The Committee of Rascals

Most successful people I know have an inner board room where different voices compete for attention. I call mine the Committee of Rascals — those persistent voices that pipe up with "you have nothing to contribute here" or "you don't belong" at precisely the wrong moments.

The interesting thing isn't that we have these voices. It's how we run the meeting.

For years, I tried to silence my Committee. Unsurprisingly, that worked about as well as telling someone to "calm down" in the middle of an argument. The voices just got louder, more insistent.

Then I learned something fascinating from working with Holocaust survivors. The most resilient ones didn't try to forget their experiences or fight their fears. Instead, they developed an almost mechanical precision in how they processed them. They acknowledged what happened while refusing to let it control their next chapter.

So I started running my Committee meetings differently. When a Rascal stands up to argue why I shouldn't speak up in a meeting or take on a new challenge, I thank them for their opinion... then politely invite them to sit back down. It happens about 50 times a day, and you'd never know it if we were having a conversation.

This isn't about positive thinking or silencing self-doubt. It's about creating a sustainable system for processing internal resistance. Like a well-run board meeting, everyone gets heard - but not everyone gets a vote on the final decision.

The trick isn't in having fewer Rascals (good luck with that). It's in becoming a better meeting chairman.

Feeling like your own Committee meetings could use some restructuring? Like you're grinding gears trying to silence voices that might just need a different kind of listening?

Inquire within...

Onward,

Bryoncé