The Two Guys in My Head: Embracing Guidance and Discarding Negativity

Do sometimes you feel like you have voices talking to you in your head? I'm not talking about doing something dangerous or something that's going to cause you to be on the six o' clock news. I'm just talking about voices that you hear throughout the day, trying to guide you through life to make the best decision possible. I know I hear voices and I'm going to tell you about them today on this podcast.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A Rome author and world renowned public speaker. As he shares stories and involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hey, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm and today I want to talk to you about something that I believe will be very, very helpful to you and it seems to be common to most all of us. I've had this conversation with many, many people and they look at me and say, wow, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought there was something really bad wrong with me because I go through the same thing you're talking about. Well, let me share with you in a way that I believe will be helpful and I want to be transparent and just let you know we're all on this journey and this thing called life together. I want you to know. I have two guys sitting on my shoulders. One's on my right shoulder and the other is on my left shoulder. And the one that's on my right shoulder is the right guy. The one that's on the right shoulder is the one that tells me the right things. The one that's on my right shoulder is my friend. He's the one that kind of guides me and helps me and encourages me and teaches me along the way how to make some mid course corrections in life. When I do something wrong or when I say something wrong. He's my friend. He's the one to kind of help me. The guy on the left shoulder is the liar. He's the one who is always trying to lead me in the wrong direction. He's the one that says things to me that are pretty hard to accept and pretty difficult. And I'll explain to you as we go along how I know which guy to listen to and also I can recognize which guy is speaking to me. Now, before I even get into this, I want to say something to you. You cannot shut up either of these guys. In other words, you can't make these guys stop talking to you.

But you don't have to listen.

This is the key. You don't have to listen to both of them. You can choose who you listen to in life. You can't stop them from putting thoughts in your head. You can't stop them from talking to you, but you can stop listening to them and following their advice. So I'm going to just dive right in and let you know. Two or three examples that I face all the time.

Most of you know that I teach the model of human behavior. The model of human behavior can be divided into two parts. Some people are outgoing. Others are more reserved. Then it can be divided vertically. The left side, task oriented, the right side, people oriented. So when we divide this up into our four quadrants, we see the dominant type is outgoing and task oriented. The inspiring types, outgoing and people oriented. The supportive type is reserved and people oriented, and the cautious types, reserved and task oriented. So those are the four quadrants that make up the d dominant, I inspiring, S supportive, and c cautious model of human behavior. So I'm more of the I type, the inspiring type. And I teach this all over the world.

And the reason I teach it is.

To help people build better relationships, have better teams at home, at school, at work, and play. Now, here's the crazy thing. I have had challenges in my own life and in my own relationships. I've had difficult, difficult times with my own children as they were growing up. Thank goodness they're all grown and on their own, and they're all healthy and happy. But I had some challenges. And the left guy on my left shoulder would say to me, wow, you're such a liar. You're such a loser. You're out telling people how to have relationships with people, and you can't even have good relationships with your own daughters. And I would listen to that, and I would feel like, you know what? He's right. I just need to stop what I'm doing because I make mistakes, and sometimes my daughters and I get into a conflict, and who am I to be telling anybody anything? Then the guy on the right shoulder, the right side, the wrong right shoulder, speaks to me and says, wait a minute, we all make mistakes. You're doing the very best you can, you love your daughters, and you are making progress. And don't worry about it. We all go through the little bumps in life. One time I was at the waffle House, and I was talking to one of the youth directors at our church. And my older two daughters had just been to camp. And like all kids who go off to summer camp, they had done a couple of things that weren't exactly right. So the youth Director was there kind of giving me the what for telling me that my daughters had done some things wrong. And he was all upset with them and me and on and on and on. All of a sudden, I mean, I felt really bad. Like, you know, I. Who am I to try to tell anybody anything because I make mistakes. All of a sudden, the waitress at the Waffle House stopped at our table and looked at the youth director and said, well, I tell you what, anybody who loves his daughters as much as this man does is going to be just fine. And she turned around and walked off. And he looked at her like, who are you? And she looked at him like, no, who are you to be telling this man something? And it was so funny. I remember just sitting there as a surreal moment in my life, and I thought I listened to what she said. And I could almost hear the guy on my right shoulder agreeing with her. He was saying, look, you love your daughters, and you're learning how to be a father, and they're learning how to grow up, and you're learning how to.

Go through things in life.

So don't get all bent out of shape over this. Just do the next right thing. And eventually it all worked out and everything was great. The point I'm trying to make is the guy on your left shoulder will always condemn you. He will offer no suggestions. He won't tell you what to do. He'll only make you feel bad and want to give up and quit. The guy on the right shoulder will always encourage you. He'll always help you. He'll always say, let me give you some thoughts or some ideas or what you can do next that will help you. I wear a bracelet on my right arm. It says, just do the next right thing. My mentor taught me that is the secret to life. Just do the next right thing. Let me share one more with you.

That'S even more painful.

Almost 30 years ago, I went through a very painful divorce. It was like the kiss of death. It was the hardest thing I ever went through in my life. I mean, I lost 40 pounds.

I couldn't sleep.

It was just terrible.

And it just so caught me off guard. And it wasn't because there was any infidelity in my marriage. So one night, my wife said to me, I believe you love God, and I believe you love our children. I just don't believe you love me. And, you know, as I look back.

On it, there was a lot of.

Truth to that because she had sort of gotten lost along the way. I was working. I was trying to Raise children as she was too. I was trying to do everything that I knew or I thought I was supposed to, but I just did not pay attention to my marriage. And it was a very, very difficult time for me to go through. And again, I.

It was.

It was hard on me physically. I couldn't sleep at night. I had never seen this coming. It caught me off guard and it was a difficult, difficult time. However, again, that was close to 30 years ago. My former spouse and I have since reconciled our relationship. We're both the parents of our kids. We have a great relationship. But let me tell you what happened, and I believe this is gonna. And I just. This is painful for me to share, but I think it will help you. All during that time, I could hear the guy on my left shoulder saying to me, well, aren't you Dr. Robert Rome? Aren't you the guy who travels all over the world to tell people how to build relationships? Aren't you the guy that teaches the disc model of human behavior to show people how to understand themselves and others so they can build better teams and have better relationships? You're nothing but a fraud. You're nothing but a cheap, lowdown, good for nothing liar. You're out trying to help people. You can't even help yourself. You try to save marriages, you can't even save your own. Why don't you just quit? Why don't you give up? And you see the reason. I recognize that voice, it's very condemning. Is the voice that speaks to you and lets you know there's no hope. Everything's going wrong, everything's bad. You're a failure. And there is virtually no redeeming factor left in your life. I hope you can hear just how wrong that is. The guy on my right shoulder was such a friend. The guy on my right shoulder said, hey, it is true you made a mistake. But listen, everybody makes mistakes. And if this is your wife's choice that she does not want to be married to you any longer, just accept it and go on. There is life ahead of you and there will be opportunities for you to have relationship with her and your children and your business. And you can learn from this. You made a mistake, but you're not a mistake. You failed, but you're not a failure. Just do the next right thing. And there again, once again, that motto that has been such a vital, important part of my life. When you don't know what to do, just do the next right thing. So I listened to the guy on my right shoulder. It was hard because I Was going through such a dark time of give up, quit, don't stand up and speak and tell others how they can have good relationships. You can't even have good relationships. But I kept holding onto the fact of, well, maybe I can help another person. I remember what my friend Zig Ziglar used to say. You can have everything you want in life if you'll just help another people get what they want. So I knew that people want good relationships. I believe people want to be healthy and happy and reasonably successful. As Zig used to say, some people want to be unreasonably successful. I believe people want to have healthy relationships. They want to have a happy marriage. They want their kids to grow up to be healthy and have good, good families and good marriages and good businesses.

And a good life.

And that's what I wanted. And I just held on to the fact, don't miss this. I held onto the fact that the guy on my right shoulder was my friend and he was helping me and leading me. But that never. Here's the point. That never made the guy on my left shoulder stop talking. He would continue to talk. You're no good. You're a failure. You might as well give up and quit. I don't even know why you think you should go talk to anybody about anything because you're such a loser. And I did everything in my power to get him to quit talking to me. And finally, my mentor and my friend and I were talking about it one day, and he said, you will never shut that guy up. My friend was older than me. He was about 10 or 12 years older than me. And he said, I have never been able to get that guy to shut up. He just will condemn you forever. But here's the secret. You don't have to get him to shut up. You don't have to get him to.

Stop talking to you.

Here's the secret.

You just don't have to listen to him.

You can ignore him. Learn to listen to the guy on your right shoulder.

And my mentor and friend told me.

It'S okay to even talk to him.

And sometimes I would totally ignore the.

Guy on my left shoulder who was.

And you know, I'm not talking about.

A real visible person on my left.

Shoulder, Just that voice from my left side that kept condemning me and telling.

Me what a failure and how terrible I was.

I would almost look to my right shoulder sometimes, and I would speak to the guy on my right shoulder. I would say, thank you.

I'm learning to listen to you.

I know you're my friend, you're not.

Here to condemn me.

You're here to help me. You're here for me to learn how to learn from my mistakes. You're here to cause me to have a better life.

You're here.

You were sent by God.

You were friend. You want me to learn from my mistakes and do better next time. One night, the guy on my right shoulder said something to me also that really, really helped. He said, you're looking at life all wrong. You're looking at life with the if only mental mentality. If only that hadn't happened. If only you hadn't made a mistake. If only you hadn't have made a bad choice. This is my friend on the right side my right shoulder. He said, stop thinking if only and change the words from if only to next time. Next time you'll do better. Next time, you'll learn from what you have gone through in the past. Next time, you'll know how to make better choices. Next time, everything will turn out better. Well, I have news for you. That may sound like the craziest story you've ever heard, but my life has just continued to get better and better and better because I didn't succumb to the guy on my left shoulder who wanted to destroy me and tell me how terrible I was. And I listened to the guy on my right shoulder who said, hey, you've made some mistakes. We all make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes. Don't worry about if only, if only I had have done that. Start focusing on next time. Next time you'll learn when to say something. Next time, you'll learn when not to say something. Next time you'll know how to do things better. Next time you will have a better and a different and a more encouraging experience. Well, that's been, like I said, close to 30 years ago. And I am here to tell you that I am so very, very grateful for life. I am blessed beyond measure. I have a beautiful life. We have a wonderful relationship. We travel all over the world. And financially, I just sometimes I shake my head and say, I can't believe it. Things are so well. I have tremendous relationship with my four daughters. My former spouse and I are on the phone often encouraging each other, helping each other. My grandchildren, our six grandchildren are just doing great. And all of this goes back to the experience that I believe we all face. And that's what this podcast is all about. We all face a defining moment in our life. If we're going to listen to the guy on our left shoulder who's going to beat us up and tell us how terrible we are or we're going to listen to the guy on our right shoulder who tells us, hey, you did make a mistake. I don't want to sweep it under the carpet. I want you to learn from it. I want you to grow through it and I want you to become a better person. I trust that. My vulnerability, talking about trying to raise children and messing up from time to time and trying to have a successful marriage the first go round and seeing that go up in flames, that's painful for me still to talk about. And I take full responsibility for every failure that's ever been in my life. But I'm also here to tell you, you have a friend. It's the guy on your right shoulder. I believe it's God. I believe it's the one who wants to let you know he loves you, he cares about you, he wants to work in you and through you day by day. Learn to listen to him, learn to trust him and remember the right the guy on the right shoulder is your friend. He's not telling you, if only he's telling you next time. And I love that because everything gets better when you look at your next opportunity to learn and grow through what you're experiencing in life on a day to day basis. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I hope this podcast has been helpful. I look forward to talking to you real soon on another one of our top podcasts and adventures together.

Thanks so much.

God bless you. Bye Bye.

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