Tap Into Greatness. Sarah Singer-Nourie
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a particular thing until something shifts and you do something about it.
Your little voice is the third Who, right here in the mix as you read these words, with us.
It’s also what we have in common, and is foundational for everything else I’ll teach you in this book. You, the people you’d like to influence (especially the challenging ones), and I may have one critically important refrain coming from our little voice. The thing that has powered me1 through all the conflict I created and all the difference I’ve made in the way people teach and lead, is a persistent complaint that might be familiar to you and to the people you’d like to influence right now. It may also drive what your team is thinking about their same-old routine, or why you picked up this book as a leader…
“There’s got to be a better way.”
Have you ever had that thought as you were cringing through another conflict with the same person again? Sitting through another incredibly boring meeting or conference call? Watching your audience glaze over during a presentation? Of course you have. And so has your team.
Where this becomes an edge for me and benefit for you here is that I don’t ever just let it go. “There’s got to be a better way” pairs with “What if….” and gnaws at me until I do something about it. I experiment, strategize, research and re-experiment until I solve it with a better way. Like how to truly lead with impact (hence this book). I’ll keep solving because refinement is continuous. I’ve taught every concept in this book at least 500 times, and every time I do I get a new facet of it, a better refinement of it.
So that’s a great example of that little voice acting as a catalyst for something awesome, as it often is. It can cause inspiration or get you to your best. Except when it doesn’t, which is also the case sometimes. It can cause mischief in your thinking, or psyche you out.
Truthfully, many of us have competing voices a lot of the time. Think cheerleader on one shoulder, critic on the other—a more accurate depiction of what’s really going on in there than the angel-devil image we’ve seen in movies.
Dr. Martin Seligman, known as the originator of “positive psychology” coined the phrase “learned helplessness” and is the foremost researcher on our internal dialogue’s impact. Patterns in how that little voice talks to us optimistically or pessimistically determine our resilience, and how quickly we give up or stick with something when it doesn’t go well. Seligman explains that much of it comes down to the “explanatory style” of our little voice- how we explain negative and positive events to ourselves. Your explanatory style2 has three important parts, Permanence, Pervasiveness, and Personalization:
Whatever direction it steers you, your little voice is an important force of influence in everything you do. So pay attention to it.
The other voices
Just like you, every person you’re with or trying to influence at any moment also has the little voice/s yammering away at them. So while you might be the one up in front or with the title, speaking at any given time, there are a lot of other inaudible voices in the room competing with you. An accurate roll call in your last meeting would include your actual voice, which had the floor, plus your internal little voice, plus all the little voices inside every head of the people ‘listening’ (or not) to you in the conversation, possibly all silently speaking at once while you were the only one audible in the room. And you thought you really had the floor? Maybe.
At any given time, the voice in someone’s head as you’re talking/interacting with them is doing one of the following:
1. It’s agreeing and connecting with you, all in, ready to go with you.
2. It’s questioning, resisting or disagreeing with you.
3. It’s distracted and not even listening, and needs to be refocused to get back into the game, so it needs to be won over. It might also need to be heard so you can get the other point of view it’s hanging onto.
You want their voice with you, in position #1, yes? Ultimately. But before you start trying to win them over, know that if their voice is questioning you, it could be because there’s a genius idea (different from yours) brewing in there. Or there could be some decent feedback for you about why they’re not in agreement. If you can just get inside their heads, right?
Here’s how to start:
1. Start noticing your own little voice and where it’s going
For the next few conversations/hours/days, observe what’s going on in your own head while you interact with others and go about otherwise normal activity. Where does your little voice pipe up? When you’re doing great? When you’re flailing? When someone else is talking? Awareness and exposure to it starts to give you some options of what to do with it and how to channel it.
• Notice patterns.
Are there certain situations that trigger your inner critic every time? Cut them off at the pass. Situations in which your voice keeps pestering you about the same issue? Maybe it’s time to address the issue. Conditions that summon a certain voice? Maybe it’s best to not make decisions when you’re really upset, as the voice isn’t rational, and you regret it later every time.
• Get mastery.
The truth is that this topic is huge, and takes more than a few tips to truly master. It’s worth doing, as it truly pilots everything you do. The single best source on this topic for you is Blair Singer—start with his Little Voice Mastery book and system.
2. Consider their little voices
As you start to notice your own little voice a bit more, consider that everyone you interact with has their own little voice, too. Imagine what their voice might be saying, and pay attention to cues you can see from the outside (facial expression, eye movements, body language, pauses).
3. Address the voice/s in the room.
If you know that their little voice is working in the background of your conversation in a particular way (like doubting or criticizing), call it out. “You may be doubting whether or not we can do this, based on how it went last time. That’s understandable. Here’s what’s completely different now…”
Calling out what’s been silently working against you de-powers it, like turning on bright lights in a dark, creepy room. It’s all still there, but now you can see what you’re dealing with clearly and directly.
In a group, calling out voices like this is liberating for everyone involved; often you can hear an audible sigh of relief as everyone relaxes a little.
A particular voice to look out for: The Skeptic
If you know yourself as a skeptic or would like to influence one, know that this is an important foe to be aware of as a leader, and is simply a product of a loud little voice.
I believe that a skeptic is really just an optimist who’s been hardened over time by too many layers of disappointment in what they thought was possible, so they’ve steeled themselves against more disappointment by disengaging or convincing themselves with a mantra of “it’s not possible.” Usually they have competing little voices at work in their heads—one that’s still under there, asking, “What if I/we could…?” and a louder one drowning it out with “It’s NOT possible, let me remind you of all the times we’ve failed with that naive thinking.” I love working with skeptics and resistant learners because I get them. We’ve got the same core vision. They’ve just allowed theirs to get buried under a bunch of defensive negativity and I didn’t.
Here’s the key to the skeptic voice, should yours pop up during this process (likely) or you encounter one in your path:
• First acknowledge the doubt as real.
Acknowledging