Headspace Studio.

Hi, welcome back. I'm Matt Abraham's your guest host for the week. Welcome to Radio Headspace.

I teach strategic communication at

Stanford Graduate School of Business and I'm the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter,

and the popular podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart. I've spent my career helping people feel

more comfortable and confident in their communication, whether it's giving a

presentation, making small talks, speaking up in a meeting,

or asking for a raise. We're closing out this week of mindful communication by talking about

presence. Presence is what allows us to manage our nerves, listen deeply, craft clear messages,

and engage authentically. But it's also what many of us struggle with.

It's how we use our body and our voice to really emphasize what it is we're saying.

Many of us focus so extensively on our content, what we're saying.

We want it to land.

We want it to be confident.

We want it to really help our audience,

that we forget to focus on how we are delivering it.

We are in our heads so much that we don't think about what people see.

That's our body, what people hear our voices.

So what ends up happening is people's presence is degraded by their over-focus on their

content. Now, I am certainly not saying that we should not focus on our content. We absolutely should.

But we also need to make sure that we spend time practicing and reflecting on how we show up.

I have helped many people with their physical presence in lots of different ways. What comes to mind right away is I was working with someone

...