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BY Joel Junker

Interviewing – How to Deliver Your Best

The article below is from Jeffrey Gitomer’s “Sales Caffeine” Issue 398 that I received Tuesday via e-mail.  I couldn’t find the link to the article on-line so I pasted it here. 

I found this extremely relevant for JMO candidates interviewing for business opportunities.  If you follow the Cameron-Brooks blog, you know that we believe preparation is key to a successful career search. 

Here are the points I took away.

– It’s okay to be nervous and, in fact, you should be nervous interviewing because it is important for you to be successful in your search. 

– Preparation is key.  You cannot just wing a presentation or interview.  You must prepare with thorough research and self-analysis, prepared and practiced answers for common interview questions, and an understanding of how to communicate interest and ask questions during an interview.

– Sidney Friedman calls it “positively even,” we call it professional energy.  You can’t be too over the top and blow the recruiter out of his or her chair and you certainly can’t be low key/low energy.  You must modulate your energy during an interview, demonstrate appropriate enthusiasm and be professional.

– Do everything you can to practice in the type of conditions in which you will have to perform.  For interviewing, this means, conduct a practice interview with a study partner or spouse that lasts thirty minutes, wear your suit, and use a video camera to evaluate your answers, body language and facial expressions.

– I love the mirror recommendation.  You cannot achieve success if you do not believe it already in your mind and visualize yourself being successful.  Although for years we have recommended practicing interview answers in front of a mirror, this is the first time I have heard the suggestion for preparation of the subconscious, and I highly recommend it.

Enjoy the article.  Joel Junker

SPECIAL DELIVERY
How to Deliver Your Best
by mind man Sidney Friedman

You know, we all have that big presentation coming up, a sales call, a test to take, or some kind of performance to make where a solid impression must be made. Some people succeed in these moments, while others have trouble.

Let’s find out why some of us seize the moment, while others let it slip out of their hands, so to speak. Here is some advice on how to improve your mind’s power to deliver your best in key situations.

At the end, I will share with you one of the most effective, most powerful techniques in preparing your mind for delivering your best in these important situations.

But first, we’ll correct some preconceptions, erase some misconceptions, and explore a few rules:

Here is RULE #1: Be nervous. That’s right. Be nervous. It’s okay. Being nervous is what you should be. If you’re not nervous, it means you don’t care. And if you don’t care, then you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. So accept your nervousness. In fact, enjoy it. When your heart pumps a little more, and you’re charged up a bit, that’s when you’re really living. These key moments make us feel totally alive, and what could be better than that?! That’s what it’s all about. Besides which, if you tell yourself not to think of the color blue, what are you going to think of? Blue! So even telling yourself not to be nervous, no matter how you do it, it won’t work. So accept the nerves as part of everyone’s fiber, and read on, because what follows will in total transform your nerves into excitement rather than strain.

RULE #2: Be prepared. A great example is tennis star Andre Agassi. You may not recall this, but he wasn’t always a star. He completely REMADE himself. He had tremendous natural ability, but in his teens and early twenties, he would choke during the big matches. Why? Through his own admission, he was lazy about his preparation. He lost all but one final he played in. But then he hit the age of 25, and an epiphany occurred. He went to work and eventually became one of the all-time greats. It was a total professional transformation. One of the reasons for it was that his first wife Brooke Shields was on Broadway at the time and he watched how disciplined she was about her work, how she treated acting like an accountant would treat an annual report. She wasn’t the greatest actress, but she made a success out of herself with sheer work. He saw what it took for her to succeed and he applied that same ethic to his own preparation. There’s a saying in sports; I don’t know from where it came, but it goes like this: Practice beats talent when talent doesn’t practice. So be prepared.

RULE #3: Be positively even. What do I mean? Don’t be high. Don’t be low. Don’t be negative. Be positively even. How? As a result of rule #2. That’s how. Total preparation develops into confidence, and from confidence comes a state of being positive and even.

RULE #4: Be experienced. And if you don’t have experience, pretend to be experienced. Yep! Pretend. Don’t lie to yourself, but in preparation, do everything possible to recreate the performance conditions of your big moment, so the pretending is as real as possible. Obviously, if a quarterback is a rookie, he will not have the same experience as the venerable veteran he may be facing (like Grossman versus Manning). But rookies have indeed won the “Big Game” (i.e. S-p-r B-wl. Gosh, I wish I could say it!). Several years ago, New England’s Tom Brady was one example. How did he do it? He pretended to have experience. He didn’t lie to himself, rather throughout his first season his coach did everything possible to recreate in practice the “Big Game” moments. His coach verbally put him in a state of mind where he was under the pressure of having to complete a third down and eight in the fourth quarter with 90 million people watching.

RULE #5) Have a ritual.I don’t mean a sacrificial voodoo gathering with a fire and seven mystic incantations. What I mean is have a “pre- game ritual.” Get ready for every important meeting or presentation in exactly the same way. Figure out a routine for yourself. When I do one of my shows or speaking engagements, I always go through the same precise steps of dressing, getting my props (if any) in order, going over any notes, etc. Do it as much the same each time as possible and your mind eventually will become freed, relaxed and cleared to just focus on the big moment that awaits you. Most important, the ritual helps you get into a ZONE. Athletes often talk about being in a “zone.” This “pre-game” ritual will is a major component of getting your mind in that focused, concentrated, honed-in state of mind.

And finally, here is the most powerful technique:

RULE #6) Use your mirror. This technique is awesome! It works. Do it the day of your big moment. It will give you that added edge and a massive boost of confidence. It’s from my book YOUR MIND KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO — The Subconscious Secrets of Success.Stand in front of a mirror. Face it straight on. Have both feet planted firmly on the floor with your weight equally distributed. Lift your rib cage a couple of inches to stand as straight as possible. Breathe deeply several times until a sense of determination comes over you. Look directly into your own eyes. Keep looking. Looking in the mirror into your eyes will give you power and strength. Next, think of how you want the meeting, sales call, performance, presentation or bowling match to go. Imagine the success. Keep looking directly and deep into your eyes. Now say what you want out loud. Tell yourself you’re going to obtain it. Tell yourself out loud that you will be an extraordinary success. The subconscious mind is fully receptive to your verbalizations when you look it in the eye. It absorbs them like a massive sponge until they permeate through your entire being, helping you properly handle important situations.

As featured on ABC-TV’s THE VIEW, mind man Sidney Friedman is the author of the best-selling book YOUR MIND KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO and is the star of the MIND POWER SHOW and MIND POWER SEMINAR to help you increase sales, creativity, innovation, and teamwork. Friedman is a combination of mentalist, mystifier, and expert on the subconscious mind.  His shows and speaking engagements are an exciting experience of inspiration and revolutionary information on the use of the magical mind to help you succeed. You may reach him at www.SidneyFriedman.com or toll free at 1-888-649-MIND.