Be Here, Not There

How many times in the past few years have you been out to eat at a restaurant only to see a table of people staring at their phones? It’s more prevalent now than ever before given the ever-increasing technology usage we’ve become accustomed to. What drives me crazy, even more than the lack of communication between friends and family, is the fact that those people are not present in their conversations (if there’s a conversation at all).

Being present means that you are actively listening and participating in the conversation in front of you. You are not thinking about the work you have to do, or what your plans or for the weekend ahead. You are focused on what is occurring right now. There are many benefits to this, mainly, the person across the table from you feels that you are invested in the conversation and they’re not talking to a brick wall.

“We have to get back to the beauty of just being alive in this present moment.” – Mary McDonnell

Imagine if you had the chance to have dinner with one of your heroes, there is no chance that you would be scrolling Instagram or texting someone about plans a months from now. You would be wholly and entirely invested in what that person is saying and actively generating meaningful conversation. Being present is vital to maintain good communication, build relationships, and learn about one-another.

This also applies in your day-to-day tasks. Take for instance, being an Uber driver. You want that person solely focusing on getting you safely from A-to-B. The same applies to the work you do as a salesperson.

If you’re writing a sales prospecting email to a CISO but at the same time thinking about the deal you closed last month or the one that got away, the outreach is going to suffer. Prospecting is hard enough, but doing it while focusing on anything else, forget about it.

The same logic applies to virtual meetings. If you are on a call with a customer, you should act as if you are sitting across from the customer at a table – nothing else should be on your mind except focusing on being present in the conversation. While we have more ways to be contacted than ever before, email, text, Slack, etc. – all of those should be silenced so you can be present with the customer and actively participating in the conversation.

I recently read an article that stated only 2.5% of people can multitask – 2.5%! That means that the rest of us, while we think we can do two things at once, simply cannot. What is actually happening is that each task that we think we are “multi-tasking” is getting minimal attention/effort and neither will be completed with the amount of focus/attention it deserves.

By being present you are giving your full attention to the task, conversation, person, etc. that each fully and rightfully deserve.

-Tanner Warner