Your Personal Presence

December 12, 2011

Interview with Kristi Hedges, author of the book The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others

________________

Mike Carruthers:
Presence it’s a hard concept to define and yet…

Kristi Hedges:
We’re all experts at other people’s presence. We know when someone walks into the room we can almost feel what their presence is and what their command is of a room and the energy that they bring into the room. However if someone says to you, “What’s your presence?” you’re probably going to stumble a little bit in trying to describe it.
 

Kristi Hedges, author of the book The Power of Presence, says those people who can walk in and command a room have certain traits in common.

It’s confidence, authenticity it’s people who are comfortable in their own skin. There’s an element of optimism and positivity about it, people who are negative typically do not have what we would consider a strong presence. There’s an assertiveness piece to it, there’s a respectfulness to it and there’s an inspirational piece about it – we want to hear about what they have to say and they make us feel a little bit better for the exchange.

Anyone can improve their presence and one simple technique, says Kristi, is to focus on what she calls your swing thought.

And that’s the last thought that you’re taking before you go into an event or a meeting or a situation where you want to display a strong presence. And that’s taking that step back and figuring out what do you want to be perceived as? What reaction do you want other people to have? And just taking 2 minutes at the beginning of those exchanges to put those thoughts together and decide what you want to convey can be transformational for that exchange.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here