by Laura Camacho
If you work in public relations, probably you’ve written press releases (or at least drafts of them) even before the event took place. That’s a smart move as you have too much to do and it helps to stay on top of the work load.
You can think of any press release written in advance as a “recap” of a future event. Recapping is a tool you can use to excel in any event that makes you nervous. This can be a public speaking before a large crowd, a pitch to investors or even making a key hiring decision.
Recapping an event primes your brain to look for evidence that what you want to happen, is indeed taking place. Psychologists have an extensive body of research on priming, which is a exposing a person to a subtle cue or context to get a desired behavior or attitude from that person.
Studies show that showing a person a photo of an athlete winning a race primes the brain of the viewer to be more competitive. Viewing a photo of “The Thinker” by Rodin actually primes the viewer to be more analytical.
Similar to the way preparing to paint a room is usually the same amount of work as actually painting the room, preparing yourself, or priming your own brain takes time and effort but makes success more accessible.
Think about an event or situation coming up. Write in a notebook, or on a computer, an email to a friend, letting him or her know how the event unfolded….which is how you want it to happen since this event remains in the future.
For example, for a public talk, I could write, “Dear Leesa, I am so happy with the way the audience responded to my talk on team communication. They seemed to enjoy the slides I prepared and asked many thoughtful questions. I made eye contact with so many people in the audience, it soon felt like I was speaking to a group of friends.”
Got a scary event or conversation on your schedule? Prime yourself to succeed by recapping it!
Laura Camacho, MBA, PhD, PMP, is an executive coach, trainer and speaker who opened Mixonian Institute in 2009 to rid the world of boring business communication. She has created innovative training programs for local and international companies, related to leadership effectiveness, excellent feedback, growth mindset and emotional intelligence. Multilingual, Dr. Camacho’s career highlights include facilitating The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in Spanish,) being editor of the leading management newsletter in Venezuela. For 10 years she taught communication classes at ECU and College of Charleston. www.mixonian.com
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