I have spent the past few years, observing how people behave, both when they are at work, where they should be investing their time as productively as possible, earning a living and also whilst they are at home, where they are meant to be relaxing and recharging their batteries. It astounds me to see, that they are never present when they are doing either.

My observations have shown that when they are at work, they are lost in distraction, day dreaming about, how wonderful it would be, to be away from the office, involved in an activity with their spouse and children or even on the golf course. This means that they are not focused on working, so they perform below par and don’t get everything done they need to do whilst at work. This means that they reach the end of the day, without having wrapped up all the things, they needed to do for the day.

So they go home stressed, overwhelmed and are then forced to think about all the things they need to do the next day, when they go to the office, whilst they should be present, at home with their spouse, children or on the golf course. So when people should be at home resting and re-charging their batteries, they are instead stressed out about all the things they did not get done that day at work. Man, this is a crazy, pointless cycle of endless distraction and overwhelm.

Break Free from Distraction

This means people are never completely present, with anything they do. They are not focused at work, so their productivity is low and they are never able to concentrate and give their full attention towards completing tasks at work. Research has shown that if you are distracted, your IQ drops by 10 points. People, who smoke marijuana, only experience a drop of 5 points in their IQ. So allowing yourself to be distracted, has a greater negative affect on you, than smoking marijuana does. Combine this with the loss in productivity because you are never present, both when you need to be completing tasks at work and re-charging your batteries at home and you can understand why people, seem to just spin their wheels all day, achieving very little.

Learn the art of being present

If you truly want to achieve greatness, then it is time to accept that you need to be 100 % present and focused on what you are doing at that time. When you are at work, forget about how great it would be to be out with your family or water skiing. Be present, focused on the task at hand. This means that you will actually get far more done each day at work, so that you will reach the end of a day, having actually got everything done, which you needed to do that day. So when you leave the office and head home, you really are done for the day and you can go home to spend quality time with your family, where you can be 100 % present too. When you are sitting watching TV with your spouse, you are no longer procrastinating and not doing work related stuff. You are resting, recharging your batteries and spending quality time with the person, who matters most in your life. What could be better?

Being Present invites happiness in

I believe that one of the major reasons why most people struggle to find happiness is because they are never present in the moment. They do not understand that to be happy, is to be present. They do not understand that happiness is really just a state of being, where you are present, living in the moment.

When you are not present, you also never really listen to what people are saying to you. Yes you hear the words, but you can never truly hear what they say. You can never completely absorb the message people are trying to send to you. This can be a huge challenge if you are involved in supporting your customers. You never completely listen to and connect with them.

Distraction gets you through the day

When you are not 100 % present in every moment, where you are instead, locked in a place where you are dreaming about future possibilities or past experiences, you never notice that you are squandering your most valuable possession, namely right now. This means that you float through each day, merely hanging on. Instead of finding ways to get as much as possible from each day, you are left licking your wounds every night, thankful that you got through the day.

Try to learn the art of being always being present. Be where you are 100 %, focus everything in the current moment. Draw as much substance, wealth of experience, productivity and everything on offer from each moment and you will finally get to really live. Truly living is all about being as productive as possible when you work, listening in silence, watching a sunset, investing time with people, who matter and capturing each moment, so that it can become a new part of who and what you are. Life is not something you do; it is something incredible, which you have the privilege to experience, every day. Learn the art of being present; enjoying every moment and you will have mastered the art of living.

When someone trusts you in a negotiation (you’re always negotiating), they’re more likely to believe what you tell them. Thus, there’s hidden value in trust when negotiating from a long-term perspective. Once trust is broken it’s difficult to regain it. Therefore, broken trust sets off negative ripples that can have unintended and unexpected consequences in the future.

Let’s look at the trust factor with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) as an example. The kids in the DACA program were brought to the US by their parents. In most cases, they had no input as to whether they would stay where they were, or travel to the US. They instinctively trusted their parents with that decision. Then, there’s the US government.

The US government basically said, if you register for the DACA program and abide by our requirements (i.e. check in every 2 years and make payment to stay in the program, go to college, serve in the military, stay employed, pay taxes), you’ll be OK in the US.

Some registered and some didn’t. Those in the DACA program trusted the government and abided by their mandate. Then, trust was thrust out the window. Those in the DACA program cried, ‘We did what you asked of us! Why are you going back on your word? We trusted you!’ Those that did not register for the program, if not stated out loud silently thought, ‘see, I told you so; you should not have trusted them. The government can’t be trusted. Now, the information you gave them will be used against you.’ The ripple that such a message sent to non-DACA members was, stay in the shadows and let the darkness protect you.

In the eyes of those in the program, the US government went back on its word and broke the trust it had conveyed. Suffice it to say, the ripples set forth from this situation will cause the government not to be trusted in future matters by different entities. They’ll mentally relate their situation to the resemblance of the DACA plight. That means those submitting information requested by the government will be skeptical at best and cynical at worse when contemplating a course of action that they should adopt. In essence, through the loss of trust, the government has made it more difficult for others to trust it.

If I tell you the truth, will you believe what I say and trust me? If my perception of the truth is altered in the future, will I be declared a liar? If so, what will become of our future negotiation efforts? Those are questions every negotiator needs to consider before and during a negotiation. That’s the hidden force that trust has on a negotiation.

When trust is the foundation upon which a negotiation is built, the truth becomes a happier companion in the negotiation. Therefore, when the truth as one knows it shifts, the shifting of the truth can still have believability.

Change allows you to embrace new experiences, and everything changes. Thus, what’s true today may be proven not to be valid tomorrow. Nevertheless, once trust has been established and nurtured by consistency, over a period of time change can withstand the onslaught of doubt and suspension. In so doing, even when your negotiations become difficult, you’ll have less of a challenge finding a path to success, simply because you had trust adding hidden value to your negotiation… and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

To the Presenter:

So you’ve decided to use moderator* to help you monitor the Twitter backchannel. Smart move! Unless your moderator has done this before, chances are he or she will have a few questions for you. Below are some tips to help you and your moderator get the most out of your Twitter backchannel experience.

To the Moderator

A presenter has asked you to help moderate the Twitter backchannel. This will allow the presenter to have more audience interaction — which is always a good thing! By serving as the moderator, more people inside and outside of the room will become involved in the conversation. I’m sure your presenter and those watching the conversation through Twitter will appreciate what you’re doing!

Hashtags

The hashtag for the event is #___________.

The hashtag for the session is #___________.

Getting started. The Moderator should:
o Log into the Twitter stream monitoring tool recommended by the speaker. (I recommend TweetChat.com.)
o Search on the session hashtag #___________.
o Decrease the refresh speed to the fastest refresh speed (5 seconds last time I looked).
o Watch the twitter feed throughout the session.

What the Presenter will be doing
o The presenter will introduce the session hashtag toward the beginning of the session. He or she should also have it prominently posted in the room if at all possible.

o The presenter will let the audience know that you as the moderator will be monitoring tweets with the session hashtag. The presenter will encourage the audience to tweet questions or comments about what they’re hearing during the session.

o The presenter will also encourage anyone who wants to monitor the session hashtag to retweet anything they agree with. If the audience hears something they like, then they’re sharing valuable information with their followers. If the audience member has the same question or the same disagreement as another’s tweet, the presenter will encourage them to retweet that too. Those retweets let the presenter know that there is more than one person who has the same question or issue so he or she will want to be sure to address that topic.

What the Moderator needs to do

o As the moderator, tweet directly from TweetChat. TweetChat will automatically put in the session hashtag and post the tweet from your Twitter account. Also include the conference hashtag too so that the conference organizers and those who couldn’t make the conference get the benefit of the Twitter conversation.

o If someone has a simple questions that you can answer (What time does this session end? What did the speaker say her name was? What was the website that she said the moderator was using to monitor the Twitter stream?) please tweet a reply to help that person out.

o The presenter will take a Twitter break approximately 15 minutes into the program. The presenter will turn to you at that time and ask for any feedback from the tweets so far.

o As you monitor the tweets, look for trends. If anything is retweeted, particularly questions or disagreements with content, be sure and bring up that topic during the Twitter breaks.

o Subsequent Twitter breaks will be in approximately 15 minutes intervals. The presenter will again turn to you to see what questions or feedback there may be.

o For smaller audiences, expect that discussion and questions will come through traditional verbal exchanges between attendees and the presenter, even with the Twitter discussion.

o For audiences new to the concept, expect some experimentation and joking around (“Hey, world, look at me”, ribbing a buddy across in the room, etc.). That kind of experimentation is fine. Once the presenter get into the meat of the content, the audience should focus on the material and get involved in the conversation.

o Talk to your presenter to see how he or she wants to handle the situation if things start going off track and the Twitter backchannel is talking about it – for example – the audience can’t hear the speaker, the speaker is talking too quickly, people are going on too long with the “Hey, world, look at me” chatter. Generally speaking, getting the presenter’s attention and addressing the situation as soon as possible, with as much transparency as possible, works best. Better to discuss such a situation with the presenter before it happens so everyone – audience member, speaker and you as the moderator – is able to adjust to the interruption with their dignity intact.

o For larger audiences, Twitter will be a godsend to look for trends and to hear great questions from the introvert who would never speak up in a big crowd.

The Twitter backchannel is a great way to engage an audience. These guidelines can help everyone tweet each other well!

I’d love to hear your feedback after using these guidelines! Were they helpful? What was the hardest thing about moderating the backchannel? What was the most surprising? What was the coolest part? I’d love to hear what you think! Send me an email!

*If you moderator is relatively new to twitter, point him or her to this blog post for basic terminology:
http://kellyvandever.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/twitter-the-presenters-new-best-bud-part-2-the-terminology/