One of my favorite WWE wrestlers of recent years is Randy Orton. He of the RKO (OUTTA NOWHERE) can get a good match out of anyone.
He even made the main event of WWE’s July pay per view passable…barely.
Here’s the first line of Orton’s entrance song.
“I hear voices in my head, they council me, they understand, they talk to me.”
And y’know something…we all hear voices. Even you.
I do too! It ain’t just a wrestling gimmick.
Quit looking at me like that. We all have them!
Whatever you want to call it – internal dialogue, your survival mechanism, that pain in the ass that lives in your head – is there to keep you safe. It’s there to keep you from doing anything dangerous.
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Whatever you want to call it – internal dialogue, your survival mechanism, that pain in the ass that lives in your head – is there to keep you safe. It’s there to keep you from doing anything dangerous.
This voice develops when you’re a young child – usually before the age of seven. But when it takes on a life of its own, that’s when it becomes a problem.
One of the things I do with my coaching clients is to have them distinguish their internal dialogue and turn it into a character. The more absurd the character, the better.
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Steve.
Steve has emailed me before about an article in this space. He writes like a social media troll (with the grammar therein.)
When I close my eyes and see Steve, I see the anti-Ryan.
He’s wearing a beer, pizza, and nacho cheese stained wife beater. He hasn’t trimmed his beard in weeks. His hair looks caveman-like.
He looks like Grizzly Adams’ redneck cousin.
Consider the brilliant animated film Inside Out. Different characters representing different emotions live in the head of a young girl who is coming of age. This is simply her internal dialogue on a really loud speaker.
That was Riley’s “Steve.”
I remember when I was either in first or second grade there was this girl named Elizabeth. Every day after school as I’m waiting for my parents to pick me up she’d run up behind me and smack me in the head with her trapper keeper. See, that’s when Steve came in handy because even though it was obvious she was crushing on me a little bit – girls were icky!
As a junior in high school I had a mad crush on this redhead in my history class. This girl went on to be on the swimming and diving team at Alabama for her four years in school there. But every time I’d think of something to say to her I’d hear this little cackle in my head. “You’re gonna blow it! Don’t even bother!” I continued my quixotic love affair with her the entire year but nothing ever happened.
I wonder whatever happened with her? Steve probably knows.
During my previous life as a high school sports radio announcer, I’d record all my broadcasts on cassette tapes (remember those?) There was this one football game that I did that while I was on the air I thought I was in the zone. I was funny, informative, and couldn’t have been better prepared.
But when I got up the next morning and started listening to the tape I became more and more distraught. I – or rather Steve – would pick up every bobble and error I’d make. It got so bad that it literally drove me to tears.
The first screenplay I wrote – which admittedly wasn’t the best writing I’ve ever done – Steve had a great time with this. “This sucks! Are you a monkey with a typewriter? Who taught you how to write – Barney the dinosaur?”
As I was writing the script, I thought it was pretty good. But Steve got me so distraught when I was reading it, here’s what I did. I took the pages to my barbecue grill, doused them with charcoal starter, and lit them on fire.
If I remember, they didn’t burn easily.
This voice develops when you’re a young child – usually before the age of seven. But when it takes on a life of its own, that’s when it becomes a problem.
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Lately I have been really fighting off the voice in my head. I have some amazing things going on in my life right now. My coaching business is taking off. I’m writing as well as I have ever written in my life. My new book is pure magic. My well-being is amazing. My personal life is better than ever. My podcast with the brilliant and magical Emily Perkins (Magic Time available on iTunes and podbean, just sayin’) is a source of pride and creativity. I’m planning a trip to see the Men in Crimson (Roll Tide) play a football game in a couple months, and one to visit the Cayman Islands in early 2018.
I’m on the verge of greatness. And if I can just shut that little douchebag Steve Massengill (geddit) up, then I’ll be happier and more fulfilled.
But he’s never going to go away. He’s never going to truly be silenced. You just have to learn to let him do what he does and ignore the message.
If we listen to the voices in our head, a young man William wouldn’t have written the story about the feuding families and the kids from each family who are madly in love with each other. If a young trumpeter named Miles listened to the voice in his head, he wouldn’t have become the Jazz and music icon he became. If the voice in his head had his way, a young computer geek named Bill wouldn’t have started Microsoft and became one of the richest people in the world. If a young computer geek named Steve (ironically) had listened to his voice, would his company be in a position to charge $999 for a phone?
If my mom had listened to the voice in her head telling her not to do it, she wouldn’t have gone on that blind date with that long-haired hippie musician who became my dad.
If you’re looking for ways to keep that voice on simmer, a session with a coach may be the catalyst to a new level of joy. Email me at [email protected] to set up a free sample session.
I want Steve gone! I want him out of my head! But he’s never going to truly be gone.
But perhaps a well-timed RKO (OUTTA NOWHERE) could be the ticket to keeping him off that loudspeaker.
And now the world knows that I hear voices in my head. Well done, Hall! Ya jerk! Now everybody here on the Good Men Project thinks you’re crazy!
Shut up Steve!
Photo by TimOve