Dear Reader,

Every leader has conversations happening inside their own mind long before they speak to anyone else. These conversations shape:

• How they make decisions,
• How they communicate,
• How they respond under pressure,
• How safe people feel around them, and ultimately
• The culture they create

Yet, most leadership development focuses almost entirely on external skills, that is, strategy, communication, execution, and influence, while paying very little attention to the internal voices that actually drive behavior. The work has to be on both, noting that 5-15% is on the outer; and the other 85-95% is on the inner.

In my work coaching and advising senior leaders, I have found that sustainable leadership begins somewhere much deeper. It begins with becoming aware of which Inner Voice is actually leading your everyday decisions and actions.

Let's Talk About the Voices in your Head

A week ago, one of my executive clients, a senior leader within one of South Africa's largest financial institutions, facilitated a Women's Leadership Masterclass.

I came on as a guest speaker, as she had asked me to talk about the 4 Inner Voices that I introduced to her and which she found would be of great support for her audience. The 4 Inner Voices are important because:

• The more aware you are of each of them, the better able you are at choosing the one makes you an effective leader
• The more aware you are of which one is directing your everyday life, leadership and business, the better able you are at choosing the one most aligned to your visions and goals
• The higher your awareness, the higher your emotional intelligence becomes
• The higher your emotional intelligence, the better able you are at creating psychologically safe environments that are conducive for higher performance, aligned impact and trackable ROI.
• The more decisions you make from the true inner voice, each and every day, the more emotionally agile you become. You literally, not just by title, but actions, become leadership itself.

During the masterclass, my client held a poll with the participants, asking them to indicate which one of the 4 voices was more prominent in their lives, the way they led and were within the corporate world. It's no surprise that it was the Inner Critic.

The Inner Critic

In all the work that I do, the Inner Critic is the one that is the loudest in a lot of people's minds; including high performers. What is driving them from within, may not always feel good, regardless of the results they are producing on the surface.

The problem is, if your Inner Critic is shouting at you all the time in your head and you are adhering to its energy, at some point, your body starts to break down. It can only take so much, because the Inner critic is feeding off fear, which triggers cortisol and adrenaline in your system. And the more you are exposed to these, the worse off you become. So, it's not sustainable.

This is why, as much as a lot of people may be successful on paper, they actually don't feel fulfilled. They are just going with the flow, hoping that the inner pain and exhaustion will go away. They become disconnected from their true selves, feeling like something is missing, but not sure what it is.

And as much as they read about it and try to change, the voice does not go away. it stays because you are providing it the fuel and attention to remain loud and proud. The following are some of the ways that the Inner Critic presents itself or speaks to you:

• Imposter syndrome
• Inferiority complex
• Superwoman / superman syndrome
• Perfectionism
• Isolation
• Lack of support structures; and others

The Inner Critic relentlessly pulls people down. Doing well feels like an uphill battle, even if one momentarily succeeds. They would have to continue on the fight, fighting an invisible army within.

The more aware you are of the language of the Inner Critic uses, and how it makes you feel in you both your mind and body, the easier it is for you to not give it precedence. This where the Inner Ego comes in.

The Inner Ego

The Inner Ego has 2 sides, that is, the Unhealthy and the Healthy Ego. The unhealthy ego is usually formulated in opposition to the Inner Critic. It puffs its chest, and starts pushing you even harder, trying to outrun the inner critic's voice. It feels like a good solution for a moment, but even that, runs out of fuel because it is using the same fear based leadership that the Inner Critic is using.

Stopping or pausing feels painful, like something bad is about to happen and so people push through. The outside world sees them as high performers, but they are slowly dying from exhaustion within.

The more they fight, the more disconnected they feel. It literally feels like they are on a hamster wheel, running fast but going nowhere fast. You can't outrun any of your voices. Good or bad.

Now - the Healthy Ego, has receipts based on facts. The Healthy Ego shows what you have accomplished, as a reminder that you there is nothing for you to prove, that you were worthy as a human before you even had a social role or a leadership role. That because of your experience and qualifications thus far, you can indeed take that next step, ask for a raise or promotion especially if all these are aligned to your truth. You can start a business or a new one, lead better, design better systems and so forth.

The Healthy Ego reminds you that you already have a purpose and an ingrained set of values that when clarified, you can use them as a guiding tool and to gauge the decisions you are make, how you are making and executing them. This brings us to the Inner Child.

The Inner Child

The Inner Child knows your purpose and your true values. And so, the more connected you are to your Inner Child, the easier it is for you to figure out your life purpose.

Your life purpose is the reason why you were born. This comes before any of your social roles. Examples of social roles are leader, wife, husband, partner, sibling, child, grandparent etc...

Your life purpose, should choose, is what shapes how you present within any of your social roles. It shapes how you are present or absent in your own life. The more you know what your purpose is, the easier it is for you to make decisions that are aligned to who you truly are inside.

The work to do here is to list all the things that you are or were curious about when you were younger - then make time to re-explore them. Second, it is to list the things that bring you joy - outside of your social roles - then make time to schedule these into your weekly and daily calendar. The more you engage in these activities, the more creative you become.

What you are curious about and what brings you joy, are the breadcrumbs that lead you back to clarifying your purpose and your true values. It's one of the pertinent work that I do with clients. Without that, we are building a life, a leadership legacy and businesses built on quicksand.

The Inner Spirit

The Inner Spirit is who you truly are inside before the social conditioning. It quietly sits there, knowing already what you are made of, waiting, holding space for you to come back to yourself. It is that inner knowing, where even if you don't logically know why something is important or needing to be done, it just feels right for you to do so. And when you do make time to follow that voice, everything actually falls into place.

The Inner Spirit validates your Inner Child - that part of you that had not been too contaminated by social rules and laws. The more you take time out every day, to listen in to your Inner Spirit Voice, the more aligned your decisions become with your true authentic self.

Revisiting this 4 Inner Voices Framework

This entire framework became even more real for me over the past 2.5 months when I had intentionally stepped away from writing. Not because I had nothing to say - I always have plenty to say - but because I needed to listen and feel even deeper.

It so happened that this was also around my birthday month, which I typically take time out to recalibrate around my goals, plans and purpose. In this time, I deliberately spent time revisiting parts of my own story; not only mentally, but where these stories lived subconsciously and therefore somatically.

Doing this level of inner work is not always an easy journey. I had a lot of support from beautiful humans that I am super grateful for. There was a lot of inner grief on how deep the Inner Critic had more of a hold than I realized; how my resulting Unhealthy Ego damaged relationships and opportunities; and with that how the Inner Child popped up here and there as a reminder, whilst my Inner Spirit steadily waited, patiently, non-judgmentally, for me to fully trust in it.

Remember I mentioned that we can never run away from any of the voices? This is actually a gift. Because when we take the time out, we are able to elevate the voices we need at any one time. I came out of this particular reflection time with an even bigger conviction on not only written-down goals and plans for all areas of my life, but concrete actions that I engage with every day on how I am going to live, lead and how I would like my business to make a difference.

What lessons can you already take from this? Answer the following questions for yourself:

1. How often do you take time off?
2. If I were to ask you how you recalibrate, i.e. come back to yourself, and how often you do so, what would be your answer?
3. If I were to ask you how you celebrate your existence, or your birthday, would you be honest with me, or would you tell me all the things that you think you should do such as partying and birthday cake and having others around you. Nothing wrong with these. But I do wonder, how you would honestly like to spend your birthday and if anyone ever genuinely asked you, and allowed you to do so.

That brings up the question: Who do you seek permission from and why?

This can be really subtle - because sometimes we think we are making our own decisions, but they are actually decisions based on what we think people would think about us. And worse still, these people are part of the Inner Critic tribe. Who are these people in your life?

How is this all relevant to leadership?

You can't lead, look after or care for yourself or other people beyond where you yourself are. If you are constantly berating yourself inside of your head or trying to prove your worth to your own self in your mind, this is the energy that you carry with you as you serve, lead or look after others. You might try to hide it, i.e. fight against it, but over time, the Inner Critic reveals itself.

Whereas, if you are grounded within your purpose, all served through time with the things that bring you joy and the things you are curious about (i.e. Inner Child) and guided by the voice of your true inner spirit or soul, your leadership will be increasingly effective. You are from this perspective, better able at creating psychological safety for those around you.

Psychologically safe environments, increase performance, align impact and create conditions for you to adequately track and increase ROI:

• The more aware you are, the higher your emotional intelligence.
• The more you actively practice making decisions from your Inner Spirit, the more emotionally agile you become
• In addition, the more emotional agile you are, the more emotional intelligence and psychological safety are consequences of the awareness, as opposed to something you strive toward. It becomes effortless with time.

Resources to Support Your Journey

The Four Inner Voices

Conscious self-leadership is the foundation of everything ~ your decisions, your leadership, the culture you create, and the gap you close between who you are performing and who you actually are. I have curated an eBook that expands more on the 4 Inner voices.

In this book, you will find, 11 chapters. Evidence-based. Grounded in science, explaining where each of the voices comes from, what it feels like when each one is speaking, what it does to your brain and your body, and how to begin ~ for the first time ~ to tell them apart. Purchase your revised copy Here.​

Figuring Out Your Life Purpose

If you are ready to unpack what your life purpose is, before the social roles, the Living a Life of and on Purpose Course is the way to go. It is for you, if you have done everything right; and still, there is a quiet knowing that something essential is not fully aligned. It is a structured, deeply personal journey into who you actually are beneath roles, titles, and expectations - and how to begin living from that place.

This is not about becoming more. It is about removing what is in the way of who you already are. When you visit the site, you have the option of (a) taking it as a self-directed course or (b) with an extra charge, with additional one on one sessions with me. Read more and or choose here.​

Conscious Leadership ~ Lead from Within Mastery

If you want to be un-recognizable to the version of the person you are now, in that you would have achieved much more than you could fathom within all areas of your life, the way you lead and the way you run your business, then sign up for this nine month program.

There is nothing else I can say about this program. It is THE signature program back to yourself (read more here), where with my absolute guidance, and the guidance of your Inner Spirit, you do the conscious and the subconscious work; the 5-15% and the 85-95% fully; the mind and the somatic work. All that you want to be, is waiting for you with this one.

Once read, you can apply to be considered here. Applications are reviewed individually. Spaces are intentionally limited to preserve the depth, precision, and presence this work requires.

Okay Dear Leader. This is it for this week. So happy to be back! I look forward to hearing from you. With loving kindness, grace and gratitude,