Your brain can’t really tell the difference very well between your memories and your imagination.  That’s wonderful news for keynote speakers giving high-stakes speeches, and other leaders who need to present to their employees, perhaps, at critical inflection points and convince them of good times ahead.

A recent study found that if we imagine a pleasant encounter with a new acquaintance, we like those people better than folks we haven’t had any imaginary encounter with.  And when we’re tested after the imaginary meeting, the memory circuits of our brains are activated, along with the rewards processing parts.  Perhaps a little weirdly, if we imagine a negative experience, that doesn’t affect how we feel when we actually meet the new people.  So, imagination only seems to create positive possibilities (Dabas et al., 2025), at least with new meetings.  It shapes our future – for the better.

It’s clear, then, that anyone who is seriously interested in peak performance in high-adrenaline endeavors like public speaking, or leadership, needs to understand the importance of the imagination in preparing us for a successful outcome.

Fortunately, Olympic athletes have been preparing for high-stakes athletic events for years using their imaginations. There’s lots of evidence that imagery – basically creating mental sequences like little videos of your event going perfectly – is essential to top athletic success.

Yet while we’ve come to expect to see an Olympic downhill skier readying herself by running over the route in her mind, it is a practice that so far has not carried over into public speaking and leadership as much as it should.  The typical world-class downhill ski race features speeds of over 60 miles per hour; the top speed can reach 100.  Mere hundredths of a second can separate the gold medalist from the 4^th place finisher; it seems obvious to me that having a rigorously worked out plan for getting down the hill is essential.

Speakers don’t move as fast around a stage, but the stakes are nonetheless very high, and so mental preparation is surely warranted.  Why don’t more speakers prepare as rigorously in their minds?  The idea is so simple:  to imagine the ski run or the gymnastic routine or the weight-lifting sequence going flawlessly, so that when it comes to actually doing it, you do it better.

That can be helpful for nerves, but it also is, I believe, essential for simply doing a consistently good job. And consistency is important – over the years I have seen the consistent performers and leaders thrive and the hit-or-miss speakers (or leaders) gradually fade from the scene.  No one involved in the speaking business wants anything but a solid professional ready to work, easy to work with, and resourceful when it comes to adapting to specific circumstances.

I was standing backstage getting ready to speak at a conference a few years ago, when the A/V tech came up to me and whispered, “Nick, we’re running a little behind with this speaker (the one who was on stage at the moment); can you cut about 5 minutes from your talk?”

I said, “Sure,” and showed the tech what slides to take out and began to prepare mentally.  I was ready when he came back to me, smiling, whispering, “She caught up; I’ll put those slides back in for you.”

“Great,” I said.  At that point, I confess I was feeling a little whip-sawed. But I smiled back and started running through the longer version.

Fortunately, I had prepared both versions in advance, with mental movies for each, so it was easy to go back and forth.

I had a little more adrenaline than usual when I finally stepped out on stage, but the mental preparation stood me in good stead.

My experience suggests a final unresolved question raised by some of the Olympian performances these past few days.  Watching some of these world-class athletes take unscheduled falls and make errors in their routines makes one wonder:  to what extent is adrenaline your friend, helping you achieve peak performance, and to what extent does the anxiety that typically accompanies adrenaline produce negative symptoms and consequences?

Coaches like me used to focus almost exclusively on reducing adrenaline-induced symptoms, but now we take a different view.  The idea is to embrace the energy that adrenaline produces and do better riding that wave than trying to suppress it.  Nothing will ever make an Olympic event truly routine, so getting yourself as prepared as possible for the entire experience seems to make sense.  And the same is true of that keynote speech or high-stakes town hall meeting.