Three Voices

By Mark Bradford

Did you know you have three voices?

Do you know that one can always be used to override another? Do you know that one of the voices is also a sounding board that can not only help you (preparing for a speech, reviewing a discussion), but also can torment you if overused (that fight you had playing over and over in your head for seemingly 'no reason')?

You're using one of them to read this.

Three Voices - the three ways we communicate with ourselves and others. With worksheets and examples.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Bradford
• Release date: Sep 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798224802753

Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford is an author of both fiction and nonfiction books, host of a top 5% global podcast, licensed UAV pilot, speaker, and full stack web developer.  Father of two and martini aficionado (those two things might not be related).

Book preview

DEDICATION

To communication, understanding...

and the Voices in your head. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you kindly to the beta readers who read this book and provided valuable input on it—including some of the example work sheet results included in Three Voices. 

If you find this book helpful I would appreciate it if you took a minute to review it.

Every review and rating helps provide the feedback to inspire others to read it, and to motivate me to write the kind of things you like best.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

CONTENTS 

Introduction 

The Voices 

Introduction to the Voices 

Your Third Voice 

Singing 

Communicating directly 

Emotional Overlay - Tone 

Sarcasm 

The power of change 

Talking to yourself 

Your Second Voice 

The Staging Area 

The Sounding Board 

The actual Voices in your head 

Disadvantages of The Second Voice 

Your First Voice 

Emotions 

We all agree on emotions 

Your built-in computer 

The Honesty of The First Voice 

In The Zone 

Learning and your Voices 

Third vs. Second and learning 

Technology and our Voices 

Second Voice Relationships 

The email you never sent 

Examples and demonstrations 

Mantras 

Using The Third to override The Second 

Perform the override 

No Disrespect for The Second Voice 

Real world examples 

The Third Voice 

The Second Voice 

The First Voice 

Moving through the Voices 

Confidence 

Moving backwards through the Voices 

All three Voices 

The three-Voice tug-of-war 

You are in control 

Second Voice Programs 

McDonalds and the unhappy lady who got a free breakfast 

First Voice Emotion 

Words are cheap—for the Third Voice 

Say it with the First Voice 

Afterword 

APPENDIX 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Introduction

If you have read my other nonfiction books—The Status Game I, II, & III, OneSelf, Alchemy for Life: Formulas for Success, etc., then you are not someone I need to remind to have an open mind.  I do not need to slowly work into the concepts of this book.  You are someone familiar with being thoughtful and receptive of new ideas or a new way to look at things.

If that sounded like I was massaging your ego for reading this; it wasn’t.  I can do much better than that.  I was merely stating an obvious fact, but you’re free to enjoy the positive (and accurate) connotations within.

The Status Game books were about the foundational concept of status—all its forms, what it is, the part it plays in your life and how it guides and messes with you.

By reading those books you now know how (and why) we do what we do, how we decide what we like and even how and why we choose those important (and sometimes damaging) people in our lives.

Three Voices introduces you to an entirely new concept: the language we communicate in—or more accurately the three languages we are all fluent in.

Yes, you are fluent in three languages—in addition to any other languages you may have picked up along the way.

Why am I explaining and disseminating this information?  Because it is what I do.  And as with my previous books your awareness can be a very powerful and useful thing in your life; it very well may change it for the better.  I like that.

If you haven’t read those books, then this book is a good foray into the unusual nonfiction self-help/personal productivity books I write.  In other words it might be a fun start.

Note that when I wrote the original The Status Game way back when, I also thought it was an interesting but small topic.  It wasn’t long until I was hit with just how much there was to talk about (and build upon), so thus the next book I had to write was The Status Game II:  Dashboards and Gages.  Perhaps the same will be true for Three Voices, or it will just forever be an interesting and quirky way to look at how our brains work.

Maybe you can let me know after reading it?

Your awareness will give you understanding and control that you will hopefully never lose.  I don’t mean to be dramatic but I mean really.

The Voices

As ominous as that title sounds it refers to the three languages in which you are fluent.  When we think about Voices in our head we immediately conjure up spooky things or even thoughts related to mental illness.  Let me assure you that not only does everyone¹ speak these languages, but this three-language concept is the very basis of a healthy functioning brain.

If you are experiencing deja vu, then I’m on the right path, again.

I’m introducing you to a concept that was seemingly invisible until now, and once you learn this you will never look at it the same way again.  In fact, you’ll have an awareness that no one else has (unless they also read this).

Yes, deja vu.  , isn’t it?

The Three Voices are ways that your brain communicates with others and yourself.  You’ll learn that two of the Voices can be used to communicate with others as well as yourself.  You’ll discover that one of the Voices is exclusively for internal communication—the very operating system language we all have in common.  I also explain that one of the Voices was never intended to be used to communicate with others directly—even though I’m using it to communicate with you right now.

The awareness of this concept is also something I use to write fiction—it has provided me with a method that is immune to writer’s block, and makes for well-rounded stories—in