Former Pro Athlete Visualizes His Way To Public Speaking Success

Before Michael Phelps swims a lap, or Lindsey Vonn races down a ski slope, or Jason Day hits a golf ball, they visualize a successful outcome. Phelps even pictures himself from two perspectives – from the pool and in the stands. The world’s most successful athletes understand the power of seeing themselves excel at a given task in their mind’s eye well before they execute the task for real. Why should public speaking be any different? As it turns out, it’s not. Practicing visualization techniques can have far reaching implications for your career.

I caught up with entrepreneur Lewis Howes this week to talk about this new book, The School of Greatness. Howes is a former professional football player, two-sport All American, and current member of the USA Men’s National Handball team. He’s also channeled his passion for learning and success into a popular podcast that has generated 7 million downloads since it debuted in January 2014.

Howes is also a sought-after public speaker and, like many successful communicators, learned to captivate an audience after applying himself to improving the skill. Howes worked at it really, really hard, but first he had to overcome a common anxiety that afflicts most people—fear of public speaking.

“I was terrified to speak in public. I could not get up to talk in front of people to save my life. Whenever I gave speeches in school, I was a sweating, shaking, nervous wreck. I never wanted to feel like that again,” Howes writes.

To overcome the fear Howes joined a Toastmasters group. Halfway through the program he realized that his goal of “getting better” was too weak, too vague. He returned to the visualization techniques he had learned as an athlete. One tenet of visualization is to be as specific as possible. When Jason Day shuts his eyes before each golf shot he’s the trajectory of the ball, the distance, and the exact spot where it’s going land.

Howes returned to the weekly Toastmasters meetings, but this time wrote down a goal with the specific dollar amount he would make for giving a speech. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t being paid for speeches at the time; Howes visualized himself as the speaker he hoped to become—and that speaker would be well compensated to share his ideas.

Howes took the mental preparation one step further. He gave himself a deadline of nine months to achieve the goal. He wrote the goal on paper, framed it, and hung it on the mirror, just as he did when coaches would share their team’s vision with him. Not only did Howes achieve his public speaking goal, he exceeded the dollar amount he had visualized for himself.

Your goal may not be to get paid for public speaking. But there’s a good chance that whatever your career goal might be, effective public speaking will play a role in your success. I once wrote a column about how senior leaders at tech giant Cisco Systems rate managers based on their presentation delivery skills. Cisco is just one of many companies where public speaking skills are often required for leaders to advance.

“Vision is really about deciding what your purpose in life is and what you want to create,” Howes told me. “This can be overwhelming if you’re vague. That’s why I recommend creating a crystal clear vision of exactly what you want to create. Maybe it’s starting a non-profit, hitting a massive goal in your career, creating an incredible team, or living in your dream city. Beyond that though, put details on your vision that make it real to you and anyone you tell.”

What’s your goal as a manager? What’s your goal as a leader? As an entrepreneur or business owner? Whether it’s improving your public speaking skills or building your dream company, steal a technique from the playbook of professional athletes and visualize each step to success.