Martin walked onto the stage. He stood there silently for a very brief moment, smiling, facing the audience, taking them in. What he was doing, it all looked so simple. He wasn’t being dramatic.
It was but a moment, but something incredible happened in that moment. There was a change in the audience. Their minds went completely silent. 350 people were paying attention, listening with a focus that’s surprising in one person, let alone 350.
It was his presence. And the fact that it filled the room.
They stayed with him throughout. Their applause for Martin was unusually warm and generous for a corporate audience.
Presence is the foundational platform that gives your message power. People feel whether you have it or not the moment they see you. Most people don’t have it.
Most people, even in regular conversations, are dispersed. Dispersed means scattered. Their thoughts are being pulled in many directions. They’re thinking ahead, planning the next step, worried, unfocused, everywhere but here. Only a part of them ever shows up.
Martin certainly was like that when I first met him. He was a low-level manager, the most jittery person I’d ever coached, in constant agitation. His foot jiggled nonstop, his hands always searching for something, from his pen to his phone, shifting in his chair restlessly. The antithesis of presence.
As I taught Martin to have presence, I didn’t work on anything physical, never drew his attention to what he was doing with his body. I had him do a series of mental exercises until he mastered them. Presence is a state of mind. It comes down to some key decisions a person needs to make, and when made, your body language changes. Mental comes first. Physical naturally follows without any effort, or even conscious thought, when the mental is in place.
Martin did well with the rest of the training after these exercises. He loved it and wrote a great success story. Even after 3 days it was already helping him at home.
And then I didn’t see Martin again for a year until I saw him present to the 350 people.
Martin captivated them the moment he got on stage, before he even started to speak. I walked up to him afterward and said, “That was magnificent.”
I asked Martin how he had gotten so good. He said, “I’ve practiced what I learned every day. It feels so good. And I love the effect my presence has on everyone I talk to.”
They had promoted him twice in that year. Unheard of to have 2 promotions in one year. But Martin’s leadership qualities were now unmistakable.
Martin’s bosses love putting him in front of people. They ask him to speak every chance they get. Martin loves doing it and everyone loves listening to him.
I didn’t give Martin anything he didn’t already have. I simply showed him how to access it. First in the mind, which naturally created change in the body.
This power lives in all of us. It lives in me. It lives in you.
Martin transformed an audience of 350 without even saying a word. With the power of presence, everything becomes possible for you.
Be the cause!