Neuroscience of Coaching – Episode #14
Is Visualization Just Fantasy? (Jason Moss)
Jason Moss: When it comes to creating momentum in business, I have these three principles that I talk about, this idea of clarity, commitment, and certainty. These are the foundations for being able to create momentum and movement in a business. The reason why people get to a certain level and then they kind of around or they get stuck is they lose sight of what is that goal? Or what is that vision?
Dr. Irena O’Brien: Hi, I’m Dr. Irena Obrien, and you’re listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. I’m a cognitive neuroscientist with almost 30 years of study and practice in psychology and neuroscience. As the founder of the Neuroscience School, I teach coaches and other wellness professionals practical and evidence-based strategies to use in their practices. In each episode, I invite a seasoned coach to discuss a topic that clients struggle with, and together we provide you with science-based tools to help your clients reach their goals by working with their brains to create results that last.
Today’s topic is one that has been big in the self-help community forever. Visualization. You’ve almost certainly heard of the power of picturing yourself successful in a goal. It might be personal, like meeting an ideal romantic partner, or it might be professional, like landing a great client or job. Whatever the goal, you’re told to visualize and feel your future accomplishment in the present. There’s no disputing that the technique is powerful. With sincere application, you will feel excited, motivated, positive, and energized toward the goal.
But to put it simply, this is misdirected power. While you may feel good in the moment, it doesn’t actually increase your chances of achieving the goal in question. But isn’t this still helpful? Isn’t it still valuable that you or your clients feel positive, excited, and motivated? Yes and no. We do want to feel this, but we want these feelings to be associated with the process that will most likely lead to the desired outcome.
Athletics and sports are often used as prime examples of successful visualization. Top athletes are renowned for their dedication to the technique. A figure skater visualizes his Olympic glory. The basketball player visualizes her game winning shot. But this is misleading. In actuality, successful athletes focus more on visualizing the process toward the goal, not the goal itself. The figure skater is not just visualizing standing on the podium winning his medal. He’s visualizing his entire Olympic routine, moment to moment. The basketball player is not just visualizing the ball going through the hoop. She’s visualizing all her body movements that lead to that result.
So where the teaching and advocacy of visualization goes wrong is in failing to distinguish between fantasy and expectation. When someone only visualizes their desired outcome, it’s merely a fantasy. It doesn’t take into account past facts and performance. What actually works instead is combining past facts and performance with visualizing the process that leads to the desired outcome. This naturally creates a healthy expectation of achieving the goal. When we fantasize, we’re using the default mode network, which we’ve discussed in previous episodes on this show. When we plan the process for achieving our desired goal, we’re also recruiting the prefrontal cortex, which is the executive part of our brain involved in planning and decision making.
So today we’re going to further explore this fascinating topic. We will dive into the distinctions between fantasy and expectation, how coaches can better guide clients in visualization, the techniques that support this, and of course, the neuroscience behind it all. And joining me on this exploration is Jason Moss.
Jason Moss is a seasoned entrepreneur and coach with more than 21,000 clients and coaches in his community who has built multiple six figure businesses over 20 plus years. Jason’s inside out approach features a heart centered philosophy focused on optimizing the brain for peak performance. He does this by addressing limiting beliefs and self-sabotage, aligning habits and implementing sustainable systems. So thank you so much, Jason, for being with us today. I’m so happy that you’re here.
Jason: Thank you. I’m happy to be here and I’m excited to be a part of this conversation.
Dr. Irena: So before we start talking about visualization, will you tell us a bit more about your work and how you evolved into it?
Jason: Sure. So I’m a business coach and I work with coaches to help them grow their businesses and get more clients. And I do that kind of from an inside out approach. So combining more of the internal aspects of business growth, a lot of the mindset and energetics and kind of internal perspective, as well as just grounded strategy, like how do you actually market yourself online? And I had no intention to be a coach growing up, although I was the kid was the one who was always giving my friends advice and wondering why they wouldn’t listen to it.
But my journey through coaching really started with entrepreneurship and started with a passion for building businesses and then actually have a background in music. And so I studied music in college and my first official coaching business was helping other musicians and then really transition more into coaching and realizing the power of getting to work with people on a deeper level.
And so much of what I’ve done over the past few years has been partnering with other entrepreneurs and coaches and people who are wanting to make an impact and grow their businesses and make great money doing the work that they do and really providing them with the tools and resources and guidance and mentorship to help them do that. So that is the winding road that brought me to where I am today.
Dr. Irena: Thank you for sharing that, Jason. So you and I did have a conversation before to determine today’s topic. And what is it about visualization that made you want to talk about it today?
Jason: Well, I think it’s a really interesting part of the journey of entrepreneurship, and the truth is, there’s so many pieces that are involved in success. But visualization is a tool that I use with my clients, and it’s a piece of the journey, and there are many ways that we’re kind of bringing this in as we work on growing the business. But it’s a powerful tool, and I’ve seen it to be very effective. And I’ve also used it in my own life, and I’ve seen the power of integrating that as a piece of my journey.
So I’m excited to be able to explore that with you because I think that there’s so many applications for it, and also particularly to learn more about your take on this as someone who understands more of the neuroscience behind it, because that is not my area of expertise. And so I think it’ll be interesting for us to kind of come at it from different angles, perhaps more of the practical application of what I’m seeing as a coach and also your background in neuroscience and the work that you do.
Dr. Irena: So, as I said, visualization has been popular and commonplace in self-help forever. So since you coached coaches and have thousands of them in your community, what do you see as good and bad about how visualization is used in coaching today?
Jason: Yeah, so there’s kind of like a couple different camps when it comes to visualization. And to your point and what you were talking about earlier, I think there’s this kind of, like, new age manifestation kind of angle of the visualization type approach where you hear a lot about just kind of the job of creating something. Manifesting something is really about holding the energy of it. And visualization is a big part of that, and it’s kind of divorced from the doing or the kind of practical, grounded, real world application of the process. So that’s kind of one side of what I see with a lot of visualization.
Personally, I don’t think that that is enough, but it’s something that is certainly talked a lot about. And I think there’s a big pitfall there. So much of this is about finding the balancing act between holding a vision and being able to clarify and articulate that vision, the energy that’s required to run a coaching business on a daily basis, being able to develop the practices. And I think visualization can really help with this, to be able to stay grounded in a certain state, which, to your point around process, so much of the process when it comes to marketing and sales is about holding a certain level of energy for somebody else through your marketing, through your sales, through how you show up in your business.
And so that’s where I think visualization can be very powerful. But there’s also a very practical component to just closing your eyes, as you said, and just imagining yourself, know, running the seven-figure business or, you know, working with thousands of clients, but not really being engaged in the practical day to day process of what it actually takes to do that. I think this is not going to get you any closer to where you want to be.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, I do have a little bit of a hard time convincing people that just visualizing the outcome is not enough. And there’s a couple of pieces of research that I didn’t bring up in the introduction, but I think, I mean, you mentioned manifestation, right, which is just holding that goal in mind. And so there’s a recent study that came out about a year ago that looked at manifestation, and what they found was that people who manifest, so we’re talking about manifestation in terms of, what do they call it? Is it the law of success or the law of…
Jason: Law of attraction.
Dr. Irena: Right. The law of attraction in that format. They actually end up taking more financial risks and invest in more risky investments than those of us who don’t fall into that law of attraction camp. So that’s a recent piece of research that came out. And then there’s also Gabriele Oettingen, who really started this work on visualization and how it’s important if you visualize, to visualize the process. And she found that what happens when you just visualize the outcome, like standing on the podium of success? Yes, there is a lot of energy there, but then you don’t have enough energy to do the process. And she measured that using systolic blood pressure, and that’s exactly what she found, that systolic blood pressure decreased following the visualization, so there wasn’t enough energy to carry it through.
Jason: Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. As I see it, you know, there are really two aspects of this, and I kind of see it as a both hand, at least in the work that I do in terms of marketing and helping people be able to stand down and attract clients. I think I’ll just speak from my own experience as an entrepreneur. Running a business, marketing is so much of the act of sales. Before I became a business coach, I was a director of sales and leading a sales team in a multi seven figure coaching business. So much of the work that I did with my sales team was about energetics.
And when I say energetics, what I mean is the energy of being able to show up in a certain state and call somebody to a level of certainty in themselves through holding that energy internally. So much of sales is like, how do you actually transfer over this feeling? This feeling of like, you got this, you’re going to be successful, like, you’re going to, you’re going to do great things, you have to hold it internally.
And so I think when we think about visualization in terms of like, embodying a certain state internally, there is some validity to the fact that the process and the outcome itself are actually kind of merged in that sense. Like when I think about visualizing myself as a coach with all these clients and having all this success and then going out and communicating from that place, if I can hold that energy, it actually does start to create changes in the process in terms of how I show up on a day-to-day basis.
So that’s where I think these kind of bright lines between the process and the outcome actually, you know, in certain spaces, maybe not in all spaces, but in the work that I do, they start to kind of break down a little bit. That’s where I think there is validity to this outcome-oriented approach. And at the same time, to your point, you know, just holding a certain level of energy is not necessarily enough. You also got to be able to connect to what the process actually is on a day daily basis. Otherwise we’re just closing our eyes all day and imagine in the future. But, you know, we’re not actually taking action steps towards what it is that we want.
Dr. Irena: What I hear you saying actually is that you also need to have that energy for the process so that you’re holding the final goal with a certain level of energy, but also the process that you’re doing also has that same amount of energy, so that they kind of just meld into one. You’re excited about the goal, but you’re also excited about working on it
Jason: Exactly like 1000%. And I think of visualization more in terms of it’s a tool for state management more than anything else. I’m less interested in seeing the things so much as what it makes me feel when I think about that thing and see those images. If that’s something that then allows you to carry that into your day to day, then that’s where I think visualization can be such a powerful tool.
And as I’m thinking about this one thing that I’ve noticed, I’m very curious what your thoughts are on this, because, I mean, Tony Robbins talks about this whole reticular activating system, this idea that when you start to visualize certain things, and I often use this analogy, I think it’s called the red car effect. You probably know the specific name for it. It’s like when you’re in the market for a red car, you’re shopping online for red cars. Suddenly, you notice the red cars everywhere. I’ll give you an example.
So last year, we did about half a million dollars in sales, and we’re in this stage where we’re scaling to seven figures. And I started several months ago when I would go to bed at night, I would imagine myself as a seven-figure coach. And what started happening as I did that was, I started noticing in my day-to-day awareness that there were different opportunities that I wasn’t presently available to before that, because it was almost like my mind was not seeing them.
And as I started to stepping into that higher level of awareness of, like, okay, this is the new standard that I’m holding for myself, suddenly the strategy became clear, and suddenly the path became clear. And there were things that I wasn’t aware of before that momentous that suddenly opened in my field of awareness. So I’m very curious how that holds for you in terms of the research that you’ve seen and how that might fit into this framework around visualization from your perspective.
Dr. Irena: So, NLP loves the reticular activating system. And I had a long discussion with a colleague about the reticular activating system, like with another neuroscientist. And that’s how I learned that it’s misinformation. It’s not supported by research that the reticular activating system can filter out over 80% of information, and it does play a role in determining what information reaches conscious awareness. But the exact mechanisms and percentages involved are not well defined.
So, the reticular activating system, what is shown by research is that it’s a neurological system involved in regulating wakefulness and attention, but its function isn’t related to manifesting specific outcomes or attracting specific events into one’s life.
Jason: Interesting. I didn’t know that. That’s fascinating to hear. I’m wondering if there’s another reason or justification that you could maybe offer from your perspective to validate the experience that I have. But this feels very real to me. Is this level of awareness that’s been kind of unlocked? And I’ve experienced this in many moments in my life where it was like I had to step into a certain identity or frame of mind in order to see opportunities or something that was available in my awareness previously, but I was cut off to it. I’m wondering if there’s some other perspective that you might offer on that.
Dr. Irena: There is. So it’s not the reticular activating system, it’s the saline’s network. And so the saline’s network includes the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. So the salience network filters out information that is not important and gets you to attend to information that is important or stimuli that’s important. And these stimuli can be anything. It could even be your own thoughts. So for example, you’re working on a project and then you think about something, oh, I wonder if I email this person because at the moment that becomes salient and then you go and you check, did I send that email?
And so you can also train your salience network by having these goals right in mind and making them feel real. So in effect, but you’re not doing fantasy. It’s just that it’s something that is always in the back of your mind. And then your salience network will start to filter out things that are not important to that goal and start to allow through things that are important to that goal. And that’s also why it’s important to really identify the process and visualize the process because you’re refining it more. You’re helping your sailings network to refine it even more.
Jason: Through visualizing the process itself?
Dr. Irena: Yes.
Jason: It totally makes sense. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that and I love hearing more of your perspective on this. I’m curious. I guess this has turned into an opposite way of the way interview, but so, so is there a sense then that visualization, going back to what you just shared may be a way of influencing the process through defining that outcome through the visualization? There’s a sense that I now become available to a different process through the visualization itself because that influences what I pay attention to through this salience network, right?
Dr. Irena: Yes. And it’s important to start taking the steps towards your goal, right? Because then it doesn’t become real for your salience network either until you start taking the steps. And so now we’re getting into manifestation. Even though this was visualization, there’s a recent book called Mind Magic by Doctor Doty. And I referenced that book on a previous episode, and he talks about the neuroscience of manifestation. And it’s exactly what we’re talking about. It’s about constantly visualizing your goal.
I don’t visualize normally, you know, but my goal is always there in the back of my mind. I know what it is, but I don’t sit there and consciously try and visualize, you know, but I just know what it’s there, and it’s very salient to me. And then you have to start taking the steps toward that goal. And then also what happens is you have to leave yourself open to other information that might come in, might come in tangentially that because it just might support your goal also.
Jason: I love this conversation and perspective. It’s fascinating. And, you know, it’s something that I’m going to take away with me because I don’t think I do as much of the process-oriented visualization, certainly not with my clients. So it tends to be more outcome or goal oriented. And so I’m excited to explore that more and to get to integrate that more into the work that we do.
One other area on visualization we tend to focus quite a bit on is when it comes to creating momentum in business, I have these three principles that I talk about, this idea of clarity, commitment, and certainty. These are the foundations for being able to create momentum and movement in a business. And the reason why people get to a certain level and then they kind of Pete around or they get stuck is they lose sight of what is that goal? Or what is that vision.
And that’s where I think visualization can also be powerful. It’s a tool that we use quite a bit to just define, like, what is that next step? What does that actually look like for you? Because until we know what the outcome is, we can’t really define a process to get there right? So the process becomes the most important thing in terms of actually achieving the goal. But if so, many people haven’t taken the time to just define what it is that they actually want, that’s another way that I think visualization can be very powerful to help someone tap into that sense of what’s really possible for them to.
Dr. Irena: Exactly. It is important to have a meaningful, salient goal, right? Because if you don’t have one, then you’re just floundering. But you don’t have to visualize it in the sense that we kind of meditate on it and see ourselves where you can still have that goal. Some people don’t visualize, but they can still have a meaningful and salient goal. And another thing, too, is, are you familiar with the cocktail party effect?
Jason: No, I don’t think so. Tell me more.
Dr. Irena: So it’s a little bit like when you buy a red car and then you see red cars everywhere. So the cocktail party effect is, at a cocktail party or in a crowd, if someone mentions your name, you’re going to hear it. Even though you’re not listening, you can’t hear any of the conversation. You’re going to hear the name, and that’s because your name is so salient. So you want to make that goal super salient so that then your brain focuses on it and can filter it. What’s not important. Like, at a cocktail party, you filter out everything. But once someone says your name for me, it’s also when someone says, mom.
Jason: You must have a hard time. In social settings, I feel like that’s got to be a tough one.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, it is true. Someone says mom, and I turn around.
Jason: Yeah, it’s like whenever someone says, because my name’s Jason, whenever someone says the word adjacent, my brain just. It’s fascinating to me to watch that.
Dr. Irena: So that’s what we’re talking about, right? Because your name is just so salient to you.
Jason: Yeah, totally makes sense.
Dr. Irena: That you’re going to hear it, right? Even if it’s barely a whisper, you’re going to hear it. So visualizing having achieved the goal, right, or so what I call standing on the podium of success is really intoxicating. Right? It is just so fantastic when you visualize yourself there. So do you have clients who then fight trying to plan the process of getting there?
Jason: Sometimes. Particularly people who are more intuitively oriented, sometimes there’s a more resistance around, like, structure and strategy and planning and more of the kind of intellectual aspects of growing a business, it’s like, okay, I get the vision. I feel connected to that. But being able to kind of bring that down to earth, so to speak, and being able to ground that in steps and actions and, you know, really map out, like, what the moves are, certainly there’s resistance around that.
Dr. Irena: So what’s your favorite strategy to help them overcome that resistance?
Jason: I love focusing on, just, like, what is the next step, which is the simplest thing you could ask yourself. So when I was in my early twenties, I was diagnosed with cancer. And I went through two years of treatment. It was completely overwhelming. Like, for anyone who’s ever been through that experience, it’s like, you know, you don’t even know what’s going to happen because, like, there are so many different ways things can go, and the doctors don’t really even know either.
But one of the things that, like, I remember about that experience that really helped me through that period of time was I got super narrow in my focus, and all I was focused on was, like, what do I got to do to get through the day? And that took me through, like, two years of treatment. And it took a thing that was daunting and made it so manageable and so simple for me. So to me, that question, what is the next step? What is the next thing that I need to do right now? And typically, what’s the thing that I can do in, like, five minutes?
That, because what I find is, like, people get overwhelmed by, like, the big picture and then they stop doing things. And that feeling of, like, I don’t have momentum anymore then compounds because we got the guilt trip on top of it off, like, well, I’m not moving forward, and I need to be moving faster. And then that creates another layer of shame and guilt that stops people from actually taking action. But if you can find something that you can do in, like, five minutes to just create that feeling of, like, okay, I’m moving forward, something simple is like, call so and so or send the email or something that just feels manageable and simple.
What I find is people feel a sense of momentum on the other side of that. They feel that sense of accomplishment, and then that becomes fuel to carry them through to the next thing. And you can literally, I mean, you can build a seven-figure business by just going, what’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? What’s the next action step? And that tangible next step is the simplest way that I know how to do it, and the most effective tool that I found to be able to help people really move forward.
Dr. Irena: Well, congratulations, Jason.
Jason: Thank you.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. And, yeah, your strategy of just looking at the next step and the next small step, that’s something that I teach all the time to my own students. You only look at the next step. You have the goal, right? The goal is always there in the back of your mind, but it’s not at the front of your mind because that can be overwhelming. And so it’s only the next step. And that’s how I’ve built my business, is one step at a time. I mean, that is such a powerful strategy that a lot of people don’t know that. They want their big goal, and they think they need to take big steps to get to their big goal. But that’s not true. You’re just breaking it down into smaller steps, but you’re still getting there.
Jason: It’s the discipline, I think, of just being able to show up and continue to do those things day after day after day. And the boring, basic, simple stuff that is really going to move you forward. And you look back over the course of five years later, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, look at all this that I’ve been able to create and achieve through these simple, one step at a time, boring, basic actions.
Dr. Irena: And you do it without overwhelming yourself.
Jason: Exactly. Yeah. I love what you said about that. Yeah, because it’s so true. It’s like when we’re focused on the mountaintop, that can easily feel very overwhelming. It’s like, all right, I feel like I got to, I mean, this feels daunting, but the next step feels manageable, feels simple.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. Do you have a particular client story that illustrates what you just shared?
Jason: I feel like every single client I work with; this is what it comes down to. I’m, like, trying to think of one story, but the truth is it plays into everyone. You know, so much of the journey of building a business is, I would say it’s like 98% mindset. And so how do you show up on a daily basis is really the question that I think most people need to answer for themselves, because for a lot of it, it just feels like nothing’s happening, you know?
I mean, my first year as a coach, I made $4,728, and it took me, like, six months, I think, before I made any money in the business. And I was showing up every single day, and I felt like nothing was happening. I was just creating all this stuff and putting it out into the void. I’m sure at some point you could probably relate, even though you have a successful podcast now. There’s a period of time where it’s painful.
And for me, the thing that got me through that time was I was super, to your point, I got super process oriented. I knew the goal, but I just forgot the goal. And it was like, it was still in my mind, but it was like, okay. I was just focused on, what do I got to do get the next episode out? What do I got to do to get the next video online? What do I got to do to write the post? And, you know, that took me to six figures, but it took time to get there. And also just falling in love with the process, I think, is another part of this is like, what can you truly enjoy about the journey of doing the thing?
And when that becomes its own reward, there’s not so much of this orientation around the goal that starts to get you in this place of, like, I feel like I’m not where I want to be. I think that’s a very toxic energy. So I think for me, a lot of the process orientation is a tool that I use to stay in that feeling of momentum, of things are moving forward. You know, I can feel like I accomplished my goal today, even if I didn’t scale to the mountaintop.
Dr. Irena: Exactly. When you organize your day as a series of small steps, because, in effect, that’s the ideal way to organize your day. And you start your day with a small task that you can do successfully that releases dopamine, and the dopamine predicts success on the next task and the next task. And so you can just ride that dopamine all day long and feel great, and all you’re doing is a series of small steps, not overwhelming, and it can be fun.
So when it came to building my program, I did it one module at a time, and I wasn’t even thinking of building a whole program, a neuroscience program. It was a membership site at the time. And I just love neuroscience. I love reading about it, I love writing about it. And so I was just focused on trying to create one module a month on a specific topic. After 14 modules that I created, I realized this is a program.
Jason: Yeah, but if you would have told yourself, I’m launching a program, you’ve probably been like, oh, my God, the idea of recording 14 modules for this thing would have been exhausting.
Dr. Irena: Exactly.
Jason: I love that. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the reasons I love when I do programs. I do everything live now, so I don’t do any pre-recorded stuff anymore, just because for me, like, when I get in the energy of being in a space where I can just talk like this and I don’t have to worry about, you know, editing myself and stopping and starting, it makes it so much easier, and it just allows the whole process to unfold much faster. It’s like, how can you focus on that as an enjoyable experience instead of being in the overwhelm and the daunting of, like, oh, I need to build this big thing.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly. So I think we’ve gone on a tangent here, but it’s still related. I mean, it is really hard to find topics in neuroscience that don’t overlap because we use all of the brain all the time. So, Jason, is there anything else you’d like to say to our listeners.
Jason: I would probably just encourage them that whatever it is that they’re visualizing at the end of the day, whether they’re visualizing the process or the outcome, that they can do this and that hopefully the episode today will encourage them to dream big and to also take those things and ground them down into the practical, process oriented steps that will allow them to feel empowered on a daily basis so that they can accomplish their goals and do it without the overwhelm and the stress and the anxiety that I think isn’t necessary as a part of the journey.
Dr. Irena: Well, that’s wonderful, Jason. So thanks so much. And what’s the best way for our listeners to find out more about you and your work?
Jason: Sure, you can go to jasonmoss.com. J-A-S-O-N-M-O-S-S dot com. That’s our website. We’ve got links to social media, all of our offers, our free Facebook group, YouTube channel. We’ve got like 200 plus free videos for coaches to help you grow your business and get more clients and lots of different ways you can connect. That’s probably the best place to check out. It’s kind of like a hub for everything.
Dr. Irena: So thank you very much for your time today, Jason. This has been a truly enlightening and wonderful conversation.
Jason: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Dr. Irena: Thank you everyone for listening. And remember that visualization is an amazing and powerful technique, but only if used correctly. The next time you use visualization or guide your clients in it, try some of what Jason and I talked about today. Just shifting the focus from the outcome to the process dramatically increases the chances for success.
I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’ve been listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. You can find out more about me at neuroscienceschool.com. Neuroscience of Coaching is a part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and To Lead is Human. This episode was produced by Cynthia Lamb, Danny Iny is our executive producer and post production was by Marvin del Rosario. To make sure you don’t miss great episodes coming up on Neuroscience of Coaching, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player.
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