Alastair WallaceCEO. Lead Consultant. Trainer. Coach, Brainfood Ltd · Leadership & Management Training for Busy Managers. Helping senior leaders stop handholding | Brain-friendly, diary-friendly | Save 5+ hours a week | 23,500 managers trained | 200% ROI guaranteed. TED

21.How to make your own luck

26 Jan 2024 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:43

In this motivational talk, the speaker addresses the anxiety that precedes important presentations or meetings and proposes mental rehearsal as a tool to turn fear into confidence. He explains that imagining a scenario activates the same motor, somatosensory, auditory, and emotional brain regions as actually performing the task, meaning that visualizing failure can increase the chance of failure while visualizing success can program the brain for a positive outcome. Citing sports psychology, he references a study where participants who only imagined exercising gained 13.5% muscle mass compared to a 30% gain for those who physically exercised, illustrating that mental practice can produce measurable physiological benefits. The speaker then offers a concrete hack: conduct a detailed, sensory‑rich mental walkthrough of the upcoming situation—seeing yourself walk in confidently, speaking fluently, asking questions, and receiving nods and smiles. He encourages viewers to adopt this positive visualization habit, invites them to share their upcoming challenges, and offers personal assistance.

Chapters

This is a good one. So you have a big presentation or important meeting coming up. What's going through your mind? Imagining how awful it's going to be? Forgetting what you're going to say? Your boss, Yooni, eugh! Whilst you stutter over a difficult question? Mental rehearsal like this activates the same motor, somatosensory, auditory, and emotional brain circuits as the actual physical act. Your brain doesn't differentiate between imagination and reality in this case. So thinking about failure increases the likelihood that it will happen. Sports psychologists know this. They use positive visualisation to improve athletic performance, competitive edge, and confidence. In one study, just thinking about performing exercises led to a 13.5% increase in muscle mass against those who did the exercise, who increased by 30%. So you really can think your way to success, maybe even bigger muscles, at least some of the way anyway. Your hack here is to do a positive mental walkthrough of a challenging situation. Imagine yourself walking in feeling confident, talking fluently, asking questions confidently and finishing to smiles and nods at the end. Really feel every sense of it to program your brain for success. Start visualising success and not failure, and you set yourself up for a positive outcome. I'd love to hear how you get on with this. Also, what difficult situations have you got coming up? Drop me a message if I can help.