Organize to Higher Revenue
I first hired an organizer in 2003, wrote this article 2 years later, and still pull it out every few years and re-post it. Even now, 7 years later, I still have most of the systems in place that my original organizer set up for me - and I stand by the claim that having great organizational systems has a direct impact on revenue!
So, here it is again:
HOW GETTING ORGANIZED IMPACTED MY BUSINESS
One day about two years ago, I decided to find out how much the clutter in my office was costing me. The answer amazed me. After a few days working with a professional organizer, I immediately increased my monthly income by about 50%. And if you can imagine anything better than that – my stress level dropped to almost nothing. What I learned about organizing has made a huge impact in my business and my life. Here are five things I learned about the value and process of organizing that were key to achieving such amazing results:
1. Organizing, weeding, and taking care of open issues are distinctly separate activities. Try to do them at the same time, and you run into trouble.
If you’ve ever hired a housecleaning service, you may have noticed how quickly they get the job done. This is because all they do is clean. They don’t get distracted picking up clutter, or fixing broken things, or deciding if something should go to Goodwill.
The problem with organizing our own stuff is that everything we own requires a decision or reminds us of something we intended to do. So, instead of “getting through the box”, we spend our time taking care of what we find in the box. This approach takes a lot of time – it’s common to end up with the box still full hours later. Working this way is frustrating and overwhelming.
The professional organizer sees things differently. She sorts through an entire box in 20 minutes, easily. She has no emotional attachment to the items in the box – to her they are simply objects with a use, size, shape, and category attached to them. Her job is to get them into piles and find homes for them. All the things that need to be taken care of get put in a “take care of” pile and can be addressed once the organizing part of the job is done.
2. Everything has a home, absolutely everything.
You can’t put something away if you don’t know where it goes. If you look at a pile of clutter, in most cases it exists because 80% of the contents either don’t have a home, or the home is not easily accessible. Anything that will reside in your space, even temporarily, needs a home. This includes keys, borrowed books, business cards, thank you notes, and single sheets of paper with scribbled notes on them.
The “home” is specifically designed around ease of use. It’s located where the item is most often used, and it has a container or hook that fits. The containers and hooks are critical. They make it easy to retrieve items and easy to put them back where they belong. They also reduce the chance of items getting in the way of each other.
The biggest benefit of assigning homes to everything is that a mess that used to take three hours to clean only takes ten minutes. Why? Because you grab the stuff and put it where it belongs. You don’t even have to think. I thought that when my office got organized, I would have to file a few minutes every day to keep everything looking perfect. What I found is that even if I let my filing stack up for an entire month, I could get caught up on it in less than 20 minutes. What a relief!
3. Create decision criteria, so you know immediately what to keep and what to throw away
If you don’t decide what to keep and what to throw away you have a lot of items taking up space that don’t have homes (because you aren’t sure you’ll keep them) and aren’t in the trash (because you haven’t decided to let them go).
Here’s where my organizer really helped me. She gave me a simple over-riding guideline, and asked really good questions whenever I was confused. It went something like this:
The over-riding guideline: You only keep something if you use it regularly, or you love it.
Then, every time I wasn’t sure about something, she would ask me a series of great questions:
a. What situation are you keeping it for?
b. How often does that situation occur?
c. What will you do if that situation occurs and you don’t have it?
Inevitably we would find a lot of things I was keeping because they were “too good” to throw away. Now all these items get donated to places where they will be used.
Once I had created my rules, everything went much more quickly. I would “weed” first, by throwing out or donating everything that didn’t fall into the “keep” criteria. Then once I got to the organizing, it was simply a matter of sorting and finding homes for everything that was left.
4. I wouldn’t have done it myself.
If I pay close attention, this is what happens when I organize alone: I get frustrated because it’s taking too long; I get bored because it’s not interesting work; I get distracted because I think of other important “revenue producing” activities I should be focusing on; I get angry when I discover something I intended to do that fell through the cracks; I stop and try to solve problems as I uncover them. All these negative thoughts and emotions drain my energy and pull me away from the task at hand.
With my organizer the experience is quite different: She sorts quickly and easily because she has no emotional connection to my stuff. As issues come up, we discuss them, and because she has lots of experience with similar situations, decisions come quickly. There is a sense of teamwork, forward movement, and the relief of having someone experienced to lean on who will insure that the project continues to move forward, even when I’m lagging behind.
5. The return on investment is enormous.
For me it was several thousand dollars. It started with about four extra hours per week. On top of that I had a more powerful presence that came from knowing I had everything under control. I was more prepared when I gave presentations, I had a better follow up system, I put more thought into my writing, because I was more relaxed about taking the time to think. That translated into more powerful personal interactions, which translated into more business. My monthly revenue immediately increased by about 50% after the initial organizing effort, and never dipped back.
It’s been about two years now since my first experience with an organizer. Since then I’ve continued to use an organizer periodically, to replace systems as they become obsolete, or to save me if I’ve let things go for more than a few months. Even though it’s a smaller, more intense effort, I consistently experience more confidence, more time, and increased business in the weeks following the visit.
Copyright @2005 - 2010 Nahid Casazza http://www.aspyrre.com/
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Monday, May 03, 2010
The Quick "Pick Me Up" Exercise
Most of the people I work with are used to being very successful, and when they find themselves in transition for a long period of time, they start having scary moments of self-doubt, where they truly wonder if they've lost themselves forever.
When you feel like curling up in a ball and hiding from the world, but you know you have to get moving in order to change things, this tool can help.
The exercise below can be done in five minutes and is specifically designed to counteract thinking patterns associated with sadness. If you focus and answer each question honestly and introspectively, you should experience a subtle shift in your frame of mind that can serve as a mental and emotional "pick me up", when you need one. Have fun with it!
The Quick “Pick Me Up” Exercise
You can do this exercise for an emotional “pick me up” when you are feeling really down. Answer the questions below with effort and honesty:
1. List five things you are grateful for in this moment:
2. List five people you know and respect. For each person list at least one specific thing that you do better than they do:
3. List five people who love and respect you for who you are:
4. List five things you have accomplished in the last three weeks that you are proud of:
5. List five things you could do right now that take 20 minutes or less, and would make you feel really good about yourself:
6. Choose one of the five things on your list, and do it now.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Top Business Mistakes Business People Make
Mistake #1 – Keeping Your Idea a Secret
Dear Nahid,
I had an idea for a business and I took an entrepreneurship class to learn how to put it into action. I made the mistake of sharing my idea when the instructor asked, and was later disappointed to learn that another student had a friend who was working on the same type of business. I’m not sure what she told her friend and I feel betrayed. What do I do now? Do I scrap my idea? In the future should I have people sign a non-disclosure agreement before talking about my business, to protect my idea from being stolen?
-Furious
Dear Furious,
It’s not easy to grow a business and even if your classmate passed on some of your ideas to her friend, she may not implement them. A business owner can usually only focus on about one initiative at a time. Great ideas are usually a dime a dozen, while getting the business to operate smoothly so you can breathe easy at night is priceless.
Most new entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that a unique idea is the key to success, and because of their protectiveness, they have a hard time moving forward and putting their idea into action. They only talk to people who are willing to sign non-disclosure statements, and even then are somewhat vague about what they plan on doing.
The fear is, “What if someone steals my idea?” But what you may not realize is that at least two thousand other people in the world probably have the exact same idea you do. It’s not the idea itself that makes a business, it’s the execution of that idea, and as the business grows, things will normally change.
Innovation is definitely important in business, but it usually doesn’t show up as “one great idea” in isolation. The most cutting edge companies have a consistent process of innovation as part of their culture; one that enables them to constantly come up with new ideas in response to new situations that arise on a daily basis. By the time tomorrow hits, yesterday’s idea becomes old news.
In my experience, the best entrepreneurs do a lot of talking about their ideas before they start a business. They use these conversations to “test” an idea by seeing how potential customers respond to it, learning what other people have done, and discovering in advance what they will be up against.
When you don’t talk to people about your idea, potential customers don’t find out about what you are doing, and they are unable to give you feedback. Thus, by the time you are ready to “launch”, you may not have enough resources left to bring your product to market and adapt your product or services to what you learn from that feedback.
When you don’t talk to people about your idea, you miss the opportunity to hear the stories of the other people they know who also had similar ideas, and learn from someone else’s mistakes, or get a true handle on what your competition is.
When you don’t talk about your idea, you miss opportunities to learn, collaborate and partner with others, leveraging your personal resources and increasing the chances of building a viable entity.
Remember your idea is only the initial seed of your business. To give it a chance of coming to life, it will need to grow and change in participation with its environment. What that means is having conversations with people, asking questions, collaborating, experimenting, and using the success of your competitors as inspiration to keep building on your idea to make it better. Established businesses rarely fear their competitors copying or stealing their ideas. In fact, they often use the competition to fuel even better ideas.
If you are afraid someone will steal your idea, it might be a good time to do some research. See how many people you can find who are doing something similar to what you are thinking of doing. Ask a bunch of questions about their ideas. And then ask yourself, “am I stealing their ideas if I already was thinking about this?” Knowing what others are doing, or are considering doing, can I still build a business in this market and be unique enough to have an edge? This type of questioning will fuel the innovation in your mind, AND give you the information you need to move forward.
It’s great that you have a great idea. Now take the first ten steps and see what happens!
Mistake #1 – Keeping Your Idea a Secret
Dear Nahid,
I had an idea for a business and I took an entrepreneurship class to learn how to put it into action. I made the mistake of sharing my idea when the instructor asked, and was later disappointed to learn that another student had a friend who was working on the same type of business. I’m not sure what she told her friend and I feel betrayed. What do I do now? Do I scrap my idea? In the future should I have people sign a non-disclosure agreement before talking about my business, to protect my idea from being stolen?
-Furious
Dear Furious,
It’s not easy to grow a business and even if your classmate passed on some of your ideas to her friend, she may not implement them. A business owner can usually only focus on about one initiative at a time. Great ideas are usually a dime a dozen, while getting the business to operate smoothly so you can breathe easy at night is priceless.
Most new entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that a unique idea is the key to success, and because of their protectiveness, they have a hard time moving forward and putting their idea into action. They only talk to people who are willing to sign non-disclosure statements, and even then are somewhat vague about what they plan on doing.
The fear is, “What if someone steals my idea?” But what you may not realize is that at least two thousand other people in the world probably have the exact same idea you do. It’s not the idea itself that makes a business, it’s the execution of that idea, and as the business grows, things will normally change.
Innovation is definitely important in business, but it usually doesn’t show up as “one great idea” in isolation. The most cutting edge companies have a consistent process of innovation as part of their culture; one that enables them to constantly come up with new ideas in response to new situations that arise on a daily basis. By the time tomorrow hits, yesterday’s idea becomes old news.
In my experience, the best entrepreneurs do a lot of talking about their ideas before they start a business. They use these conversations to “test” an idea by seeing how potential customers respond to it, learning what other people have done, and discovering in advance what they will be up against.
When you don’t talk to people about your idea, potential customers don’t find out about what you are doing, and they are unable to give you feedback. Thus, by the time you are ready to “launch”, you may not have enough resources left to bring your product to market and adapt your product or services to what you learn from that feedback.
When you don’t talk to people about your idea, you miss the opportunity to hear the stories of the other people they know who also had similar ideas, and learn from someone else’s mistakes, or get a true handle on what your competition is.
When you don’t talk about your idea, you miss opportunities to learn, collaborate and partner with others, leveraging your personal resources and increasing the chances of building a viable entity.
Remember your idea is only the initial seed of your business. To give it a chance of coming to life, it will need to grow and change in participation with its environment. What that means is having conversations with people, asking questions, collaborating, experimenting, and using the success of your competitors as inspiration to keep building on your idea to make it better. Established businesses rarely fear their competitors copying or stealing their ideas. In fact, they often use the competition to fuel even better ideas.
If you are afraid someone will steal your idea, it might be a good time to do some research. See how many people you can find who are doing something similar to what you are thinking of doing. Ask a bunch of questions about their ideas. And then ask yourself, “am I stealing their ideas if I already was thinking about this?” Knowing what others are doing, or are considering doing, can I still build a business in this market and be unique enough to have an edge? This type of questioning will fuel the innovation in your mind, AND give you the information you need to move forward.
It’s great that you have a great idea. Now take the first ten steps and see what happens!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Difference Between Needs and Values
In some of our recent sessions I have heard participants use the words “needs” and “values” interchangeably and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to distinguish the two:
1. NEEDS are what you are currently missing and cannot feel / be completely “OK” without.
2. VALUES are what you would naturally build your life around when all your needs are met.
It is very difficult to distinguish between needs and values when you have a lot of unmet needs. Your needs will pull at you much more strongly than your values, because they are urgent and required. When you do values work during a time of a lot of unmet needs, it’s highly likely that your needs will show up as values. Once the needs are met, you may feel like your values have changed because the same words aren’t showing up as much. Typically a value that changes is actually a need that has finally been met and is no longer necessary to bring into your life because you have more than enough.
I can’t tell you for sure whether or not values evolve over time, but MY BELIEF is that your deep values never change; they are simply “uncovered” as your needs get met.
This issue is really not a problem when it comes to personal growth, because getting your needs met is a priority anyway. If you are developing a list of your core values and it turns out later that four of the values disappear and in retrospect those turned out to be needs…perfect. That means your needs are getting met and you are making room in your life for your deeper values to come to the surface and be recognized. This is why it’s important to do needs and values work periodically; I would say at least once per year, and once per quarter is great for people on a path of accelerated personal growth.
In some of our recent sessions I have heard participants use the words “needs” and “values” interchangeably and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to distinguish the two:
1. NEEDS are what you are currently missing and cannot feel / be completely “OK” without.
2. VALUES are what you would naturally build your life around when all your needs are met.
It is very difficult to distinguish between needs and values when you have a lot of unmet needs. Your needs will pull at you much more strongly than your values, because they are urgent and required. When you do values work during a time of a lot of unmet needs, it’s highly likely that your needs will show up as values. Once the needs are met, you may feel like your values have changed because the same words aren’t showing up as much. Typically a value that changes is actually a need that has finally been met and is no longer necessary to bring into your life because you have more than enough.
I can’t tell you for sure whether or not values evolve over time, but MY BELIEF is that your deep values never change; they are simply “uncovered” as your needs get met.
This issue is really not a problem when it comes to personal growth, because getting your needs met is a priority anyway. If you are developing a list of your core values and it turns out later that four of the values disappear and in retrospect those turned out to be needs…perfect. That means your needs are getting met and you are making room in your life for your deeper values to come to the surface and be recognized. This is why it’s important to do needs and values work periodically; I would say at least once per year, and once per quarter is great for people on a path of accelerated personal growth.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Help - I Lost my Motivation!
Motivation is never a problem for a naturally unmotivated person. It’s when you are used to achievement, accomplishment and success and suddenly you experience a lull in your motivation that things get frustrating.
If you are normally highly motivated, but suddenly notice yourself procrastinating, feeling drained, or otherwise not moving quickly enough towards your goals, here are some things to consider:
1. How clear are you about what you want to achieve? If you are confused or having doubts, this can lead to a question about whether or not the effort is worth it. The solution: Ask yourself how much effort you are willing to put forth on the next few steps without knowing if you will continue to move forward. Make sure those steps include gathering whatever information you need to clear up your initial confusion or doubts.
2. How much do you have to break out of current habits and patterns to achieve your goal? It takes a lot of energy to create new habits, which is why people don’t change very easily when they are busy or comfortable in their current routines. In this case focusing on one activity or habit at a time as a priority can help you build new patterns.
3. How will your success or failure change your relationships? Those who love us are incredibly impacted by everything we change. Even positive changes on our part can wreak havoc on their lives. For example, if you are suddenly running several miles per day to train for a marathon, you aren’t available for whatever you used to do during that time. It helps to ask the people you are close to how the changes you are making (or stressing over making) impact them. You may be surprised, but getting it on the table and talking about it will often clear up the resistance and make it easier to move forward.
4. How painful are the steps you need to take to achieve success? If you have to do something you aren’t comfortable or confident doing in order to achieve your goal, your procrastination will kick in no matter how enticing the end result is. Identify the specific tasks you are avoiding and see if you can eliminate them or break them into small, manageable steps that don’t require as much energy.
5. How much meaning have you attached to your success? As soon as achieving a particular goal grows into something that defines who you are it becomes elusive. If you have to find your passion, be in the ideal relationship, make a certain amount of money, or be a certain weight in order to be ok with yourself, then those things wont happen. The only way out of this one is separating your ego from your goal and dealing with them separately.
For more information, including workshops, articles, and tools for getting motivated, check out my website at: www.aspyrre.com.
Motivation is never a problem for a naturally unmotivated person. It’s when you are used to achievement, accomplishment and success and suddenly you experience a lull in your motivation that things get frustrating.
If you are normally highly motivated, but suddenly notice yourself procrastinating, feeling drained, or otherwise not moving quickly enough towards your goals, here are some things to consider:
1. How clear are you about what you want to achieve? If you are confused or having doubts, this can lead to a question about whether or not the effort is worth it. The solution: Ask yourself how much effort you are willing to put forth on the next few steps without knowing if you will continue to move forward. Make sure those steps include gathering whatever information you need to clear up your initial confusion or doubts.
2. How much do you have to break out of current habits and patterns to achieve your goal? It takes a lot of energy to create new habits, which is why people don’t change very easily when they are busy or comfortable in their current routines. In this case focusing on one activity or habit at a time as a priority can help you build new patterns.
3. How will your success or failure change your relationships? Those who love us are incredibly impacted by everything we change. Even positive changes on our part can wreak havoc on their lives. For example, if you are suddenly running several miles per day to train for a marathon, you aren’t available for whatever you used to do during that time. It helps to ask the people you are close to how the changes you are making (or stressing over making) impact them. You may be surprised, but getting it on the table and talking about it will often clear up the resistance and make it easier to move forward.
4. How painful are the steps you need to take to achieve success? If you have to do something you aren’t comfortable or confident doing in order to achieve your goal, your procrastination will kick in no matter how enticing the end result is. Identify the specific tasks you are avoiding and see if you can eliminate them or break them into small, manageable steps that don’t require as much energy.
5. How much meaning have you attached to your success? As soon as achieving a particular goal grows into something that defines who you are it becomes elusive. If you have to find your passion, be in the ideal relationship, make a certain amount of money, or be a certain weight in order to be ok with yourself, then those things wont happen. The only way out of this one is separating your ego from your goal and dealing with them separately.
For more information, including workshops, articles, and tools for getting motivated, check out my website at: www.aspyrre.com.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Your Presence Impacts Everything
My daughter wanted me to watch American Idol with her this season – from the beginning. So, of course, I had to pick everything apart in my curiosity about people and success. I immediately noticed stadiums of 20,000 or more hopefuls in each audition city, did the math, and wondered what the process of elimination was. I did some research and learned that regardless of what you see on television, the vast majority of those who try out for the show are excellent vocalists. In fact, people who are willing to make a fool out of themselves actually have better odds of getting through round one.
But that wasn’t the part that interested me. Less than 1% of the excellent singers who show up actually get to audition in front of the “star” judges. What I wondered is this: as producers watch rows and rows of these amazing voices, what is it that strikes them enough to move a person through to the next round?
Part of it may be having a good back story, like having broken both your arms falling out of a tree, or coming from an interesting part of the country or having an interesting family. But beyond that I believe it is presence. In this case perhaps it’s “celebrity presence”. You could call it charisma, but it’s even more distinct than that. It’s the ability to capture the imagination and emotions of an audience. Those who have it aren’t just singing in great voices, they are making a connection that “strikes” at an emotional level. It wakes people up and generates energy.
You don’t have to have celebrity presence to have presence. Everyone has some tone and level of presence, but we don’t think about it much, and we often attribute it to personality, assuming it can’t be changed, and therefore not bothering to develop it.
I would like to suggest that developing your presence could be the most important professional development work you ever do.
If you give presentations as a business leader or salesperson, you probably have a sense for when you are “on”. You can see from the faces in the audience that people are mesmerized. If you don’t develop your presence as a speaker, you give away your ability to influence your audience with the clear compelling messages that will get them moving in one direction.
Even in quieter interactions, such as one on one conversations with employees or small meetings, your presence will influence your audience far more than your words. See if you recognize these examples:
1. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who champions justice? In almost any situation they can find a story about someone taking unfair advantage of others. The person is appalled on behalf of the victim(s). The “presence” is that of self-righteous anger and the energy around it can be powerful. Some people are invigorated and inspired to jump on the wave of rebellion and take some action. To others it sounds like constant complaining and they feel drained by the negative energy. These are two ends of the same spectrum. If you want to be an advocate for change, working on your presence can make the difference between gathering a crowd of people ready to fight for your cause, and wondering why everyone is avoiding you.
2. I saw a speaker recently who was dripping with charisma, effervescence, and what I would call celebrity presence. Her stories were dramatic and mesmerizing, and her physical presence was beautiful to match. She compelled about half of her audience, but many of the intellectuals in the group were turned off by a message that to them seemed trite and empty. This is a great example of someone who has polished her speaking presence, and somewhere in the process it got overdone enough to lose some of its magic. The lesson here is that working on your presence is one thing, but taking it beyond authenticity may backlash you with a reverse effect.
Your presence doesn’t have to be big or loud to be compelling. If we take a look at quieter people, they tend to fall along a spectrum as well. At one end are those we barely notice, but at the other end are those who inspire us. They may sit quietly and listen most of the time, but when they say something it’s profound. When we read stories about powerful guides and teachers, they tend have quiet and peaceful but focused energy about them, and people come from miles around just to hear what they have to say.
Many of the most powerful business leaders are quiet intellectuals with a strong presence.
No matter who you are or what you do, working on your presence can help you be more successful. If you sing, it gives you a better chance of passing an audition; if you present, it gives you a better chance of having an impact on your audience; if you lead, it gives you a better chance of being willingly followed.
The two most important keys to presence are confidence and authenticity. Those are common words: easy to say, not anywhere near as easy to live. If you find yourself thinking about how you should say something so people will hear you or react the “right” way, you are already moving away from those keys. The tangible steps towards building presence involve becoming aware of and removing everything that holds you back from being present. For some this takes years of work, but the good news is, for every new level of awareness, you become that much more compelling in your interactions.
If you want to work on your presence, work with a coach who not only understands the concept of presence, but who IS present when you have your initial exploratory phone call. You will be able to tell this from your own emotional response during the conversation. Do you feel intrigued, interested, and inspired? If so you have found your coach. If you feel bored, not understood, or uninspired, keep making calls until the connection feels right. Trust your intuition, and good luck on your journey!
My daughter wanted me to watch American Idol with her this season – from the beginning. So, of course, I had to pick everything apart in my curiosity about people and success. I immediately noticed stadiums of 20,000 or more hopefuls in each audition city, did the math, and wondered what the process of elimination was. I did some research and learned that regardless of what you see on television, the vast majority of those who try out for the show are excellent vocalists. In fact, people who are willing to make a fool out of themselves actually have better odds of getting through round one.
But that wasn’t the part that interested me. Less than 1% of the excellent singers who show up actually get to audition in front of the “star” judges. What I wondered is this: as producers watch rows and rows of these amazing voices, what is it that strikes them enough to move a person through to the next round?
Part of it may be having a good back story, like having broken both your arms falling out of a tree, or coming from an interesting part of the country or having an interesting family. But beyond that I believe it is presence. In this case perhaps it’s “celebrity presence”. You could call it charisma, but it’s even more distinct than that. It’s the ability to capture the imagination and emotions of an audience. Those who have it aren’t just singing in great voices, they are making a connection that “strikes” at an emotional level. It wakes people up and generates energy.
You don’t have to have celebrity presence to have presence. Everyone has some tone and level of presence, but we don’t think about it much, and we often attribute it to personality, assuming it can’t be changed, and therefore not bothering to develop it.
I would like to suggest that developing your presence could be the most important professional development work you ever do.
If you give presentations as a business leader or salesperson, you probably have a sense for when you are “on”. You can see from the faces in the audience that people are mesmerized. If you don’t develop your presence as a speaker, you give away your ability to influence your audience with the clear compelling messages that will get them moving in one direction.
Even in quieter interactions, such as one on one conversations with employees or small meetings, your presence will influence your audience far more than your words. See if you recognize these examples:
1. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who champions justice? In almost any situation they can find a story about someone taking unfair advantage of others. The person is appalled on behalf of the victim(s). The “presence” is that of self-righteous anger and the energy around it can be powerful. Some people are invigorated and inspired to jump on the wave of rebellion and take some action. To others it sounds like constant complaining and they feel drained by the negative energy. These are two ends of the same spectrum. If you want to be an advocate for change, working on your presence can make the difference between gathering a crowd of people ready to fight for your cause, and wondering why everyone is avoiding you.
2. I saw a speaker recently who was dripping with charisma, effervescence, and what I would call celebrity presence. Her stories were dramatic and mesmerizing, and her physical presence was beautiful to match. She compelled about half of her audience, but many of the intellectuals in the group were turned off by a message that to them seemed trite and empty. This is a great example of someone who has polished her speaking presence, and somewhere in the process it got overdone enough to lose some of its magic. The lesson here is that working on your presence is one thing, but taking it beyond authenticity may backlash you with a reverse effect.
Your presence doesn’t have to be big or loud to be compelling. If we take a look at quieter people, they tend to fall along a spectrum as well. At one end are those we barely notice, but at the other end are those who inspire us. They may sit quietly and listen most of the time, but when they say something it’s profound. When we read stories about powerful guides and teachers, they tend have quiet and peaceful but focused energy about them, and people come from miles around just to hear what they have to say.
Many of the most powerful business leaders are quiet intellectuals with a strong presence.
No matter who you are or what you do, working on your presence can help you be more successful. If you sing, it gives you a better chance of passing an audition; if you present, it gives you a better chance of having an impact on your audience; if you lead, it gives you a better chance of being willingly followed.
The two most important keys to presence are confidence and authenticity. Those are common words: easy to say, not anywhere near as easy to live. If you find yourself thinking about how you should say something so people will hear you or react the “right” way, you are already moving away from those keys. The tangible steps towards building presence involve becoming aware of and removing everything that holds you back from being present. For some this takes years of work, but the good news is, for every new level of awareness, you become that much more compelling in your interactions.
If you want to work on your presence, work with a coach who not only understands the concept of presence, but who IS present when you have your initial exploratory phone call. You will be able to tell this from your own emotional response during the conversation. Do you feel intrigued, interested, and inspired? If so you have found your coach. If you feel bored, not understood, or uninspired, keep making calls until the connection feels right. Trust your intuition, and good luck on your journey!
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