Close your eyes and imagine meeting someone you really like.

Take your time and add as much detail to the image as you can: their facial expression, what they’re wearing, what they’re doing, where you’re meeting them, the time of the day, and so on. Let yourself smile as you enjoy being in this person’s presence. And then open your eyes.

You just stimulated the same areas of your brain that would have been stimulated had you actually met them in real life.

This phenomenon is very powerful. Olympic athletes make visualization a major part of their training.

I have begun to practice more visualization exercises and have gotten interested in the topic through meditation and reading The Charisma Myth, which mentions a lot of visualization techniques.

I would like to share some of the techniques that I have incorporated into my life and found particularly effective.