Speak Life

How you talk to yourself runs everything else.

Stop letting self-talk tear down who God made you to be. You're worthy of the dreams God puts on your heart, and you can make them happen. It starts with the words you use on yourself.

Book a call with me

30 minutes on video. You leave with one next step.

The principle

You're not behind. You just can't see how far you've come.

How you talk affects how you think and what you believe. How you think and believe affects everything else: what you start, what you finish, and what you quit on. You can change both, and it starts with discipline over your language and taming your mind.

Most people never question the voice. They just obey it. Change the words and you can finally see the progress the voice was hiding.

Where it started for me

By every outside measure, I'd made it.

I spent a decade in oil and gas, supervised a unit during refinery turnarounds, and signed the permits that sent my crew home safe. Inside, I was dying. I'd let bad managers and loud coworkers tell me who I was, and I believed every word.

When God broke through, the first thing that had to change was how I talked to myself. Then I walked away from that career to build. I've buried two businesses since and kept building, and the voice is the first thing I check when I stall.

Gradey Iverson in the cockpit of a small plane in Alaska
Alaska
Speak Life, applied to AI

A vague ask gets you a conversation.

The same discipline decides whether AI does real work for you. Most people talk to AI the way they talk to themselves: vague, hedged, never clear on what done looks like. They get endless conversation back.

Give it a clear outcome, a standard and a picture of done, and you get finished work. Done right, AI doesn't replace your people. It gives the team you have room to do more of their best work.

Say the outcome
Name the finished thing you want in front of you, not the topic you want to talk about.
Set the standard
Write what good looks like before you start. The same note works for a person or an AI.
Hold it to done
Check the work against the standard. If it isn't done, say exactly what's missing.
Start today

Four things to do this week.

  1. Catch the sentence.Next time you stall, write down the exact words you said to yourself. The words, not the feeling.
  2. Write down three things you finished.This week, today, whatever's fresh. You're further along than the voice says.
  3. Turn what's true into a question.Take what you wrote and ask it back to yourself. "Isn't it amazing how I finish what I set my mind to?" "Isn't it crazy how easy it is for me to take the next step?"
  4. Say it out loud. Three times, minimum.Out loud, not in your head. More on the hard days.
Gradey Iverson standing arms wide inside a giant redwood
Room to grow
Bring the thing you keep putting off.

The idea, the team problem, the voice that says not yet. In 30 minutes we'll name what's in the way and pick one next step.

Book a call with me