Speaker - December 2007

Practice, Practice, Practice

Managing the voices in your head is not easy. Getting them to agree and work with you instead of against you can be downright frustrating. Most of us know what to do, but struggle with doing it consistently. (Otherwise we’d all be trim, completely healthy and free of any bad habits.) Yet, just as the bad habits take practice to get rid of, the good habits take time to form and take hold, and remember that those voices in your head have been talking to you habitually for years.

Spend time paying attention to how you react to things and determine how you want to react and how you’d like to respond differently. Get good at looking for the facts in situations that have an emotional attachment or history for you; these are the ones most likely attached to habitual, but not necessarily accurate thinking. Monitor how much you care about what other people think, pay attention to what is getting in the way of what you are thinking and give yourself a break when you fall into comfortable conversations with yourself that may have no basis in truth or accuracy. Then do it again and again and again.

Be a Mind-Leader

The meeting of the minds and agreement between the voices inside your head are where we find happiness and contentment. Don’t snicker; it not as trite as it sounds. If you are not leading the voices in your head well, conducting effective internal voice management, then, frankly, you have no business leading other people. And in this business, despite your title, it’s what we all do—lead others to be better. The degree to which you can lead your own voices will determine your ability to lead your audience and clients to make decisions and make a difference.

Monica Wofford brings more than 18 years of experience as a business consultant, trainer, speaker and coach to Monica Wofford International, Inc. She is the author of numerous learning tools, including “Contagious Leadership,” “Contagious Confidence” and “Contagious Customer Service.” She can be reached at www. monicawofford.com or (866) 382-0121.

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