How to Construct a Congruent and Powerful Presence

When a stunningly beautiful woman walks into a bar, what is it about her that you notice?

When a trashy woman walks into a bar, what is it about her that you notice?

When you’re making a sales pitch to a room full of people, without them talking, can you tell who the decision maker is? How?

In each of these situations, we make interpretations about each person based on the person’s presence. Despite the cliche’s of common courtesy, we are being judgmental We are making assumptions. And we might be wrong, but we do it anyway.

Judgment Happens

Actually, it’s not a bad thing. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking showed us that these snap judgments we make can actually be more accurate than our own rationalized thoughts. Passing judgment, it can also be argued, may also be a deeply ingrained self-defense mechanism in human behavior, and thus, at some levels, is necessary for survival.

Regardless of how you feel about passing judgment, the bottom line is that judgment happens. You do it, and others do it too.

By understanding what factors lead to passing judgment, we then have the ability to choose if we want to initiate change in our own behavior for the sake of accelerating progress toward our goals.

What Leads Us to Create Our Judgments

Next time you’re out at a restaurant, the grocery store, your office, a bar, wherever, take notice of people and the presences they have. Really take a moment to take each person in and come to your own conclusions about this person.

When you do so, you might find yourself evaluating the following things:

Their posture when still; sitting, standing, leaning.
Their vocal intonations; rising, falling, low/high pitch.
Their vocal cadence; speaking slowly, quickly, or alternating depending on the purpose.
How they respond; defensive, anxious, approval-seeking, condescending, helpful.
How they “move”; confident, sexy, purposeful, timid.
How they present themselves; stylish, casual, conservative, outlandish.

These are all considerations, especially how people respond to situations, in which we will base our assessments of someone.

Reflecting on the people that you seem to be drawn to, for whatever reason, what is it about them that you are drawn to? What are their actions and traits of their presence that help you to most firmly define how you feel about them?

What assumptions are you making about their inner self, based on these traits?

Some examples might include:

If they speak slowly with a low intonation, then they are probably calm and collected, allowing them to direct their life rather than be directed by their life.
If they consistently react defensively/offensively, then they are probably insecure with themselves and obtain personal value through comparisons with others.
If their vocal cadence is fast with high intonation, seemingly scatterbrained, and outlandishly dressed, then they are probably not very directed internally.

If you feel uncomfortable about making assessments like this about other people you may or may not know, what about it makes you uncomfortable? What kind of person would feel uncomfortable making these assessments in an exercise?

Creating Our Own Presence

When asking yourself questions like this, only then will you be able to construct your own presence in the way that you wish to be interpreted.

If you wish to be known as an eccentric artsy type, you may want to dress a bit frivolously, accentuate emotional responses, and move more loosely through your day. If you wish to be interpreted as a powerful businessman, you may wish to dress with confidence, use a slower and lower cadence and intonation in your voice, and respond to situations with the slightest of delays indicative of a confidence void of anxiety. If you want people to think you’re a rock star….well…that’s a whole other story.

Some people may read this and declare that constructing your dress, voice, and actions would be a form of lying; inaccurately portraying yourself to the world.

To that, I suggest you heed this warning: that if your presentation is not congruent with your inner-self, then it will show. Your change will most be noticed to those who are, and have been, closest to you. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, that discomfort will be seen and your message will be interpreted in a way that you likely will not want. With full congruence of yourself, both outwardly and inwardly, it will be noticed by your self and others, and will be readily accepted.

I will also say that everything you do now has been learned. The presence carried by those you admire has been learned by them as well. You have changed in the past, you are currently changing now, and you will change in the future. That change can either happen under the initiation of your own direction or by external influence.

It’s your choice.

As a final note, I encourage you to play with various presences and identities. Do so at bars, clubs, in the office, running errands, whatever. Notice how you feel and how people respond to you in each situation and deconstruct why those responses were had.

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