Aileen and Debbie Explore “The Stalagmite Effect” | 168

Welcome back to the show! Today, Aileen sits down with Debbie O’Shea for a powerful and inspiring conversation about her brand-new book, The Stalagmite Effect. Debbie shares the story behind the metaphor, the experiences that shaped the book, and how slow, steady growth can transform both teachers and students.

If you already know Debbie from her “Manipulatives in the Music Room” podcast, you’re going to love this deeper look into her thinking and the reflections that led her to write The Stalagmite Effect.

We also mention a few helpful links in this episode:

• “Manipulatives in the Music Room” podcast with Debbie O’Shea
• Register for “Together Sing”
• “The Stalagmite Effect” book
  • Buy on Balboa Press
  • Buy on Amazon

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://crescendo.com.au/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction  

Gday, I’m Debbie O’Shea and this is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 168.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

From Music Teacher to Author: The Journey Behind The Stalagmite Effect

Debbie O’Shea  

Today’s episode is a little bit different. My lovely friend and colleague, Aileen Miracle, had me on her podcast as a guest, where we talked about, well music education of course, because it’s a passion that we both share, and also my new book The Stalagmite Effect about how small, consistent actions build extraordinary lives. We had a great chat. I just loved it so much, and she gave me permission to air the episode on my platform as well. Thank you, Aileen, you are wonderful. Sit back and enjoy my chat with Aileen Miracle about all things music education and specifically about those slow, steady steps that you can take to move you towards your goals and just the joy of being you.

Aileen Miracle  

All right, welcome to episode 106 of The Music Room. On today’s podcast episode I am interviewing my good friend Debbie O’Shea. Hi, Debbie.

Debbie O’Shea  

Hello Aileen, what a delight to be chatting to you.

Aileen Miracle  

I am so excited to have you back on the show. You’ve been on the show a couple times, but I always enjoy talking to you. We have a really exciting reason for talking today and that’s because you have a new book called The Stalagmite Effect, which we will dive into in a minute here. But yep, there it is. Debbie just held it up. So can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey as a music educator?

Debbie O’Shea  

It was not what you’d call a straight forward journey as a music educator. I will be very brief, I promise. I learnt piano as a kid from the old lady. Though she seemed old, she probably wasn’t that old. But you know, to a kid everyone is old, the old lady down the road, because my parents had no music education, very little education in fact, and they wanted their daughter to have the benefits they didn’t, so they sent me off to this music teacher. When I look back, it actually had a much bigger influence than I thought, because for her, teaching music was about see that black dot on the page there? That means you put your finger here and you hold it for this long. Okay, so I learnt piano that way and then I ended up being a music teacher, which I started as a primary teacher, and loved this music component that I discovered at Teachers College. So as I was training myself to be a teacher, I started learning Kodály philosophy, just going once a week to train myself.  I thought, hold on. What was missing in my music journey was the aural component, like the way I learnt skipped what it sounded like. That was like an end product, if you were lucky. So I learnt more about that and got all excited about this particular way of teaching music. I’ve just trained myself and I’ve ended up being incredibly, incredibly passionate as a music educator. Believing wholeheartedly every single child needs music education for the unique cognitive, social and emotional benefits. So I’ve ended up this passionate music educator that went to piano lessons and didn’t really like it, and I didn’t even do it in high school and I’ve ended up the most in your face music teacher you’ll ever meet.

Aileen Miracle  

Well,  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you teach, because when I presented at the Kodály conference in Brisbane, I was able to see you teach, and I mean, just to be able to be in your classroom and watch how joyful you are with your students. It was just such a pleasure. I can truly say, Debbie you are the real deal. You are just such an amazing teacher.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, thank you. Okay. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. That’s all I need to hear. Bye.

Aileen Miracle  

But truly, you’re just like such a great teacher. So now I’m excited to hear you started this kind of new side journey where you have this book called The Stalagmite Effect. So what inspired you to write the book?

Debbie O’Shea  

I always felt, and how many people say this or think this, okay, there’s a book in me, all right? I think so many people I know believe that there’s a book in me. I always thought there was a book in me, but I didn’t know really what it was. I did start a novel a little while ago, but last year, this whole concept of stalagmites became really clear, the analogy that connects this book. Then all of a sudden, all of the bits of my life, my music journey, my music education journey, my personal journey, everything sort of fell into line, and it literally was just last year, and little bits dropped, and then I ended up on long service leave. So yes, those of you who know me know that I am approaching the end of my music teacher career, but I thought I’d take some long service leave, and I did that in order to hand over my amazing school. I’d been there eight years, and I wanted to hand it over to the next person, because there was a job that I really wanted. I did not get this job that I vacated my wonderful school for, and if nothing else, it actually ended up being a story in my book. I thought, all right, I got to make this count. I was devastated, but I ended up on long service leave. Didn’t know I didn’t have the job at this point for a whole term. So I had the six week Christmas holidays, 10 weeks off, then the next two weeks holidays. I am working on a fairly major early childhood course that’s not out yet. I went, Okay, here’s this writer’s boot camp that Hay House was running in early January, and it was a freebie. I thought, Look, what have I got to lose? I’ve got this little book simmering. I’ll just do this writer’s boot camp.  I went, I’ve got to do it. Then I wrote every day for four months, and I finished it just after the Easter holidays. So that’s sort of the journey. What really inspired me was I thought that I could help others. Look, I mean, doesn’t everyone say that they’re doing it to serve and help others, but I really believe that this book can. So that’s basically the story.

Teaching Strategies That Make a Difference

Aileen Miracle  

Wow, that’s really interesting. And the dedication it takes to write every day too, but to also be writing out of your wanting to help.

Debbie O’Shea  

It was not always easy. I remember about halfway through, it’s ended up 64,000 words. Actually, I was shooting for 60, I Googled what’s the average length of a self help style book and they went shoot for 60,000.  Okay, all right, I got to about 30,000 and went, That’s it. I’ve got nothing else to say, and then the next morning I woke up going, I know, I know. So often in those months, I would wake up with just a little thought that had to get down on paper. It just becomes, it’s almost like a habit. I reckon your brain keeps going at night. Anyway, sometimes it was easy, other times it wasn’t. I would set myself word targets, I’m going to write 300 words today no matter what, and it was really hard, but by the end, it was 1000 a day or nothing. 

Aileen Miracle  

I actually do have a connection to that, because years ago, I wrote three novels and the last one is right around, I’m pretty sure it’s right around 60,000 words, and it took me well over four months. I can tell you that. So, yeah, totally familiar with word count and really trying to make yourself write every day. It really, it takes commitment. So that’s amazing.

Debbie O’Shea  

I would love to read your novels.

Aileen Miracle  

Oh yeah, I will send it your way. I have had some literary agents interested. But I actually just told myself yesterday, you know what Aileen, you need to try again because with fiction it’s really helpful to have a literary agent to try to get the book published. I did have some agents that were interested, but the none that like asked for, I think I had some that asked for the full manuscript, but then I didn’t have any takers after. I don’t know how much they read, but yes, I will send it your way for sure. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Okay, I would love that. But one thing that I did learn in the Hay House writers boot camp that I had no idea was that things don’t operate now in the publishing world the way they used to, and most publishers will not take cold submissions. You used to just be able to do submissions. So now they either take recommendations from literary agents perhaps and they actually will pick up things that are self published. There’s so much in the self published world that they wait and see what goes on well, and then they can cherry pick. So it’s a very different thing. I think they said to us in this workshop that there were two companies they knew of in the world that took just random submissions. Here’s my submission. So you’ve got to be found basically, because there’s so many people. So mine is self published.

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, okay, that’s what I thought. Okay, yeah, that’s really interesting.

Debbie O’Shea  

But I did go with Balboa Press, which is the self publishing arm of Hay House. Because I like the Hay House philosophy and their feel and how it would be great to be picked up by Hay House, which is sort of my aim.

Aileen Miracle  

Well, good luck. Fingers crossed, alright. So in the book, you do talk about your life as a music teacher, as well as kind of just some general life tips. But I really loved at the beginning of the book, you gave this example of many whiteboards being used to build children up in the music classroom. Can you tell us more? Talk to us more about that?

Debbie O’Shea  

I’ve just found them more and more useful, and like I said, to help build the children’s self concept and their courage and their resilience and all of those things. So first off, they’re less permanent feeling than pencil and paper. There are a lot of children, and I’m sure that every music teacher listening to me out there agrees that there’s more and more anxiety happening with the kids. There are more and more kids going, I don’t want to write it in case I’m wrong. Does it matter if you’re wrong? But I just think that is becoming a problem. We need them to take risks and to feel confident to take risks. Music making is all about getting in there and trying things out. So I think making it less permanent than pencil and paper is encouraging them to have a go. It’s also more fun. They just get more excited. If we’re handing out sheets they’re not as excited, if you’re handing out whiteboards and pens they’re very excited. I also think it’s really easy, if I just look at it from the other point of view for a moment, it’s easy for teachers to assess that whole formative assessment. You get them to just do something, hold it up on their chest, and you look around, and then you just sort of make eye contact, give them a thumbs up, and you’re instantly building them up too. So you are also assessing yourself. You look around and go, oh I’d better reteach that. Or you look around and go, Oh, you know, Mary hasn’t quite got it yet. You don’t have to say that. You’re just in your head going, just checking on those little ones you need to check on. But at the same time, you make eye contact, do a little thumbs up, an eyebrow raise, those little, tiny connections. You can even go, yep, yep and they go, I got it right. You can’t do that if they’re on the ground writing pencil on paper. You’ve got to walk around and crouch down so you can see it. This way I can see the whole class and give them all these little positives. Apart from the fact it’s a really quick, useful way to practice all sorts of things. So if we’re talking content, what a great way. Let’s do a quick dictation now you make one up. Show me what did you make up? All yours is really long. It’s quick and great practice. So I reckon they’re gold and I just usually get some old ones from the classroom. We can even just say, who’s got too many whiteboards? Send them over. Yeah.

Aileen Miracle  

So I guess we should maybe even take a step back and talk about what this stalagmite effect is. What the analogy of this stalagmite is, and how does it relate to the story you told about whiteboards, just for those people who haven’t yet read the book.

Debbie O’Shea  

Of course, actually, you know, I should probably have started talking about that. 

Aileen Miracle  

No, I should have asked.

Debbie O’Shea  

The basic premise of the book is just that you build yourself and others up like with tiny, little drips. The subtitle is how small consistent actions build extraordinary lives. I did mull over that extraordinary lives for a little while, but I do believe my life is extraordinary and I believe all our lives are quite extraordinary. It’s built up bit by bit, the way that stalagmites and stalagmites are the ones that might reach the top of the cave. Stalactites hold on tight, so we build up these little stalagmites on the bottom of the cave with tiny little drips. That is what teaching is about. I used to say teaching was like, what a torture. No it’s drip, drip. You never know when it’s going to hit, who it’s going to hit. But I also thought and I feel it teaching is like that for me to drip, drip. Anyway. I thought that’s actually not a great analogy, because it’s not about wearing away, it’s about building up. That was last year when I went that’s what happens with stalagmites and it was the perfect analogy, except that I wanted colour, because of the great diversity of people in this world, I think we are all different colours. So I thought, well, since I’ve made up the analogy, I can make up the fact that the stalagmites don’t have to be all a similar colour. We are all just different coloured crystals at different times. So I know that’s a little bit ravy, but it gives people an idea. I think that’s what teaching is like. You just go drip, drip and we practice the same thing in so many ways, and one of those will stick that one of the things we do, the penny will suddenly drop for that child, for that concept, and that’s why we practice things over and over. I mean, what musician never plays crotchets? Sorry, quarter notes. Whoever’s listening in whatever country, for the rest of your musicians life, you will be reading crotchets, right? So you’ve got to keep practicing crotchets to understand them fully, because they’re different in different contexts. If all you can do is write ta, ta, ti, ti, ta, because that’s the beginning of Seesaw, and that’s the rhythm that all teachers clap to get your attention.

Aileen Miracle  

Is that so in Australia? 

Debbie O’Shea  

Do you do it over there? 

Aileen Miracle  

Oh, yeah, we do it in the States. Yeah.

Debbie O’Shea  

Every teacher does. Please can you do a different rhythm?

Aileen Miracle  

How about ta, ti, ti, ta, ta. That one is hard for kids.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, it is. Get them to swap. Look, that’s what this is about and I think it’s a perfect analogy for teaching. I don’t know, unless you’re some super teacher with super children that can just teach something once and they’ve got it forever, that’s not the nature of learning, is it? 

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, I think it’s a really beautiful analogy. All right, are there any other activities or examples that music educators do with students that you feel are similar, that help build students up?

Debbie O’Shea  

In a way I think almost everything we do as music teachers would fit that category, but I think I’ll start talking about things that are not specific activities, but reminders of what you can do as a teacher, little tiny things, which I already sort of talked about with the whiteboards. The power of eye contact. Just in a circle game, if you’re in the middle, or you’re in the circle, you make eye contact with someone, there’s this little special connection, this little building up. Look, don’t underestimate things like that. That is what builds the relationships and builds that child’s feeling of self worth. I know that sounds really big for just looking someone in the eye, but it’s true. Smile at them, use their names. Gee, it’s tricky. I’m at a couple of new schools, and there’s hundreds and hundreds, and it’s like really tricky. The positive touch thing, the hand clapping games. In fact, a lot of the things I talked about in your summit Aileen, which was that therapeutic moments, those moments that build children up. We do that sort of stuff. But if for something more practical for the teachers out there, because I would like all of the listeners to take away a few ideas. I think manipulatives can also really be powerful in helping build kids up. So things like paddle pop sticks, I love my paddle pop sticks, counters, felt staves, that sort of thing, because it gives them that easy formative assessment. I think it’s easy for children to alter to be right, so the child that gets it wrong that you can just go, Oh, I think that notes on the second it’s in the wrong place. Let’s pop it on the second line. They just move the counter. They’re right now. They look up, grin, they’re built up. I’ve got it right. It was easy to do with those manipulatives. I think that, to me, is the power of that, and it’s also easy to be creative. It sounds like I’m down on pen and paper, I’m not. I love pencil and paper. I think it’s really important that they learn to read and write with pencil and paper. So I don’t want people to take that out of context. But I think it’s also easier to be creative. So if we take say, my staves, and I like felt staves, I have had laminated ones, but the counters slip, you know. So I like felt staves, counters and then you can just say pop your notes on, you know, B, A and G, whatever you’re doing, now just create a little melody. They just literally go, pop, pop, pop, pop. They can play it on their recorder or tuned percussion or whatever. They’ve just been creative. They’ve written something just by sticking counters in a position on the staff. I think they feel success, and they can do something well, easily, in a fun sort of way. So I think that those sort of activities build up students in a way that maybe we don’t always think about. We think, Oh, that’s a good way to practice this, in our lesson plan. But what we’re also doing is building up that child’s confidence in the area to take risks, to have a go, and it’s okay if you’re not right.

Aileen Miracle  

I love that perspective. I should also mention that I think it was the last time I had you on my podcast. We talked about manipulatives in the music room. So people should check out that podcast episode. So I will link to that episode in this episode’s show notes. So for those of you listening, if you go to aileensmusicroom.com/podcast and find episode 106 you’ll find the show notes, which will include a link to the podcast episode about manipulatives. So we had a really nice chat all about manipulatives and paddle pop sticks, which is like the equivalent for those of you in the states to popsicle sticks. Right? Paddle pop are just popsicle sticks. Is that right?

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, paddle pop sticks. We call them paddle pop sticks. 

Aileen Miracle  

Which is a more fun name.

Debbie O’Shea  

Well, I mean, I guess, of course, it’s very Australian. Paddle Pops is actually the brand of ice blocks. It’s actually the brand. I like banana paddle pops, vanilla is nice too. But some people are more the chocolate paddle pop fan. So they were the ice blocks on a stick that we grew up with. 

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, okay.

Debbie O’Shea  

It’s got the paddle pop lion on the front, but also when I was on your podcast before and talking about manipulatives. I have a short course on manipulatives, and, in fact at the time of recording, we’re about to open it again, so you’ve just got to keep a little eye out for when it’s open. I only sort of run it at certain times of the year. It’s not running all the time.

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, I can link to it too in the show notes, in case it is open, and people can click on it. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Thank you. 

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, of course. All right, so were there any other stories in the book that were especially meaningful or emotional for you to write about?

Debbie O’Shea  

Now this is a difficult question. It could be a huge question or a short question, so I’ll try and be a little brief. Those people who know me know brief is not my default. Okay, I am quite passionate about fighting for music education in our schools. I do tell a bit of a story in there about a campaign that I help to drive that is trying to preserve, reinstate music programs in our primary schools in our state and in fact, nationally, where I can. So that story is very meaningful for me. I tried through the whole book to weave the importance, in fact, you could even say that this whole book is about advocacy for music education and singing, I’ve woven it all the way through. Wherever possible I’ll talk about the benefits of singing together. That’s in there. I’ve tried to weave that through so that it’s not just for music teachers, though, obviously music teachers will relate to some of the stories very closely, but it is for others as well. It’s a self help and a help others book. I just talk a little, get a bit self indulgent, talking about the thrill of being the lyricist for this year’s Together Sing song. So Together Sing is an annual event that the beautiful Deb Brydon and I got started in 2022. So this year’s song, I was the lyricist working with Joe Twist. Oh, so could you pop the link in these show notes to register for Together Sing, because it’s free. It’s free people. Being the lyricist, I actually based the whole song on the fight for music education. It’s called We Shake the Ground and it’s about how the power of people together we can be so powerful we can shake the ground. 

Aileen Miracle  

Love that.

Debbie O’Shea  

So that’s an important story to me, connected to that.

Aileen Miracle  

Is it an event, kind of like everyone sings together? Is it like a live singing event?

Debbie O’Shea  

Sort of, the answer is, sort of. Actually we used to have an event where everyone sang the same song, same time, same date across Australia. It was called Music Count Us In and it lost funding, and we missed it as an advocacy tool. So Deb and I were having a chat when we were away doing a professional learning in regional Queensland, you shouldn’t just leave Deb and I to chat, and we went, do you know what? We could do this. So we did, but we tried to make it more flexible. So it’s actually linked to singing together for wellbeing. But you can perform the song anytime, anywhere. We sort of recommend that you could do something around October, which is mental health month, because we’ve made that connection. But you can do it anytime. My school performs it at the end of year concert, the choir and the bands and things, and we do it as the big finale and that’s not in mental health month, it’s just literally a free song. We have over 50 partners and all of the partners promote, maybe they provide some resources, someone might provide some lesson plans to go with it, and someone else will provide some social media tiles, and someone else will do an article on teaching children to sing. So we’ve just got so much stuff in there and everyone except the composer gives their time and effort for free. We do pay the composer, and we’ve managed to get a grant every year to pay the composer. 

Aileen Miracle  

That’s wonderful.

Debbie O’Shea  

So Kodály Queensland is the coordinating partner, because Debbie and I were both on the committee then, and also being attached to a non profit helps us to get the funding. So we, I mean literally hours every week I spend on Together Sing, many hours. It would be nice if we were also paid. But this is never, never about that, this is all about giving back. So when people register, we want them to register for their whole school. So they’ve got to put in numbers so that we know. So last year, there was over 100,000 singers every state and territory in Australia and some overseas. 

Aileen Miracle  

Wow. That’s amazing. Okay, I would love to link that in the show notes so that people could check that out. That sounds like an amazing opportunity for teachers and for students.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yeah, and the other things that were meaningful, I guess, is I am hoping that through people reading some of the things that I’ve learnt and some of my perspective, I guess, it may help them to learn and grow. I also think it’s important to acknowledge the giants on whose shoulders we stand, and I talk quite a bit about that, and the other two that were really difficult emotionally for me was there’s a bit about the black, swirling fog where I went through a little phase where I felt quite worthless and I’d like to think that there are people that can relate to that, that are going through this worthlessness type thing. It was actually several years ago now, and most people would have absolutely no idea, but that’s the way we cope, isn’t it? I was still doing the Crescendo stuff, but that was the first knowing on my first thought about the coloured crystals that ended up becoming part of the stalagmites, because I could literally visualise the black fog, it was in my chest, and you could see nothing. Then occasionally, as I started feeling, I guess, a little better about who I was and what I did, it would part a little bit, and I would see these little crystals. It sounds very weird now I’m saying it, but as that cleared more and more, I felt better about what was inside me and thought, No, this is me and all of these colours, and this is what I am and I am worthy. Writing about that was tricky. I also do mention our son Brett, who died when he was eight days old, I don’t go into that because, well I can’t, but I did want to mention that, and that was particularly difficult to write about, but I also felt I could not write this book and leave him out.

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, yeah. I think being able to talk about difficult events and struggles with depression or anxiety or anything like that, the more that people can share with one another. This happened to me, and this was really hard, I think the better, because then people can relate and know that they’re not alone. They’re not the only ones struggling, whether that be with an event or, like I said, depression, or whatever it is. So I think that’s wonderful that you were vulnerable and you shared some difficult stories. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Thank you. 

Small Daily Habits, Personal Growth, and the Power of Consistency

Aileen Miracle  

Yes. All right, so in the book, you do talk about music education, but then you also talk about kind of some daily habits that aren’t necessarily tied to education. So can you talk to us about some simple, like daily habits, just life habits that we can create to improve our life and improve our happiness and health.

Debbie O’Shea  

I love this question and it goes to the core of what this book is all about. I just love this question. So there’s going to be lots of things I’m going to suggest, but I think going back to the theory of it, what you do is you just choose one little thing, and then that becomes a habit. Once that’s a habit, and you may even feel better from doing that one little thing, then you can add another one and another one. It’s like compound interest, it just grows and grows. So that’s actually what the whole book is about. I’ll read just a little quote. “The smallest daily efforts build up to make a big difference. Just add one little task until it becomes habit. Then add another. It’s as simple as that”. So here’s some of the things that I’ve done that ended up making a massive difference. They didn’t by themselves, but they all did eventually, okay, I like this one, tie dye. I’ll stand up a bit. Alright. Everyone see? Okay, tie dye. Sorry for those of you just listening. I just flashed my chest at the camera. All right, now I need to explain one of the main reasons why I wear tie dye professionally. Well, there’s several reasons, I love colour. I just love colour. It just brings a smile to my face. So why not? But the main reason is it minimises decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is real, right? When I started wearing tie dye, my youngest son had chronic fatigue and some sort of issues we couldn’t get to the bottom of. I couldn’t get him out of bed, I couldn’t get him to school. You know, I was just coping as a parent and a teacher and I needed to simplify things. I didn’t realise what an impact it would make, but my tie dyes are just hanging up ready? I just get up. My shirt is on, whatever bottom half, summer or winter bottom halves, done. I don’t have to think, Oh, what am I wearing tomorrow? Oh, oh, it’s at the bottom of the ironing pile and it’s crushed. They are there. I don’t have to even think about it. Now, I know that does not seem like a lot, but I don’t know if your mornings have ever been anything like my mornings used to be. Anyone who’s a parent particularly, I’m sure they’re hearing me. So I think everyone should choose their version of your tie dye. I mean, you don’t have to be quite as rigid as I am. There’s my T shirts. I do have about 20. It’s not like I have three and have to keep washing them. But I just think if you can minimise your decision fatigue. What’s your tie dye? Another thing that made a big difference and I got this one from Jim Kwik, drink water as soon as you get up. Well, sorry for me, it’s go to the bathroom but then drink water. 

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, then drink water. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Your brain is dehydrated. Yes, I need water now, talking too much. You need to rehydrate your brain, so the difference that’s made. So just drink water. Without going into great detail, and I could, because this is one of my favourite topics, but develop a morning and an evening ritual of some sort, and I think that varies greatly depending on your season of life. I’m very lucky now I have more time. I do have an early start because my schools are a fair distance, but it’s just my husband and I at home, so I don’t have to get lunch for someone else. I’m just looking after myself so I can have a relatively self indulgent morning. My morning ritual includes quite a big walk with my dog in the bush track and then come back. So I get up early to do that and it includes, obviously, coffee. But my morning and my evening ritual help set me up for a simpler day. So even if you just do one thing each morning, yeah, to make the day easier, or something you set up at night for the next day. So I think those rituals are really important. The other thing that I really like that has improved dramatically thanks to Amy Revell, who’s a declutterer person who I’ve had on my podcast. I just love her. Her saying is, might as well. I thought, Oh, I loved that and the number of times I’ve done this. So I come back, let’s take my morning walk. I come back from my morning walk, taking my clothes off. Instead of putting them on the bed. I’ll put them away later. Oh, might as well put them straight in the drawer, or straight in the dirty clothes. So I say to myself, might as well. You might as well just do it. Or I need to top up the toilet paper. Might as well. Like, by the time I’ve thought about doing it, you might as well do it. It’s so powerful. Might as well. And the other one is that I got, oh, now I can’t remember his name, the amazing declutterer fellow, Oh, I so apologise. Now, what was he saying? Oh, it’s gone. It’s gone. I say it to myself all the time. Alright, we’ll come back to that, because I can’t remember. So those are a couple of the daily habits that have made a big impact.

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, those are all really good. I really appreciate the might as well, because so often, yeah, I’ll just put something down and won’t put it away, and if just in the moment I just put it away. 

Debbie O’Shea  

That’s right.

Aileen Miracle  

Instead of putting dishes in the sink, just wash them instead of putting them in the sink. Do you know what I mean, like just little things like that?

Debbie O’Shea  

Yeah, you might as well.  I just remembered it. How can I forget? Don’t put it down, put it away. The number of times I’ve gone to, I don’t know, put my keys or whatever, don’t put it down, put it away. Oh my goodness.

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, that’s really good. All right. So what do you hope educators, or really anyone, will take away from your book?

Debbie O’Shea  

The importance of music education. I’m hoping that people now, of course when people like you read my book, I don’t think you need convincing but I am hoping, well, people who are music educators, I think it will be affirming for them and perhaps help them see their role for the important role that it is. But I’m hoping that people may be converted, or that like, yeah, hey music is important for our kids, so I’m hoping they’ll take away that, but they can see the importance and power of singing together. They can see the power of collaboration, because there’s a lot about collaboration in that. I have the Together Sing story and work that Deb and I do together. I want them to also read this and feel that they are worthy. Just because they’re here, they’re worthy. I’m also hoping that they can dream big and work towards those lofty goals, but with small, steady, incremental steps, but to enjoy the journey, it’s not just about getting there, because once you get there, you actually just feel the same anyway. So enjoy the journey and those little steady steps, like I’ll be happy when, you know, oh I will be happy when I finish my book. Well, no, I’m no happier when I finished it then when I was writing it, you’ve got to enjoy the little steps. It’s about joy. Actually, joy is a main theme in these too. Here’s a little quote for you “Every interaction is an opportunity to add a positive drip to someone else’s growth”. Of course, I talk about drips a lot, because all those little bits of drips and I think that adding to other people’s stalagmites is just as important. I want this book to be a help others book just as much as it is a self help book. The other thing that I would like people to take away is another quote here “the ripples that spread from our work with colleagues carry the goodness, positivity and colour to hundreds and eventually, thousands of others. So when you’re working not just with your students, but with your colleagues, that any positive drip or brilliant colours or whatever they’re going to carry across to thousands of people and it’s just so powerful”.

Aileen Miracle  

To think about the impact of, yeah, I don’t think people understand how far their impact can reach you know, awesome. So besides your own writing, what books or resources have most inspired you in your journey? Whether they be educational or self help or whatever.

Debbie O’Shea  

I’m going to list a few. 

Aileen Miracle  

Okay.

Debbie O’Shea  

So Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School podcast. I love her self coaching model of thoughts, feelings, actions, results. You have this thought, you have this feeling about your thought, you’re taking, an action based on that and what the result is and it’s a really powerful model. I refer to it in the book, but obviously it’s just as in I learnt from this. If people want to learn from it, they’ve gotta go Michael Hyatt. I mean, I love him, and I’ve read his books, and I love his podcasts, and I love that concept of working in your discomfort zone, you’ve got to push yourself a bit to get into your discomfort zone to grow. I love that your best year ever, free to focus, all that stuff. Simon Sinek, I mean, who doesn’t love a Simon Sinek? Start with why. A little bit of inspiration. His emails. They actually inspired me to do my here’s a thought project. So I wrote 365 email messages to my colleagues, and you can sign up for them and get one every day for a year. I would like to point out that I wrote them all before ChatGPT. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I love it, I have a paid ChatGPT named Claude, I love them. But here’s a thought that was me writing every single one down, 365. I was inspired by Simon Sinek to do that. Adam Grant, I love his writing, Hidden Potential.

Aileen Miracle  

Oh, I read that as part of a book study for work and I really enjoyed it.

Debbie O’Shea  

Love it. His concepts about learning and motivation over natural talent. Again. Hey, stalagmite effect building that up. Of course, gosh, James Clear. It’s very clear. Pardon the, it’s not even a pun. It’s very clear that I love Atomic Habits, and it’s a core influence in my book. Andrew Abela, I’ve only discovered him fairly recently, Superhabits, virtues. He relates it to the four cardinal virtues framework. All these are sort of summarised in a little bit of a background bit in one of the chapters. Amy Porterfield. I love Amy Porterfield, who is in the business world, but she introduced me to the batching concept that has changed my teaching and my teaching planning and that sort of thing. More recently, Mel Robbins, I love, you know, the Let Them theory and her podcasts. I was starting to list other music educators, and I was worried about doing that, because I will end up missing somebody that’s really important to me. So can I just say other music educators, including yourself, I can list you. Okay, I love podcasts and I love summits. So I think they’re probably the books and resources that have inspired me the most.

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah, that’s actually a great segue into what we’re consuming. Do you want to talk about that? Because actually one of the books you mentioned is what I’m consuming? 

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, it is. 

Aileen Miracle  

Yes, it is, yeah. So I am consuming Atomic Habits. This is after I had heard from several people about Atomic Habits. It was on my radar. It was something that I heard about and then I said something to my boyfriend about it, because I think he had told me about it. Then I heard it from a few other people and then I mentioned it to him again. Oh yeah, I went to this session and they mentioned Atomic Habits. Then the next day, he had bought it for me and gave it to me and I was like, oh, so I started reading it, and yeah, I’ve never really thought about how habits can be intentionally created. Like we do so many things in our day where we just do them, because that’s what we’ve always done, without really thinking like, but why am I doing this? Or is this the best way to do this? So your example of drinking water as soon as you get up, that is something that I started a few years ago because I had read that, someone else had mentioned that and I thought that was a good idea. But then he talks about habit stacking in the book and just kind of adding, similar to what you were saying, like adding a habit to something that you’re already doing. So I thought, well, if I’m already drinking a glass of water when I first wake up, then I should also take my low dose aspirin. I unfortunately had a stroke a couple years ago. I don’t even know if I if I told you that Debbie, crazy? Yeah, that’s a whole other story but it was on my last day of teaching ever, because I am now an Arts Administrator, so I’m not in the classroom. So I was in my classroom and I just had so much to pack up in my classroom. Sorry, I’m going off into the story, but I had so much to pack up in my classroom and I’m looking at it, and I thought, oh my gosh, I have so much to do, like, just this sense of stress overwhelm me. Then at that moment, the whole left side of my body started tingling really hard and I was like, that’s weird. Why am I tingling like this? Then kids came in, because it’s 9.15, here they are. I waited a little bit and I was like, this is kind of getting worse. So the Assistant Principal happened to be in my room and I asked her if she could stay in my room so I could go to the nurse, because I was worried about my blood pressure at that point. Anyway, long story short, I ended up at the hospital and they didn’t realise at first that it was a stroke. They kept giving me stroke tests and thinking that it wasn’t a stroke, because I was passing all the stroke tests. It wasn’t until a couple months later that they did, I don’t know if it was like an angiogram. I don’t remember. They did some kind of test and they realised, Oh yeah, you had a stroke. So yeah, now I have to take a low dose aspirin every day. Sorry, that was a long story to get to the habit, which is now that I take and then there’s this whole other story where my boyfriend, a few months after that, also had a stroke and I was the one who found him. I know right. Like, what are the chances I was one who found him like he hadn’t responded to my messages and I’m like, Why isn’t he texting me back? I let myself into his house after trying to get hold of him and I found him and he wasn’t doing well. He was mumbling a lot, and it took me a while. I’m like, what is happening? Like, what is going on? Then I said, I think you had a stroke. He said to me, Oh, you’re projecting. So I thought well if he could have a sense of humour, maybe he didn’t have a stroke, I don’t know. But after a while, I was like, no, no, I think you had a stroke. I’m calling 911, and this is the only fight we’ve ever really had. He’s like, no, no, you don’t need to call. I’m like, No, I’m calling 911 they came and they did this test with him about the way his hand was turning or something the paramedics in his room said, yeah, he had a stroke. Like they were able to tell from whatever this test was. So I’m almost like, I have gratitude in a weird way that I had a stroke, because then I was able to tell that he had a stroke. You know what I mean? Anyway, all that to say I now have to take low dose aspirin every day. So the habit stacking is when I drink my water, I might as well take the low dose aspirin. So, yeah, so just little things like that, like I just had never really thought about creating habits and how you can really be thoughtful about them instead of just doing things the way that you’ve always done them.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, absolutely. I would say that my life was changed by Atomic Habits, yeah, and by those little incremental changes, yeah, it’s amazing. In fact, the day of recording it is my youngest son’s birthday. 

Aileen Miracle  

Oh yay. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Yay, he’s 28 and I’ve got the presents wrapped. After this, we’re going to visit him and drop them in, and he’s getting Atomic Habits as a present.

Aileen Miracle  

It’s a good gift to give someone.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yeah, it’s great. Now, that’s great, but all the listeners are going to go out and buy Atomic Habits, and they should, but can they also go out and buy The Stalagmite Effect (laughs).

Aileen Miracle  

Yeah. Please tell us where they can find it.

Sharing the Book and Continuing the Journey

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, the best place to buy it for me is the Balboa Press site, but that’s just for me as an author, it’s a bit better to go there. So the Balboa Press Prints in USA, America. Yep, that’s you USA, Australia and the UK. So they just print on demand and send it to you. So it’s balboapress.com and then it’ll just automatically take you to the country that’s closest to print that. But I will also admit that I would be very tempted if it was me. It’s also on Amazon, so, if you’re a prime member like me, you might just go, oh, I’ll just get it on Amazon. But just check, do the comparing of prices and stuff and whatever. But yeah, I think there’s a couple of other online places. I know I should know, but I’m pretty sure it’s listed on other online booksellers. And as far as I know, I haven’t been told that it’s been picked up by any book shops yet. That’s on my list of things to do is to sort of approach them. But at the moment you can buy it online, so Balboa Press, have a look there.

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, and I can link to that in the show notes for sure, so people can just click the link.

Debbie O’Shea  

If it takes you to the wrong country, you scroll all the way down in the very bottom, the right hand corner, you can change the country. So like, if you put the link to the US site and someone in Australia clicks on it, it doesn’t automatically change to Australia, so they’ve got to go right down to the bottom and change it to Australia.

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, all right. Well, you didn’t tell me what you’re consuming. I want to hear.

Debbie O’Shea  

So many things, but I think what I’m consuming most at the moment is I seem to be listening to a lot of Mel Robbin’s Podcast. I’m really enjoying that. I’m loving the people that she’s talking to and I’m just enjoying that, and I do love her style and she’s obviously really relatable and so I’m getting a lot of interesting perspectives and things that I can think about and reflect on. So I’m loving it. It was hard to pick one, but just Mel Robbins podcast is what I would say I’m listening to most.

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, I’ve heard good things about her so I’ll have to check it out. Well, is there anything else that you want to mention, or you can tell us where people can find you? Anything like that?

Debbie O’Shea  

Well, we’ve already talked about Together Sing. They’d make me very happy if they registered for Together Sing. I do have a podcast as well, if they’d like to listen to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast and it’s on all the podcast players. If you did buy and read my book, I’d love to hear from you, that’s great when I have had a couple of emails and people sending me a photo, going look and what they’re liking about it, because look I have a vague thought of another book, but I’m back working full time now, so it’s a very different prospect. So that’s all I’d just say if you do read my book, I would love to hear from you, see if the whole process was worthwhile and I’m on all the socials, but Facebook’s probably my main hangout.

Aileen Miracle  

Okay, well I can definitely link to all of your socials and everything else, your podcast, all of that in the show notes as well. Well, Debbie, thank you so much for coming on the show. It is such a pleasure to speak with you as always and I hope that people have gotten a lot from this, invaluable advice, but also go and check your book out.

Debbie O’Shea  

Thank you so much Aileen, I love chatting to you.

Aileen Miracle  

Yes, I love chatting with you, too. Thanks so much. Bye.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget that you’ll find the show notes on crescendo.com.au/episode168. Also you can find the transcripts there, so you’ve got all of the details that you need. If you’ve found this podcast useful, I’d really love it if you share the link with a colleague. Remember, all I can be is the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. We’ll meet again. I hope we will, bye.

Just for Laughs 

As we know laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life. The furniture shop keeps calling me but all I wanted was one night stand. Did I say that well enough? Was one night stand. I don’t know. It’s just funny.