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
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...
