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| Business Development |
 Do You
Have Personal Presence?By Diane Bonneau of Coaching Designs You have an idea and you want investors to consider your business, how you come across is very important. You are a public speaker and you want your audience to hear and trust what you are saying, you better have presence. We so admire a person who has presence. Someone who looks like they know what they want and what they are about. Everyone has some kind of presence. We hear, "He is so charismatic", "She has such a magnetic personality". What are we referring to? We are familiar with the external signs of personal presence: a firm hand shake, someone who looks you in the eye, standing straight, a strong voice. The body doesn't lie either. Who we are comes across in every aspect of our being. Our lives don't lie. Who we are comes across in all aspects of our lives. What we want is to allow our lives to reflect the powerful beings that we really are. Nelson Mandela says: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." To get in touch with ourselves, with our real power, we need to make a trip inside. By the time we reach adulthood, we usually have lots of questions around who am I, what do I really want, how am I going to get there. Then there is the dilemma between who I think I should be, which I call the ideal self and who I perceive myself to be right now. Undeniably we have to start with who we are right now. However, we usually feel that's not good enough; that's one quick way to sabotage ourselves into inaction. David Irvine suggested an exercise and I experimented with it a few weeks ago. In a room full of people, we passed around a bucket of apples. All the participants select an apple. The group was then asked to make friends with their apple and then put it back in the bucket. Once we got all the 30 apples back in the bucket, they were spilled on the ground. Then all the participants were asked to find their apple. Everyone found their apple. How? They remembered the differences, the flaws, the green spot, a smile, the shadow of a leaf. And so it is for us. We are being asked to be a perfect me. That's where we start. The Quality of our presence is colored by anger or by love. That is the backdrop to who we are and what we bring to the table. The inside trip is essential to establishing who we are and what we want. Do we have self-confidence? What is that composed of? Trusting our own self-efficacy means what success can we build on. Having self-worth. Asking, "What do I deserve in my life now?" We need to resolve issues around our integrity, our needs, our wants and look at our beliefs, our toleration, our perceived limitations, how we sabotage ourselves. Why is this important? Ultimately we want to stop betraying ourselves on all levels of our being. We want to stand by who we are. We want to know our own truth. We can only love, dance, relate to others to the degree we honor who we are, our integrity, our needs, our values. Stepping into our power is a tough choice. We are scared about how this choice will cause us to change our life. Growth and change cannot be forced upon us. Our participation is required if the potential placed within us is to be realized. It is not necessary for us to know how to execute the plan, we only need to commit ourselves to being fully present. Ultimately presence is first about being present and attentive to who we are called to be and what we are called to do in every moment. Secondly, it's about being fully present and attentive to others in our own special way. Every single one of us has a purpose in life. We are busy, we are distracted but our purpose waits. Each of us has a vision of life that can only come to be if we allow it to be through us. Today we can choose a path that will lead us to become the powerful person that we truly are. Diane Bonneau partners with clients to build outstanding companies and extraordinary people. Experience the power of coaching, call me at 403.283.0015 or visit www.coachingdesigns.ca |