Few years ago, if I were being asked to chair a dinner event in Scotland, the immediate thought that came were "Oh gosh, how can I click with the audiences?" As a foreigner from Far East and having very little knowledge on the Scottish history and culture, this seemed impossible.
The recent success in chairing a Burns Supper dinner (a dinner to commemorate Robert Burns, Scottish Poet) for a group of 41 in Scotland made me realised a technique that I sometimes used but didn't pay much attention to.
It is a technique that form the basis for 'The Law of Attraction'.
It is called 'Visualisation'.
So, what did I do?
I would like to share my recent experiences and hopefully I could improve on the this technique to achieve things that seem impossible to achieve in life.
Step 1 - Background Research (two weeks before the event)
The theme for the dinner is simple - its about Robert Burns. So, I need to know more about Robert Burns. I asked myself the following questions: Who is he? What did he do? What's his story?
In order for me to understand Robert in a short time span, instead of borrowing a complete biography on Robert, I went to the children's library to borrow a 60 page mini book to get a summary of his life.
Step 2 - Visualise
After that, almost everyday, I read the same book over and over again. Read out loud and even recorded my own reading.
I also tried to relate my life and things that happen around me with Robert's life.
Step 3 - More Research
Well, the 60 page book is just a rough guideline. Throughout the course of 2 weeks, I went to various websites to read bits of his life that interest me most, listening to some of the music and poems written by him. www.bbc.co.uk/robertburns is a good source for Robert Burns work and provide a good summary on how to run a Burns Supper dinner.
Step 4 - See It, Talk It, Do It
Yes, I talked about Robert's work with friends and colleagues, I asked other's opinion on Robert Burns and I ate haggis nips and tatties pie from Greggs almost everyday one week before the event.
I get myself very excited about the event, and turn the event into something that I really look forward to.
Step 5 - Visualise the Event
Just three days before the dinner, I started to visualised the event with someone who had successfully chaired the event before.
The visual was initially very crude as it was initially not my own visualisation. However, after a few days of fine tuning by adding things that I felt and observed, my visualisation for the event became more real.
Even before the event started, I ran through my visualisation with the catering team provided by the hotel. The process of visualisation kept on running in my head throughout the event and allowed me to adjust any hiccups that happened during the event. To be honest, its actually fun and enjoyable to watch the things that I visualised turned into reality.
So, what's next? Visualising Richard Branson? Start to visualise the life that I really want?
