@VRMan3D, that's funny about using "shutdown". Yea unfortunately Alexa reserves certain words like "stop" and apparently "shutdown".
What word are you using for your "Voice" word for your command? Alexa understands certain words better than others.
It often helps to look at your voice command history at https://alexa.amazon.com/ to see what she heard. You can compare your voice word to what Alexa hears to pick something she hears well every time.
Another option is to use the TRIGGERcmd Smart Home skill. You say, "Alexa, turn on notepad" instead of "Alexa, ask TRIGGERcmd to run notepad." The Smart Home skill works better because Alexa knows your commands ahead of time and only has to match what you said to one of your commands.