The Little Guy

The TPL Show

Who is the Little Guy?

• The Little Guy is a version of yourself that lives in your head.
• It's an inner voice that sows doubt, fear, and self-hatred.
• The little guy is a dark part of you that tears you down and pushes you to be petty and negative.
• It's an inner voice that we must all overcome if we seek to live happy, healthy lives.

Why is overcoming the Little Guy important?

• Because the Little Guy robs leaders of valuable thinking time, resulting in less effective solutions, less inspirational interaction, and even less time leading.
• To lead well, leaders need the full capacity of their minds. They must have time to think, and those thoughts have to be very clear.
• Our brains are kind of like computers. We only have so much space available to process things. If we clog our brains up with the unproductive, maybe even counterproductive, thoughts of the Little Guy, we're reducing our capacity to TPL (Think, Plan, and Lead).
• To be the best leaders we can be, we must learn how to overcome the Little Guy, because it’s destructive, distracting, and takes you off task.

How do we contain the Little Guy?

• One - Acknowledge that the Little Guy occupies space in your head and commit to containing it.
• Two - Keep the Little Guy contained.
• At the time of big decisions and important interactions ask yourself, "am I containing the Little Guy?"
• Develop an internal leadership kata[1] tocontain the Little Guy.
• Optimize your Inner-Coach – the adversary of the Little Guy.
• Perform Hansei (self-reflection). Use the 3 Questions of the After-Action Review to do this.
• What was supposed to happen?
• What actually happened?
• What will I commit to do next time to improve the outcome?
• Approach everything with Shoshin – the Beginner’s Mind.
• Three - Read the book, “The Wise Advocate the Inner Voice of strategic leadership”, by Art Kleiner, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Josie Thompson.
• Four - Develop a Life Purpose that is noble, a Life Vision, and a personal Code of Ethics.
• Five - Gain input, advice, and feedback from a mentor, or personal board of advisors.
• Six - Practice, practice, practice.

Key Tools

• Write us at [e-mail] for a free guide on how to contain the Little Guy.
• “The Wise Advocate the Inner Voice of strategic leadership”, by Art Kleiner, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Josie Thompson.
• Full Show Notes & Transcript - https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7i7dldups0983l/Show%20Notes%20%26%20Transcript%20for%20Episode%2010%20-%20The%20Little%20Guy.pdf?dl=0

Episode Transcript

[00:00] Luke: Everybody. Welcome back to the TPL Show. First off, I think we

maybe owe the listeners an apology.

[00:10]Dave: Why is that?

[00:11]Luke: Well, we haven't recorded them.

[00:12]Dave: Well, that's true. We certainly got distracted by hot projects and

the holidays and all that stuff.

[00:21]Luke: So 2023 New Year.

[00:26]Dave: Happy New Year.

[00:28]Luke: Happy New Year to all of our listeners. Yeah. So here we are.

We're recording in our new recording studio.

[00:36]Dave: Yes. We vacated the loft, and we now have studio space.

[00:45]Luke: Studio space? Yeah.

[00:46]Dave: In downtown Lebanon, Ohio.

[00:48]Luke: It's very fancy.

[00:49]Dave: Yeah, it's very fancy.

[00:50]Luke: There are sound dead named panels on the wall in this room.

[00:57]Dave: Yeah.

[00:57]Luke: I don't know if that works, but it's there.

[00:59]Dave: But there's no giant semicircular window that makes you feel like

you're in Sam Spade’s detective office. I miss that.

[01:08]Luke: And you're not going to hear fire trucks.

[01:10]Dave: That's true.

[01:10]Luke: Down the street.

[01:11]Dave: Yeah. Later. Eleven is no

longer a block away.

[01:15]Luke: If you do hear a fire truck, it's probably something serious,

because it's probably inside this building.

[01:19]Dave: Yeah.

[01:20]Luke: So just FYI.

[01:21]Dave: Yeah.

[01:22]Luke: Okay. All right, let's move on with today's episode. So today we

are going to be talking about the little guy.

[01:32]Dave: The little guy.

[01:34]Luke: So, let's get into it.

[01:35]Dave: Okay.

[01:37]Luke: I'm Luke.

[01:38]Dave: I'm Dave.

[01:39]Luke: And this is the TPL Show.

[01:49]Narrator: Welcome to The TPL Show, a podcast dedicated to the study and

discussion of leadership. Join us as we share relevant, simple, and lasting

methods for improvement that can be used to lead from any level in any

organization.

[02:20]Luke: All right, the little guy. Dave, tell us, who is the little guy?

[02:25]Dave: Okay, so the little guy is a version of yourself that lives in

your head. It's an inner voice that seeds doubt, fear, and self-hatred. The

little guy is a dark part of you that tears you down and pushes you to be petty

and negative. It's an inner voice that we must all overcome if we seek to live

happy, healthy lives.

[02:57]Luke: So, everybody has a form of this.

[03:00]Dave: Everybody has some form of this dark inner voice, which we at

Avenulo call the little guy.

[03:09]Luke: Is this a version of . . . would you call this a version of self-conscience?

[03:15]Dave: Sure. So, in ancient times, people described what was going on

inside our heads with stories, with characters, with themes. They could

certainly observe these things, but they couldn't study them very

scientifically.

[03:39]Dave: Right.

[03:40]Dave: So, since ancient times, a common view of what's going on inside a

human mind is that there are many voices inside of us. And these voices form

kind of a chorus in the ancient Greek sense. Right. And they respond and

comment and so forth as you're moving through your day and life. And so there's

this one negative voice in the chorus, which we call the little guy. So, that's

what it is. So, we're talking about leadership. Right. And we're always talking

about increasing ways to think, plan and lead – TPL. So that you can be an effective leader. And the whole premise of the show is that no matter where you are on your

leadership journey if you study and practice the science and the art of

leadership, you'll become a way better leader than you are now. So, you can

employ this study of leadership and become a better and better leader. It's a

continuous improvement approach to your leadership capability. And so it's time

to talk about the little guy, because everybody has a little guy in their head,

and leaders have to address this to become the best leaders they can be. So,

that takes us to the ‘Why”. We usually

do this, what, why, how in our format. Right?

[05:20]Luke: And today we're doing the who.

[05:23]Dave: Yeah, today we're doing the who, why, how. Because it's the little

guy. So, we've talked about who. So, what. Why is it important to overcome the

little guy for leaders?

[05:34]Luke: Okay? It's important because to lead well, leaders need the full

capacity of their minds. They must have time to think, and those thoughts have

to be very clear.

[05:47]Dave: Sure.

[05:48]Luke: This little guy robs leaders of valuable thinking time, and that

results in less effective solutions, less inspirational interaction, and even

less time leading.

[06:03]Dave: Sure, it does. Yeah.

[06:05]Dave: If you think of our brains as kind of like a computer, we only

have so much space available to process things. And if we clog it all up with

these unproductive, maybe even counterproductive thoughts of the little guy,

we're reducing the capacity we have to think, plan, and lead.

[06:28]

Luke: For the good stuff.

[06:29]Dave: Yeah.

[06:30]Luke: Full of the bad.

[06:32]Dave: For the good stuff. Yeah. Great way to say it. Okay, so that's at the

heart of the matter. Is it's important because to be a better and better

leader, you have to learn how to overcome this little guy in your head because

the little guy is destructive, distracting, and takes you off task.

[06:54]Luke: Do you think most leaders are aware of the little guy?

[06:57]Dave: I don't think so. As a matter of fact, when we train Sensei in our

organization, which are the internal consultants of our clients, and we talk

about the little guys, we caution them quite carefully not to use this as a

widely spread lesson plan or approach because some people can be very offended

by even the notion that there are voices in their head or that there are

negative thoughts dominating their thinking. So, it's something to know about

for sure. But I don't think many leaders think about this. And if you look at

the literature, not much is written or taught about this idea about how you

have to overcome this kind of negative aspect of self.

[07:56]Luke: That's true. You see a lot of stuff out there about self-love and

trying to inspire positive thinking, but it doesn't really address this

specific.

[08:10]Dave: Yeah, it almost talks around it.

[08:13]

Luke: It's like, yeah, you can have negative thoughts, but it's not

really an ongoing thing that you have to battle.

[08:22]Dave: Yeah. And so, if you sit

quietly with your thoughts and kind of become aware of your thoughts, you can

kind of push yourself aside for a minute and just watch your thoughts. Right? Many times we're saying things to ourselves

like, I'm stupid, I screwed that up. I'll never get that. Right. Nobody likes

me. They don't recognize my authority. My boss doesn't support me. On and on

and on, these kinds of thoughts race through our minds and just clog it up.

[08:56]Luke: A lot of the times, that inner voice is not intentionally, but a

lot of the times, it's negative.

[09:05]Dave: Yeah.

[09:05]Luke: It's just the way we've been raised or the way we grew up, it just

kind of always stemmed to a negative state.

[09:14]Dave: Sure.

[09:14]Luke: It doesn't always have to be that way. And of course, with

practice, as we're talking about, you can get into that positive mindset that

reduces the negative thought.

[09:24]Dave: Yeah. So when we talk about

the why, we've got this why about it just is unproductive because it limits the

good thinking that you need to do. But there's also this very kind of realistic

aspect, which is if you're not doing that good thinking, then you're sub-optimizing

the results that you achieve. And if you are doing that good thinking, you're

optimizing more and more the results you achieve. And people are studying this

when we have a positive inner voice and we apply that to leadership, we get a

better outcome. We get better results. And those results promote better results and

a more positive view and a more positive outcome. And you get this cycle of

very positive things when you minimize this negative voice in you.

[10:26]Luke: Okay, how does somebody do this?

[10:29]Dave: Yeah.

[10:30]Luke: So how can somebody overcome this negative little guy in their

head?

[10:37]Dave: Sure. So, it's simple if we talk about the how to, it's simple in

the list. It's simple in talking about it. When you make the checklist of what

are the things you do, it's very simple. But it's actually more challenging

than it sounds. Right. So, we need to keep that in mind and not kind of be glib

about it. When we're talking about this is a process that can take some time.

[11:06]Luke: That makes sense. It's not

something it's not a switch that you just flip on and off.

[11:09]Dave: Yeah. So, the first thing is to acknowledge that the little guy

does indeed occupy space in your head and commit to contain it.

[11:20]Luke: There's the awareness.

[11:20]Dave: There's the awareness. Right. So, yes, this little guy is rolling around in

there. He's taking up valuable time. He's sub-optimizing my ability to lead,

which is then sub-optimizing the organization. It's causing people to be

disengaged. Whatever.

[11:42]Luke: It's a trickle-down effect.

[11:44]Dave: It's a trickle-down effect. Right. So, to acknowledge the little

guy is there and then set a commitment in your mind to put a stop to that or

contain it. So that's the first thing so the second thing is, then keep that

little guy contained.

[12:04]Luke: Lock him up.

[12:05]Dave: Lock him up. So, this is easier said than done, right? And so,

every time the little guy starts talking in your mind, you have to start

building the habit of, hey, stop it. Be quiet, and quiet that negative inner

voice. And just put it aside, right? Let it die, let it drift away, and so

forth. And a very simple way to do that is to start when you're making big

decisions. You've got important interactions throughout that process. Just to

ask yourself periodically, am I keeping the little guy out of this? Is the

little guy showing up here? And this is a question you're asking inside your

own mind. And you're answering and then adjusting accordingly. So, the path for

doing this is just practicing it. Thinking

about it, and you build your own very specific how-to in terms of how to keep

the little guy contained. Some people sit for a minute quietly and refocus.

Some people might exercise, some might rest, right? Some might go do a sport,

get with a loved one, whatever it might be. You'll find your own way through

this if you become aware that when that little guy surfaces, you quell that and

then work on keeping that little guy contained.

[13:26]Luke: And I, of course, think that the more you practice this, the

better your awareness becomes, obviously.

[13:34]Dave: Yeah. Right.

[13:35]Luke: So once you're used to checking in and saying, okay, am I keeping

the little guy out of this? It becomes more natural and subconsciously. I think

you are already starting to do that by removing that negative thought.

[13:52]Dave: Yeah.

[13:52]Luke: Does that make sense?

[13:53]Dave: It makes perfect sense. In an episode in the near future, we'll talk

about leadership kata. So kata is the thing that martial arts students and

experts use often. They're called forms. Kata is the thing they use to

specifically move in certain defensive or offensive postures to make that punch

or kick, or to make that body throw. And you repeat these again and again and

again as you study a martial art until you become so proficient in them, you

can do them automatically.

[14:29]Luke: Just train your body to make that movement.

[14:31]Dave: Yeah. And then that gives

you this advantage in the moment when you're having to defend yourself, et

cetera.

[14:36]Luke: It's a reaction versus . . .

[14:41]Dave: So, the great leader and engineer Taichi Ono, of course,

knew about this idea of kata. And he kind of transformed the way you can think

about management and saying, not only are there physical kata but there are

leadership kata. So, there are things you can do, five questions in a row you

can ask, or three things you can do. And it forms a leadership kata. And then

you can practice those over and over and over again until you become very

proficient at them. And it really increases your leadership. So, we'll talk

about those in some detail in another episode. But right now, I mentioned all

that just to say this. This idea of

checking in with yourself and keeping the little guy out of it. It's a unique

and personal leadership kata that you build, but it's an inner kata. You're not

asking the question outside with others. You're asking or going through that

process, whatever it might be for you, that kata to contain the little guy.

You're developing a personal internal kata to contain the little guy.

[15:46]Luke: Yeah.

[15:47]Dave: So, that's keep the little guy contained. Another thing you can do

is optimize your inner coach. Just like there's this little guy that's

negative. There's an inner coach that's an inner voice, but it's very

different, very different than the little guy.

[16:04]Luke: This is the positive side?

[16:05]Dave: It's the positive side. The little guy hates you and wants you to

be destroyed. Right. The inner coach loves you and wants you to prosper,

succeed, and be happy. So you can give this inner coach more space in your mind

and help this inner coach to develop and grow your ability to listen to this

inner coach. Right?

[16:36]Dave: There's many ways, but there are three nice ways to do that. The

first is to practice Hansei. Hansei is the art of self-reflection. So, you

think about your day or your week. You get a routine together where you sit

down and reflect. Maybe every day, maybe every week, whatever makes sense for

you. And...