I'm reading The One Minute Millionaire by Robert Allen and Mark Victor Hansen (co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul) and I think I just discovered a new method of "Little Voice" management.

 

First off, what is your "Little Voice"? Your "little voice" is a term coined by Blair Singer (advisor of Robert Kiyosaki and author of SalesDogs) that refers to the little guy in your head that keeps telling you that "You can't do it", "It's too hard", etc. Much of what Blair teaches, in terms of building a successful company, learning how to sell effectively, honestly and with confidence, and building your business team, revolves around the concept of managing (and overriding) your little voice. The idea is that, if you can just stop yourself from stopping yourself from doing great things... you'll do great things.

 

So, in the One Minute Millionaire, the authors suggest wearing a thick elastic band on your wrist and snapping it whenever you think a negative thought along the lines of, "I can't afford it", "I don't have the resources", and so on. They call it the "Millionaire Maker" with, once again, the idea being that if you can stop those negative thoughts in their tracks, you'll make space for thoughts that are useful to you and that will move you to do great things. It's called a pattern-break and it literally breaks the pattern of you talking yourself out of doing great things.

I've taken this approach one step further and have used it, this morning, to have an argument with my little voice. I've got a bunch of work that I simply HAVE to get through this weekend so that I can get on with more fun (and more profitable) things next week. But it's Saturday and I'd much rather enjoy the beautiful day outside or read than work.

The trick to overcoming my LV this morning was that each time my little voice had something negative or counter-productive to contribute, I snapped the band. I've had many arguments with my LV so that part wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the rubber-band snapping. After 4 or so hard snaps, I heard the little guy say, "Okay already, let's just do this". And so began my work this Saturday. Normally I can find a million excuses not to work but when each excuse equals a snap on the wrist, well, that number drops sharply to just 4 - not bad ;)