have a question for you have you ever
had that fear that there is a monster in
here bet that the only way you’re going
to get through the night is if you pull
that like it all the way up to your nose
and close your eyes as tight as possible
raise your hand if any of you have
experienced something okay good because
I certainly have and today I’m here to
talk to you about the reason for these
fears and the amazing tool that comes
along with our ability to imagine my
name is Ulla shruts meyer and i’m here
to talk to you about the concept of
visualization to begin with let me
explain to you what exactly this means
visualization is the act of creating a
cop sorry creating a image in your mind
using your imagination and the reason
this is important the reason why I’m
here today explaining to you what
exactly this means is that it provides
us with a very important method that can
help us in many different ways in our
everyday lives now it works because site
is arguably our strongest set when we
see something we immediately react the
other reason why it works is because
images provide us with graphic ways of
organizing things and we like patterns
so that works really well for us now
first let me explain to you how I became
aware of this concept I’m a storyteller
so I love creating characters in
otherworldly conflicts and have
globalized sceneries and so on and one
ordinary afternoon
sitting in my desk in I was writing a
story I wrote two books and I was
writing in one of his books and all of a
sudden these characters that I had
created with my imagination they became
alive now of course they didn’t
physically manifest in front of my eyes
more than they start jumping about the
room no it was much more of a
metaphorical coming to life in a sense
that all of a sudden I understood that
these characters that I have to boldly
bill to send against real life they were
a synonymous with me with my fears with
my dreams with everything that I made of
now I realized that my book that I had
written it was something like an
emotional guide to myself and I thought
well if I’m subconscious to be able to
do this what if I do it cautiously and I
did some research and I found his
amazing things and I found the actual
term of what i was doing it’s called
virtualization and I decided to try it
out consciously so let’s recap
visualization is the mental creation of
an image with your imagination and I
tried it the first time when I was going
to have a presentation in a couple of
days something like that and I wanted to
so what I did is I imagined a very
simple object of cloud and I imagined it
in a black this black color it stood for
my here and then all of my mind I turned
the black color into a pink one which
stood for Cotton’s and I repeated this
process over and over especially the
night before the presentation in order
to try and associate these colors with
the real emotions that I wanted to I
didn’t want to feel the fear so I turned
the fear into confidence in my mind now
over here you have a more visual
representation of what I’m trying to say
the black flower black is usually
associated with negative things now
ironically i’m wearing all black today
but that’s for a reason the reason is
that visualization is very individual
and that means that in one situation
perhaps black stands for fear in another
however it can stand for power power
over the situation so today I’m wearing
my favorite outfit with my group shoes
that i have a very much and I feel good
I feel good to be signing it now some of
you may be thinking that I’m just making
this stuff up that it’s just working for
basically what visualization does is it
creates pathways in your mind so it
creates a pathway between what you have
in this case Mike here and what you want
my confidence and although it didn’t
work perfectly with that presentation
that I had to do the first time I
practicing and what’s amazing is that
eventually I started feeling more
confident as I reviewing let fear and
all with something that doesn’t even
exist in real life so people are
actually using these techniques
scientists have discovered ways of using
visualization in the real world to help
all kinds of things an example of this
is in children’s books researchers have
found that children’s books especially
the images can be very influential in
the way a child develops so they came up
with a term called emotional literacy
and with images with the visualization
of an emotion you can actually influence
the way a child develops certain
emotions so for example here this book
we have an image of a mother holding a
child and it’s very clear that they are
comfortable with each other that the
mother is sheltering the child and a
child in real life will see this and it
will understand how to react or how to
act with other people but and that’s
visualization sometimes it’s in your
mind sometimes a long paper over here we
have another example of a man helping an
old lady and again children will see
this and they’ll start acting out but
these images tell them to do another
example over here we have apathy being
increased all through visualization now
of course some of you may be sitting
here saying okay that’s all great but
I’m
newly a visual thinker so this is not
really for me I’m going to two charges
and that’s because all of us every
single one of you in this room is a
visual thinker we have ice in our head
we see things and we react and actually
entire industries are built on our
ability to visualize and here we can
note commercial designers in this very
moment are manipulating your way of
thinking your big way of remembering
certain things and I can prove it to you
right now I want all of you to close
your eyes for a second and this economy
let’s go and I want to imagine a big
curvy yellow em associated with food now
if you can put a name to that please do
and you were corrected to McDonald
congratulations you just visualized
another example of this perhaps a more
serious one is with driving many of you
I’m sure can drive and this symbol is
probably something that all ok
recognized in this case visualization is
used to put a name to a motion stopped
you all know that if you see the sign
you have to stop and that’s all with one
single very simple image now to bring
this back to you I want you to be able
to use visualization not in favor
the industry not a favorite McDonald’s
or any other fast food company for
example I want you to use it to your own
medicine and you can do this is a very
simple way for example let’s say you
have a presentation coming up like me
and your little bit scared you don’t
really know how it’s going to go
especially because your speaking skills
aren’t that great you can use
visualization to improve these speaking
skills so for example you can be lying
in bed tonight before the presentation
and I’m sure that if this is a important
presentation you will be nervous you’ll
be acting out at the scenario but
instead of letting that just happen you
can focus on a positive scenario you can
imagine yourself standing on stage like
me today standing on stage perhaps with
a smile and standing confidently and by
doing that by doing the simple thing you
can actually become more confident in
your home presentation in real life and
research faxes up because for example
there are studies that have been
conducted on this concept let’s take the
example of weight lifters the brain
activity and weight lifters was measured
when they were actually lifting weights
versus when they were just imagining to
be lifting weights and what’s amazing is
that the activity in the brain that was
measured was almost exactly the same in
both scenarios and that means that when
you’re imagining to be doing something
you’re practicing for the real situation
when you’re imagining that flower turn
from black to pink given them that’s a
metaphorical way of doing it you are
actually practicing for the real
situation so what I want you to do is I
want you to think about it I want you to
think about how powerful images could be
how powerful your
imagination and I wanted to try this
drive not once try it several times and
see whether this can actually have an
impact I want you to be more conscious
of the way in which people are using
your ability to visualize in their favor
now of course this doesn’t work
perfectly for example if there’s a an
armed person she can you please don’t
stop visualize that red circle turn it
into bloom until your fear turns into
calmness in this case by all means
please run however what I’m trying to
say and I’ve said this before images are
very powerful and when you learn how to
use them for your own benefit you can
become a happier person and you can
becoming more aware person thank you
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]