When you want to change the way you talk to yourself—your self-talk—one interesting step is to listen to someone else talk, on repeat.

For example, Seth Godin talks about how he changed his own negative self-talk by listening to Zig Ziglar tapes, for three hours a day, for three years. Similarly—but slightly different—Cathy Park Hong transcribed Richard Pryor’s audio and film performances.

There’s something powerful—difficult to quantify, and equally easy to notice—about hearing someone’s voice—the words they say, the cadence, the energy. It can serve as a scaffolding to change how you want to talk to yourself. 

If you intentionally choose the person you listen to, and the things that they’re saying to you, then you can also intentionally soak up the things that they say and the attitude and energy they’re saying it with. 

With tools like ElevenLabs, this can become even more powerful; you can keep the other person’s voice, and control what you hear that voice say.