Absence: The Number One Obstacle to Presence
January 10, 2012
I was at a team meeting recently where a group of us were talking about the leadership training program in an organization employing about 275 people. One person in the group asked the CEO, “What’s the opposite of leadership?” The CEO without any hesitation immediately said, “Absence!”
How interesting! I was intrigued by this view of leadership because I often think of absence being the opposite of presence. It made me start to wonder if presence and leadership are synonymous.
One way to compare absence and presence is to examine the distinction between self-consciousness and consciousness-of-self. When we are self-conscious, we often feel awkward, clumsy and alone, with a sense of separation (or absence) from the outside world. When we are really present, we are quite aware of ourselves in a balanced way as we fully engage in the activity of the moment and we connect to those around us so that we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public or take on a leadership role. When we are anxious, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we stay aware of ourselves as we focus our attention outward, placing a priority on the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, being genuinely curious about them, and thinking about how we can be of service to them, we lose that self-consciousness, we are in-the-moment, and we can then drop into a shared, collective place with our audience. This is being fully present!
Think about a presentation you’ve done when you didn’t feel you were as present as you know you can be, then complete the Obstacles to Presence Check List. You’ll notice that many of these obstacles reflect either an absence from the immediate situation or a degree of self-consciousness.
Occupy… The Conversation
October 18, 2011
Over the past month, I’ve been quite intrigued by the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. My interest has been on multiple levels. Most especially, though, I’ve been particularly curious about the group process and the community self-organization that seems to have emerged.
As I thought about what I’ve seen through videos and commentary, I decided to write an article for my new blog, Meaningful-Conversations, entitled “Occupy… The Conversation“. In this article I reflect on the unique speaking style that has emerged from this movement, the respectful way people listen, as well as the quality of group conversation that has no leader at the top. And, I end with the question, “What if all our important conversations had these qualities?”
A Conversation About Presence
August 2, 2011
This SpeakingPresence blog addresses the experience of presence in speaking through articles I write. I have a second blog, RevealedPresence, that explores presence through photographs and questions. Last month, Rabbi Jordan Rosenberg asked me the following question in a comment on that blog:
I am curious about what you mean by presence? Is it more or different than mindfulness? What is the source of the ‘presence’? Internal? External? Human? Divine?
This seemed a pretty fundamental question, so after some thought I wrote a response in a comment on that blog. Rabbi Rosenberg and I have emailed about ways to keep this conversation going and we’ve decide to cross-post on our respective blogs. I’ve moved the entire conversation to a blog post on that site and thought I’d share the link on this blog because my response is so relevant to the subject of this blog. You can read the entire conversation by following this link. I welcome any comments that people would like to make as a contribution to this conversation…
Beginner’s Mind
April 14, 2011
I don’t know if I’m getting older and feeling my age, if my chronic injuries need special attention, or if part of me is just getting “lazy”, but lately, after 20 years of practicing yoga (with a 5 year stint as a teacher), I increasingly find myself drawn to beginner yoga classes.
In these “easy” classes, rather than rapidly flowing through a series of yoga postures, I become deeply curious as I get to really explore the inner experience of each pose. I like the slowness, the intentionality, the quality of “less is more”, the level of very present attention, and, quite honestly, the degree of real physical exertion that I feel when I practice in this way.
Contrary to what my mind sometimes thinks outside of class, there’s really nothing “lazy” about this practice at all. It seems that by working in this way I can bring the quality of curiosity associated with a “beginner’s mind” attitude to each moment in the class and I leave feeling much more embodied than simply having had a good workout.
So, once again (as is so often the case in the articles I post to this blog), I wonder what does this have to do with public speaking presence? I feel intuitively that there’s a connection, but I’ll need to tease it out as I write this post.
In the more advanced yoga classes I sometimes find that in attempting to keep up with the class, particularly during fast moving posture flows, rather than paying careful attention to how it feels inside, I’m scrambling to simply get to the right place at the right time. And, by the time I’m settling into where I should be it’s already time to move on to the next posture.
It’s also more likely that my ego will get in the way. Can I go as deeply, as far, as flexibly as other people in the class? If I’m not really careful, I can sometimes push beyond what’s healthy for me in my attempt to achieve what I see others being able to do. The perfectionist in me can sometimes take over as does the performer, where I become more concerned with how I look from the outside rather than authentically listening to what is real and right for my body in that moment.
Speeding up, needing to perform and be perfect, and worrying about what our audience thinks of us are often the biggest obstacles to speaking presence. Rather than taping into what’s most important and real for ourselves and our audience and speaking authentically, we can obsess about not wanting to make a mistake, about looking good, about sounding like we know what we’re talking about. These concerns have the effect of taking us out of ourselves and creating enormous amounts of anxiety. Which, in turn, cause us to lose our ability to connect with our audience and to remember what we want to say.
When I work with clients on specific talks, I often find that the most crippling part is the fear of making a mistake or of forgetting what they want to say. There are two basic things that I help them discover. The first is that they can take their time. There’s no need to rush. The second is that I encourage them to try to say less, to simplify their message, and to speak to that message conversationally rather than as a presentation (performance). The “less is more” attitude is so essential in giving themselves the space to find what they truly want to say and also in helping the audience really get the fundamental message of the talk.
What if we were to approach each speaking situation with the curiosity of a beginner’s mind, letting ourselves pay careful attention to what we want to accomplish in the talk, to how we articulate what we want to say, to how our audience is able to comprehend what we are saying? What if we were to speak less and “listen” more? What if we let go of the need to performing and allowed ourselves to be real?
Maybe then every speaking situation could be like a beginning yoga class.
Returning to the familiar
December 31, 2010
Having just returned from a holiday visit with family, I’m well aware of how unsettling it can be to break out of the routines that are part of the normal patterns of our day-to-day life. To help manage these kinds of disruptions, my yoga teacher this morning reminded us of the benefits of returning to what is familiar.
Activities that are familiar help to center us, to ground us, to bring us back to ourselves. For people who have a regular yoga practice, the familiar means to return to the yoga mat, over and over and over. It also means to return to an awareness of the breath as well as a gentle attention on physical sensations in the body.
For many of us, an important speaking event can create the same kind of internal chaos that often accompanies the disruption of routine that the holidays present. Our normal schedule is disrupted as we prepare for the talk, deal with all the accompanying anxiety, and then actually deliver a talk. So the question is, how do we return to what’s most familiar in the midst of this kind of pressure?
My clients are often surprised when I suggest that they will get the most out of our work together if they practice some simple relaxation/presencing tools in their ordinary non-stressful daily activities. They come to me expecting that we are going to do a lot of speaking (and they do have multiple opportunities to speak), but they don’t expect that we are first going to focus on simple breathing and body awareness techniques to help them get centered.
In my groups we first practice quieting the mind and becoming centered through attention to our breath. We repeat this practice frequently during the course of our time together. After a while, clients begin to do this automatically and don’t have to be reminded. It becomes a familiar routine that can then be accessed under highly stressful situations. The routine itself is relaxing as is the familiarity with the routine.
I then introduce a grounding practice: To feel their connection to the ground and find their “roots”. For more on how to do this, read this earlier post on this blog. This has the effect of bringing us back to the present moment and fully occupying our physical selves. We can engage this quality of awareness either sitting or standing and can practice it in any situation — talking on the phone, walking from one room to another, standing in line at the grocery store. By practicing this awareness frequently in ordinary life situations, it, again, becomes familiar and something that can be easily accessed under stress. And, again, simply returning to this familiar practice will create a sense of balance and presence.
And, I tell them that by practicing these techniques in their day-to-day activities, these vehicles for feeling centered and relaxed will become familiar, and, therefore, more accessible when they are standing in front of a group making an important presentation.
The benefit of a conscious, regular, but simple practice of presence is that it becomes so familiar that just the act of evoking that practice will help to create a sense that where there was disorder, there is now order. The simple practices described in this article have the added value of also being relaxing in and of themselves and so can serve as easy vehicles for creating a sense of order and balance whether you are speaking to one person or a thousand.
Have you avoided speaking situations because of your fear of public speaking? Have you lost career opportunities because of this?
This fall is a perfect time to take the steps you need to change that! And, there are plenty of dates to choose from.
I’ve just posted a fall schedule for my public speaking small group coaching programs. For a preview, see the schedule below or visit http://www.riverways.com/pg-workshops.htm to learn more about how these programs might be just the approach to help you become the speaker you’d like to be.
SpeakingPresence Fundamentals: A one-day small group coaching program
* Fri, Aug 20
* Sat, Sep 11
* Fri, Oct 29
* Sat, Nov 13
* Fri, Dec 17
Successfully Speaking: A two-day small group coaching program
* Sat/Sun, Sep 25-26
* Fri/Sat, Oct 15-16
* Sat/sun, Nov 20-21
* Fri/Sat, Dec 10-11
About making mistakes, being human, and connecting
January 22, 2010
I had the pleasure last night of being invited to a small dinner party for two extraordinary young performing artists who are touring the US from Europe. Carolina Ullrich and her pianist, Marcelo Amaral, will be performing tonight at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, Vermont. After playing the Paramount, Carolina, who has just won the Alice Rosner Foundation First Prize in the 2008-09 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, will debut in New York City and Washington DC.
Our dinner conversation was fascinating. So much of what we talked about relates to presence, not just for performing artists but for speakers as well.
Marcelo spoke about the process of being recorded for a CD. He said that in a recording all the human mistakes are eliminated so that all we hear is the perfection of the performer. But the truth is that all performers make mistakes in their live performances. And that the experience of a live performance is far richer than the perfection that comes from a sound studio recording.
There’s something really important here for speakers. What often creates the most anxiety around speaking is our feeling that we must be perfect. That we cannot make any mistakes. That just being ourselves is not good enough. But how can we relax and be comfortable speaking if we are trying to be more than who we are?
The way many people try to guarantee perfection is by reading their talk, memorizing a script, or using densely worded slides that they read from. Each of these strategies, though, is deadly for the audience.
What would it be like, instead, to simply think of speaking naturally, off the cuff, warts and all? How much easier that would be. And so much more fun for you AND your audience!
Carolina spoke about how important it was to truly connect with her audience. She feels that what is truly gratifying about her singing is that she is doing a social service. That if through listening to her sing, people find themselves transported into a different, more emotional realm, even if only for five minutes, she has added value to their lives.
She also spoke about how every live performance is a dialogue between her and her audience. It’s so much more difficult to sing to a non-responsive audience than to an audience who is clearly engaged and involved in the music. And that, in part, this dialogue happens when the artist is not playing or singing just for themselves, but is most concerned with reaching out and touching each person in the audience through their music.
Public speaking fear arises when we are so focused on ourselves that we forget that we are speaking to be of service to our audience. I call this the “arrows in” position. We become preoccupied with not making mistakes, remembering our content, and concern with how our audience might perceive us.
What if, instead, we were to turn our arrows out and became less self-absorbed? What if we thought of our presentation as a conversation, or a dialogue, between ourselves and our audience (even if we are the only one speaking)? What if we focused on how we could be of service to our audience?
As the conversation expanded, we also talked about the role of the audience. The entire table talked about how much more interesting a performance is when as the audience we feel connected to the human being who is the artist. It can be so helpful to have a conversation with the artist before or after a performance, to get the back story, to learn more about them as people. As Carolina pointed out, this is the reason the tabloid newspapers do so well. I also think this is why movie DVDs have the special features at the end that can add such an interesting human dimension to the actors and the process of creating the movie.
Except possibly in politics, where everything has become so distorted by the media, I believe that the more human we can be as speakers and the more we turn our arrows out by focusing on how we can be of service to the audience, the more our audience will align with us and be engaged with our content. And, the more meaningful it will be for everyone!
The yoga of public speaking
December 16, 2009
I’ve been a yoga practitioner for more than 20 years. At one time I taught yoga. I now take every opportunity I can to study with different yoga teachers from different traditions. I do so to expand my experience of myself and to extend my ability to return to a state of inner quiet while stretching myself into new physical realms.
Recently I was in a vigorous yoga class in which we were practicing a number of strenuous postures in a series of flows, never stopping to rest between flows. What I was most struck with was how quiet my mind was and how steady my focus even when attempting to do some very difficult (for me) postures. And, this seemed true for everyone else in the room. There was no huffing and puffing, no groaning, no expressions of exasperation.
In short there was no drama in the class but a clear and quiet sense of purpose and a set of inquiring minds. We all worked at whatever level was possible for us in a state of equanimity. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.
And, because equanimity feels like the optimal state of mind when we speak, I often refer back to my experiences in yoga when I coach my clients. The question is always how do we steady our thoughts, quiet our hearts and speak with clarity and purpose when engaged in something that often feels stressful, difficult, and unsettling? How do we apply these principles of equanimity discovered in a strenuous yoga practice to the highly activating experience of speaking in public?
Here are a few yoga based principles that I’ve discovered can be applied easily to the stress of public speaking that help me to steady my mind, calm my heart and communicate with clarity and purpose:
- Slow down my breathing so that my attention stays in the present moment and my thoughts (and heart) stop racing. This, then, gives me much greater access to what I know I want to say and allows me more space to make choices and decisions on how to respond to what’s happening in the moment.
- Feel my ground. Become aware of the nuances of my physical experience so that I can be more holistically present to myself, my content and my audience. Let those points of contact calm me down by feeling rooted.
- Get out of my own way. Notice when the fear arises, and return to my breathing. Attend to physical sensations rather than emotional ones.
- Stay curious not critical. I had a yoga teacher once say, “Don’t let ambition replace curiosity.” If I stay curious and open to discovery when I speak rather than trying to be perfect, I feel more alive and engaged. If I’m continuing to find fault with what I do, then I’ll amplify my anxiety.
If we approach a speaking event with the same kind and gentle attitude that we approach a vigorous yoga class, we have the opportunity, then, to speak with equanimity and clarity.
Speaking with both feet on the ground
November 7, 2009
Several weeks ago I gave a workshop on this topic with the intention of, for the first time, beginning to clarify what I mean by the phrase “embodied presence”. Here is some of the thinking that went into the workshop.
Where we put our attention, that’s where energy goes. This is probably the core principle of embodied presence. When we are anxious all our attention is focused on the thoughts that are fueling the fires of the anxiety. All our energy is concentrated in our minds, and we end up having an “out of body” experience. This is especially true when the fear of public speaking flares up.
If we can divert our attention, even for a moment, away from all that thinking, we can then lessen the experience of anxiety. The best way that I know of to change the direction of energy is to fully occupy ourselves, to be more aware of all of our experience as physical beings, not just thinking beings. This means to drop our awareness down into our physical experience: feeling our feet on the ground, coming into our center of energy in our bellies, staying loose and easy, noticing physical sensations. All these practices serve to divert energy away from anxious thoughts and bring us more fully present in the moment.
There is a difference between self-consciousness and consciousness of self. When we are self-conscious, all our attention is focused on our concerns about how we look and how people will respond to us. When we are conscious of ourselves, our focus has dropped into a more holistic sense of self which, paradoxically, frees us up to be more available to others. When we speak, then, we can focus more on how we can be of service to our audience, rather focusing entirely on how we will be of service to ourselves.
I have found that yoga, tai chi, authentic movement and meditation are all practices that help me stay present in my body. And, I use these practices to help the people in my courses speak “with both feet on the ground”.
Fear of the first few minutes in public speaking
September 29, 2009
I swim for exercise. I swim in pools that are kept relatively cool so that lap swimmers don’t overheat when they work up a “sweat”.
This means that it’s always hard to get into the pool at the beginning of my swim. Once I’ve been in the water for even one lap, the chill wears off and the temperature feels fine, but the anticipation of diving into cold water always makes it hard.
I’ve found that I’m much better off just not thinking about the water temperature ahead of time. This is especially true as I’m getting ready to leave home on a cold and snowy winter morning because I’ll never get to the pool if I think at all about the cold water awaiting me.
Transitions are always hard. Getting into the cold water is one example. Moving from one project to the next is another. Arriving at a party is another. And, starting a presentation is classic!
Probably the most common statement I get from my public speaking clients is “If I can just get over the first few minutes I’m fine.” Most often, it’s the accumulated anxiety in anticipation of a presentation and the surge of nervous adrenalin when we first get up to speak that make those first few moments so miserable. In fact, many highly capable and talented people opt out of important speaking engagements simply because they dread those first few moments.
It helps to look at these moments from the perspective of transitions. In fact, our brains are designed to automatically become more alert when we move from the status quo, what is known and comfortable, into a new situation.
This is because it’s in those moments that the most primitive structures in the brain must determine if our survival is at stake. If danger is detected, signals get sent that trigger the fight, flight, freeze or appease response and we experience the sweaty palms, rapid heart, and racing thoughts that so often characterize the fear of public speaking. But if it seems that we are safe, there’s no threat, then essentially that primitive brain goes back to sleep and we can go on with our business without interference.
This entire sequence of events is engaged whenever we encounter a moment of transition. And, if we can simply take the process in stride, recognizing that it’s a natural part of our reaction to change, we then simply ride the waves of the anxiety without getting too attached to the feelings, knowing that it will eventually pass.
The problem for many speakers is that they mistake this heightened state of alertness for fear. And, fear begets more fear, feeding off itself, until it becomes intolerable.
To a certain extent, getting over the fear of public speaking is really about getting out of our own way and staying in the present moment.
When I get ready to go swimming I don’t focus on the temperature of the water. I do focus on how much I enjoy swimming and how good the water feels by about the third lap. Then I stay in the present moment. I just take one step at a time. I take the shower to wash off before going to the pool’s edge. I put on my bathing cap. I put on my goggles. And, then just as I put my legs in the water I jump in. I don’t linger, giving the fear its head. Instead, I just go. The first length is cold, but then I start to feel my stride (or stroke) and I’m in the flow and loving the water.
The same is true with public speaking. Instead of putting our attention on our fear and all that can go wrong, we focus on the key message we want to make and why it’s important. We then stay present with what’s happening in the moment. We say hello to people as we enter the room. We focus on the person announcing us. We feel our feet on the ground. Whenever we feel anxious, we simply take whatever next step is upon us. We don’t let the anxiety take control of us. We simply say to ourselves…. “Ah… there you are, just as I expected.” And we don’t attach to it. We don’t give it power. And, as we begin to speak, and settle into the rhythm of our interaction with the audience, the anxiety begins to diminish, eventually melting away, leaving us to fully enjoy our time in front of the group.
