EFR 726: Surprising Ways to Use Your Senses to Achieve Your Goals and Unlocking the Power of Imagination with Joanna Grover

0:00:30 - Speaker 1 Okay, so we're here to talk about imagery, but in a really unique way, because I understand that you are the first, if not one of the first, people to kind of go through this imagery curriculum to then share with others through therapy, through coaching, through a lot of different methods.

0:00:51 - Speaker 2 Correct. Yes, that's right. So it originated in Plymouth in the UK and when I read about it in a science I think it was science digest I immediately thought like I need to be trained in this right, because as a therapist and then as a coach, I was always looking for, like, what's the breakthrough? Not that I believe in magic pills, but I do believe that we can do better with helping our clients and ourselves like show up to life more consistently.

0:01:22 - Speaker 1 You said therapist and coach and when I read that about you I was curious. Why the shift from therapy to coaching being a therapist to being a coach. Were you feeling like therapy was not quite landing the way that you wanted to with people? You weren't getting the transformations? Why that shift?

0:01:38 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I was. I did it for 19 years, so, like I put, my time in. But to me coaching was more contemporary, more forward-thinking. It gave me more freedom. So you know, as a therapist you're limited to practice in the States where you're licensed and with people in that state right. So at the time, like coaching was like a new frontier like wow, I could work with people around the world and still adhere to coaching ethical guidelines but not be restricted like a therapist was.

0:02:12 - Speaker 1 Do you feel like in your therapy practice you were already crossing over into the coaching realm and how you were maybe working with and helping people and you just felt like you know what this makes more sense? This is really encompassing more of the scope of practice by going coaching.

0:02:28 - Speaker 2 Probably because I practice cognitive therapy, which is very we don't. Although the past comes up, we don't dwell there very much. It's very much about present and future. So, yeah, I think I was being primed.

0:02:42 - Speaker 1 Okay, well, I love the coaching space. It's my background as well, so I'm always curious how people land on coaching, how and why they stay in it, and you know what keeps them there. It's really interesting.

0:02:53 - Speaker 2 Yeah, no, there's no turning back from me, all right.

0:02:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so we're here to talk about imagery and what I understand of your work is that you really talk about how we can use imagery to not only overcome obstacles, to develop a better relationship with our goals and ourselves, really, ultimately. But what I love the most was how imagery, you say, can help us stay consistent and adherence to our goals for the long haul. So anytime I hear anything about adherence and long term success, it has my attention.

0:03:25 - Speaker 2 So I guess we got your attention. Yeah, you got my attention.

0:03:28 - Speaker 1 So maybe, before you answer that, if you could, let's lay the foundation, for what do we mean by imagery? And the version of it that you specialize in. And then, how is imagery applied to keep us consistent in our goals?

0:03:41 - Speaker 2 Sure so, and that's a great question, because a lot of people hear imagery and they immediately think visualization guided imagery. But the way we train people in it we measure and train so that it becomes habitual is we work with seven senses, so it's the five senses that you typically think of, like smell, you have one more than Bruce Willis apparently.

0:04:07 - Speaker 1 I know we got the sixth one out there.

0:04:09 - Speaker 2 So emotion and motion are the additional two, and that's really where emotion drives human behavior. So do our senses. So when you combine that with like what someone really wants and I know we're gonna get into that a little bit today you have this ability to like trend, to overcome the habitual momentum of like, our daily way of getting sidetracked from like who we are and what we want to become.

0:04:38 - Speaker 1 Now I know you said that emotion is our most powerful sense, correct?

0:04:42 - Speaker 2 Yes.

0:04:42 - Speaker 1 Okay, that aside, I've heard read and I'll even throw my personal experience in that smell is probably the most powerful sense that I have encountered when it comes to a memory, when it comes to visualization, whether I realize it or not, when I think about something, if it's very visceral for me, usually it's a smell first.

0:05:05 - Speaker 2 And then, what is that trigger?

0:05:07 - Speaker 1 An emotion.

0:05:10 - Speaker 2 So it's not really the smell that's gonna drive the behavior. It's the emotion that the smell brings up.

0:05:15 - Speaker 1 So smell is just kind of hijacking emotion.

0:05:18 - Speaker 2 It's trying to take it away, yeah or in our case it's intentional right, so you're not being hijacked. Like triggers are you know they happen randomly. We can be triggered by a smell, but if we use a smell as a cue for an emotion to keep us on course, then we're in the driver's seat.

0:05:36 - Speaker 1 When you're working with someone or in your content? Do you recommend more leading with tapping into a sense? So visualize a color, think about a smell, lean into an emotion, or is it more start with the end and work your way backwards and see which sense is the best way to get there?

0:05:56 - Speaker 2 So we begin with. It begins with values actually, and understanding what someone wants, and then one single minded goal, and then we measure imagery in our second session.

0:06:11 - Speaker 1 How do you measure?

0:06:12 - Speaker 2 imagery. You can do that on our website imagerycoachingcom, and it's free. Anyone can do it so and it's called the PSIQ. It's an academic measure, so it's measuring your ability to recall the seven senses, like can you imagine the smell of a bonfire? Can? You imagine the feeling of being in love.

0:06:34 - Speaker 1 Okay, so is it more the speed in which we can recollect these things or just the fact that we can get there using the sense?

0:06:41 - Speaker 2 Yeah, using a vividness scale and a scale of one to five or a scale of one to ten, how vivid is that? Can you picture a sunset? Can you picture the face of someone that you know?

0:06:52 - Speaker 1 What if we're struggling with that?

0:06:55 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I struggle with it.

0:06:58 - Speaker 1 What do we struggle?

0:06:59 - Speaker 2 I struggle with the visual, right, but my sense of smell, as we were talking about before, like being in New York, like I have a very strong sense of smell and New York can be, you know, a lot of smells, so but everyone's different and it's interesting when we think of, like as we go through school. If we don't visualize very well, then we're gonna read a story or hear a story and we're not gonna have the same experience as the students sitting next to us, but yet we think everyone's having the same journey. So really understanding how your senses work is really insightful. And, yeah, your senses are gonna be different than my senses so, but we can train the senses.

0:07:40 - Speaker 1 That was gonna be my next question. I wonder is there more of a sense of this, a sense of innate sense, versus a sense that we can train? You know, I was either born this way or not, or this is just a natural strength of mine or natural weakness. Is it more playing to the strengths and weaknesses we have with our senses for the sake of imagery and overcoming obstacles and reaching our goals? Or is it maybe this blend of recognizing the ones that are strong and then bringing up in some capacity ones that are weak to really optimize our goals? Exactly, it's a lot. Okay, yeah, how do we do that?

0:08:19 - Speaker 2 We're gonna have you like anything where attention goes, you know energy flows. So even though I started being not great at visualizing, I was able to develop that skill right and I have to keep developing it. So it's something that we give homework to. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine that? And once you start to pay attention, like a lot of people will say, oh, I have no sense of taste, but then you give them like throughout the day, like what is the toothpaste really taste like?

0:08:54 - Speaker 1 I know that's just long, covid. Yeah, It'll come back, don't worry.

0:08:57 - Speaker 2 But, you know, can you remember the taste of, you know, your grandmother's cookies or something? It's in there, even though you may struggle with taste today, the memory of taste, and it's the memory that's so powerful that you can tap into.

0:09:13 - Speaker 1 You know, I've heard you say imagination, imagine a few times. Is that, when we're talking about visualization, really what's at the core? Is it more of our capacity for imagining things in full vividness and incorporating all the senses? So if that's the case, then what do we do if we suck at imagining?

0:09:36 - Speaker 2 Oh well, then you're going to train in it.

0:09:39 - Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, it's like what if I suck at going to?

0:09:41 - Speaker 2 the gym right. And then I like work with somebody to help me get to the gym, or I'll go with a buddy and I'll commit to it. So it's one of those things that, like you may not be good at it now, but I really have not in my work. In doing this work, I've always seen people improve.

0:10:00 - Speaker 1 Well, that's hopeful. That's hopeful. I think we all can improve on imagination. It's just a matter of probably putting our bodies and our minds in conducive environments to imagination.

0:10:12 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and starting small right, starting with something. So, rather than starting with many goals or a huge goal, start small. So someone might come and they want to improve their golf swing right or they want to win a certain tournament, and so then it's a it's a measurable goal and we can with that, then we can train it and then they can start to use it in other parts of their life. Like one of the first CEOs we worked with Charles Alvarez, who's a CEO of a company called Stratus. He came to us to improve his golf game and it ended up improving his ability to manage and lead a company.

0:10:54 - Speaker 1 How did improving one's golf game turn into improving running a company?

0:10:59 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, so he maybe some trade secrets. Yeah, no, that's fine, it's in the it's in the book.

0:11:04 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:11:06 - Speaker 2 And and Charlie is a good friend, so he's very open about that he's that kind of leader who, like, doesn't mind expressing vulnerability, so but it on the golf course he would have certain frustration, right A bad swing, and it'd be like, oh and he'd have anger issues and his friends would like ribbon about it, and then that would impact his game.

0:11:28 - Speaker 1 And then what do you think, negatively or positively? Well, negatively yeah.

0:11:31 - Speaker 2 It would impact his game negatively and then it would kind of spiral. So when he was able to like tap into his friends, actually noticed like why aren't you responding to our ribbing Cause? He was in flow, he was in a state of like he knew what he want, he was smelling like the grass, he could feel that perfect swing. He wasn't in his head, he was in his body. And then what happened? Was he? Um, he was an immune Meeting and um, actually yeah, there are two stories, but one that I'll share he was in a meeting and someone was behaving in a way that was really triggering him. They were not being a team player, they were being like major kind of Debbie Downer, and he wanted to kind of lose his temper with this person.

0:12:15 - Speaker 1 But instead of use Pull out his dry iron. There was something that's true.

0:12:21 - Speaker 2 But instead of used as imagery and um, he had a cue, so that would um interrupt the neuro pathway of like, just you know, getting angry and expressing that anger. But he used his cue and he stayed cool and then he had a conversation with the person after that led to them taking responsibility and and really taking it on themselves to improve who they showed up as in the next meeting. So, and it all started on the golf course right, he remembered, because it worked. It worked in a measurable way, interesting.

0:12:52 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it makes sense to me If we get better in one area of our life we have to get better in another area of our life If we bring frustrations of one thing into the next, it's kind of inevitable, I think, human nature.

If we're out on the golf course and we have a crappy day, if we have a horrible workout, if we miss yoga, if we, you know, insert anything here that we wanted to do, that's in pursuit of a particular, you know, of a particular goal, and it either doesn't happen or doesn't happen have how we imagined, how we visualized. It's really hard to separate and not bring that failure, that less than ideal energy, into the next part of our life Right.

So I'm kind of hearing that if we succeeded in one area using imagery, it is inevitable that we bring that over into all areas.

0:13:46 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and we find. So we start small, like with something. So you know, most recent client just want to finish this course, right, he's always sort of said I'll make time to do this course. But then life gets in the way and but this time is like no, I'm going to finish this course and they're new to imagery, so using it. And so people start out like that. And then eventually, as they use it, they're like wow, this works, I wonder where else it will work. And then we see some radical things happening, like people will suddenly go like wow, if I'm really following the life I want to live, I'm going to do things really differently.

We've had a few people say like I'm moving and I'm going to surf in Australia, because that's really what I want to do and so there are some big things that sometimes happen that lead people more to like who they really are rather than what they're in now.

0:14:40 - Speaker 1 What I love most about this concept is when we really tap into imagination. Yes, I believe it forces us to think way bigger than we ever did before or ever thought possible.

And when we begin to think bigger, we begin to realize what else is possible. Yes, not only in the world, but in our world. And also it brings about this level of creativity that I think has to go along with a world that big, because how else are we going to jump from? This was the end of the world that I thought to. Now this is the end of the world. We haven't experienced that Right.

So the brain has to think creatively to jump to go. Oh well, this maybe was because of that or this person. These things all came together and it really does begin to kind of formulate the recipe that we probably then take action on, Right Exactly, I mean, as Einstein said, logic will get you from A to B, but your imagination will take you everywhere.

0:15:39 - Speaker 2 And that's true. I mean, if we're going to get out of a lot of the mess that we're in in society, it's not going to be about doing the same old thing, it's going to be about really innovating. Those are going to be the companies that survive. Those are going to be the people and the ones that keep their values close and don't kind of like, well, we can do this now and that tomorrow, and you know, but really know who they are and are committed to that.

0:16:06 - Speaker 1 Do you think, with what we've talked about thus far, the average person out here in America will say is already incorporating some form, some type of imagery, and they just don't realize that's it. But maybe now, here, here's your level of awareness. This is imagery. Maybe give us an example of where someone might be using visualization, might be using imagery incorporating these other senses, senses without realizing it. Now that they realized it, what power do they have and where do they go next?

0:16:36 - Speaker 2 Oh sure, so we use imagery all day long. So we may. A word can trigger imagery, like email, right. So you start to think of oh my goodness, all the emails I have to respond to or I haven't responded to that person. So you go into your imagination and it usually brings up an emotion. So it's all day long imagery is being used. It may be if we want to go for a run, right, but we wake up and it's raining and we then trust to imagine what it's like to run in the rain and what it's like to stay in bed. So we're going to go with the one that's easier, right, we're going to stay in bed. That's so true. Yeah, so if, but we've.

We also teach people to use imagery to mentally rehearse, which is something like athletes do. But the rest of us, you know, or even great athletes like I, martina Navicholovar, who wrote the forward to the book, one greatest tennis players who ever lived. I asked her did you use the same visualization that you used on the tennis court in your life? No, not really. Why? Yeah, why? Because it's just like. That's the way the mind works. Well, you know, like for her.

0:17:43 - Speaker 1 It's like not necessary yeah.

0:17:44 - Speaker 2 So I think the way we train people, we tell them this isn't a work in other places, not just here, not just on the court, it's in a work in other places. So, and if you mentally rehearse, how are you going to react when it's raining outside and you've committed that you're going to run that triathlon, you've committed that you're going to get in shape, what are you going to do? So that's where you use a cue, and a cue is something it could be a deep breath, it could be holding your heart, it could be some kind of pattern disruptor, some sort of?

pattern it could be tapping, it can be something, anything. For me it's like when my feet touch the ground in the morning. That's one of them. That's one where I really like run through my day and how I want to stay in alignment with who I am.

0:18:31 - Speaker 1 I like that. It reminds me of this phrase be where your feet are. I think it's a great tool for mindfulness and being present is be where your feet are. You're literally starting your day off that way.

0:18:41 - Speaker 2 Yeah. So be where your heart is, too, be where your passion is, be where your values are. So many of us I mean when we do, when we work with clients and we do this value sort exercise and we give them 60 values and they have to come up with the top five. It's not easy, but inevitably, health is number one, and yet we have an obesity crisis, yet we have people eating unhealthy and doing all sorts of unhealthy things. So where's the alignment of the value with the behavior? And it's sort of like going back to being a therapist, as Winnicott said. When there's like a big sort of a rift between who you are on the outside and who you are on the inside, that's where you have mental health issues, right? So if we're living a life that's really out of alignment with, like, our values and who we are, we're going to start to see our body react. We're going to start to see our mind rebel.

0:19:43 - Speaker 1 I think that is so true and is such a limiting factor to why we are not where we want to be most of us. Yes, in life, in health, in wealth, in relationships, in every facet really, because we do not realize that it's not the goal, that maybe is too daunting, or it's not my ability or inability to reach it or to do the things necessary to get me closer to it.

It's that we do not even recognize our own value sets, and how, where, why, why those values are in or out of alignment with those goals.

0:20:26 - Speaker 2 It's so true. It's so true. I mean, it's not uncommon, right? We are wired to think negatively. We're wired to be. We're inundated. We're inundated with information. On any given day, we have between 6,000 and 60,000 thoughts. 80% of them are negative and roughly 90% are the same as the day before. So if we're really setting out to do something new, whether it's eat, healthy exercise we're going to have to have a tool that overrides the status quo, and imagery is that tool. Beyond a shadow of doubt, it's 20 years of research that's gone into, like making this a model that really works. And what works is it develops resilience in the individual, and then we use it with teams. It develops resilience in teams. So and we're science driven right. So this, this program known as functional imagery training, resulted in the most successful weight loss program ever, without using drugs or surgery.

0:21:31 - Speaker 1 Walk us through this. What did this look like?

0:21:33 - Speaker 2 So this look like the fit model. It's understanding why someone wants to change. Really, it's not because the doctor says if you do, if you don't do this. We've had people the doctor said if you don't do this, you're going to lose a leg, You're going to lose your eyesight, You're going to lose your life Very common in things like diabetes.

Yeah, but then human behavior doesn't change right, because what happens is there's a craving, and cravings are sensory based. It may be. I'm committed to stop doing X, y and Z, but then I see somebody doing it or imagine somebody doing it, and suddenly I'm in the throes of a craving. Right, I can taste it. I can smell it.

There's an emotion attached to it and I want that and I want that now. So, really well intentioned people setting out to give up something or at the mercy of a craving and we call it being hijacked by a craving. What we teach is basically how to use that same craving method to change your channel in your head to what you want. So, yes, you're going to have that craving, but you can use a cue to interrupt the channel and go to the channel of what you want, and it should be something emotional. Is it showing up for that wedding in that suit that you want to wear? Is it being really present for a relationship? Is it feeling your best on your podcast? Whatever it is?

you're going to interrupt that neuro pathway, that negative, which were wired to be negative. It's not unusual. So with the weight loss study it was really tapping into someone's Y, not their physician's Y, but their Y, and then teaching them imagery cues. Tapping into the seven senses, we find at least if there's three or more it works. It doesn't have to be all seven.

0:23:22 - Speaker 1 So even just getting close to majority on using imagery in terms of the senses, we can get really, really close if not there to our goals.

0:23:31 - Speaker 2 Yeah, make it vivid, right, Make it real, mentally rehearse. What are you going to do when the you know when it's raining outside, what are you going to do when the dessert menu comes? You're going to anticipate these things before they happen, so that you can you know that you can stay consistent.

0:23:45 - Speaker 1 And you're not stuck feeling frantic or not knowing what to do when that situation comes. I think that's such a great point. In pursuit of whatever we want in life, a lot of it is lack of preparation. It's lack of preparation when we reach a barrier, an obstacle, an objection, a friction point To you know. Case in point we want to lose weight, we're trying to clean up our diet and the waiter comes by and they bring up dessert. Yeah, that's a trigger.

0:24:16 - Speaker 2 I hadn't even thought about that, right.

0:24:18 - Speaker 1 Now is the other person going to get dessert?

0:24:21 - Speaker 2 Right, and if they get dessert, we're more likely to get dessert. Exactly, what do you want? Oh, I'm fine, are you okay?

0:24:26 - Speaker 1 Exactly. It's just we're so much more obliged to accommodate everybody else, whether the person we're with or even just. Oh, the waiter asked me and he seems really excited about it, so I don't want to let him down. I mean, we go out of our way.

0:24:39 - Speaker 2 Or you've said well, you split it with me, right, right, and then I don't want to let you down. But if I've already mentally rehearsed this, I'm going to use my cue and I'm going to stay on course.

0:24:50 - Speaker 1 You know this. Actually it's funny you bring this up. This has actually worked for me the last couple of years. Really, I have just become less interested in general in alcohol consumption.

I won't say that I've completely stopped drinking, but special occasions here and there, kind of thing, and I've noticed how powerful social drinking has been in my life. When I go out to eat, when I go out hang out, whatever. If someone comes, brings a menu or anybody brings up, hey, do you want to drink? Here's a cocktail list. Here are the beers. There seems to be, at least in my friend circles, this pause, this moment where everyone seems to kind of be waiting to see what everyone else is going to do.

0:25:30 - Speaker 2 Yes.

0:25:30 - Speaker 1 And I. What I've decided to do is I lean in first and I go no.

0:25:35 - Speaker 2 I'm good.

0:25:36 - Speaker 1 Actually just some water, or you know maybe I'll look at it later and it's like dominoes after that, right, nine times out of 10. Everyone's no, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. But if I go, yeah, I've kind of done this like social experience. Oh yeah, sorry, my friends, I'm getting you drunk without realizing it or wrecking your goals.

0:25:52 - Speaker 2 Right.

0:25:52 - Speaker 1 If I say yes, I'm finding. More often than not they say yes, but if I say no, we all just drink water.

0:25:58 - Speaker 2 No, we are.

Subconsciously and unconsciously, we are wired to survive People do Right, and those on the outside of the herd. We're going to be eaten by the prey, so we better be in the herd, and that's social contagion. So it's true, like, be mindful of who you hang out with, because you're going to be influenced by them whether you like it or not. But really being able to use your imagery so that, no matter where you are and who you're with, you can really really live out like something that's meaningful to you, which, when we're surrounded by so much noise, it's really hard to like. You have to figure it out. You have to have, you know, ideally a coach do that with you, or somebody who's going to really be on your side but not tied to like.

We never tell people what to do in our work, in this methodology, because we want them to have a sense of agency. We want you to feel like this is your dream, not ours. Otherwise, people are showing up and trying to impress us and that's extrinsic motivation. That's not internal intrinsic motivation. So back to the weight loss study. What people did is they continued to lose weight, right? So up until this study, weight Watchers was the most successful in terms of longevity. But at six months, people plateaued. And with using imagery. People went beyond six months, they went beyond a year and they were really feeling much more in control of their life and less, you know, imposed upon. I have to do this because someone told me so.

0:27:39 - Speaker 1 It's funny you bring extrinsic and intrinsic motivation up. My last trip here in New York, right there sat Steph-on Falk who wrote this new book, intrinsic Motivation. That's exactly what we covered, and I think, whether we're talking weight loss, whether we're talking coaching, whether we're talking anything what we want for our lives.

If we get really granular, we have to boil it down to why am I motivated to do this thing? How am I going to motivate myself? How am I going to commit? How am I going to dig deep and find whatever is inside of me that wants this, that needs this? Because that's the only way, in my opinion and I was in coaching practice for years as well and this is exactly what I would try to lean into my clients is it can't come from me, it has to come from you.

If it comes from me, it might work here and now.

0:28:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah it's going to be short-term. We can get you motivated, exactly.

0:28:32 - Speaker 1 But if it only comes from me and then you stop working with me and I see you again in a year. Where are you going to be?

0:28:40 - Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. So what we find is that people it works for them and then it continues to work for them. Right, and that's the beauty of it. Yes, we're there to support them, but eventually they don't need us at all.

0:28:56 - Speaker 1 They're off and running. That's the goal. That's the goal, absolutely.

0:28:58 - Speaker 2 That's the goal and that was always my goal in therapy. As a therapist, I would say my goal is for you to fire me, but it took a long time. Yeah, right. But in this people are like yeah, I'm good, you're like wow.

0:29:15 - Speaker 1 That is an incredible feeling and saying to feel and say I'll allow, whenever you do get to that point in your life, in your goals, I'm good, I'm good.

0:29:25 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and it happens with this methodology. In my experience, it happens faster, so it's more efficient and long-term, like once you figure out and you've had this superpower all along. Exactly.

0:29:40 - Speaker 1 It's not like oh, you have to download, yeah.

0:29:44 - Speaker 2 You have to use it and be mindful of it and keep using it, but it's not something that you're going to have to reorder. You have it already in you. It's the best hack. It's the best hack. It's the best hack.

0:29:55 - Speaker 1 Well, there's another hack I want to lean into, sure, and that's one we were kind of laughing about beforehand. Shout out to Ed Lasso yeah, love that show.

0:30:01 - Speaker 2 And.

0:30:01 - Speaker 1 Unleashing the Beast. Unleashing the Beast Sometimes, in order to really visualize what we want, we kind of have to step into character. We need what we're talking about earlier a pretty hard pattern disruptor. We need something new and different, and maybe even a little bit extreme to get us there. What does this Unleash the Beast property?

0:30:23 - Speaker 2 when it comes to visualization, oh well, your imagination will take you everywhere, just as Einstein said, like there's no limit to it. I've coached creative types working with a young choreographer who just blew it out of the park at the American Ballet Theater last week. Like his creations, because he really uses a symmetry. It's taken him, he's unleashed a creative beast and I have no doubt that he's going to continue to do that in the ballet, which is really cool to see in a very kind of traditional methodology. He's bringing this innovation so it can happen anywhere. And that term, unleashed the Beast, as we were saying, I've used it in rowing competitions. It's a cue that my teammate wants to hear in our final 250 meters, when you're at a gas sometimes, but you have to tap into the next level, like you think you're at a gas but there's actually more in the tank. So Unleashed the Beast can be your cue to. I'm going to go further.

0:31:34 - Speaker 1 If we're at that point and we feel like we've given it our all mentally, emotionally, physically do we need to really think that extremely, visualize more extremely, such as Unleashed the Beast? To kind of shift out of our personality a little bit, to completely radically get out of our head, maybe get out of our bodies and to think that we're becoming someone different in order to accomplish the thing before us. It depends.

0:32:07 - Speaker 2 That's again. That's so individual. For some people, yeah, like for my teammate, yeah, there is a beast in there that she's going to unleash just then. But for other people, to give you an example of the military training for the British Royal Commandos that my co-author, dr Jonathan Rhodes, he we tell a great story in the book of, when they're in there, one of their final tests to become a Royal Commando. They're in this grueling race on the British Moors and it's dark and it's cold and it's usually raining and there are snakes and there's all sorts of things in the dark that your imagination, the hounds of the Baskervilles.

0:32:51 - Speaker 1 aren't they out there still?

0:32:53 - Speaker 2 Your imagination, should it run wild, can really sabotage you, right? And there's always. You're told that there's always a minivan that's warm with hot chocolate and you can quit if you're not meant for this. Same thing as Navy Seals and they dangle that they literally leave donuts out. Yeah.

0:33:14 - Speaker 1 Warm fire when you're in the cold.

0:33:16 - Speaker 2 not speaking personally, but so if you're elaborating on that warm bus with the hot chocolate, you're going to be likely to quit because your mind's going to go there. What's it going to taste like? What's it going to feel like to be warm and comfortable? But the soldiers, who are trained to use imagery. They can transcend pain and suffering because they know what it's going to feel like. They're focusing on what it's going to feel like when they accomplish their mission. They're not in the pain. They may feel it, but they're not going to elaborate on it. The imagery that they elaborate on is focused on their goal and their values. So we've seen that people will persevere through incredible hardship, with incredible resiliency. So they're not going to stop for that hot chocolate and the mini bus.

But, that being said, like we're not all on all the time and sometimes our narrative becomes I am what I do and that's where we see people. Whenever we set out working with, like, high performance teams and individuals, we want to know who they are. Even if this doesn't happen, or even if it does happen, you get there and it's not what you expected it to be, and then you go home and you're alone and disappointed. How will you handle that? Like with a great tennis player like Martina, who she made more headlines when she lost than when she won, because here in the US people were rooting for Chrissy Everett. They weren't rooting for Martina, so she wasn't tied up in the. I am only Martina Navratilova if I win For her. She was first and foremost a human rights activist and was wanted to be have a platform to influence people's lives, so winning and losing didn't shape her.

You know it was reaching for something higher. So we often, whether you're going for an Olympic gold, we want to know what's beyond the gold, like who are you when you come home? Who you come when you come home from that mission, because otherwise you may have an identity crisis. And when you're in the throes of the crisis, your imagination is very limited. You tend to hyper focus on the negative thinking. It's going to keep you safe, but it causes so much suffering.

0:35:44 - Speaker 1 It makes me kind of think is there an opposite to this? If maybe we're stuck already in negative visualization? We're catastrophizing, we're thinking of what we don't have, how far we are from our goals, how much more weight we have to lose, how much more money we need to save, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. How do we disrupt negative visualization?

0:36:14 - Speaker 2 Or am I even saying right things? Are we in negative visualization? Yeah, we should something called the slap.

0:36:18 - Speaker 1 Okay, like yeah, quite literally.

0:36:21 - Speaker 2 I mean sometimes you need a good slap to get out of it, but no, so normally we say we use a lap, which is you locate your cue you activate, but I'll get to slap.

0:36:31 - Speaker 1 I'll get to slap.

0:36:32 - Speaker 2 We locate cue, activate imagery and persevere, right. But sometimes you need a slap right which is stop, take a deep breath, locate your cue, activate imagery, persevere and you're going to park. But you're going to add another P, which is park your thought, park that negative thought, right, so you can park it and visit it later, which is really important. We don't want you to stop and leave it and never go back to it. Now you're going to, you're going to really make time to visit that later. But if you're in the throes of something, a slap really works, whether it's.

I've had friends and clients who are going through something as difficult as cancer, and they'll use a slap like okay, I'm going to, I'm going to set my alarm, so I know at five, from five to five, 30, I can follow the pieces and the rest of the day I'm going to, I'm going to persevere. But I know I have that time to fall apart. And that's an important part of of this too, because we're not we're not machines. We do need that time. But that slap kind of brings us back. If I'm in a meeting, if I'm doing a podcast with you and a negative thought comes in, I can use my slap so that I'm like I'm here with you, I'm not somewhere else, and I'll visit that thought later.

0:37:55 - Speaker 1 Is visualization always a process for the future? Can we utilize it in the present?

0:38:04 - Speaker 2 moment, yeah, oh yeah, all the time. So, and you'll see athletes do this, like Nadal, I mean. His cues were really out in the open. He had a very elaborate series of cues that he did.

0:38:17 - Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I'm not a sports guy. I know Nadal, but I don't know.

0:38:21 - Speaker 2 So he had like a very elaborate, you know, tapping series and adjusting his shorts and and, and you'd see him use it if he was getting in his head, if he was getting negative in the moment in the in the present moment, and then it would get him back to focusing on his best game. So yeah, you use it in the moment. There are really two types of imagery we teach. One is the mental rehearsal and the other is in the moment.

0:38:50 - Speaker 1 When writing this book and putting so much of this amazing work out into the world. I kind of asked this question a lot with with authors. Was there one thing, what was one thing that in your research and in writing, the book was solidified with, maybe your hypothesis or your point in the book, and what was one thing maybe that you found that was very surprising?

0:39:16 - Speaker 2 Well, I used, I used the imagery a lot, because writing a book is harder than it looks.

0:39:21 - Speaker 1 Did you just visualize the finished product? I did.

0:39:23 - Speaker 2 I was like in a bookstore in Sag Harbor and I knew the smell and the people that would be there and assigning books and there was a sense of accomplishment. I could like see it in the window as I walked past and that would transcend the nights where I was like, oh you know that's a better feeling, right, it's a better feeling, yeah, for you and for Jonathan, yeah.

Well, and for my co-author, what was surprising is, when you write with somebody like I, would wake up and his thought would be in my head or his his voice would be in my head and I was like, oh, this is driving me crazy. And he'd say the same thing. So it's amazing.

It was like it was very powerful and he's a scientist. I love science, but I also love the art of story, so we came together and blended science and storytelling Amazing, so that was a surprise. That like how much someone can get in your head.

0:40:18 - Speaker 1 Wait a minute. I'm visualizing. Shouldn't I be in control of this? Why are you in my head?

0:40:23 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so I think it also taught me to just maybe not take life as seriously, like I think sometimes we get so caught up in rigidity and it's like if we could just like like see a little bit more, even 5% more, of like the humor in something or, you know, the the opportunity to learn. No matter how hard it is, there's always something and it is really, you know, like what you focus on is is the plant, the seed that will be planted?

0:40:57 - Speaker 1 What is one area of visualization that you struggle with the most personally?

0:41:03 - Speaker 2 Well, visualization is my weakest sense.

0:41:06 - Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

0:41:07 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm much stronger in my other senses, very strong in emotion, very strong in smell and taste and touch. So with visualization, you know, I can see things like a sunset. It's harder for me to see someone's face, but it's not, you know. You'll see in the measure, like, how vivid is the image? Like, if you imagine an apple, how vivid is it? For me it will never be really vivid, but that's okay that it's a little fuzzy.

0:41:36 - Speaker 1 Like I said, just eat more apples. Give us one way right now the listener, the viewer could incorporate this form of imagery and visualization in their lives, right here, right now, just the general person. What can they do and what benefit will it give them?

0:41:59 - Speaker 2 Well, yeah, they can start with paying attention to, as they're listening to this, what sort of images in their head right now, right, and play around with it, like, realize it, there's a clicker right and what like. Whatever your goal is, what does that look like? What does it smell like, what does it sound like? What is the emotion in it? What is the emotion? Can you see it? And even if these things aren't incredibly vivid, you want to give it time and attention. It needs your time and attention.

Because, left to our own devices, as a friend of mine said. Like she said reading the book and me sharing some of the studies, she said you know, you taught me that my mind isn't on my team. Wow, Wow, and but there's something I can do about it, Wow.

0:42:55 - Speaker 1 If nothing else, that's a powerful takeaway. How many of us probably feel, or have felt, like that, no matter how hard we're trying whenever? We're doing to better our lives, to better our thoughts. It can kind of feel like it's not on our side.

0:43:10 - Speaker 2 And then we feel like something's wrong with us, right, and maybe we have to medicate it. Maybe we have to do this and that Maybe I'm not saying. You know, as a therapist, I was really mindful that some people really do struggle with something that requires medication, but for most of us it's the expectation. Like we're wired this way, it's okay, but you can. You can overcome it, and imagery is, in my experience, the most powerful school in our arsenal to overcome it.

0:43:44 - Speaker 1 I believe that imagery has taken me places I never thought possible and I found myself being in places literally or mentally, and not knowing that it was imagery. So it's kind of chicken or the egg. Both have seemed to kind of work for me. So, ditto on everything you're saying. I want to ask you my final question.

0:44:05 - Speaker 2 Yes.

0:44:06 - Speaker 1 To bring it home, and I think what a perfect way to go into. How do we move forward in life? Just visualize it, utilize these senses and imagine it. But I would love to get your interpretation when you hear those two words ever forward. How would you define that, describe it? What does it mean to you to live a life ever forward?

0:44:25 - Speaker 2 Well, it means no matter, like, who you are and where you are and what you've done in your past you, for me, I'm not perfect and I can focus and dwell on all of my mistakes. Or I can live with this forward thinking mind of like well, I've certainly learned what it's like to fail and now I'm going to have this mindset of like, I'm curious about what's around the corner and I'm going to be mindful of the image that I'm taking with me as.

I move forward into this future and mindful that I can play with it and get creative and it's not locked into position. No rigidity, and I have a Buddhist teacher and I've been getting more and more into meditation and in Buddhism rigidity is a form of human suffering, one of the greatest forms of human suffering. So my teacher always says, it's neither this nor that, neither nor both. I'm like, what does that mean?

But I think what it means is you know, don't get too attached right, but know that you, if you know who you are, and that may be ever evolving, but our values give a really good sense of what's important to us and we act on those. It's a beautiful starting place. We're not going to be perfect beings and we're not going to be able to visualize a future and then like just step into it like magic, although sometimes I have to say there's magic involved and I've had clients come back to me saying, like what?

0:46:05 - Speaker 1 what did you do? Like it happened exactly as.

0:46:08 - Speaker 2 I imagined it down to the way the door opened, down to the like light in the office down to the high five I received and I'm always yeah, the slap, and I'm always struck by like wow, like I'm just as in awe as you are, Like sometimes there's magic, that happens when we tap into the imagination that science hasn't begun to measure.

0:46:30 - Speaker 1 I'll even take it a step further and, in closing say, sometimes when I go through visualization, imagery work, I find myself realizing that I'm already where I want to be the body, the mood, the relationship, the energy, no matter how small or grandiose. The thing is that I'm imagining and visualizing a lot of times, certain things. It's finally, it's like it's finally. That's the time and place where the lock and key can meet and I go oh wow, chase, you know what. You're sitting here trying to imagine. This quote better life, this better thing, better you, whatever. A lot of these things are already here right now.

You just haven't been taking a moment long enough to realize. You're there, bro, you're there.

0:47:23 - Speaker 2 Yeah Well, what you bring up is that the mind cannot hold two opposing images at once, Right? So if you're struggling with something, if you then start to think with gratitude, like wow, I didn't, I had forgotten, like how fortunate I am, then you're going to lose the suffering image, right, cause you can't hold two at once. So gratitude is a really powerful one for imagery. If you, if you simply take that away, that is like you get to choose the channel suffering or gratitude, and I think most of us would choose gratitude.

0:48:03 - Speaker 1 I'm with you. Well, this has been an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for taking time to sit down with me here.

0:48:09 - Speaker 2 Now, I've enjoyed it. Thank you, chase.

0:48:10 - Speaker 1 And, of course, have all of your content in the book linked down, the show notes for everybody. But where can they go right now to connect with you?

0:48:17 - Speaker 2 So they can order the book on Amazon or their local bookstore. It's called the Choice Point and go to imagerycoachingcom and take the imagery measure, see how your imagination is working and, no matter where it is, know that it can be improved. All right, thank you so much.

0:48:33 - Speaker 1 Thank you!