In these cases, my strategy is a take on the classic “picture the audience naked” trick. Rather than picturing naked people sitting in auditorium chairs, which just doesn’t work for me, I picture people without the armor of their titles, positions, power, or influence. When I spot the woman in the audience who has her lips pursed and her arms tightly folded across her chest, I picture what she looked like in third grade. If I’m hooked by the guy who keeps shaking his head and making comments like “Winners aren’t weak at work,” I try to picture him holding a child or sitting with his therapist.
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