less than that narrative kept me in mediocracy for a long, long time, a long, long time. So knowing again, that connection is so important. Imagine your coworker, perhaps dealing with a father that's ill, maybe their own mental illness, maybe a mother who has cancer, but not everybody has a great day. Not everybody has a great week and not everybody has a great month or even a great year. So we as leaders, we as business owners, when we hire people to do a job, we expect the job to be done right, and done well,<affirmative>, that's our expectation. But what if we took a moment and we thought about the narratives, we thought about the stories that people hold onto, that don't give the best expression of themselves. How can you be at your creative and your innovative best are carrying around those stories? So what if our connection at work became a little bit deeper? So it's not about, Hey, you get that line of code done. Um, maybe it's more about how was Jacob's hockey game last night, maybe it's about how is your dad doing? I know he was in the hospital. What if we connected with the people, our coworkers on that level? What if we took the time to do that at Dover co we have values, but they're not my values as CEO. I didn't stick the values on the wall and say, I want you to do those.<laugh> I want you to follow those. What we said at doco is find your values. It's really important to focus and find your values, minor, love, health, and integrity. And I discover myself through my values in others, in others, around me, it's an icebreaker. It's a way to connect with the people at work. The people that you spend so much time with the people that you want to be creative, the people that you want to be innovative, what if you put them first? We did. And we were so pleased. We were so pleased at how things were going. You know, creating culture, creating doco culture for us, we understand is a process. And there really isn't. There are books written about it, but if you look into it, there's not many that have walked. The walk doco is walking the walk, we've put software behind it, software that matches who we are. We now, if you want to build your own culture, we now have a place for you to begin. And I'm so excited. You know, I ran into, um, when I became a CEO, which is not that long ago, a week before the pandemic, I think lucky me. Um, I ran into a, uh, fellow, um, um, high school friend and he just became the interim CEO for Atlantic Lato and he's like, oh, Shelly, did you hear, I, I, you know, I said, ask congratulations. And he said, do you have any advice for me? I told him the best advice that I could give him was to shut up. And I meant it being the leader doesn't mean that you are the dictator being, the leader means that you serve others. A like Terry Ann said true leadership in my belief is about serving others. You see, I've already rise to the top. I've already risen. I let go of my stories. And I rose. So now my leadership role at Dova co is about taking care of the people who are taking care of the business. And they know it. They know I have their back, make a decision, be excited about the decision that you're gonna make. Hmm. You know, when we talk about living in our authenticity, we talk about living in our vulnerability. We talk about living in our truth. It takes some work. It takes a lot of work actually at the age of 47 is when I said, I'll forgive my rapist. I put that rapist in jail. When I was 24 years old, believe that I had healed from within. I certainly didn't. If at 47, it came back with such zeal. Then I had tucked it. I had tucked it deep down, but I'm gonna tell you, it kept me in mediocracy. It's so important to live our truth, to live our vulnerable truth. As I connect with you here today, I would have you consider the interaction that I had at the Ritz Carlton with I'll forgive my rapist and the interaction that I just had with you about telling you about my victim hood. The connection is true, even though we're virtual, because it's real and it's authentic. That's how connection is made. Doesn't matter that we're here virtually with one another. I know that my Dova con are watching me. I had all kinds of shoutouts this morning. I know my daughter is there and my sisters are there. Amazing. And I'm connecting. See, we connect in here through our heart space and it was so important for doco to find that heart space. It was so important for me to double down in leading with love at doco. I, when I say leading with love, people are like, Ugh, what does love have to do with business? Everything. It has everything to do with business. Being in love with what you do is beautiful. But I would ask you to think about the possibility of walking into that meeting, walking into that seminar, walking into any situation, brainstorm session with love. That means not being attached to the outcome, your own personal agenda, walking into the space with hurt, with heart and with a clearing. See when we go in with our own attachment to what the agenda is going to be, and we're the attachment to what the outcome is going to be. You're not there to listen. So open your heart, put your listening ears on and shut up.<laugh> all right. You know, I wanna tell you, we have, I did tell you we doubled down right in the doco heart set. And we made sure that people can live their authentic self. We gave them tools for that, and people are working on it. We're all doing our very best to work on it. So let me get you just to consider for a moment that the workspace you have and the home space you have, how you show up at work, how you show up at home. Maybe you should just merge those together and create a life space. Super, super important to be authentically you. The only way that you're gonna create connection is being authentically. You being real, living in your truth. We give tools for that at Dova co like I was just saying, so focus, focus on what is ailing. You focus about what is keeping you in mediocracy, giving it space, just allowing it to sit marinate for a little while. Don't do the blame game. Don't try to fix it right there.<affirmative> be in the uncomfortable of it. And then go to your edge and start telling your story. The grasp on you will be released. You will come out of mediocracy. The sun will be brighter. The sky will be a little blue and you will be in flow focus, give it space, be uncomfortable, go to your edge and be in flow. And those are docos five pillars. We work on them daily. There is no greater agony, no greater agony. Then bearing an untold story. That's inside of you. I tell you that right now I lived, it that's may Angelou. I love her. I absolutely love her. And when she said I rise. Yep, I did. I rise. Rise up to the challenge. Check in with your coworkers. Be in love with what you do, be in love with the people that are around you. Leadership is all about love, find connection. I know you can and rid yourself of the stories that no longer serve you. I can be changed by what happened to me, but I will not be reduced by it. I, I will be changed by what happened to me, but I will not. I will not be reduced by it. Lead with love. Thank you.