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"Power of Visualization" Eric Papp: Along with the vision part, having a vision of where you want to be, of where
you want to go in life. Let me take you back to my high school days. My high school days,
I was throwing the discus. I was on the track team, throwing the discus. Now it's my senior
year, and my football career had already been cut short because I had three knee surgeries,
and I couldn't do any more football. So I thought the last sport that I could compete
and really make a mark, in high school would be discus. I'd done it the three previous
years, so I said okay, let me do the discus. You know again this last final year and see
what I can do. And I had a dream, a vision of that year of going to the state meet and
competing, just getting to the state meet. It was like a big thing, you know here in
the state of Florida. And so, how that came a reality, is I would go in the library on
my lunch period. I would eat my lunch in about twenty minutes, and for a big guy that's
kind of hard to do, because my mom would pack two sandwiches. And I would go in the library
and I would watch the videos of Olympic throwers, now this is before YouTube, okay? So I would
have to like, pull up stuff and you know, I would watch these Olympic throwers throw
this discus and I would see them like acting it out and see these movements, and I would watch
it over and over and over and over and over, and, over. And over, and over and over again, right.
Until that perfect throw was burned in my what? In my head. And then sometimes I would
even get up in the library and actually act it out, okay? People looking at me kind of
funny, but it didn't matter. That's something too you know, being whatever you want to do.
People are going to look at you funny and do things different, you know say things or
whatever, that's- don't take it personal. Okay, so stuff- When I was in the library
acting it out, I didn't worry about it because I was just worried about my what? My perfect
throw. Okay, worrying about it and seeing it, so seeing it on the computer and kind of etching
that into my memory. And then I would get to the track practice, that's what I would
try to bring out. I would just see myself and I would see myself as this competitor
that had like this wonderful technique, when starting off I didn't. But I didn't know
any better, I just knew where I wanted to go. Okay, and I would just continue doing
that over and over again. Do some of the drills over and over again, and then sometimes I would
just throw without even the discus, just like I would just visualize it going very far, very far,
and I get to the state meet, and I'm looking around. And at the time I thought that
I was a big guy, you know 6'1, 225, fairly strong, and I'm looking around the state
meet, there's guys like 6'4-6'5, 240-280, and I hear these guys talking and they're
all going like Division I College Football, okay? That wasn't me. And so I'm thinking
to myself "Man, how am I going to compete with these guys?" But the idea- it wasn't about
what they are, it didn't matter about who was there, it was just about, okay, let me
go back to what I know. Let me go back to trusting myself, let me go back to that, what I've
worked on. And then when it came time to compete, I competed and I ended up taking second in
the state, and that was it. The point of the story I tell you is not to be impressed
with what I did, but it's to impress upon you that each and every one of you contains
that, and that's the ability to visualize. The ability to see something and then actually
going and accomplishing it. That's so powerful. That's going to be like your secret weapon,
spending time visualizing, spending 10-15 minutes a day just minimum, visualizing where I want
to be, the type of impact that I want to have. "Power of Visualization"