Sports psychologists tell us visualization is not just for top-level competitive athletes. Studies show mental rehearsal helps weekend athletes sharpen their golf, their tennis, their running, whatever their favourite activity. Experts agree if you see the pictures, hear the sounds, and feel the movements of your body in your mind before you do the activity, the effect is powerful.
‘Twenty-six miles on my mattress’
Psychological mumbo jumbo? Absolutely not! I have a friend, Richard, who runs marathons. Once, several years ago, a scant three weeks before the big New York marathon, an out-of-control car crashed into Richard’s and he was taken to the hospital. He was not badly injured. Nevertheless, his friends were sorry for him because being laid up two weeks in bed would, naturally, knock him out of the big event.
What a surprise when, on that crisp November marathon morning in Central Park, Richard showed up in his little shorts and big running shoes.
‘Richard, are you crazy? You’re in no shape to run. You’ve been in bed these past few weeks!’ we all cried out.
‘My body may have been in bed,’ he replied, ‘but I’ve been running.’
‘What?’ we asked in unison.
‘Yep. Every day. Twenty-six miles, 385 yards, right there on my mattress.’ Richard explained that in his imagination he saw himself traversing every step of the course. He saw the sights, heard the sounds, and felt the twitching movements in his muscles. He visualized himself racing in the marathon.
Richard didn’t do as well as he had the year before, but the miracle is he finished the marathon, without injury, without excessive fatigue. It was all due to visualization. Visualization works in just about any endeavour you apply it to – including being a terrific communicator.
Visualization works best when you feel totally relaxed. Only when you have a calm state of mind can you get clear, vivid images. Do your visualization in the quiet of your home or car before leaving for the party, the convention, or the big-deal meeting. See it all in your mind’s eye ahead of time.
Technique 9:
Watch the scene before you make the scene
Rehearse being the Super Somebody you want to be ahead of time. See yourself walking around with Hang by Your Teeth posture, shaking hands, smiling the Flooding Smile, and making Sticky Eyes. Hear yourself chatting comfortably with everyone. Feel the pleasure of knowing you are in peak form and everyone is gravitating toward you. Visualize yourself a Super Somebody. Then it all happens automatically.
You now have the skills necessary to get you started on the right foot with any new person in your life. Think of yourself in these first moments like a rocket taking off. When the folks at Cape Kennedy aim a spacecraft for the moon, a mistake in the millionth of a degree at the beginning, when the craft is still on the ground, means missing the moon by thousands of miles. Likewise, a tiny body-language blooper at the outset of a relationship may mean you will never make a hit with that person. But with Flooding Smile, Sticky Eyes, Epoxy Eyes, Hang by Your Teeth, Big-Baby Pivot, Hello Old Friend, Limit the Fidget, Hans’s Horse Sense and Watch the Scene Before You Make the Scene, you’ll be right on course to get whatever you eventually want from anybody – be it business, friendship, or love.
We now move from the silent world to the spoken word.
Just as the first glimpse should please their eyes, your first words should delight their ears. Your tongue is a welcome mat embossed with either ‘Welcome’ or ‘Go Away!’ To make your Conversation Partner feel welcome, you must master small talk.
Small talk! Can you hear the shudder? Those two little words drive a stake into the hearts of some otherwise fearless and undaunted souls. Invite them to a party where they don’t know anyone, and it mainlines queasiness into their veins.
If this sounds familiar, take consolation from the fact that the brighter the individual, the more he or she detests small talk. When consulting for Fortune 500 companies, I was astounded. Top executives, completely comfortable making big talk with their boards of directors or addressing their stockholders, confessed they felt like little lost children at parties where the pratter was less than prodigious.
Small-talk haters, take further consolation from the fact that you are in star-studded company. Fear of small talk and stage fright are the same thing. The butterflies you feel in your stomach when you’re in a roomful of strangers flutter around the tummies of top performers. Pablo Casals complained of lifelong stage fright. Carly Simon curtailed live performances because of it. A friend of mine who worked with Neil Diamond said he insisted the words to ‘Song Sung Blue,’ a tune he’d been crooning for forty years, be displayed on his teleprompter, lest fear freeze him into forgetfulness.
Is small-talk-o-phobia curable?
Someday, scientists say, communications fears may be treatable with drugs. They’re already experimenting with Prozac to change people’s personalities. But some fear disastrous side effects. The good news is that when human beings think, and genuinely feel, certain emotions – like confidence they have specific techniques to fall back on – the brain manufactures its own antidotes. If fear and distaste of small talk is the disease, knowing solid techniques like the ones we explore in this section is the cure.
Incidentally, science is beginning to recognize it’s not chance or even upbringing that one person has a belly of butterflies and another doesn’t. In our brains, neurons communicate through chemicals called neurotransmitters. Some people have excessive levels of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, a chemical cousin of adrenaline. For some children, just walking into a kindergarten room makes them want to run and hide under a table.
As a tot, I spent a lot of time under the table. As a pre-teen in an all-girls boarding school, my legs turned to spaghetti every time I had to converse with a male. In high school, I once had to invite a boy to our school prom. The entire selection of dancing males lived in the dormitory of our brother school. And I only knew one resident, Eugene. I had met Eugene at summer camp the year before. Mustering all my courage, I decided to call him.
Two weeks before the dance, I felt the onset of sweaty palms. I put the call off. One week before, rapid heartbeat set in. I put the call off. Finally, three days before the big bash, breathing became difficult. Time was running out.
The critical moment, I rationalized, would be easier if I read from a script. I wrote out the following: ‘Hi, this is Leil. We met at camp last summer. Remember?’ (I programmed in a pause where I hoped he would say yes.) ‘Well, National Cathedral School’s prom is this Saturday night and I’d like you to be my date.’ (I programmed in another pause where I prayed he’d say yes.)
On Thursday before the dance, I could no longer delay the inevitable. I picked up the receiver and dialled. Clutching the phone waiting for Eugene to answer, my eyes followed perspiration droplets rolling down my arm and dripping off my elbow. A small salty puddle was forming around my feet. ‘Hello?’ a sexy, deep male voice answered the dorm phone.
In faster-than-a-speeding-bullet voice, like a nervous novice telemarketer, I shot out, ‘Hi, this is Leil. We-met-at-camp – last-summer-remember?’ Forgetting to pause for his assent, I raced on, ‘Well-National-Cathedral-School’s-prom-is-this-Saturday-night-and-I’d-like-you-to-be-my-date.’
To my relief and delight, I heard a big, cheerful ‘Oh that’s great, I’d love to!’ I exhaled my first normal