When was your last gold medal performance?

Yes, it’s time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and like any good blogger, I’m going to tie a current events theme into the content of a blog post.

I keep hearing about swimmer Michael Phelps and how he’s going for an unprecedented medal record, and hearing athletes talking about how they don’t fear the pressure of performing at the Olympic level – they actually relish it.

So I got to thinking: How could the professional, manager, or C-level executive tap into that?

One of the highest-pressure situations in the job search process is the interview. It’s easy to sell yourself on a resume by comparison, when all you have to do is put words on paper or in a Word doc.

In an interview, you often have no idea what’s going to happen, what’ll be thrown at you. You have to rely on your knowledge and wits, your skills and talents, and maybe even dig deeper into yourself than you might have expected possible.

How can you go into an interview with the proper mindset – one where you have complete confidence, power, and assurance of your success?

One tool athletes often use is visualization – meditating and seeing in their mind’s eye what winning will be like. Right down to the smells, the sounds, even the taste! They make the experience as real as possible in their minds, so they know what it feels like, know that it’s not only possible, it’s inevitable.

Try it for yourself. Find a quiet place in your home, and imagine it – being relaxed in the waiting room, the door opening, your interviewer coming out, shaking hands, sitting in the chair, the temperature of the room, the rev in your pulse created by your last cup of coffee, the whisper of central air…

Get the idea?

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