When was the last time you totally zoned out during a meeting?
We’ve all done the usual ‘uh-huh, uh-huh,’ with a head bob while our brain wanders aimlessly during a conversation.
What’s worse is when it’s not even our intention to zone out! I mean, I’ve sat in meetings that I know are important, I want to pay attention, but I just can’t control the damn mind-wandering. Argh!
Being fully present is such a rare commodity that even a tiny spike in mindfulness is perceived as charismatic. In fact, presence is one of the core principles of charisma, a quality that influential leaders often tend to possess.
The good news is that you can train yourself to become more present by applying any of the small tweaks below.
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Your physical discomfort
Any time your body experiences even the slightest physical discomfort, it changes the focus of your attention. Let’s take a few examples of physical discomforts that can deter you from being fully present:
- You’re too close to the air conditioning and it’s freezing
- The sun rays hit directly on your face, and you can’t see
- Your suit/dress is too stuffy or tight and you’re constantly adjusting it
- You forgot your glasses at your desk, so you’re squinting to see the presentation
- You want to pee. You’ve been wanting to for the last 45 minutes, but you just sit there shuffling
You get the gist? Any time you find yourself being physically uncomfortable, you’re robbing attention away from an important conversation.
What you can do: Identify these physical discomforts early and try your best to eliminate them. Change your seat, get your glasses, go to restroom, close the curtains – whatever action the discomfort needs, do so before the meeting or the conversation takes off.
If you’re unable to resolve the discomfort, the next best thing you can do is actually acknowledge it upfront with the person you’re meeting with. “Don’t mind my squinting. The sun is directly in my eyes.”
This way, the person isn’t misreading your odd body language, and more importantly, isn’t making up a story in their head about your utter disinterest.
Your Phone
Okay, as a millennial, this section is pretty challenging to tackle. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting that you keep your phone in a drawer or switch it off.
Here’s what I’m getting at: It’s the act of bringing your phone with you and laying it down on the table as you sit down. The phone sits there throughout the meeting, vibrating or pinging, and projecting a subconscious message.
To you: “I could get an important email. I could get a call. I may need to look something up during this meeting. Open me. Open me.”
To the other person: “Clearly, I’m not important.”
If you give your phone a seat at the table, you’re projecting that this ‘thing’ is equally or more important than the person you’re with.
We’ve each experienced an instance of when a super-important-bigwig-type guy walked into the room while still looking at his phone, kept staring at his phone as you spoke, and then excused himself to take a call during a meeting, leaving you hanging. Yep, we have some colorful adjectives for those types of people.
The simple action of keeping the phone on the meeting table tells us more about your priorities.
Here’s the very wise Simon Sinek, celebrity TED speaker and author of Leaders Eat Last educating us on the message we convey by displaying our phones during conversations.
Your Senses
We pay attention through our senses. Think of the last time you really noticed something.
Maybe it was how blue the sky was. (Vision.) Maybe it was your favorite song playing at a distance. (Sound.) Maybe it was fresh coffee brewing. (Smell.)
And now, on the flip side, we get distracted because there’s nothing new to pay attention to. It’s the same old song, the same old route, the same old coffee, the same old meeting.
The only way to snap out of distraction is to find a new sensory stimulus.
What you can do: Every time you catch your mind wandering, give it a new sensory stimulus. For the next 3 seconds, look for a random new color around you, and really pay attention to it. Instantly, your brain will find that color, snapping it back into attentive mode. “Who knew the clock was yellow?”
You can also apply it with sounds. For a few seconds, really hear the cars driving at a faraway distance or the buzzing sound of the air conditioning.
Finding a new stimulus, for even a few seconds, however small or silly it is, snaps your brain out of the dull, monotonous distracted state into a more attentive state. Once you’ve brought back the attention, you’re more likely to be present and focus on what is being said.
Your Toes (Yes, Your Toes)
I thought this was one of the quirkiest things I’ve heard of, until I tried it and it worked! Moving your toes can make you more present and fully aware of the moment.
“This forces your mind to sweep through your body, helping you to get into the physical sensations of the moment,” writes author Olivia Fox Cabane in her book, The Charisma Myth.
What you can do: Every time you catch yourself being distracted, start actively feeling the sensations in your toes. Wiggle them, move them, stretch them.
I know, it seems silly, but here’s the thing: by wiggling your toes you activate the longest nerve in the body, the sciatic nerve. What better way to wake up the brain and snap it back into the moment?
Your Breath
Nothing screams ‘being present’ like breathing.
But it was only recently that I learned the art of breathing… not to just be alive, but to be more mindful. (You’re probably like: Whaaaat? You crazy!) No, hear me out.
Someone asked me to ‘breathe through my stomach,’ and almost immediately, my biologist brain decided to leave the conversation.
But what they actually meant was a full-lunged breath. One where you can count 4 seconds as you inhale.
THAT is the breath that makes you more present during a meeting. (Because you’ve just given your brain something new to focus on. Attention, here I come.)
What you can do: Count 4 seconds as you inhale, and 4 seconds as you exhale. Notice your stomach go in and out.
Why Being Present Matters, Even at Work
Presence is a feeling that’s intangible but can be felt across the room. It’s when a person makes you feel heard and really ‘gets you’.
The lack of presence, however, has far more harsh consequences. “Not only can the lack of presence be visible, it can also be perceived as inauthentic, which has even worse emotional consequences,” writes Olivia Fox Cabane in The Charisma Myth. “When you’re perceived as disingenuous, it’s virtually impossible to generate trust, rapport, or loyalty. And it’s impossible to be charismatic.”
See? That’s why it pays to be fully present during conversations.
Which one of the above tips are you most likely to apply? I’m already enjoying wiggling my toes! 
Stay in the moment,
Anita
Anita Ramanathan
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