Mental Rehearsal Quotes

Suicide is a form of murder— premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes some getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. It’s important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there’s a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there’s a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there’s a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance. The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark—why not kill myself? Missed the bus—better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie—maybe I shouldn’t kill myself. In reality, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.

Mastery in any field, from cooking to chess to brain surgery, is a gradual accretion of knowledge, conceptual understanding, judgment, and skill. These are the fruits of variety in the practice of new skills, and of striving, reflection, and mental rehearsal.

Mental rehearsal and visualization can significantly improve physical abilities and performance by activating the brain in a way that cannot distinguish between real and imagined experiences, allowing us to rewire our brains effectively through consistent mental practice.

The biological function of art, in other words, is that of a rehearsal, a training in mental gymnastics which increases our tolerance of the unexpected.

GET TOUGH. Mental and spiritual toughness go together. Deepen your commitment to your most essential values and mentally rehearse the specific ways you can take positive action.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it’s actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o’clock in the morning. While I very much hoped not to die in space, I didn’t live in fear of it, largely because I’d been made to think through the practicalities: how I’d want my family to get the news, for instance, and which astronaut I should recruit to help my wife cut through the red tape at NASA and the CSA. Before my last space flight (as with each of the earlier ones) I reviewed my will, made sure my financial affairs and taxes were in order, and did all the other things you’d do if you knew you were going to die. But that didn’t make me feel like I had one foot in the grave. It actually put my mind at ease and reduced my anxiety about what my family’s future would look like if something happened to me. Which meant that when the engines lit up at launch, I was able to focus entirely on the task at hand: arriving alive.

common to every one of these top performers: complete and total confidence (“I will win no matter what”), combined with rigorous, consistent, meticulous mental rehearsal (“and this is exactly what it will look like and feel like”).

if you can experience a healing over and over again in the inner world of thoughts and feelings, then in time, that healing should finally manifest as an outer experience. And if you make a thought as real as the experience in the external environment, shouldn’t there be evidence in your body and brain sooner or later? In other words, if you mentally rehearse that unknown future with a clear intention and an elevated emotion, and do it repeatedly, then based on what you’ve learned, you should have real neuroplastic changes in your brain and epigenetic changes in your body.

Children have an elemental hunger for knowledge and understanding, for mental food and stimulation. They do not need to be told or “motivated” to explore or play, for play, like all creative or proto-creative activities, is deeply pleasurable in itself. Both the innovative and the imitative impulses come together in pretend play, often using toys or dolls or miniature replicas of real-world objects to act out new scenarios or rehearse and replay old ones. Children are drawn to narrative, not only soliciting and enjoying stories from others, but creating them themselves. Storytelling and mythmaking are primary human activities, a fundamental way of making sense of our world. Intelligence, imagination, talent, and creativity will get nowhere without a basis of knowledge and skills, and for this education must be sufficiently structured and focused. But an education too rigid, too formulaic, too lacking in narrative, may kill the once-active, inquisitive mind of a child. Education has to achieve a balance between structure and freedom, and each child’s needs may be extremely variable.

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.

Art is an institution to which we turn when we want to feel a shock of surprise. We feel this want because we sense that it is good for us once in a while to receive a healthy jolt. Otherwise we would so easily get stuck in a rut and could no longer adapt to the new demands that life is apt to make on us. The biological function of art, in other words, is that of a rehearsal, a training in mental gymnastics which increases our tolerance of the unexpected.

mentally rehearse that unknown future with a clear intention and an elevated emotion, and do it repeatedly,

I rehearsed Foucault's argument that the presence of madness on our doorstep is good for us, for it reminds us the life we live is only one among several human possibilities.

From On Combat (2004) Do not expect the combat fairy to come bonk you with the combat wand and suddenly make you capable of doing things that you never rehearsed before. It will not happen.

Frequently used by athletes to enhance their performance, visualization is the process of imagining exactly what you want to achieve or attain, and then mentally rehearsing what you’ll need to do to achieve or attain it.

As I said, I decided to try an experiment: Right now, from within my perception of my current circumstances, and from within the starkness of this realization, I determined to conceive and focus on what I would tell—and what I have told—my younger self, and live with the consequences. Here is what I wrote down: Immediately disassociate from destructive people and forces, if not physically then ethically—and watch for the moment when you can do so physically. Use every means to improve your mental acuity. Every sacrifice of empty leisure or escapism for study, industry, and growth is a fee paid to personal freedom. Train the body. Grow physically strong. Reduce consumption. You will be strengthened throughout your being. Seek no one’s approval through humor, servility, or theatrics. Be alone if necessary. But do not compromise with low company. At the earliest possible point, learn meditation (i.e., Transcendental Meditation), yoga, and martial arts (select good teachers). Go your own way—literally. Walk/bike and don’t ride the bus or in a car, except when necessary. Do so in all weather: rain, snow, etc. Be independent physically and you will be independent in other ways. Learn-study-rehearse. Pursue excellence. Or else leave something alone. Go to the limit in something or do not approach it. Starve yourself of the compulsion to derive your sense of wellbeing from your perception of what others think of you. Do this as an alcoholic avoids a drink or an addict a needle. It will be agonizing at first, since you may have no other perception of self; but this, finally, is the sole means of experiencing Self. Does this kind of advice, practicable at any time of life, really alter or reselect the perceived past, and, with it, the future? I intend to find out. You

Reflection can involve several cognitive activities that lead to stronger learning: retrieving knowledge and earlier training from memory, connecting these to new experiences, and visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you might do differently next time.

How does anyone know from moment to moment what to say or do next until he senses the reaction to what he just did? He doesn't know. Life is always action/reaction. No monologues. No prepared speeches. An improvisation no matter how we mentally rehearse our big moment.

If you continue to mentally practice enough times this new series of choices, behaviors, and experiences that you desire, reproducing the same new level of mind over and over again, then your brain will begin to physically change—installing new neurological circuitry to begin to think from that new level of mind—to look as if the experience has already happened. You’ll be producing epigenetic variations that lead to real structural and functional changes in the body by thought alone—just as do those who respond to a placebo. Then your brain and body will no longer be living in the same past; they’ll be living in the new future that you created in your mind. This is possible through mental rehearsal. This technique is basically closing your eyes and repeatedly imagining performing an action, and mentally reviewing the future you want, all the while reminding yourself of who you no longer want to be (the old self) and who you do want to be. This process involves thinking about your future actions, mentally planning your choices, and focusing your mind on a new experience.

Here are some key attributes of the voice in my head. I suspect they will sound familiar. • It’s often fixated on the past and future, at the expense of whatever is happening right now. The voice loves to plan, plot, and scheme. It’s always making lists or rehearsing arguments or drafting tweets. One moment it has you fantasizing about some halcyon past or Elysian future. Another moment you’re ruing old mistakes or catastrophizing about some not-yet-arrived events. As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “Some of the worst things in my life never even happened.” • The voice is insatiable. The default mental condition for too many human beings is dissatisfaction. Under the sway of the ego, nothing is good enough. We’re always on the hunt for the next dopamine hit. We hurl ourselves headlong from one cookie, one promotion, one party to the next, and yet a great many of us are never fully sated. How many meals, movies, and vacations have you enjoyed? And are you done yet? Of course not. • The voice is unrelievedly self-involved. We are all the stars of our own movies, whether we cast ourselves as hero, victim, black hat, or all three. True, we can get temporarily sucked into other people’s stories, but often as a means of comparing ourselves to them. Everything ultimately gets subordinated to the one plotline that matters: the Story of Me.

If you’re going to spend time thinking about bad things that might happen, then use that energy for a purpose. Go ahead and visualize the worst that can happen. But instead of wallowing in your worries, imagine how you’ll respond to them. Practice. Mentally rehearse what you’ll do. Imagine and envision yourself making it through hardship.

I WALKED. My mother had given me the freedom of the streets as soon as I could say our telephone number. I walked and memorized the neighborhood. I made a mental map and located myself upon it. At night in bed I rehearsed the small world’s scheme and set challenges: Find the store using backyards only. Imagine a route from the school to my friend’s house. I mastered chunks of town in one direction only; I ignored the other direction,

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it's actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills do deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o'clock in the morning.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it's actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o'clock in the morning.

Mentally practice two or three times each week for about 10 to 15 minutes per rehearsal. Select a specific sports skill to further develop, or work your way though different scenarios, incorporating various game-ending situations. Examples include meeting your marathon goal time, striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth, or making the game-winning shot as the final buzzer is sounding. Mental practice sessions that are shorter in length are also beneficial. Good times include during any downtime in your schedule, the night before a competition, as an element of your pregame routine, and especially as part of a preshot routine.

Visualize a purpose and an outcome. This concept really struck me from reading Frankl, and it’s a lesson all leaders need to master. Think of it as a mental dress rehearsal for what will happen (notice I said will, not could). If you picture a positive result, it trains your brain to look for the resources that will help you achieve it. Seeing what you want stimulates your creativity and strengthens your confidence. This is more than just daydreaming. It’s eliminating the self-doubt and negativity that can deter you, and putting in place a plan that will lead you on your desired path. And once you know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s much easier to face the dark.

The liturgy is the place where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much. The liturgy is not an act of will. It is not a series of activities designed to attain a spiritual mental state. We do not have to apply will pressure. To be sure, like basketball or football, it is something that requires a lot of practice--its rhythms do not come naturally except to those who have been rehearsing them for years. On some Sundays the soul will indeed battle to even pay attention. In the normal course of worship, we do not have to conjure up feelings or a devotional mood; we are not required to perform the liturgy flawlessly. Such anxious effort... blind us to what is really going on. We do have to show up, and we cannot leave early. But if we will dwell there, remain in place, wait patiently, Jesus will show up.

Someone’s gotta determine whether you guys are destined for superstardom,” I said, my mind catching up somewhat. A light bulb popped over my head. “Hey, I could be your momager! Get you gigs, do your wardrobe. Ride your coattails all the way to the Grammys.” I was mentally calculating my cut. “Mom, we’re a high school band who haven’t even properly rehearsed yet. Don’t write the acceptance speech just yet,” she chided. “Mmhmm,” I said distractedly, thinking of the Porsche I’d buy with my income. Brad the front desk receptionist wandered past. “Brad!” I called, stopping him. “Lexie’s band is going to be world famous. Want her autograph now so you can sell it on eBay in five years and retire a rich man?” I asked him. He grinned. “You bet. I’ll also be doing a TMZ interview telling all about how I knew her before she was gobbled up by the fame monster,” he responded without missing a beat. I gave him a thumbs up and turned to Lexie, grinning. She had her head in her hands.

There are. Storytelling may be the mind’s way of rehearsing for the real world, a cerebral version of the playful activities documented across numerous species which provide a safe means for practicing and refining critical skills. Leading psychologist and all-around man of the mind Steven Pinker describes a particularly lean version of the idea: “Life is like chess, and plots are like those books of famous chess games that serious players study so they will be prepared if they ever find themselves in similar straits.” Pinker imagines that through story we each build a “mental catalogue” of strategic responses to life’s potential curveballs, which we can then consult in moments of need. From fending off devious tribesmen to wooing potential mates, to organizing collective hunts, to avoiding poisonous plants, to instructing the young, to apportioning meager food supplies, and so on, our forebears faced one obstacle after another as their genes sought a presence in subsequent generations. Immersion in fictional tales grappling with a wide assortment of similar challenges would have had the capacity to refine our forebears’ strategies and responses. Coding the brain to engage with fiction would thus be a clever way to cheaply, safely, and efficiently give the mind a broader base of experience from which to operate.

Mrs Vane glanced at her [daughter], and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment the door opened, and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room… Mrs Vane fixed her eyes on him, and intensified the smile. She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure that the tableau was interesting. ‘You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,’ said the lad, with a good-natured grumble… James Vane looked into his sister’s face with tenderness. ‘I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don’t suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don’t want to.’ ‘My son, don’t say such dreadful things,’ murmured Mrs Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation… ‘Come, Sibyl,’ said her brother, impatiently. He hated his mother’s affectations… He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother’s nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl’s happiness. Children being by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them… After some time, he thrust away his plate, and put his head in his hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up, and went to the door. Then he turned back, and looked at her. Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged him. ‘Mother, I have something to ask you,’ he said. Her eyes wandered vaguely about the room. She made no answer. ‘Tell me the truth. I have a right to know. Were you married to my father?’ She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed in some measure it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.

Navy Seals Stress Relief Tactics (As printed in O Online Magazine, Sept. 8, 2014) Prep for Battle: Instead of wasting energy by catastrophizing about stressful situations, SEALs spend hours in mental dress rehearsals before springing into action, says Lu Lastra, director of mentorship for Naval Special Warfare and a former SEAL command master chief.  He calls it mental loading and says you can practice it, too.  When your boss calls you into her office, take a few minutes first to run through a handful of likely scenarios and envision yourself navigating each one in the best possible way.  The extra prep can ease anxiety and give you the confidence to react calmly to whatever situation arises. Talk Yourself Up: Positive self-talk is quite possibly the most important skill these warriors learn during their 15-month training, says Lastra.  The most successful SEALs may not have the biggest biceps or the fastest mile, but they know how to turn their negative thoughts around.  Lastra recommends coming up with your own mantra to remind yourself that you’ve got the grit and talent to persevere during tough times. Embrace the Suck: “When the weather is foul and nothing is going right, that’s when I think, now we’re getting someplace!” says Lastra, who encourages recruits to power through the times when they’re freezing, exhausted or discouraged.  Why?  Lastra says, “The, suckiest moments are when most people give up; the resilient ones spot a golden opportunity to surpass their competitors.  It’s one thing to be an excellent athlete when the conditions are perfect,” he says.  “But when the circumstances aren’t so favorable, those who have stronger wills are more likely to rise to victory.” Take a Deep Breath: “Meditation and deep breathing help slow the cognitive process and open us up to our more intuitive thoughts,” says retired SEAL commander Mark Divine, who developed SEALFit, a demanding training program for civilians that incorporates yoga, mindfulness and breathing techniques.  He says some of his fellow SEALs became so tuned-in, they were able to sense the presence of nearby roadside bombs.  Who doesn’t want that kind of Jedi mind power?  A good place to start: Practice what the SEALs call 4 x 4 x 4 breathing.  Inhale deeply for four counts, then exhale for four counts and repeat the cycle for four minutes several times a day.  You’re guaranteed to feel calmer on any battleground. Learn to value yourself, which means to fight for your happiness. ---Ayn Rand

When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease. The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

FREEING YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND What exactly do you mean by “watching the thinker”? When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease. The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

Two kinds of development help explain how a readiness built up to kill all Jews, including women and children. One is a series of “dress rehearsals” that served to lower inhibitions and provided trained personnel hardened for anything. First came the euthanasia of incurably ill and insane Germans, begun on the day when World War II began. Nazi eugenics theory had long provided a racial justification for getting rid of “inferior” persons. War provided a broader justification for reducing the drain of “useless mouths” on scarce resources. The “T-4” program killed more than seventy thousand people between September 1939 and 1941, when, in response to protests from the victims’ families and Catholic clergy, the matter was left to local authorities. Some of the experts trained in this program were subsequently transferred to the occupied east, where they applied their mass killing techniques to Jews. This time, there was less opposition. The second “dress rehearsal” was the work of the Einsatzgruppen, the intervention squads specially charged with executing the political and cultural elite of invaded countries. In the Polish campaign of September 1939 they helped wipe out the Polish intelligentsia and high civil service, evoking some opposition within the military command. In the Soviet campaign the Einsatzgruppen received the notorious “Commissar Order” to kill all Communist Party cadres as well as the Jewish leadership (seen as identical in Nazi eyes), along with Gypsies. This time the army raised no objections. The Einsatzgruppen subsequently played a major role, though they were far from alone, in the mass killings of Jewish women and children that began in some occupied areas in fall 1941. A third “dress rehearsal” was the intentional death of millions of Soviet prisoners of war. It was on six hundred of them that the Nazi occupation authorities first tested the mass killing potential of the commercial insecticide Zyklon-B at Auschwitz on September 3, 1941. Most Soviet prisoners of war, however, were simply worked or starved to death. The second category of developments that helped prepare a “willingness to murder” consisted of blockages, emergencies, and crises that made the Jews become a seemingly unbearable burden to the administrators of conquered territories. A major blockage was the failure to capture Moscow that choked off the anticipated expulsion of all the Jews of conquered eastern Europe far into the Soviet interior. A major emergency was shortages of food supplies for the German invasion force. German military planners had chosen to feed the invasion force with the resources of the invaded areas, in full knowledge that this meant starvation for local populations. When local supplies fell below expectations, the search for “useless mouths” began. In the twisted mentality of the Nazi administrators, Jews and Gypsies also posed a security threat to German forces. Another emergency was created by the arrival of trainloads of ethnic Germans awaiting resettlement, for whom space had to be made available. Faced with these accumulating problems, Nazi administrators developed a series of “intermediary solutions.” One was ghettos, but these proved to be incubators for disease (an obsession with the cleanly Nazis), and a drain on the budget. The attempt to make the ghettos work for German war production yielded little except another category of useless mouths: those incapable of work. Another “intermediary solution” was the stillborn plan, already mentioned, to settle European Jews en masse in some remote area such as Madagascar, East Africa, or the Russian hinterland. The failure of all the “intermediary solutions” helped open the way for a “final solution”: extermination.

I rehearsed my mental motto in my mind. Be courteous, and be prepared to kill everyone you meet.

Behavior Rehearsal So far, we have used imagery to place ourselves in ideal relaxed settings. But mental imagery is also a valuable component in behavior rehearsal—picturing yourself succeeding at a stressful task. For example, a basketball player can imagine shooting the ball into the basket as a way of improving his or her performance. A golfer envisions putting the ball right into the hole as a means of practice. Both are relying on imagery to improve their games. When should you use imagery? In gearing up for public speaking class, Alan used imagery quite effectively—putting himself in front of a group, giving his speech successfully—just after doing the relaxation exercise we just went through, because the mind and body are more receptive to imagery in a relaxed state. I myself use imagery in preparing to give a speech—I find it useful to picture myself giving the speech, and to imagine the reaction of the audience. Again, practice makes perfect, and mental imagery offers an opportunity for a mental dress rehearsal of the situation you wish to confront. To add behavior rehearsal into your daily relaxation ritual, try the following: When you get close to the end of the relaxation exercise, when you know you are relaxed—right when you close your eyes—picture yourself in a group situation that so far has not been a success for you. Choose a scenario in which you would like to have success that does seem possible in the long term, such as a date, a work or school assignment, and so on. Walk into the room. Envision yourself as relaxed as you are now. You are in control. Your muscles are soft and loose, your face is relaxed, maybe even smiling. Your hands are warm and dry. Your breathing is even. If you get nervous as the scenario continues, pause to refocus your breathing and put your muscles at ease, pulling them back into a relaxed state. Experiment with behavior rehearsal as often as you like—this is a new skill, and there is no substitute for practice.

A Professional Image The image you project begins with the first phone call you make. If you feel some initial anxiety, remind yourself that other people are calling too; you are entitled to inquire as well. Be professional, giving your name and the reason for your call, and then ask the name of the appropriate person to contact. At smaller establishments, the person who answers the phone may well be the person doing the hiring, so you should project a professional image from the outset. Your phone manner, including language, tone of voice, and level of assertiveness, is reflected even in a short telephone conversation. That first phone call is what may or may not get you in the door for an interview. If you don’t conduct yourself professionally, that may be as far as it goes. For example, I once received a phone call from someone interested in a position I had advertised. The man who called about the job—who may not have realized that “the boss” himself would answer the phone—was eating as he spoke to me. If he cared so little about the position that he could not make the effort to behave professionally, how would he act on the job? It wasn’t worth my time to find out! To prepare yourself mentally for the initial phone call, determine first of all how you would like to be perceived. This behavior rehearsal exercise will help to put you in the proper frame of mind for making the call. Sit back in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, take a deep breath . . . let go. Now, use the TV screen in your head to picture yourself making the phone call. See, hear, smell, touch the scene. See yourself being confident, communicating clearly, and receiving a favorable response. Above all, you are relaxed and natural.

Mentally rehearse the big moment. Be it a job interview or a presentation or any other kind of high-pressure task, picture yourself completing the task. Take your time, find a quiet space, and imagine how you will look, what you want to say, how you want to feel. Scientists say that the more you picture yourself doing a task, the more your brain begins to believe that the task is easy and manageable. It’s like Dr. Charlie Wilson imagining the surgery before it happens. By the time the moment comes, you walk into the room with more confidence and the feeling that you’ve been there before, because mentally you have. • Do more than see it. For visualization to be even more effective, don’t just use your sense of sight, use all five senses. The more you can close

Had this been an isolated experience, he would have chalked it up to the nature of their mission and the monster they were chasing. Only it wasn’t isolated. Seven years earlier, Jonas had experienced a similar series of dreams while on-board the navy transport, the Maxine D. It had been these night terrors that he secretly credited for saving his life on his last dive into the Mariana Trench. Despite Frank Heller’s accusations, Jonas knew now that he hadn’t panicked when the Meg had attacked the Sea Cliff. In fact, he had reacted with lightning-quick reflexes from hours of mentally rehearsing what he would do if the submersible had been threatened by the biologic they had first detected on sonar hours earlier… a state of paranoia implanted by the dreams.

THE BOOKS OF THE SARVĀSTIVĀDIN ABHIDHARMA PIṬAKA (a) Jñānaprasthāna, the ‘setting forth of wisdom’, by Kātyāyanīputra – concerned with the definition of terms. (b) Prakaraṇapāda, the basis of exposition’, by Vasumitra – discusses elements under the skandha analysis and a revision of that analysis under the headings of rūpa, citta, and caitasika dharmas; also introduces a list of ten positive mental events. (c) Vijñānakāya, the ‘collection on consciousness’, by Devaśarman – concerned with substantiating the Sarvāstivādin doctrines on the past and future existence of dharmas, and anātman. (d) Dharmaskandha, the ‘heap of elements’, by Śāriputra – discussion of the kleśas, āyatanas, and skandhas, and the practices required to gain arhatship. (e) Prajñaptiśāstra, the ‘treatise on designations’, by Maudgalyāyana – the arising of mental events, and cosmology. (f) Dhātukāya, the ‘collection of elements’, by Pūrṇa – discussion of ever-present and negative mental events. (g) Saṅgītiparyāya, the ‘way of putting things in the rehearsal’, by Mahākausthila (or Śāriputra) – a commentary on the Saṅgīti Sūtra.

Visualization As you hone and create your identity and new narrative, being able to picture yourself moving through this new life actually helps it become your reality. As you use imagery as a tool, be aware that there is a huge difference between fantasizing and visualizing. It’s like the saying “If you write it down, it’s a plan; if you don’t, it’s a wish.” Fantasizing is the activity of imagining scenarios that satisfy your desire for gratification and vengeance. Fantasizing is wishing, which is not a bad place to start. Fantasy often uses a third-person POV, like watching yourself in the best movie ever, starring you. It might be fun to fantasize, but as a psychological tool that enables you to get what you want in life, it’s more or less useless. Fantasy is usually about outcome. You imagine yourself being respected or thin, in a sexual or romantic relationship, or on the beach, but you are no closer to realizing those dreams than you were before you fantasized about them. Visualizing is like writing it down to make a plan; more specifically, it is making a model in your mind of the process leading to the desired result. Visualizing is a scientific methodology for rehearsing different reality-based scenarios in your head before an important event or interaction. If you learn to visualize effectively, you can condition yourself to succeed, even in stressful, anxious situations. To visualize for success: First, use the third-person POV to see yourself showing up as required in your life, on task, and with the performance you desire. Next, use the first-person POV, where you enter into the scene and you see and feel the experience. Go over the specifics of a job interview and see yourself being assertive. Feel your steady heart rate. Smell the confidence. Train your brain to associate walking into that interview with assurance and calm. Visualize every sensation and step. The coldness of the doorknob, the plush carpet under your shoes, the overhead lighting, the sound of the copy machine down the hall. Immerse yourself in detail. Script the scene with positive, powerful phrases, like I can and I am. I can get the job done. I am the person you’re looking for. Repeat the scenario. During the week before the specific event or interaction is to take place, practice daily. Later on, when it’s all over, examine how close your visualization was to reality. Even if the two look completely different, you’ll be glad you did all you could to be prepared and to succeed. This is a tried-and-true method of practicing for success. Athletic coaches on the sports field and personal life coaches advocate and outright require this kind of thorough mental preparation. There is no substitute except to rely on luck, which is not really a plan. Prepare, prepare, prepare, and remember what Louis Pasteur said: “Chance seems to favor the prepared mind.

The important takeaway is to know that you don’t have to wait until you win something to access the winner effect: You can do it in any moment by engaging and getting proficient at mental rehearsal or visualization.

WALK PEACEFULLY WITH ME through this day. You are wondering how you will cope with all that is expected of you. You must traverse this day like any other: one step at a time. Instead of mentally rehearsing how you will do this or that, keep your mind on My Presence and on taking the next step. The more demanding your day, the more help you can expect from Me. This is a training opportunity, since I designed you for deep dependence on your Shepherd-King. Challenging times wake you up and amplify your awareness of needing My help. When you don’t know what to do, wait while I open the way before you. Trust that I know what I’m doing, and be ready to follow My lead. I will give strength to you, and I will bless you with Peace.

Money is not important It is OK to lose in the markets Trading is a game Mental rehearsal is important for success They’ve won the game before they start[xlviii]

But surely, if Fergus had actually spoken to Cooper, he wouldn’t have kept mum on that little detail. Who are you kidding? The man thrived on meddling, especially where his beloved McCrae girls were concerned. That would also explain why he’d so conveniently disappeared once Cooper had taken the floor. And why he hadn’t come back out carrying the shotgun they kept handy in the back. “Uncle Gus” was all she said. He smiled briefly. “I thought that was a better bet than your chief-of-police brother. I’ve already guessed Fergus didn’t tell you about our little conversation.” She shook her head. “How long ago?” “A week. Not so long as all that.” Long enough, she thought, already mentally rehearsing the conversation she’d be having with her uncle the minute she got back to the pub. “We only had the one chat.” “One was apparently all that was needed. What else did he share with you?” She immediately held up her hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me. I’ll have that little chat with him directly.” “He wants you to be happy,” Cooper said. “And he thought encouraging a man I haven’t seen in over a year, a man who was my former employer and nothing more, to hop on a plane and bop on up this side of the equator to see me was what would make me happy?” Cooper’s smile deepened, and that twinkle sparked to life in his eyes again, making them so fiercely blue it caught at her breath. “He might have mentioned that you’d be less than welcoming of a surprise visit. He also said if I had a prayer of your still being here when I arrived, a surprise visit was pretty much my only shot. And how the frosty reception I was sure to receive was simply your automatic defense system, and how I should just ignore all that and ‘press my suit’ anyway, as I believed he called it.” Kerry closed her eyes, willed her short fuse to wink out before it had the chance to get dangerously lit up. Yep, too late. She turned abruptly and moved to go around Cooper, aiming herself back toward the lot where the truck was parked. Cooper’s hand shot out and took hold of her arm, releasing it the moment she stopped and turned to look at him, her balance intact. “His heart was in the right place, Starfish. He warned me. It was my choice to come here and risk it anyway. Don’t go unloading all the frustration you’re feeling about my unexpected arrival, not to mention the unfortunate public spectacle I made of this whole thing, on your poor uncle.

Back in Beijing, it was 9:56 A.M.—four minutes before the race’s start—and Phelps stood behind his starting block, bouncing slightly on his toes. When the announcer said his name, Phelps stepped onto the block, as he always did before a race, and then stepped down, as he always did. He swung his arms three times, as he had before every race since he was twelve years old. He stepped up on the blocks again, got into his stance, and, when the gun sounded, leapt. Phelps knew that something was wrong as soon as he hit the water. There was moisture inside his goggles. He couldn’t tell if they were leaking from the top or bottom, but as he broke the water’s surface and began swimming, he hoped the leak wouldn’t become too bad.4.18 By the second turn, however, everything was getting blurry. As he approached the third turn and final lap, the cups of his goggles were completely filled. Phelps couldn’t see anything. Not the line along the pool’s bottom, not the black T marking the approaching wall. He couldn’t see how many strokes were left. For most swimmers, losing your sight in the middle of an Olympic final would be cause for panic. Phelps was calm. Everything else that day had gone according to plan. The leaking goggles were a minor deviation, but one for which he was prepared. Bowman had once made Phelps swim in a Michigan pool in the dark, believing that he needed to be ready for any surprise. Some of the videotapes in Phelps’s mind had featured problems like this. He had mentally rehearsed how he would respond to a goggle failure. As he started his last lap, Phelps estimated how many strokes the final push would require—nineteen or twenty, maybe twenty-one—and started counting. He felt totally relaxed as he swam at full strength. Midway through the lap he began to increase his effort, a final eruption that had become one of his main techniques in overwhelming opponents. At eighteen strokes, he started anticipating the wall. He could hear the crowd roaring, but since he was blind, he had no idea if they were cheering for him or someone else. Nineteen strokes, then twenty. It felt like he needed one more. That’s what the videotape in his head said. He made a twenty-first, huge stroke, glided with his arm outstretched, and touched the wall. He had timed it perfectly. When he ripped off his goggles and looked up at the scoreboard, it said “WR”—world record—next to his name. He’d won another gold. After the race, a reporter asked what it had felt like to swim blind. “It felt like I imagined it would,” Phelps said. It was one additional victory in a lifetime full of small wins.4.19

Actual physical practice produced changes in each volunteer's motor cortex, as expected. But so did mere mental rehearsal, and to the same degree as that brought about by physical practice. Motor circuits become active during pure mental imagery. Like actual, physical movements, imagined movements trigger synaptic change at the cortical level. Merely thinking about moving produced brain changes comparable to those triggered by actually moving.

IN QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE SHALL BE YOUR strength. When you’re in a tough situation, your mind tends to go into overdrive. You mentally rehearse possible solutions at breakneck speed. Your brain becomes a flurry of activity! You scrutinize your own abilities and those of people you might call upon for help. If you find no immediate solution to your problem, you start to feel anxious. When you find this happening, return to Me and rest in quietness. Take time to seek My Face and My will rather than rushing ahead without clear direction. I want you to have confidence in Me and My ways—patiently trusting in Me even when you can’t see the way forward. Whereas anxious striving drains you of energy, quiet confidence will give you strength. You can trust that I will not forsake you in your time of need. Keep communicating with Me about your situation, and be willing to wait—

Thinking to Doing to Being, you will embrace the concept that you have three “brains” that allow you to move from thinking to doing to being. Even better, when you focus your attention to the exclusion of your environment, your body, and time, you can easily move from thinking to being without having to do anything. In that state of mind, your brain does not distinguish between what is happening in the outer world of reality and what is happening in the inner world of your mind. Thus, if you can mentally rehearse a desired experience via thought alone, you will experience

Ten years ago, I was a different person. My name was legally changed, and I got sober, made some real life decisions. I was a sixteen-year-old kid back then, angry without a cause. New name, new life, new choices, and a healthier mentality. It was a miracle I survived, and I didn’t take it for granted.” That’s the shit I’ve been rehearsing, preparing for the day when someone called me out.

Rate of myelination in different brain areas The various brain areas begin and end myelination at different ages. For example, visual areas finish myelinating by six months. At that age an infant can see an object moving through space as a homogeneous object; before that, it’s just a collection of disconnected colors and edges. Watch babies wave a toy back and forth in front of their eyes. This rehearsal wires up the visual areas so they can begin to recognize and track objects. Over and over, the same groups of neurons fire together, forming visual functional groups that eventually work together well enough to let the baby recognize familiar objects. Babies’ other senses work along with sight to help form a mental image of objects. Here’s one study that continues to astonish me every time I think about it: Newborns, still in the hospital, were given pacifiers to suck. There were several different shapes: square, round, pointed. Large models of all the different-shaped pacifiers were hung above their cribs. The babies stared longest at the pacifier that matched the one that had been in their mouth. These infants appeared able to relate the mental image created with touch — what was in their mouths — with the one created with vision — what was dangling above their heads. I remember the first time our oldest daughter saw a book. She was about three months old — barely able to sit up — and we put a cardboard book with very simple pictures of toys in front of her. Instantly she put her face right above the book, and she inspected every square inch of the page from about an inch away. Then she sat back up and slapped the pages all over. We could almost see her brain working: “What is this? It’s flat but it reminds me a lot of the things I see around me.” She combined the senses of touch and sight together to examine a new phenomenon in her world. Speech begins with babbling at around six months of age. I remember our youngest daughter beginning speech by mimicking the up and down flow of the sentence before she began to make individual sounds. The flow of speech is supported by language centers in the right hemisphere; the details of speech are supported by language centers in the left hemisphere. Our daughter was practicing how to talk, using the brain areas that were currently available. Her right hemisphere appeared to mature before her left hemisphere. As the speech areas develop and these groups become more extensively coordinated, the child’s speech becomes clearer and connected. The auditory areas finish myelinating by two years. The child now has the brain foundation for speech production. She can distinguish the individual sounds that make up words, and can begin to string words together into phrases and sentences. The motor system is myelinated by four years. Before that, children are very slow to respond. Have you ever played catch with a three-year-old? He holds out his arms, the ball hits his chest, it falls on the ground — and then he closes his arms. It takes so long for the message to move from his eyes to his brain, from his brain to the spinal cord, and finally from his spinal cord to his arms, that he misses the ball. You can practice with him all you like, but his reactions won’t speed up until his motor system myelinates.

Aesthetic perception involves changing frames of reference in order to see the hidden logic and orderliness behind what at first may seem random and strange. One of the selective pressures behind the development of the arts may be as a mechanism for developing mental agility; a way of rehearsing the capacity to change a mindset in the face of novelty and surprise. This leads directly to the mental shake-up which occurs whenever we are faced with fairly radical departures from the norm in terms of art and architecture: ‘the shock of the new’. It is this protean factor which enables us to adjust our mental models to accommodate such new evocations of art and architecture. As such it is an essential component of the fabric of aesthetic perception.

we don’t choose most of the thoughts in our head. We do choose a small number of them, when we’re actively planning or mentally rehearsing or being creative, but most of the thoughts in our head just “show up” of their own accord. We have many thousands of useless or unhelpful thoughts every day. And no matter how harsh, cruel, silly, vindictive, critical, frightening, or downright weird they may be, we can’t prevent them from popping up. But just because they appear doesn’t mean we have to take them seriously.

This is possible through mental rehearsal. This technique is basically closing your eyes and repeatedly imagining performing an action, and mentally reviewing the future you want, all the while reminding yourself of who you no longer want to be (the old self) and who you do want to be. This process involves thinking about your future actions, mentally planning your choices, and focusing your mind on a new experience.

As you mentally rehearse a destiny or dream about a new outcome, you imagine it over and over again until it becomes familiar to you. The more knowledge and experience you have wired in your brain about the new reality you desire, the more resources you have to create a better model of it in your mental picturing, and so the greater your intention and expectation are (as with the hotel maids). You are “reminding” yourself of what your life will look like and feel like once you get what you want. Now you are putting an intention behind your attention.

Or recall a time in your own past when you stood up to a bully. If you know people who know how to handle your Tank, imagine being those people and thinking or feeling whatever it is they feel or think that allows them to be more effective. Identify models of people who have the self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-control to deal calmly and professionally with pushy people. For example, imagine what it would feel like to be Clint Eastwood, saying, “Go ahead. Make my day.” Whichever of these methods you use, make it a mental habit to rehearse dealing with your Tank at least a few times, until you feel comfortable with the prospect of using it.

anxiety’s damaging effect on mental performance of all kind. Worry, of course, is in one sense a useful response gone awry—an overly zealous mental preparation for an anticipated threat. But such mental rehearsal is disastrous cognitive static when it becomes trapped in a stale routine that captures attention,

The Air Force began studying this transformation after the Second World War based on observations that pilots who were highly skilled during peacetime sorties often crashed their planes in the heat of battle due to simple mental errors. Over the years, the Air Force has conducted several studies focused on how stress affects pilots. The results have shown that while stress exposure can slightly increase performance for simple, well-rehearsed tasks, it severely reduces performance for tasks that require complex or flexible thinking.

The more tired and scared I became, the more my thoughts became childish, instead of childlike. The thought of seeing my father threw me into the kind of age regression many adults experience when they deal with their parents, say, at Thanksgiving dinner. I spent hours mentally rehearsing things I could say to put my father in his place: cutting accusations, clever put-downs, sarcastic insults. Unfortunately, they didn’t feel like the Light. In fact, they seemed to break my connection with it. So I let myself have my vengeful thoughts, the way I had let myself chop up our cherry tree, but the part of me that had already healed knew that using spite on my father would be the verbal equivalent of taking an ax to his body. If my position was to side with love rather than violence, any form of cruelty was out.

If Bliss Brain is so desirable and pleasurable, why is it so fragile? Why can our brains be distracted from happiness by the slightest hint of a thought? Why is the demon’s slightest whisper enough to drag us out of bliss? Why are our brains hardwired for negativity? The answer is simple: That’s how our ancestors survived. Those who were the most responsive to danger lived. If your ancestor’s brain had a genetic mutation that heard the rustle of the tiger in the grass a nanosecond earlier, he started running a moment sooner. Genes that paid close attention to threats conferred an enormous survival advantage, as I illustrate in my book The Genie in Your Genes. People who were less responsive to potential threats died, and their genes were lost to the gene pool. Those who reacted to the smallest hint of danger survived, passing their paranoid genes to the next generation. In contrast, happiness provided little or no survival value. Fail to notice a beautiful sunset, ignore the sound of children singing, walk by a rose bush without smelling the blooms? Nothing bad happens. But miss the rustle of the tiger? That’s fatal. So thousands of generations of evolution have honed our ability to respond to even the most minuscule whisper of the remotest possibility of threat, and abandon happiness at the drop of a hat. Mother Nature cares greatly about your survival—and not at all about your happiness. That’s why the DMN defaults to worry, instead of to bliss. Mentally rehearsing future stuff that might just possibly hurt us, past stuff that definitely hurt us, and present stuff that might signal danger—all these are signs of a brain that is successfully practicing the strategies that ensured our ancestors’ survival. This isn’t bad. It’s just excessive for the safe modern world in which we live. If you’re at a construction site where a skyscraper is being built, you wear a hard hat and safety goggles. Such an outfit is entirely appropriate for that context. As attire for tea with the queen? Not so much. Although the DMN interrupts meditation, it plays a useful role in our lives. It is active when we are thinking about others, considering our safety, remembering the past, and planning for the future. It is also active in self-oriented and social tasks, including memorizing the experiences we collect during task-oriented activities. The path of your inner mystic will elevate you to enlightenment. The goal of your inner demon is to keep you safe. You can’t get enlightened if you’ve been eaten by the tiger.

Positive self-talk, and visualization or mental rehearsal, trained to a level of confidence and competence, may be critical to both improved performance under stress and increased resilience after a traumatic incident.

Humans excel at visual imagery. Our brains evolved the ability to create an internal mental picture or model of the world in which we can rehearse forthcoming actions, without the risks or the penalties of doing them in the real world.

The distinction between these two memory types is that primary memory [i.e. short-term memory] now typically referred to as working memory, is a relatively conscious, effortful matter in which an individual is actively holding a mental item in mind via rehearsal [repetition], whereby the individual later attempts to reproduce [recall] the mental item. Secondary memory on the other hand refers to the individual’s long-term memory, which is a less effortful process of recalling or otherwise responding to an item of information previously learned.

Even better, when you focus your attention to the exclusion of your environment, your body, and time, you can easily move from thinking to being without having to do anything. In that state of mind, your brain does not distinguish between what is happening in the outer world of reality and what is happening in the inner world of your mind. Thus, if you can mentally rehearse a desired experience via thought alone, you will experience the emotions of that event before it has physically manifested. Now you are moving into a new state of being, because your mind and body are working as one.

Then you review what those books said to help you plan how you want to think, feel, and act toward your MIL. You ask yourself, How can I modify my behavior—my actions—and my reactions so my new experience leads to a new feeling? So you picture yourself greeting and hugging her, asking her questions about things you know she is interested in, and complimenting her on her new hairdo or glasses. Over the next few days, as you mentally rehearse your new ideal of self, you continue to install more neurological hardware so you’ll have the proper circuits in place (in effect, a new software program) when you actually interact with your MIL.

If I asked you to think about the qualities that your ideal self would possess, or if I suggested that you contemplate what it would feel like to be a person of greatness such as Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela, then just by contemplating a new way of being, you would begin firing your brain in new ways and making a new mind. That’s mental rehearsal in action. I’m now asking you to reflect on what it would feel like to be happy, content, satisfied, and at peace. What would you envision for yourself if you were to create a new ideal of you?

To initiate this step of creation, it is always good to move into a state of wonder, contemplation, possibility, reflection, or speculation by asking yourself some important questions. Open-ended inquiries are the most provocative approach to producing a fluent stream of consciousness: What would it be like to … ? What is a better way to be … ? What if I was this person, living in this reality? Who in history do I admire, and what were his/her admirable traits? The answers that come will naturally form a new mind, because as you sincerely respond to them, your brain will begin to work in new ways. By beginning to mentally rehearse new ways of being, you start rewiring yourself neurologically to a new mind—and the more you can “re-mind” yourself, the more you’ll change your brain and your life. Whether you want to be wealthy or a better parent—or a great wizard, for that matter—it might not be a bad idea to fill your brain with knowledge on your chosen subject, so you have more building blocks to make a new model of the reality you want to embrace. Every time you acquire information, you’re adding new synaptic connections that will serve as the raw materials to break the pattern of your brain firing the same way. The more you learn, the more ammo you have to unseat the old personality.

When you imagined what you might have for lunch or dinner, when you imagined what you might do at home tonight, or when you imagined a sales call, or mentally rehearsed what you might say to someone else in the office today. Did you see the expression on his face? Could you hear his words and feel yourself reacting? You were in an ideosensory trance. Very persuasive individuals can orchestrate vivid images that influence both the perception and mood of the listener. Highly-skilled salespeople use “word magic” to bring their prospects and customers to other worlds of sights and sounds and feelings.

2.2 USING VISUALIZATION FOR PREGAME PREPARATION Ah, visualization! No, it’s not daydreaming, though it might sound a bit like it; it’s a technique where your young athlete imagines themselves succeeding in their sport, right down to the feel of the ball and the cheer of the crowd. This has been used by many elite athletes from soccer superstar Lionel Messi to football favorite Tom Brady. Think of it as a mental rehearsal that primes their body and mind for top-notch performance.