Who's Voice Do You Hear In Your Head?

Summary

In this episode, Danny Dumas explores the concept of the inner voice and its origins, reflecting on personal experiences and the impact of encouragement from parents and mentors. He emphasizes the importance of fostering a positive inner dialogue, especially for children, and how this can shape their self-perception and resilience. Dumas also discusses the necessity of acknowledging mistakes while focusing on the potential for growth and change, encouraging listeners to transform negative thoughts into empowering actions.


Takeaways

• The inner voice often reflects the words of influential figures in our lives.
• Encouragement from parents can significantly shape a child's self-esteem.
• It's important to teach children that mistakes are opportunities for growth.
• Positive reinforcement can help children develop a strong inner voice.
• Acknowledging mistakes is crucial, but it should lead to constructive action.
• Parents should avoid harmful phrases that imply something is wrong with their child.
• Asking questions about decisions can foster understanding and growth.
• Changing the narrative in our heads can lead to personal transformation.
• We are not defined by our past; we have the power to change.
• Listening to positive affirmations can help reshape our self-perception.

Chapters

00:00 The Inner Voice: Understanding Its Origins
06:27 Empowering the Next Generation: Speaking Life into Kids
14:13 Transforming Your Mindset: Actions Over Thoughts

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Transcript

0:03

you Hey, welcome back my friend. My name is Danny Dumas and this is the earner title podcast where our goal here is to help you become a better husband, father and leader. Today I have a question. When you do something dumb and the inner voice in your head says, man, Danny, that was really dumb. Whose voice is it? Is it in your voice? Is it in your parents' voice? Is it in any voice? Where did you get those words? Why did you tell yourself, that was really dumb. And then how quickly do you bounce back from those inner voices? So I want to explore the idea of this like inner voice of, of where it comes from. When I was a, when I was a kid, I went to a school called greater life Academy, which is kind of cheesy, but it was an amazing school. And in elementary school, I a principal, his name was Spencer McCool. In addition to being a principal, he was also a pastor. So very charismatic guy. And every morning we had an assembly and in that assembly he would say to the entire class, you guys are winners. You are winners. And not only would he tell us that we're winners, he would tell us that if anybody ever called you a loser, he's like, I want you to tell me, I'm going to take care of them. And as little kids, we believed him. This is, you know, this is quite a while ago. This is four years ago. He had a paddle in his office hanging on the wall and I, can't confirm that he ever used it. But that paddle was definitely on everybody's mind because you'd get in trouble and you would think, oh, I'm going to talk to the principal's office. He's got that paddle on the wall. like using the word, you're a loser at that school, you know, it would have been better for you to like use the worst racial slur or cuss word you've ever heard. That would have been a better outcome than telling somebody else they're a loser. So every day from kindergarten to like fifth grade, I had a grown man telling me, you're a winner. You're a winner. You're a winner. And I think that voice is one of the voices in my head. I think about my parents. My parents were very encouraging growing up, but in two very different ways. My dad, he spent time when we were alone, driving from practice, driving from home, from school, driving from church. And he would tell me, Danny, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of what you're doing. And he did this from the time I was a little kid up until he still does it. And I remember in my teenage years, it would be awkward. I remember just thinking, Oh, I'm going to have the talk with my dad because it happened a lot. He would, you know, he would just tell me how proud I, he is of the things that we do. And he would name things, your grades, the way you interact with people. He was, he was telling me these things. Now my mom, she did it slightly different. I mean, she was telling me she was proud of me, but my mom, she would brag about me in front of her friends. That's how she, you know, that's how she encouraged me. I remember when I was about 15, I started rock climbing and I was an athletic, I played sports, but I started rock climbing when I was 15 and I got really into it. And I remember one time and wasn't, embarrassed wasn't the word, but I remember she told one of her friends, look at, look at Danny's arms. Look how strong Danny flex, flex your arms. And I remember, thinking, oh, okay. And you know, I flexed my arms and her friend was like, well, Danny, you're getting so strong. And I remember that. And that became such a driver and such a great force in my life that I had people that I love speaking highly of me and kindly of me and telling me that, you know, I was a winner and that I was strong and that people were proud of me. And I'm very fortunate, I'm very blessed that my life wasn't full of uh hard things, but everybody's life has hard things. Mine just wasn't full of it. I'm thankful. I remember I was 19 and I was in this process of becoming a firefighter and that's a, it was very challenging. Like it was daunting when I got into it and I realized what it truly was going to mean to get this job. In the early 2000s, getting a job as a firefighter, it was just, the odds were not good. And the process was you go to these large conference halls and there'd be two to 600 people there and you'd sit down, you'd take a written test. And then you would do a physical agility test and then you would get an interview. And not exaggerating, you could be testing against 600 people. And out of that 600 people, they were gonna hire two or four or zero. Very intimidating. And so I was going to school while I was testing and I had tested for three departments, the city of Southfield, the city of Royal Oak and the city of Pontiac. And while, and I was additionally going to school to become an EMT and a paramedic. And I remember doing an EMT clinical. So you go to an ambulance company and you ride this ambulance for 12 hours and there's paramedics with you and they're teaching you, but these are not teachers. They're just literally paramedics for the day. And it's just what you do as a, as a paramedic, you get students. I remember this guy who was a couple of years older than me. I told him, he's like, you want to be a fireman? I'm like, yeah, I want to be a fireman. I've, I just tested in Pontiac. He's like, well, good luck with that. I've been trying for five years. It just doesn't happen. You know, like he was telling me what I felt like was he's telling me you're a loser. You're not, there's no way, you know, you don't, you're not a paramedic. You don't have this training yet. And I, and in my inner Spencer McCool, you know, my principal, that Pastor McCool, he told me I was a winner. And I didn't believe the guy that told me, he's like, there's no way. In my head I'm like, no, there's a way. I had that confidence. you know, this is very Disney movie-esque, but long story short, that dude works for me. You know, I'm his boss. You know, that was 26, 27 years ago. And I'm sure this guy, I never brought it up. It doesn't matter that that's what he said. I know my inner voice told me that I was a winner and that my mom told me I was strong and my dad told me that he's proud of me. And when I came up on those adversaries and when I came up against something like that, that the you're a loser moment, I had a strong inner voice. So my first plea to you is instead of uh So my first plea to you is not as a man right now, but as a father, if you have kids in your life, whether that's your kids, your nieces, nephews, I want you to speak life into them. I want you to tell them they are strong, but I don't, you don't have to be delusional. You know, I think sometimes in this day and age, we can go too far one direction. You don't have to tell your kid they're amazing when they're amazing. You can tell them they've messed up. You can tell them you're disappointed. You can, those are all okay because we're going to, your kids are going to mess up. They're going to do something stupid and it's okay for them to have inner voices that says, man, that was dumb. But the next part is so important. That was dumb. What can I do to stop it from happening next time? That's the inner voice they need. It's okay to recognize that you've messed up. That totally happens and it's okay. and now I have the power to fix it. So give your kids the positive inner voice. You know, there's a fine line between being a narcissist, let me try that again. There's a fine line between being a narcissist and being confident. And if you have to err on one side or the other, err on the side of giving your kids more confidence, but you don't have to tell them everything they do is great. You can be honest with them, but just tell them that they can fix the problem. give them the words in their head is that was a terrible decision. I should do something different and I can do something different. One of the things as a dad, I want you to try to avoid is saying these words which are very harmful as what is wrong with you. And as a father, I'm sure I've said that and that was the wrong, those were the wrong words because is there something wrong with your kids? It's something outside of them and it's something they can't take care of. something they can't fix. So you can say, when you did that, what were you thinking? That's kind of like saying, what's wrong with you? Because that's what we want to say. Your kid does something stupid, what's wrong with you? Well, that's not a great, you don't want that in their head. And maybe that's the way your dad talked to you or your mom talked to you or your aunt and uncle or teacher, what's wrong with you? And then maybe you never thought anything was ever wrong with you. Now you have this thought, no, something's wrong with me. So what were you thinking? I think that's an okay statement. When you did that, why did you make that decision? Help me understand. I don't understand. That seems like a poor decision. You're someone that makes good decisions. That seems like a bad decision. Why did you do that? Give them something, give them the voice in their head that says, okay, this was bad, but I can fix this and I can understand why I did that. And that's so important. So give your kids the word, brainwash them. I've said this before, but for all my kids, when I would put them to bed, I would say something along the lines of, I love you, you're gonna do amazing things. You're gonna do great things. You're gonna do awesome things. And I would switch it up depending on which kid it was. And you know, my youngest right now, she's the only one that I'm putting to bed still. And she gets annoyed. went, oh, I thought you were gonna forget. I wanted you to forget to say it. I'm not. You know, just brainwash your kids. So when they come up against that one moment in their life where someone's telling them, you're a loser, you can't do this. They have your voice saying, you can do it. You can do great things. You're amazing. Get that to them. But I think sometimes as men, we have a hard time doing that if we don't change the voice inside our head. Now I'm so thankful that I had a good mom. I have a good mom and I have a good dad and I had good strong people like Spencer McCool in my life to give me those words. And I understand that you might not have. You might not have had a dad at all. You might had a mom who was going through some things and she was trying her best. She just didn't have the words. So I'm going to tell you. You can do this. You are not your father. You are not your mother. You are not doomed to repeat your past. You can change. You are changing. You're the kind of guy that's spending his free time listening to podcasts, reading books, trying to improve yourself. You can do this. You have the ability to change your family tree. You are not doomed by your past. You can do this. You are a winner. You are strong. I am proud of you. You're going to make this happen. You are going to be a great father to your kids. You're going to be a great husband. You are not going to be tempted by, you know, substance abuse or gambling. You can overcome those things. You have the ability to change your life. You can do dumb things and we all mess up. You know, I had a funny story yesterday. I was working and we went to a house fire and trucks don't all get there at the same time. You know, multiple, you know, They're coming from different stations. So I'm with the first arriving engine. It goes inside. There's people standing outside. There's no smoke coming out of the building. The officer goes in and I hear him radio out. Hey, keep everyone coming. I think I got a fire in the wall. I'm not sure yet. I'm still investigating. So the next truck gets there, I send them inside to help. And then about a minute later, I had, you know, six grown firemen run out of the house screaming like little school girls. And I'm like, what in the world? And what had happened inside the house, they heard like Tracking in the walls and the officer felt the walls. It didn't feel hot And so he tells one of the guys man, I think we got a fire in the wall We have a tool called a pike pole It's like basically a big stick with a pointy part on it and he pulls the drywall down as soon as he pulls the drywall down a hundred bees fly out and it's all the guys are running away from the bees one guy gets stung like right in the forehead and his eye and some swelling up shut and They all ran outside because it wasn't a fire. It was bees and you know uh The officer could have thought, man, that was really dumb. You know, like, why did I think that? Well, a lot of times we judge our decisions and the consequences of our decisions based on the outcome. Well, he didn't have the outcome. You know, like it never crossed his mind that this crackling noise inside of a wall wouldn't be anything other than a fire. So knowing what he knew now, like in the future, he wouldn't have poked a hole in the wall. He didn't know that. He thought the house was on fire. And as firefighters, what do we do? We put it out. And so I would, you know, Make that decision every time. And it was, it's okay. It would have been okay for him to go, man, that's kind of dumb. I got one of my guys stung. I messed up this drywall, but he didn't know anything different. He was doing what he thought was best. And for He didn't know any different. He was doing what he thought was best. And that's a good decision. It was a poor outcome, you know? They got stung by bees and now the lady has a hole in her wall. But that was the right decision. So it's okay for you to have some of these feelings of like, man, I messed up. I've done something dumb. Even if it's extremely serious, I cheated on my wife. You know, accept that. It's not good to say I cheated on my wife, but it's not my fault. It's because she didn't have sex with me or because she was mean to me. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying be delusional. If you've done something terrible, say I have done something terrible and now I'm going to fix it. I'm going to become the man that no longer does terrible things. That's the inner voice you want. It's not all positive. You know, it would be ridiculous. You know, I don't believe, I shouldn't say don't believe the power of positive thinking because I think it, your thinking is powerful, but it, that's not what changes you. Like, you know, like actually having logical thoughts. that makes sense and realizing that you can change. And if you go back to my last podcast, while you're doing this, you know, cause this is a process and this might not be, you know, you might not change your life from this, you know, 15 to 20 minute podcast. You might actually need to go get therapy, but while you're doing this, I want you to be encouraged to realize that you are not your thoughts, your actions. So even if it's not in your head yet, and I wanted to get in your head, re-listen to that last part where I was telling you how awesome you are. Until you get there, you or your actions do the right thing. If your voice is telling you you're an idiot, don't listen to it. Change your voice. If you change your voice, you can change your mind. If you change your mind, you can change your actions. If you can change your actions, you can change the world. You can change your family. You can become the man you're supposed to be. And if I can help, I want to. My email is danny at dannydoomis.com. Reach out. I really enjoy talking with you guys. It's been a real blessing in my life. I want you to get a lot out of this podcast and but more importantly, I want you to put into action because I want you to earn that title. And as always, my name is Danny Dumas and this is the Earn to Out of Podcast and I will talk to you later. Bye.