Four Inner Voices Every Leader Needs to Recognize — Part 2

Welcome, Lighten Up Nation! It is time for another episode of the Lighten Up Project. Thank you, everyone, for joining me. It is I, everyone, all together now. Malcolm Grissom, the stand-up CEO and founder of the World Laughter Organization. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So this is part two of the series, the two-part series where I'm talking about laughter and the emotional intelligence, and I'm talking about four voices. If you recall, so in part one, I left our leaders with a question, And the question is, how's your chat going? Just as a quick reminder, the four voices that are in this chat. There's the originator. The originator's that creative, innovative voice that comes up with new ideas. There's the evaluator. That's the judging voice that questions whether the work is good enough, could be positive or negative. There's the challenger. Now, the challenger is that that structuring voice that pushes you to refine and reorganize, and then there's the saboteur. The saboteur is a voice that attacks you, that attacks your worth, and not your work. So here's an honest picture of what happened to me not too long ago. I was president of one of my Toastmasters clubs, and we had a guest visit. She was really, really excited about joining, and she told me she especially wanted to join because she wanted to do, she wanted to work on giving a TEDx talk one day, and before I could even open my mouth, I heard this voice saying, "Sound smart, sound smart, correcter, correcter, shower you know the bigger picture. You are the leader. That was the evaluator, wasn't the saboteur? You might think it was, but it wasn't. It was the evaluator, and the thing about these voices-at least three of these four voices-aren't automatically the enemy. They're the originator, the evaluator, and the challenger. They all have a real job to do, and they're worth listening to at times. And the evaluator just at that time just happened to be the loudest

one in the room, the one with the microphone, and it was making a judgment call about how I, as the leader, should show up, and I listened to it. And what came out of my mouth was, "Well, Toastmasters isn't really structured enough to actually get to the TEDx stage, which, in my opinion, is true. It's not. However, what I did not say, and which is also true in my opinion, is Toastmasters is a great place to establish a strong basis of communication. So you would take Toastmasters, and then when you're ready for a TEDx talk, then you go to a teacher because TEDx has a different structure and different things than they're looking for in a speech that Toastmasters does not cover. That's what I meant. However, that's not what I said, and what I missed. Is addressing her enthusiasm, and so because of I reacted that way, I lost everything. Now, a simple moment, a simple Laugh at the right time could have repaired that, but instead I moved on. Now here's the different Toastmaster meeting. Again, I'm the president, and the member gets heated. We're having a heated discussion. The members heated and disruptive over a suggestion, and the evaluator pipes up again. As member, you need to take control. You do. You need to take control. You need to put her in her place, and that's reasonable advice. I mean, that's that's not necessarily negative. There are times when, yes, as the leader, that's exactly what you need to do. However, what also showed up was this voice. Uh oh, there's steam coming out of her ears. You better not say anything right now. And that's the voice that I listened to. That gave me a little laugh, a little spark of humor. That gave me pause, so I did not react right away to what the evaluator was telling me. And sometimes the evaluator is picking up on something real, but it's that that little internal humor, that laughter that's needed at times to separate the brain from listening and reacting right away to what the evaluator is saying, or what any

voice is saying actually. So it's that laughter that gives the brain pause. So instead of reacting, you are responding. So let's rewind even further back to my stand-up peers.

Now here's a period of time when there was a voice, an inner voice that I've talked about earlier in this in this podcast, but it's a voice of it's the saboteur voice, and I've named it Minnie Mama. Many mama is my saboteur. Now I'm not gonna dwell on this very much, but Minnie Mama kept telling me and repeating me over and over, "This comedy thing, yeah, it ain't working for you. You should just quit. You should quit, and that was what Minnie Mama kept saying, but eventually I learned through humor to really talk back and say, "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. You told me I'm not funny. Yeah, I know, I know, and that I'm the most boring person on the earth, the entire world. I'm so dry. I'm drier than the teacher on Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller. But you know what? 10 years of doing stand-up comedy and being successful ain't bad, and so I didn't really silence the voice. I was just louder. It was the laughter that gave me pause, so I didn't react to her voice. I was reasoning with her voice, and then my the voice that responded was actually louder. Now sometimes the. Lavator just needs that additional joke, that additional humor-not even joke, but sense of humor-to defang it, right? To dethrone it. Now, every voice does not have to get talked back to with a joke or with some humor, and there are some days when laughter just isn't the tool to use, and there are some days when the only answer is a clear no. I'm not going to listen to you. There's a leader, mentor of mine, who told a story. He was actually on a bike trip down the west coast, down the entire West Coast, and halfway through, he got into a very serious accident. He was injured both physically and emotionally. He had the evaluator screaming at him to stop, stop. He, you know, call for ride, do something, quit. You know, I'm sure he had the saboteur saying, "You're always doing this. You know, you're, you can't, you need to stop. You can't do this. You cannot go on. And for him, he

had the other two voices, the originator and the challenger, both pushing him to reframe the trip instead and to keep going. And that's exactly what he did. He kept going. He just said no, and he listened to the originator and challenger to refrain and keep going. So sometimes the evaluator is simply fear dressed up in a costume, and the leadership move is to override it. To trust the originator, the one that comes up with new and innovative, creative ideas. Trust that voice instead. Now the evaluator isn't good or bad; it's just data. Some days it's protecting you. Some days it's afraid. It's emotional intelligence that is the skill that you will use to tell you which day it is, and laughter ties into that emotional intelligence. It's a tool within the skill. The saboteur is different. It is bad. The saboteur is bad because it's attacking you as a person, but it may or may not have use because every time that you push back against it, you're getting just a little stronger at pushing back against something that tells you you're not worth it. However, the goal is not to silence these four voices. The goal is to listen to learn which one is actually talking, which day it is, and which one you should listen to, and which one deserves your trust. So here's the offer I'm making. I've come up with a quiz. It's called the "What Kind of Laughter Leader Are You? quiz. It's the Laughter Leader Quiz. It's for anyone who's ever walked out of been meaning replaying it in their head, thinking, "Hmm, did I sound too soft, too harsh, or was I just plain forgettable? If that's you, this quiz is for you. It's only five minutes to take it. Most leaders never actually. Stop to ask themselves to ask themselves how they show up in the room. They just react. Now five minutes taking this quiz, it actually gives you a name for it, and it shows you where your sense of humor already fits into how you lead, and where it's actually completely missing.

I had a a client of mine take this quiz, and she found out she realized she wasn't using humor in her work practically at all, and so once she saw this, her question of "Should I be funnier? changed. She started asking, "What's humor actually doing for the leader who uses it well? So I invite you take this quiz. Go to laughterleader.com to take this quiz, and keep coming back to the Lighten Up Project. Keep listening to our episodes, and most importantly, while you do, remember that laugh, that healing doesn't have to be heavy. So I will see you next time, and remember, every smile can open door, every laugh can open a heart, and every step can be your next victory.