The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

Rewire Your Mind: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behaviors with Dr. Albert Bramante

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 53

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Ever wonder why some people consistently sabotage their own success? In this eye-opening conversation with psychologist Dr. Albert Bramante, author of "Rise Above the Script," we dive deep into the hidden mental patterns that keep talented people stuck in cycles of underperformance.

Dr. Bramante shares fascinating insights from his journey working with actors and performers, revealing how the psychology of self-sabotage manifests in everyday behaviors like chronic lateness, procrastination, and the "I'm too busy" narrative. You'll discover how these patterns form and—more importantly—practical techniques to break free from them.

Whether you're a trainer looking to enhance your toolkit, a manager working with underperforming team members, or someone seeking to overcome your own self-defeating patterns, this episode provides practical strategies you can implement immediately. Connect with Dr. Albert Bramante at www.albertbramante.com or find him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook to continue your journey of psychological transformation.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge where, together, we are shaping the future of training and development. Today I have special guest, Dr. Albert Bramante, author of the book Rise Above the Script, a psychologist and someone who has been dipping into some AI in terms of talent development. Welcome to the show, albert. Thank you, jay. Thank you for inviting me.

Albert Bramante:

I'm really happy to be here.

Jay Johnson:

I'm happy to have you. So tell me, what is it that got you into this talent development space, coaching, training, helping people kind of make those navigational changes?

Albert Bramante:

So as a child there was always a book for them. To give you a really quick intro, I always loved books about psychology, the brain, neuroscience, communication, so that led me to study psychology. I was also very interested in the arts so I was in the drama club in high school. I took some acting classes as electives in my undergraduate studies, so I enjoyed the creativity side of things. When I received my master's degree, my final internship was at a new york city talk show, working more in the counseling side of things, and that led me to study at working with actors. And because I worked with actors not directly but but kind of like adjacent so I started off kind of in pursuing a little bit of my own acting and realized for for me I enjoyed working behind the scenes. I worked better with advising actors, so I started my first talent representation or management company in 2004 and then I become a licensed talent agent, which is so pretty much as a talent agent I work as an employment agent for actors.

Albert Bramante:

Now while I was studying psychology, I was noticing a lot of patterns that were coming up with actors Self-sabotage, fear of success, self-doubt, issues of self-doubt and imposter syndrome were coming in. So I did my PhD dissertation on self-defeating behavior of performing artists, which turned into my book, you know, which really is on the edge of my book, rise of the Script. So that kind of led me to coaching more down the coaching space. And then I initially was going to be a clinical psychologist. That was going to be my natural progression. Psychologist, that was going to be my natural progression. But there were some things that were becoming more and more of a question for me, or maybe even a little bit of disillusionment in my area. So I became more interested in more rapid forms of coaching, you know, hypnosis, nlp, rewiring the subconscious belief systems and patterns. So that kind of led me down to this kind of like that rabbit hole of coaching, a personal development.

Albert Bramante:

So that's kind of the space that I'm in today and being, you know, somewhat of a mild tech enthusiast. I'm not entirely like into programming and coding, but I do enjoy technology and so that kind of led me to kind of discovering and writing the AI.

Jay Johnson:

I love this All right. So there's a lot to unpack there. I'm going to start with self-defeating behaviors, and what I'd love is can you give the audience maybe just a quick definition of what is a self-defeating behavior, what is a self-defeating mindset? And then, how do I notice this? Because I guarantee they've been in audiences where that type of archetype has come up. So what would be some of the signs that somebody is exhibiting self-defeating behaviors or maybe that sort of fear of success?

Albert Bramante:

It would be sort of like doing certain behaviors that are holding themselves back, maybe being late to a point, it's not preparing fully for what they could do or not really living up to their fullest potential. So it's like you could do so much but you're only doing so little. And even the language that they talk a lot of times I'm not good enough or I'm just unlucky in life and what's really going on here is just self-imposed limitations more of a fixed mindset, if you will yes, exactly, exactly.

Albert Bramante:

And rather than looking at even if they make a mistake or they fail at something, a person with a fixed mindset that said I told you I'm not successful, I told you I'm not lucky, whereas someone with a growth mindset is like, okay, well, this happened, what can I learn from this and what can I do differently next time. And so a person who is self-sabotaging is what makes this a very sneaky behavior is a person doesn't even realize they're doing it, sure, and they just think they may just work and say I can't catch a break, life is unfair, or I just can't do it. And so they become just stuck in these patterns and these cycles of what we might consider bad luck. So that would be the first thing If someone has a victim mindset or a mindset of bad luck, that might be the first clue to start looking at what's going on here.

Jay Johnson:

Are they their own worst enemy? Well, and you see that behavior every day in the office, right? You see people who are coming in late that have all the potential in the world and a lot of times you know the stories we tell ourselves or that I've heard a lot of leaders or managers say is oh, it's because this person's young, or oh, it's because they're lazy, or oh, it's. It's almost like whoever it is is coming up with their own interpretation of what those facts are. Uh, how do we get to the core of, like, maybe what it is that's actually that person's story. So the person who comes in late obviously doesn't go yeah, I'm lazy, I just come in late all the time, or, you know, I really don't want to be successful. I I don't think they're feeling that way. How do we draw that out of them?

Albert Bramante:

well, we notice patterns, as I always. If they're coming in late all the time, I mean versus okay, one day there could be construction on the way to work, okay fine. Or something happened at home, emergency happened at home. But if it's a consistent pattern where they're late week after week or day, that may be a pattern that we need to look deeper into this. Why is that person not leaving earlier enough? Why is that person not making sure that they're on time? What's really going on here? And then we have to look at their overall happiness level. Maybe they're just not happy with their job or they're not happy at that company, and we may not be able to change their jobs, obviously with the way the economy is. But what we can do is start working at some core feelings about their job. So you have to start looking at behaviors of what's happening on a consistent level again. Are they always underperforming? Are they always, you know, not doing what they can do? Because? So, with self-sabotage, no one walks around saying hey, I'm self-sabotaging today right.

Jay Johnson:

it'd be nice if people had that level of awareness and honesty in like what it is that's creating their behavior.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah, If you had that level of awareness or honesty, you wouldn't be doing it, frankly, you would not be self-sabotaging because it's you know differently, right? So a lot of times it's helping people become aware of this, like look, ok, what's really going on here? Always late, you know you're always doing things and I know you can do it. Yeah, I know you can because you're smart and you're intelligent, you're resourceful. So it's looking at certain behaviors, another habit a lot of people say I don don't have any time today, I'm so busy, but yet you see them on social media, scrolling on their phone for moments even hours at a time.

Jay Johnson:

Yep, I've always made that. I've always made that relevation of uh, whenever I see somebody that says I don't have any time and so like, oh, you have no time, you're so busy. Well, if you've got a phone call that said, hey, my garage is on fire, um, are you going to be like, oh, I'm sorry, I don't have time to deal with that. Give me a call in two weeks and I'll definitely take that on? Or are you going to shift? And usually time is a lack of prioritization, that's, that's one of the things that we see yeah, exactly, and that.

Albert Bramante:

Another mindset I think that we have to kind of get out of is that, oh, I'm too busy. I hear the people say this I wish I could do this. I'm so, so busy, albert, do you?

Jay Johnson:

do you? Do you think that it's almost because we is that a defense mechanism? Or is it because we've, like, glorified being busy, like, oh, if you're busy you must be productive, and those two things do not necessarily line up with each other. Or if you're successful and that doesn't always line up with each other, uh, or if you're busy, you're successful, and that doesn't always line up either. So what? What creates the condition that we want to be busy or that we say that we're busy? Is there something that you've seen?

Albert Bramante:

I think it could be distraction. I think it could be, you know, trying not to face whatever. We're feeling, insecurities, we're facing, so, or things in our life. Well, by just keeping ourselves busy, because I can keep myself busy, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be productive, that doesn't mean I'm being successful, right I keep myself busy doing tasks that are not important to me or that are harmful.

Jay Johnson:

For that matter, you know, scrolling on social media I truly do not believe is the best use of four and a half hours of our time.

Albert Bramante:

So right and well, that could be busy. I could be busy scrolling on social media, but that doesn't mean that that be successful or productive yeah.

Jay Johnson:

So let's, let's dig in, because I think now, uh, I've studied psychology but I am by no means a licensed hypnotist. I never went for the clinical side of things. I wasn't interested in actually doing any kind of clinical. I utilize more of an industrial organizational psychology and really help people navigate some forms of behaviors which, for those in the audience that do not know what that is, neuro-linguistic programming, and I'll ask you, albert, give us a working definition that we can play with.

Jay Johnson:

But let's talk about hypnosis first, because I'm not a hypnotist and I know that, like you know, if you look on TV you see the illusionist or somebody else, or you know the, the sort of like magical incantations of what hypnosis is spin the circles, swing the clock and somebody magically falls asleep, right, I think I just watched uh, now you see me the the magic. You know the magic movie and it's a Woody Harrelson's character and I know that that's obviously there is a very powerful set of evidence of clinical hypnosis and how that can really help people sort of navigate some of the unconscious, the underlying beliefs, year. What are some things that I, as a trainer, could take from the idea of hypnosis, or an understanding that hypnosis helps us better understand that I could bring into my practice. What are your thoughts? Well, it's.

Albert Bramante:

There's different levels of hypnosis. You know the obviously putting someone to the trance, but then there's also waking hypnosis, conversational hypnosis. When you change, get someone to change their limiting beliefs. You kind of um, you know, help them go from one thought to another. That could be a form of hypnosis. Advertising is hypnosis. How many times are you going to a store with wanting to buy something and then walk out and say, how did I just buy this?

Jay Johnson:

so, almost like some of the heuristic systematic processing, can that be considered?

Albert Bramante:

100 combination bias um influence and sales people, I think are the best hypnotists available because a lot of times they can convince you you need something you don't really need but, the thing that what makes it really powerful is it it's you don't even realize they're doing it. It it's really helping you know help. You know giving convincing somebody to do something, but making them think it's their own idea okay, so it's almost a subconscious inception concept, yeah all right.

Albert Bramante:

So it's like you know I think I need to buy this product and you really take a step back. I'm like, no, you were. Someone suggested that you needed to buy the product, but you it went to your subconscious. Now you believe you need it, and that's where hypnosis is so, like if I'm working with someone, let's say, to stop smoking, which is really what hypnosis is great for with addictions. It's not like I should stop smoking because this person told me to. It's getting someone to say I should stop smoking because I want to.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, so now, what is the process of that? And obviously I'm sure that it's a very complex or it could be a very complex process, but if you were to just give me the highlights, or give the audience the highlights, what? What does that process look like and how would you?

Albert Bramante:

help somebody. It's really just, you know, helping someone bypass the critical factor, which can be mild distraction, okay. Which is why sometimes if you go, if you do a formal hypnosis process, we might have you relax a little bit in your mind, calm your mind, clear your mind, focus on something else. Why I tell you you know it's like I'll distract you with point A and why I'm telling you point B, where you're not aware of things, and it could be something again subtle as advertising. Look at a lot of commercials. They may be interacting with a puppy or kitten and you're consciously like, oh, look at that. And then in the background you're hearing this message about buy this product, yeah. And next thing, you know, when you're out in the store or out wanting to do something, hey, I want, I should buy this. This brand sounds great to me. Not realizing, you were primed.

Albert Bramante:

Um, I'll give you another example. There was this used car and a company, a car lot in florida, did a really brilliant campaign and brought them a lot of money and in the commercial they had obviously the salesman telling you buy all these cars. But they also had a seven foot nba player dressed in a chicken suit doing these crazy dances. Because what are you doing when you're folk? You're focusing on that the guy doing this silly and you're're like, oh, this is so cute. Now your mind is open, your ears are open, and so now the announcer is telling you about all these discounts that come to this car lot. And now, all of a sudden, you're thinking on the weekend, you know, I need to go check out a car.

Jay Johnson:

Let me go check out this lot. For some reason, this lot is two different paths to persuasion, one being the central route, ie, I'm focused, I'm putting my energy into thinking about it, I'm looking at it logically, I'm looking at the logical structure and it makes sense. And then there's the secondary, which is the peripheral route. Processing, ie is all of those sub cues that are either contextual, environmental, happening essentially below the conscious focus. So, if I'm taking that and kind of hearing what you're saying, albert, hypnosis can be described as unconscious influence that avoids some of the defense mechanisms that we may be doing either consciously or subconsciously. Would that be accurate?

Albert Bramante:

yes, and it's really something what really speaks to the subconscious, which is very strong, okay, and and are guiding our behavior. So if I can change your subconscious beliefs, that's where I can, that's where all the power comes in sure, because those are the ones that are usually overriding our conscious and or logical thinking.

Jay Johnson:

So if I'm a trainer and a coach, what are some of the things that maybe I could think about to be able to essentially access that aspect of the subconscious you know in a training session or in a coaching session.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah, I would watch the language that you use. You know, the language is very, very powerful. I think that's one of the most strongest hypnotic processes is language. So watching the language that we use, not only to ourselves, but even helping our clients come to that by. You know, even if I'm going to work with actors, I always say don't you know? The words that you should get rid of out of your vocabulary is the word starving, struggling, poor, right and the mindset essentially is start the starving artist.

Albert Bramante:

We start to live into those different identification markers reality it's like okay, well, I'm starving, so therefore I must be poor and I must be um I've got you know limited, nothing to do, I'm poor and therefore I'm not going to be successful.

Albert Bramante:

But if you start the, I'm a professional working actor, so you start to then develop those habits and then even a lot of times, a lot of things are repetition. So even rehearsal and repetition is important. So, even if you're working with people as a coach, get them to use a more empowering language and over and over again repetition, well, and I'm.

Jay Johnson:

So I'm even thinking about, like some of the affirmation work that dr ellen langer did in the mindfulness versus mind mindlessness type approach you know the identification of, oh, I'm getting older and all of a sudden we adopt that mentality, we start behaving as such. So this is, you know, kind of reframing. Maybe identity politics or, you know, identification markers for the audience is maybe one of the first ways we're, we will hold on to any identity we adopt.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah, and so again, going with the older mindset, that because we, we hear the society, we hear doctors, we, everyone doubt that the older we get, the more limitations we're going to experience, the more pain we're going to experience, right, and therefore create conditions. Yeah, and we need these conditions. And because I can tell you, I know a lot of people that are in their 80s and 90s that defy those expectations, that are probably healthier than most 20 and 30 year olds out there well, you know, and it's really funny and, albert, I'll share this.

Jay Johnson:

This you know from my from my childhood at one in time a teacher told me that I was not good at mathematics and for some reason it was early. It was like, oh, this really isn't your subject, is it honey? And I think I was like in second, third or something great. I carried that identity all the way up until high school, underperforming in mathematics. But here's the funny thing, and it definitely had an impact on my behavior.

Jay Johnson:

I deferred my graduation from my undergraduate degree two full years because I was afraid to take the math proficiency exam. Ironically, I'm actually quite good at math. That was the highest section that I got on the ACT when I took the entry exam. Uh, I was very good at physics and chemistry and I now do probabilistic uh, you know, statistical modeling for some of the research that I do. I wasn't bad at math, but I wore that label and it had a huge impact on how I showed up and performed all the way through school until, essentially, I felt like that label was no longer fitting and kind of dropped that and a lot of students are older than him and what I was and I can relate to this too I feared math.

Albert Bramante:

But what was ironic was I did very well in chemistry in high school when I took statistics for psychology, both advanced and basic, I scored high marks in. I remember my professor said you must have been brilliant in algebra, which, whoa. That was a new thing to me. I struggled and it was because I had that belief and that's where and even I tell my students there that I teach that when they say, oh, I don't like math, I'm not good at math, I'm like that's not true. Yep, that's not true at all. Because if you, you know what is true? Yeah, that when we utilize math, we're utilizing it in our brain. So, but it requires training in that. So it's not that you're not good at it, you just need more training in that area, you need more practice and more of that muscle.

Jay Johnson:

And maybe you know, as we're talking here, I think about it. Is that sort of one of those self-sabotage protection gestures, like I say, oh, I'm just not good at math because of a potential fear of failure? Or like, oh, this is hard because I haven't practiced it, I'm not working on it you know, I'm not doing it every single day or whatever it is, versus something that we are maybe more passionate about, where we put our energy into it, that we see progress and we see ourselves moving forward. Is that a form of the self-sabotage that we spoke about?

Albert Bramante:

Absolutely about self-protection, because, therefore, when you felt like, because if, when you do fail, that's all I would say, when if you adopted I'm not good math, you're not going to be good math and that, but then you could use an excuse. See, I told you I wasn't getting that, yeah, but right, right. And and I thought, because I talked to a lot of even math professors in my field and math tutors in my field and what I found was that the tutoring centers at colleges and high schools are so underutilized in math. Most of the people that really go to the tutoring are the ones that are good in math, no surprise. And it's like the ones that really need it are not never there, and it's like sometimes no interest, no motivation and probably a little bit of that fear.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah and it's like well, how can you be good in math if you're not making effort to be good at math?

Jay Johnson:

that's fascinating. So, all right, let's and I think this is really good because we've talked a little bit about hypnosis and I, ego or that you know really helping them sort of explore some of this. That's really practical, albert, and I like that. Let's talk a little bit about neurolinguistic programming. So NLP you had mentioned earlier because you had mentioned hypnosis and NLP neurolinguistic programming. You had mentioned hypnosis and nlp neurolinguistic programming. Um, could you?

Albert Bramante:

give us maybe a working definition that we can operate from for this?

Albert Bramante:

yeah, it's using the power of mind, your neurology in a sense, and using a language to kind of rewire neurology, because when you change your language, what starts happening is your brain will, your neurology will start to rewire itself. So it's using those combinations though it could be using our imagination more, but also the power of language, and combining those two together. So a process could be like visualization, one of the things we do know, and there's been a lot of studies that if you visualize something and you know on a consistent basis, you're more likely to be successful. They do this with athletes, so I actually there's a.

Jay Johnson:

There's an incredible story about Tiger Woods when he was, when he was actually in his prime, his dad was recounting a story and basically what would happen is they would go out onto the course pre-A tournament, pre-a tour, and he would practice physically and what ended up happening is, after he would go back, they'd go back to the hotel room, he'd shower, he'd eat and then he would lay down and play that entire round over visually in his brain while laying in the bed. And his dad actually timed him Like how long did it take you to physically play that round, you to physically play that round, and how long did it take you to mentally and visually go back through and play that round again, fixing the things that you wanted to fix? And it was interesting because it was almost exactly the same amount of time. It was like three hours and whatever amount of minutes, but I mean it was like within seven to eight minutes of each other. And I was thinking to myself like I have never been able, like I couldn't visualize a 15 minute conversation to that level. That's such a powerful aspect, but I mean I guess that's why he was tiger when he was tiger, right.

Jay Johnson:

So that visualization has been demonstrated to show a lot of impact on our development. How do you get people to take their visualization to that next level, though? Because when I tell somebody, you know, if I say, hey, I want you to visualize success, a lot of people go and the first thing they're going to think of Albert is money, or they're going to think about a time, or you know, like wearing a crown. It's going to be something that's like not going to necessarily really represent what the visualization exercise is. Can you walk us through what that might look like?

Albert Bramante:

sure well it's going to be. You're going to take a particular situation. Success can mean anything to anybody. So pick a situation and whether whether it's an upcoming test, an and I'm going to imagine upcoming performance and not just visualize it being successful, but visualize the steps that you're going through it. You know each step in the process and not only just imagining each step at a time. It's visualizing it going very well, like everything working so smoothly together, because the interesting thing about the brain is it does not know the difference between reality and fiction.

Jay Johnson:

Our subconscious does not know the difference between history, present and future in the concepts of like the neuroscientific studies of grief. It doesn't understand that that person will no longer be there. The brain itself, it's our mind and our, you know, sort of that subconscious that actually brings the context to the logical hey, they're missing. That actually brings the context to the logical. Hey, they're missing. They're not going to be there tomorrow, but I can remember their history and their past and our experiences in the past and relive those momentarily, you know, through different thoughts or through different visualizations. I think that's such a fascinating area of brain science.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah, and that's very empowering when you know how to use it, because then you can, okay, change. So, but I would say you know, even going back to the old science or pseudoscience that they call manifestation, which I there's nothing we're visualizing, but I think what the traditional manifestation limits is what's the methodology you're going to get there. Yeah, I can manifest being rich, but how am I going to become rich? Because if I sit here and tell you I'm going to be rich, I might as well stay here forever. What steps are you going to take? And that's when you start to visualize, not necessarily the end action, but the actions in between. So, even if it's like helping students with test anxiety, imagine taking that test but going through question by question and being able to answer it.

Jay Johnson:

I think that's really insightful because I think a lot of times, if you were to tell somebody visualize your success on this test, they're going to think about the graded paper with the a on it rather than the process of showing up to the classroom or the studying that was occurring beforehand or the writing that was done before the studying or the sitting in class, and like the logical steps of behavior that would essentially get us to the outcome, ie an A on the test. And I really like the way that you framed that is that systematic process of and what's next step? And how is that? You know what? What is that success? What does that feeling look like? How does that play out? What's the next step? And really walking through that.

Jay Johnson:

So, from the neuro-linguistic programming perspective, we know that language is powerful and it does end up creating our reality. And it also is something that you know. It is something that when we think about the entire world, the only way that we can understand it is through the language. And that's how is the programming function of neuro-linguistic programming and you know, again, breaking the name down, neuro, which is our cognitive linguistic language programming, is essentially rewriting the script which is above, you know, rise above the script, your book. What is it about that programming that does help us really kind of find change.

Albert Bramante:

Well, it's a repetition, number one and rehearsal repetition, and eventually it changes again at Limiting Belief. Going back to math, I'm not good at math too. I'm learning math. I can do this. And now, when you start to adopt that I can do this, watch how your performance in math is going to improve. So you now just reprogram your viewpoint about math, or even just about luck, by saying because a lot people ask me, what's my secret about luck? How do I become lucky? I said start feeling lucky.

Jay Johnson:

Start feeling that and adopting an identity as being lucky. See what happens and see what happens? Yeah, so, albert, here we're going to play. We're going to play a little devil's advocate debate here, because I know that there are people out there that immediately go. It can't be that easy. That doesn't work. Hypnosis wouldn't work on me, neuro-linguistic programming none of those Okay. So I'm going to play and I want you to help me. Help me navigate the question. The first one is is hypnosis just doesn't work on me?

Albert Bramante:

let's play with that so I would then turn around and say, well, what, what makes you think that? Okay, what, what? Why is that? And if somebody says, well, because I just know what it's so, and then I'll be like, well, you're kind of hypnotizing yourself to already say that, no, this doesn't work on me. So you just gave me there you go, it works, see right.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and and it is kind of funny, because when we do have something that we sort of lock in on without the ability to be adaptive or the ability to be open, it's more than likely some kind of as you said limiting belief that has, somehow or another, been embedded there over and over and over again. So being able to sort of open and crack that open is, I think, a powerful practice. Let's play with the, yeah, but it can't be that fast. There's no way that you can turn me from one to the other this quickly. How would we respond to that?

Albert Bramante:

So I would then turn around and say have you ever went to a store and spent impulsively on something you didn't need? Or look how fast the phobia is. Let's say somebody's been attacked by a dog. That one five ten-second incident can now create someone to have a dog phobia for life. So if that can happen that quickly, then there, why can't it happen in a few minutes?

Jay Johnson:

I really like that. Well, and ironically enough, even thinking about kind of what you said, you could have a traumatic experience that creates the conditions for fear or anxiety or anything else. But even if you went to the Michigan Humane Society where I'm, you know and Michigan and bought a dog immediately, your identity has shifted. You're now a dog parent, you now have to feed the dog. Your behaviors are going to shift from that very moment forward because of a new identity that you've essentially purchased in a short amount of time. And if we can do that, very quickly why can't we do other?

Albert Bramante:

stuff.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, no, I like that. All right. My last one, albert, you're saying that I can just visualize that I can fly and this is one that I always hear right, like something that's way out there. I can't just visualize that I'm going to fly and then all of a sudden grow wings and fly Right. And I hear this in a lot of cases when people push back on something, because when they see a pathway forward or a potential pathway forward, they block it off, right. So you know, I can't just visualize it and it'll occur. What's the response there, albert?

Albert Bramante:

Well, I would say, first of all, you know what's the evidence. I mean, yeah, obviously, being able to fly is not a realistic thing, but what is realistic in your life Now? I can't visualize I'm going to be a multimillionaire tomorrow, but I can visualize that I'm going to make good steps to become even more wealthier than I am today. So start small. What are some small goals? And if you're already saying it can't happen, you're already visualizing. You're already visualizing. You can think about it by saying you can't and then it's not going to happen. So you're using visualization already.

Albert Bramante:

That's what I would tell people. Yeah, so just switch it, flip it on its head and do the opposite. Well, I can become more wealthier today than tomorrow, than I had to, and this is what I'm going to do. So it's not just the end result, but what's the steps in between? So when we're visualizing let's say again, tiger Woods or anybody else doing a match it's not just the end result I won the match but the process, visualizing stuff, rehearsing for that match, practicing for that match and then doing a blow by blow every you know round in that game, rather than just saying, okay, I'm visualizing myself winning the game, no it's, it's a lengthy process I'll.

Jay Johnson:

I'll share a cool study with. For those of you that are listening that don't think visualization works, there was an actually a really fascinating study, and you don't have to be Tiger Woods. They took a bunch of golfers that have been playing at least five years. Okay, all different scores, some were talented, some not so talented, and what they did was they divided them into three groups. Group A did no practice for two weeks. Group B did practice physiological, went to the course every day, shot for two hours, two hours of physical practice. Group C did two hours of practice every day, but it was only visualization and it was only just in their mind that they were coached through it, et cetera, two hours a day. At the end of the two weeks they measured them. They measured before, they measured afterwards.

Jay Johnson:

Group A actually deteriorated. They got worse because they didn't play, they didn't practice, they didn't do anything. Group B, who practiced physiologically and went out to the course and swung a club. They improved by about 50%. It was Group C, though. That was super fascinating no swinging club, no going out, no practice, no physiological practice, just the visualization 38% improvement in their shots pre and post. So works. It's well documented, it's well studied and albert, I just want to say thank you for bringing this topic into our space, because it's such a powerful topic it really is, I would wonder.

Albert Bramante:

I would love to see a future sound study when they maybe combine both it's like the two-hour practice and two-hour visualization, imagine what that can do.

Jay Johnson:

Turn you into Tiger Woods much faster. Yeah, exactly so, albert. If the audience wanted to reach out and get in touch with you, how might they be able to find you?

Albert Bramante:

So you can find me on my website, albertpermonticom. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook Just search for Albert Permonti. I'm there, love to have conversations with you. Feel free to reach out.

Jay Johnson:

I love it and I really appreciate this conversation. It's always fun to dig in with somebody who is also in the applied psychology or the behavioral sciences and to just kind of wax poetic. So thank you so much for being here with us, albert, it's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you again and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the talent forge. We're together. We're shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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