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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 presenting data or analysis to senior executives or committees it’s obvious that if they don’t understand your message then they won’t your concept. But something equally important is the issue of actually understanding the presenter e.g. the speed at which you talk, the way you pronounce words, or a strong regional accent can all influence the clarity of your message. One easy way to fix this problem is to articulate every word.

I’ve presented at a small conference – 90 people – the presenter before me was a Doctor. She was presenting some very important research about the need to use sustainable materials in the construction of public sector housing. A very important message; Al Gore, after-all, got a Nobel Prize for work on a similar theme.

But she mumbled her way through the presentation, mostly with her back to the audience reading her slides. Despite having a microphone the audience struggled to hear or understand what she was saying. Amongst her worst faults were dropping the ends of her words, especially when the letters, T or D, or ING were involved. This had the effect of making her mumble even more difficult to understand. And then when she noticed that the audience were losing interest she started to rush, which made comprehension even worse.

If she’d asked here’s the advice I would have given her: ANNUNCIATE! Specifically, pronounce every single word properly. The effect it has is to:

1. Slow you down so that you are better understood by your audience
2. Allow you to breath properly because you have slowed down, hence you don’t swallow your words
3. Allow you to think, so you can go off-script and really react to your audience
4. Make your facial muscles congruent with what you are saying.

Don’t underestimate the power of proper pronunciation it can have a dramatic effect on your presentation. Here’s how you do it.

The minute you close this article go to your nearest bookshop and buy “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr Seuss. Read it out loud for at least three consecutive nights before a presentation. Re-read it again just before your presentation. Then marvel at how much more time you seem to have and how much better your audience rates to what you say.

Remember if they can’t understand you, they won’t buy your ideas.