Let's start with this:

Humanity's greatest asset is its capacity for the kind of deep reflective consciousness that gives rise to personal transformation. It is the capacity to be aware that one is aware, to be conscious of what one is thinking or saying both privately and publicly, to be fully conscious of one's own awareness. Reflective consciousness is the essential difference that separates humans from all other species.

The Evolutionary Upgrade with No Equal

Reflective consciousness is truly nature's evolutionary masterpiece. Without it, our future would be determined solely by the interaction of our environment and our genetic makeup. The mechanisms by which nature transformed simple consciousness into reflective consciousness is a profound neurobiological mystery. Put another way, how nature transformed three pounds of neurons and brain tissue into the human capacity for self‐awareness and reflective consciousness is beyond our current understanding. Little by little, however, the scientific community is beginning to unravel this remarkable genetic mystery.

All species in the animal kingdom, including humans, possess the capacity for awareness. A deer or bear in the forest possesses a keen awareness of its environment. Any unusual sound, smell, or movement mobilizes the animal for immediate action to enhance survival. All animals, as well as humans, can be conscious or unconscious, aware or unaware, but only humans possess the capacity for reflective consciousness, the ability to observe consciousness itself. That precise, uniquely human capacity, was summoned when you were asked to answer the questions presented in Chapter 4, “Time for Serious Reflection.”

Critical Understanding: Voice Training 101 begins with reflective consciousness.

Using Your Capacity for Reflective Consciousness, Ponder These Questions Before Making Important Decisions

• What is the central issue in the decision I am about to make?
• What do I really want as the long‐term outcome here?
• What are other alternative choices that I should consider?
• What are the real consequences if I don't get this right?
• What are the risks on both sides?
• What am I not completely certain about relative to this decision?
• What are the trade‐offs on both sides of the decision?
• What core values must I consider in making this decision?
• What are the likely long‐term consequences of the decision I am about to make?
• What are the chances that my brain is being hijacked in making this decision? Am I deluding myself to get the decision I want?
• What does my Y.O.D.A. say is the right decision?

From “What” to “Who”

• Who are your closest family members you can trust in helping you make the right decisions in life?
• Who are the people you respect most for their ability to make well‐informed, responsible decisions in good and bad times?
• Who has consistently given you sound advice in making the right choices over time?
• Who has gained your highest respect for choosing the hard right over the easy wrong in challenging moments?
• Who would you give unconditional access to your central command center because you have total trust that they always have your long‐term best interests in mind?
• Who are three to five trusted people you would put on your decision‐making advisory board whose counsel you would seek in making big life choices?

Eight‐Step Training Program

Step 1: Purchase a journal and a small notebook that can fit into your back pocket (like golfers carry) or anywhere else you can access it quickly.

Step 2: For two weeks, become consciously aware of the tone and content of both your inner self‐coaching voice and your public voice. Pay particular attention to your inner voice. Record in your small notebook how you speak to yourself, both “you talk” and “I talk” (e.g. “You're doing okay; you're an idiot; I can't believe I said that; I'm so unlucky”). Record as much “you talk” and “I talk” in your notebook as possible throughout the day. At the end of each day, transfer the messages from your notebook into your journal. Date every day's entry. This step is not complete until you have completed 14 days of recording your inner voice and public voice coaching messages. Each day's entries simply represent a sampling of that day.

Step 3: Review all 14 days of your notes and prepare a written summary of your findings in your journal. Things to consider in your summary: What kind of coach are you to yourself? Would you ever say the things you say to yourself to someone you deeply cared about? Are you pleased or shocked by what you learned in the two weeks of reflecting on your own self‐coaching messages? Is your self‐coaching predominantly positive and constructive or negative and hurtful? Does what you say to yourself breed self‐confidence, health, and happiness or does it tend to undermine them? Would you be embarrassed if the coaching messages you gave to yourself were made public?

Step 4: Make a conscious decision to either (1) train to improve the tone and content of your self‐coaching, or (2) leave as is. If you elect to train, proceed to step 5.

Step 5: Commit to journaling for a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes daily for a period of at least three months. One of the most effective ways of retraining the way your private and public voices speak to you is through handwriting. You simply script in advance the inner messages you would like delivered by your Y.O.D.A. in situations that have historically produced toxic or potentially harmful self‐coaching. Examples could include:

• Traffic, competition, managing mistakes, misbehaving children, spouse's verbal attacks, disengaged employees, financial pressure, low energy, failure to meet expectations, politics, disrespectful children, choking in sports.
• For getting the scripts right, tap into your Best Self and Inner Y.O.D.A. Your Y.O.D.A. should be preloaded with your core purpose for living, your core values, your personal credo, and your ultimate mission in life.

Step 6: Most phones today have the ability to record voice memos. Simply go to your app store and select an app with voice memo recording capability. This enables you to coach yourself with your own public voice (you coaching yourself publicly).

Again, tap into your Best Self and Inner Y.O.D.A. to determine the best possible coaching script. Listening to you coaching yourself in your own voice can be a very powerful strategy for getting through to your inner command center.

Voice memos can also be very effective in embedding critical operating instructions into your command center, such as core purpose in life, core values and beliefs, and personal credo.

Step 7: Record all your training inputs daily in your journal. Training inputs are any intentional energy investment made in a given day to move raw Inner Voice 1 to trained Inner Voice 2 or raw Public Voice 1 to trained Public Voice 2. As we learned in Chapter 2, Inner Voice 1 and Public Voice 1 are untrained (potentially toxic) and Inner Voice 2 and Public Voice 2 are trained (constructive) coaching messages. The process of tracking your training activities is called “quantification” in the research world. Quantifying your training investments represents an important step in achieving the outcome you want.

Step 8: Say “stop” as soon as you become aware of any nonconstructive self‐coaching messages, either private or public. Immediately replace the faulty self‐coaching with something helpful and constructive.

Another example: Immediately put your index finger over your lips signaling “Be quiet! Change the message now!”

Final recommendation: Stay with your voice training for at least 90 days. New habits require dedicated time and energy investment if they are going to truly last. The payoff is priceless!

Sources

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