Unlock Your Inner Power: How to Harness the Power of Presence

Unlocking your unique presence harnesses a connection between you and your audiences; it is thriving leadership and produces results.

A new energy supply is of paramount importance for saving the future of this planet. The same need applies to how we communicate the change. The right energy choices for the future of this planet and the right messages require you to present and interact with your audiences knowing how to connect with your energy.

We, humans, are nothing more than vibrating energy. We are cells, which are made of atoms, which are made of particles, and those so-called particles are vibrating energy. Through this energy, we connect; we feel and respond. The words we say when presenting, leading a meeting, or chatting with friends and family are merely the outer shell of a deeper, energy-fuelled connection with one another.

One morning this week at home, I got out of bed to a gorgeous sunrise. I hadn't been able to sleep; the story of my life this past year. I stood in the kitchen looking out at people who had started to go about their day; it was so quiet and still. At that moment, I felt a calm intense energy, alertness, a sense of being alive. I noticed that this same energy powered my actions and my coaching conversations over the rest of that day.

This energy I call presence. It drives our body language, the words we choose, the emotions we bring to bear, and our impact on our audience.

So why all this presence malarky? What's the reason for presenting with presence?

The irony is that we need words to communicate, but they tend to get in the way. Indeed, writing this is proving difficult to convey the message I want related to what presence is. Teaching it and helping executives to use it is best mastered through doing, by experiencing it in reality.

The power of making individuals in audiences feel something is essential, and experiencing the emotion behind what you say builds the connection. The first thing that grasps an audience member's attention is your energy and passion; being able to emote (appropriately) in a talk, a meeting, or a presentation is as important (if not more) than the words themselves. 

Energy is all around us. It's in your voice, body language, attitude, and others "get it" from you the moment you enter a space. Your presence has the power to engage, repel or just plain bore. 

What is presence?

What we don't often recognise (because we are "too busy" focused on the words, the actions, the stuff, and the results) is a vast expansiveness of in-the-moment power and influence. And yet we spend most of our lives valuing surface-level interactivity. We communicate by numbers. 

I define presence as our intuitive nature. The essence of me, of you. The energy that is within us, in each moment. Presence is our ability to connect with this energy and the understanding of how to use this energy to connect with another in a way which is unique to them.

So how do we harness the power of presence?

There is a way to move beyond per-functionary presentation (communicating by numbers) by experiencing rather than comprehending reality from moment to moment.

This experience is not based on any conception or belief. It is direct perception itself. It's seeing before signs appear, before ideas sprout, and before falling into thought. Much like my early morning look out the window before I started to think about what I was experiencing, I experienced an energy-full-stillness. To lead the change, you have to harness this power of presence whilst presenting.

It's nothing more or less than seeing things as they are rather than as you wish or believe them to be. This liberation of mind, this direct awareness of reality as a whole, is fully accessible to anyone willing to attend to their actual experience. 

This enduring power of taking the horse to water and making the horse want to drink is about one simple but elusive thing; awareness, not awareness of something in particular, but awareness itself. Being awake, alert, and in touch with what is actually happening when speaking, presenting or in a meeting. 

It's about relying on the direct experience of this present moment. It's not about belief, doctrine, formula, tradition, or storytelling techniques. It's about energy-fuelled freedom. 

It is our unique presence that amplifies the words that connect us and drives communicating the need for change.