Those 3am Wakeups
Bottom Line Up Front: Those 3am negative voices aren't just personal anxiety—they're strategic saboteurs that destroy executive confidence, kill innovative thinking, and create the self-limiting patterns that prevent breakthrough business results. Leaders who master their internal dialogue gain strategic clarity, confident decision-making, and the mental resilience essential for competitive advantage while their voice-driven competitors remain trapped in self-doubt and defensive thinking.
For decades my 3am scary voices woke me up to share all the worst case ways that my life would soon turn to shit. They shared my worst nightmares, vividly, heartbreakingly and quite consistently.
Business Reality: These weren't just personal demons—they were strategic killers that destroyed my business confidence, killed innovative thinking, and created defensive patterns that limited both my potential and my clients' results. Every executive I've worked with recognizes these voices, though they usually focus on business fears rather than personal ones.
I spent years in therapy discussing their conversations centered around my worst fears. Bag lady, alone, my beloved horses and dogs ripped from me, no one in this world caring enough to help me.
They still came. They got even stronger and more vivid as I gave them more of my attention.
Maybe you recognize them?
Business Version:
"Who do you think you are? You're not qualified for this strategic role."
"You can't afford to take that risk, the company will fail."
"You're going to look like a fool if you present that innovative idea."
"The board will reject your strategy and replace you."
"Your competitors are smarter, better funded, more experienced."
Or my personal favorite business fear:
"Nobody will care if your company fails... The market probably won't even notice."
The Scary Voices We Create
In the light of day these voices don't sound rational. They never were rational. Yet these voices drove me for more than half of my strategic career.
Executive Pattern: Some days I woke up knowing they weren't true—that I had valuable strategic insights and proven business capabilities. Other mornings, I wondered if they knew something about my competitive position that I didn't.
But then there were the daylight voices, the subtle ones, deeply embedded in my strategic thinking. The little worrisome business thoughts came so naturally to me that I didn't notice them—until they impacted my leadership effectiveness, limited my strategic dreams, and left me wondering why I was such a defensive executive.
Strategic Impact: These voices showed up in board meetings as hesitant presentations, in strategic planning as overly conservative approaches, and in innovation discussions as reasons why breakthrough ideas wouldn't work. They were invisible handcuffs limiting my business potential.
Here's a tip.
Those voices come from our unconscious minds. From the lessons it has learned listening to our internal business conversations, from industry conditioning and competitive experiences, and from our strategic setbacks and market feedback.
Business Truth: We created them through repeated focus on competitive threats, market limitations, and strategic fears. We can silence them as well—and replace them with voices that create competitive advantage.
How We Create Those Strategic Voices
Our unconscious mind learns from our business experiences, listens to our strategic thoughts, and follows our attention and focus to understand what we want in our professional lives. It listens without any judgment, so when we say we don't want market failure, it only notices the failure, and ignores the negative that we don't want it.
Read that again.
When we say and think what we don't want strategically, our unconscious mind accepts the focus of our attention as what we do want. It ignores the negative.
Strategic Example: When executives constantly worry about competitive threats, market disruption, or strategic failures, their unconscious minds interpret this as "I want to experience competitive threats, market disruption, and strategic failures." The mind then filters for evidence supporting these fears while missing opportunities for breakthrough results.
That's one way that scary business voices are born.
When we pay close attention to our strategic fears, we create those limiting voices. They don't appear overnight—it takes a lot of attention to create them. Yet, when we focus repeatedly on what could go wrong, we get what we pay attention to.
Business Conditioning: The business world reinforces these voices through risk-averse cultures, failure punishment, and media that focuses on competitive threats, market crashes, and strategic disasters. We're constantly fed reasons to doubt our strategic capabilities and limit our innovative thinking.
So how do we get rid of them? The same way we created them—with our attention and focus. We focus on positive strategic perspectives, again and again and again.
The challenge is that we spent a lot of effort creating those limiting voices, supported by business culture, competitive experiences, all the negative commentary we've heard about market conditions, industry analysis, and expert predictions of doom.
In today's business world there's a cacophony of scary public voices on a mission to fuel our personal strategic fears. After all, that's how you sell news, consulting services, and crisis solutions, right?
Business Impact: Silencing Strategic Saboteurs
During my consulting career, I've helped executives transform their internal strategic dialogue with dramatic business results:
The Innovation Killer Voice: A tech CEO had internal voices constantly saying "your ideas won't work," "competitors will copy you," "innovation is too risky." These voices made him second-guess breakthrough strategies and settle for incremental improvements. After reprogramming his internal dialogue to focus on innovative possibilities and competitive advantages, he led his company to industry leadership through breakthrough product development.
The Imposter Executive Voice: A brilliant strategic consultant had voices saying "you're not qualified," "they'll discover you're a fraud," "your strategies are obvious." These voices made her underprice services, over-deliver to compensate for perceived inadequacy, and avoid high-visibility opportunities. After silencing imposter voices and installing confidence-building internal dialogue, she became a sought-after strategic advisor commanding premium fees.
The Scarcity Competition Voice: A business development leader had voices constantly warning about limited opportunities, aggressive competitors, and market saturation. These voices made him approach partnerships defensively and miss collaborative possibilities. After shifting his internal dialogue to abundance and opportunity focus, he tripled partnership revenue and became the company's top relationship builder.
The Risk-Averse Strategy Voice: A startup founder had voices saying "play it safe," "don't risk the current position," "gradual growth is better than bold moves." These voices kept her company in incremental mode while competitors captured breakthrough opportunities. After reprogramming for strategic boldness and calculated risk-taking, she led successful market expansion that resulted in acquisition.
The pattern is clear: executives who silence limiting internal voices and install empowering strategic dialogue create extraordinary business results.
Begone Scary Strategic Voices
Given the business world we operate in, what can we do to silence these limiting voices?
Pivot, pivot and pivot some more. Protect ourselves from the strategic naysayers and market sensationalism by looking away from doom-focused business media and all the competitive despondency it creates. And most importantly, focus on what we want strategically. And ONLY what we want.
Strategic Pivoting: When you stop paying attention to competitive threats and start paying attention to market opportunities, that's a strategic pivot. When you shift from defensive thinking to innovative possibility focus, you're reprogramming your strategic dialogue.
How do you pivot strategically?
Business Application: When you catch yourself focusing on what could go wrong strategically, simply Stop what you're thinking about and Shift your attention to what you want to create. Create a living, breathing sensory reality in your mind's eye of strategic success, market leadership, or innovative breakthrough—right there, and focus on it.
Here's a simple business example. I caught my scary strategic voice grousing about a competitive threat while reviewing market analysis. Like I said, pay attention to that strategic thinking time! I simply stopped, laughed and shared with my unconscious mind that it was funny I wanted to focus on competitive threats, then pointed out that what I truly wanted was strategic advantage and market opportunity.
I quickly created a sensory place of competitive success and market leadership in my mind's eye. Then, I stood there and smiled and enjoyed those strategic empowerment moments. Then I went back to analysis—but now focused on opportunities rather than threats.
When the limiting voice came back, I did the same strategic pivot. The voice became smaller and smaller, and eventually it just gave up. I ended up feeling absolutely empowered about our competitive position.
Your Strategic Choice: Will you let 3am voices of limitation and fear drive your business decisions, or will you consciously install internal dialogue that creates confidence, innovation, and competitive advantage?
The most successful executives I know have learned to silence strategic saboteurs and install empowering internal voices that support breakthrough thinking and extraordinary results.
Ready to silence the strategic voices that limit your business potential? Your internal dialogue may be the difference between breakthrough leadership and defensive management.
