Try to remember your experiences of Presence: the moments when personal energy connected you to the world and you received energy back from that connection.
Remember that jolt of ENERGY that flicks a switch in your whole body, like electricity. When you are driving on ‘automatic pilot’ and a child runs onto the road, you can only hit the brakes when you have presence.
Perhaps it’s the moment you completely understood an idea, the clouds in your mind part and the light enters. This is the energy of SURVIVAL.
When you are not present you are in danger whether you are in the jungle or in the world of WORK.
In the present you can meet someone’s eyes and be charged. This is two people really CONNECTING, not just glancing off each other but a rich event that remains even if you never meet again. Moments like this can remain with you for years.
Great performers work in this state. If you remember a PERFORMANCE days after experiencing it, then that performer was PRESENT and so were you in receiving the message.
Great athletes WIN with presence. Every great sporting SUCCESS involves presence and every failure involves some momentary lack of presence. No one wins a gold medal without fantastic talent and physical skill but a champion also has a supreme ability to stay focussed.
Every great communicator SPEAKS from this place. We all know that great ORATORS can change the world.
Powerful leaders of countries and companies have it. Martin Luther King and Adolph Hitler are examples of opposite ends of the scale. During a CRISIS, presence in a leader is needed. Those being led will only feel safe and confident if they feel connected to their leader. The British needed Winston Churchill in World War Two and the US needed Jack Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. Both had powerful PRESENCE and both led their countries through traumatic times.
So, in BUSINESS, keep focussed when COMMUNICATING and try not to lose your energy level. Make sure your presence gets you NOTICED.
As Winston Churchill wrote – ‘We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.’
I look forward to sharing more thoughts on VOICE, COMMUNICATION and PUBLIC SPEAKING during the year.
In the meantime………
Speak wisely