I was coaching Jon, a senior executive located in bustling New York City’s mid-Manhattan.
Jon wants to develop Executive Presence.
We began with presence.
Executive presence is a particular type of presence. It’s an advanced type of presence.
You need to possess tremendous presence before you can develop Executive presence.
A key factor in presence is the ability to stay in the moment.
I taught Jon the robust theory behind presence, and now he was practicing the first exercise he had to master. Jon had his eyes closed so he wouldn’t be visually distracted. He was simply sitting there, being in the moment, learning how to control his attention and awareness and simply stay in the moment.
I had asked him previously whether it was noisy or quiet where he was, and Jon said, “Oh no, it’s totally silent.”
It was difficult for Jon in the beginning. As he sat there with his eyes closed, he was struggling with a traffic jam of thoughts in his head. Worries about an upcoming meeting, snatches of yesterday’s conversations, sudden rememberings of something he’d promised. A mad rush of thoughts whirled around, colliding in his mind, distracting him from the present moment. Creating chronic anxiety.
Even simply sitting with his eyes closed, you could see the tension in Jon’s shoulders, in his forehead, in the way he was holding his lips tight. Jon was tight, tight, tight all over.
And very “not there”. He was jumping in and out of the past, the future, old meetings, upcoming presentations … everywhere but “here”.
I coached Jon until he could still the battle in his mind, quiet the clashing chaos, and gain control of his attention and his mind. The tension eased out of his shoulders, his forehead smoothed out, his lips relaxed and became full. His whole face changed. He looked like a completely different person.
Even with his eyes closed, his face carried a look of serenity and poise. You could almost perceive the beginnings of an aura.
Jon slowly opened his eyes and said, “That’s amazing! Did you know there’s constant noise around me?”
I had been waiting for him to notice the clamor of the fire engines and police sirens from the street below. The loud, incessant Manhattan traffic horn-honking sounds I could hear all the way in my office in California. A noisy universe Jon had been too “not there” to hear.
Jon was suddenly in communication with the world around him. He took a moment to adjust to the power heightened awareness and sharp perceptions. It was a brand new world. A calm world that had its source from within.
Jon said, with some delight, “I can’t believe how GOOD this feels.”
Yes. It feels very, very good. Indescribably good.
Not surprisingly, Jon had also achieved a great leap forward toward Executive Presence.
You might be laughing at this silly Senior Executive, thinking, “Boy, he was really out of it, that he couldn’t hear the obvious traffic sounds around him!”
Ha! Start watching the world around you. Very few people are awake. Very few perceive all of what’s happening, very few are in the moment, very few see all there is to see in the world around them. They’re in the room, but they’re missing a lot. So other people become a mystery.
They’re not observing even though it is there.
Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher of 500 BC, saw this problem even in his time. Apparently, it’s an ancient human condition we’ve been carrying forward. He described it thus:
“Present, they are absent.”
It probably didn’t matter that Jon had missed the traffic sounds surrounding him. What mattered, was how much he had missed of the people around him. What was there to be seen and known.
Life was different now. Sharper perceptions served him well. Jon found himself effortlessly tuning in to people. And very naturally, people started to respond to him differently, the world was a much nicer place.
Arriving with your whole self into the present moment, and the ability to comfortably stay there, takes work. It’s a glorious state of being, worthy of the endeavor.
People who achieve it frequently tell me:
“My next conversations were absolutely amazing. I started SEEING what was really happening. It was almost like I could read their minds. It was like suddenly having a new super power. Knowing what to say was so easy after that.”
What would heightened awareness and sharper perception do for you? I can tell you, because I’ve seen it so many times.
They would markedly increase your intelligence. And your reaction time. Your ability to say the “right” thing to make it all happen.
See for yourself. Spend a day truly being in the moment and watch what comes of it. Regardless of what you think, you do have this super power waiting within you, ready for you to set it free.
Be the cause!