From the course: Communicating with Confidence

The power of presence when you communicate

From the course: Communicating with Confidence

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The power of presence when you communicate

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- We often get carried away when we are talking to others because we are stuck in our own heads, right? And often we're not listening to what others are saying when they're speaking. We are just waiting for our turns to speak. Not sure about you, but I'm definitely guilty of this one. You know, to stop ourselves from just listening to respond and try to shift towards listening to understand, I'm going to share with you three techniques to help you become more present in your everyday conversations. When you notice someone shares something with heightened emotions, and what I mean by heightened emotion is when they're sharing something with more emotion than usual. And when I sense that, when I sense that heightened emotion, I will immediately ask three follow-up questions. Let me give you an example. If I was talking to someone and I said, "Hey, how was your weekend?" And the other person looks back at me and they say, "Oh, it was okay. It was just really stressful." Did you notice that? Did you notice the heightened emotion there? Most people when they hear that, they'll just say, "Oh, I hope things get better soon." Whereas being a present communicator, you would now notice the heightened emotion of stress there. And instead, you could ask three follow up questions. For example, "Hey, what's causing you all the stress?" "What's contributed to the stress?" "Is there more to the story?" This technique not only helps you improve your emotional intelligence by helping you become more in tune with people's emotions, but this technique also helps you deepen your relationships with the people you care about. Next, learn how to listen with your eyes, whether you're talking or listening. Learn to become more present with your eyes and listen to the other person's body language. People communicate with more than just words. They also communicate what they're thinking and how they're feeling with their body. And if we learn to listen with our eyes, we'll unlock a whole new level of communication. One of the main reasons it's important to learn this skill is because the body never lies. Our reaction with our body are a direct response, and they're not filtered through conscious thinking. Often we think that people only react to what we are saying after we've finished talking and their reaction comes in the form of their response. Whereas in reality, people are reacting in the moment as you are talking. They react with their body language first. And learning how to be present in these moments and aware of their body language is a massive competitive advantage. Next, remove all distractions that rob you of presence. Before an important meeting or an important communication, I always put my phone on do not disturb, or better, I turn it completely off. And then I also think about the environment in which the meeting's going to take place. If I've got an important meeting, I don't usually have them anywhere noisy or anywhere where there could be lots of visual distractors. We live in a world now where people are becoming less and less present. And if you learn how to be present in your communication, this again, becomes a competitive advantage. Use this as your superpower moving forward. Why do I share all of this? Because when you are more present in your conversations, you have more presence.

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