How to Be Present

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SUMMARY

In this episode, Josh explains to you the importance of being present in today’s society where smart phones and social media are taking over. If you are struggling to grab the attention of your employees, clients, or other contacts in your life it is because you are checked out.  These distractions are costing you and your business valuable opportunities to advance. He also gets his friend and colleague, Michael Savage from the Anthony Robbins Companies, on the phone to discuss why being present matters. Michael talks about the blessing and the curse of social media and cellphones. They allow us to be more productive, but sometimes not as present and that can definitely cost you in a negotiation where somebody’s looking for a partner.  You’ll be sure to pick up some great advice on how to improve your relationships with family, friends, and key players that’ll help you move the needle forward.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

You’re watching the Whatever It Takes Network. I am Josh Felber, host of Making Bank. In society, we are so distracted with noise these days, our cellphones, everything going on around us and we never truly are able to be fully present. When we interact and we’re out with our family, maybe we’re interacting with our employees or you are interacting just with friends on a night out, so many of us are checking our cellphones and we are checking them so much we are checked out.

To be successful and to get ahead in today’s society and to separate yourself, to be the person, I want you to be that person to be able to take it to that next level, to get out and be able to connect with people. By doing that, we have to become fully present.

How do we do that? How do we become fully present to start connecting with people? I’m guilty of this. I was out at dinner or I was out with my family and you’re sitting there and your phone vibrates or you hear the ding. I go and look at it and all of a sudden you look at one little thing and 5 minutes later you’ve looked at emails, you’ve looked at your facebook, maybe Twitter. You get so distracted and you miss the last 5 minutes of conversation with your family or friends. For me I was just like man, I cannot continue to let this happen. How can I start to change this? How can I start instilling good habits in myself to become fully present, fully engaged when I’m connecting with people?

What I start to do now is I’ll keep it on vibrate and I’ll leave it in my coat pocket and hang my coat off to the side and then just put my phone off to the side. That allows me to enjoy that time, to have fun with my kids, my wife, whether it’s a friend, a business partner or business associate, really connect and understand and learn about what they’re speaking about. Your employees that you have in your business may notice it. I know you’re like oh, I don’t do that. I’m not that person. If you’re saying that, you’re that person. Next time you’re in a meeting and you see your boss or you are the boss, you are that CEO and you wonder why you are not getting the influence over your employees, you’re not getting that respect from your employees. It’s probably because you are checked out. You are checked out from checking your phone, checked out with distractions.

Put that phone down. If you’re the employee, go up. Don’t be afraid to say something to your boss, the CEO of the company. Some people, you need to be aware of what you’re doing and most people are not aware of it. With all the distractions and noise, to become successful, you have to be fully present.

What do I mean by that? I mean you have to, when you’re talking with somebody, be right there with them. Be aware of what’s going on. By checking your phone, paying attention to everything else beside the conversation that you’re in, you’re going to miss information. You may miss pieces of a business deal that you’re in the middle of working on. You may miss special moments with your kids or your family. You may miss the pertinent information your employees are telling you about your competitors or what they need to see in the business to help you make that business successful. I want you to being able to start take that, separate yourself from everyone else out there and start moving forward and being successful in your business.

I was with a business meeting a few weeks ago while I was out of town and there was about 8 of us at the table and different people were talking. The one person at the table kept checking their phone. They kept looking at it. Finally, went over and just bumped their phone. It fell out of their hand on the table and they kind of looked up, like whoa. What’s going on? I said, “Look, we’re all here to talk and to share information and you’re just over here on your phone not paying attention to what’s going on.” Sometimes you may have to do something drastic. Maybe that wasn’t real drastic, but you may have to do something a little more drastic to get somebody’s attention to get them focused and to really start to bring them up and get them present in that moment.

One of the first things I want you to start doing right now, maybe you’re checked out while you’re watching this video. You’re surfing the internet, you’re looking at all the other things. I want you to stop, stop trying to multitask, focus on one specific goal that you’re working on or one specific conversation with that person. Really pay attention and listen. You have 2 ears. Really listen to what they’re saying. Listen to what they’re communicating to you. I know you will see a massive change in how people look at you, what they think about you. They’ll just feel more comfortable and present in the moment with you.

Take that first step. Put that phone down. Put it on vibrate. Stop being selfish to your friends, family and business associates and start becoming more fully present in everything that you’re doing today.

Up next we have Michael Savage. He is the Platinum trainer and coach for the Anthony Robbins Companies. I am looking forward to speaking with him and be able to share his insight from all the coaching that he’s worked with his clients on to help you become more fully present. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank. We’ll be back shortly.

Welcome back to the Whatever It Takes Network. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank. We are here with Michael Savage, Coach and Trainer for Robbins Research, International, the Anthony Robbins Companies. Mike has over 2 decades of experience of NLP coaching, leadership guidance to entrepreneurs for success and fulfillment. Michael started his first business at the age of 18, so he’s no stranger to entrepreneurship and he’s built numerous successful businesses and still retains one of his original businesses that he started today. He has coaching clients of all levels around the world. He is currently a facilitator for Life and Wealth Mastery with Anthony Robbins Companies and their premier events within Mastery University. He currently lives in Florida with his family and his new baby girl.

Mike, I’m excited to welcome you to the call today and learn more about what is going on and how we can become more present today.

Michael:          Absolutely. Always, always, always a pleasure to be on with you, Josh. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat today.

Josh:                Awesome, Mike. Can you give a little bit more explanation on what you do, how you do it and just some of what’s going on and how we can become a little more fully present based on your experience of what you learned, working with all these clients throughout the world.

Michael:          The piece about being fully present for me came two-fold. One, my coaching practice, when a client is talking to us about where their business is going, they’re having a tough time, they want your full attention. They’ve invested time with you to help create a change. If you’re distracted, if you’re not paying attention, you can miss key points that can help really in the transformation of, not just their business, but their life.

There’s some training around being present that happens in coach training and I was really grateful to get that at a pretty young age.

Josh:                Yeah. You started really early.

Michael:          Yeah. I started coaching in my early 20s. I learned a thing or two from this really big guy in personal development that a lot of people know, Tony Robbins and I’ve had the privilege of working with his organization now for, gosh, since I was 14 years old. I’ve been running around supportive events and now I can facilitate events. One of the biggest pieces was watching guys like Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, when they were onstage whenever they were talking with the people that were coming to them for guidance and help, they were always fully present.

There was no distraction. They weren’t really looking around the room at anybody else. They were completely with the people that had paid them good money and invested their time that can learn from them.

We’re taught to model the masters. All of these guys, these greats that we tend to stand on the shoulders of, they encouraged us to model them and one of the early things I noticed was wow, these guys, they’re present. They’re not distracted. They give you their full attention. That must be one of the keys to their success is when you’re with somebody …

Josh:                For sure.

Michael:          … be with somebody. That’s something that I’ve definitely taken into consideration and modeled with clients and now I have a baby girl. I’m finding that being present rolls into being a dad more than I thought it would be, because man, your kids know when you’re not paying attention.

Josh:                They do, yes. How have you applied seeing Tony and some of the other great masters, how do you apply being that fully pres to your businesses that you’ve started that were successful, as well as being able to take that and help your clients. I know you have a lot of high level, high end clients that you work with and a lot of them are on the phone, in social media. They’re in a board room meeting with employees and they may be sitting there checking their phone. What ideas or what have you found that’s been able to help them overcome that and to push forward and what were those results of being more fully present?

Michael:          The blessing and the curse of social media and cellphones is that we can be more productive, but sometimes not as present and that can definitely cost you in a negotiation where somebody’s looking for a partner.

I’ll give you a for instance. I had a client I was working with and we were working on his leadership skills overall. We did a 360 review in the company where he allowed all the employees, his leadership team to give us some direct feedback on how they felt he showed up as a leader. He scored amazing in terms of his ability to transform tough situations. They really looked at him as an innovator. There were a lot of things that came back that were great, but one challenge that everybody mentioned was that they fully had his attention for about a minute and a half.

Josh:                Wow. Okay.

Michael:          They all knew that after about a minute and a half, there wasn’t going to be anymore attention, because he was back on his PDA checking texts, checking emails and not being fully present with them. He asked about this idea of presence. What we really looked at and it showed up in almost every area, it showed up in his dating life. It showed up with his family, but most importantly, it showed up in the fact that people weren’t feeling appreciated.

Josh:                Sure.

Michael:          In today’s day and age, if you have a business and your clients, your customers don’t feel appreciated, they’ll just take their dollars and go spend them somewhere else. You have to equate your being present with your clients to them feeling appreciated. If somebody’s appreciated, they go on Yelp and they give you 5 stars. If somebody doesn’t feel appreciated, they go on Yelp and they give you 1 star and you can’t erase that.

Josh:                It’s burned in.

Michael:          That is forever on social media and is now a direct consumer review of your business. Sometimes the difference that makes the difference is if somebody just felt like you heard them and listened to their concerns and addressed them in a very present fashion.

Josh:                Awesome. That’s really great information. What I want to do when we come back right after the break here is I want to see how we can take those pieces and apply that to our daily lives, to be more present. I mentioned earlier you’re sitting with your family. It’s like man, you check out for 3 minutes and all of a sudden it’s like where was I? We’re going to be right back after this break. You’re watching Making Bank and I’m Josh Felber.

Welcome back to the Whatever It Takes Network. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank. We wrapped up before break with Michael Savage and we were talking about being present and Mike was sharing some ideas and some of the challenges that his clients have seen and started to overcome on being fully present in an employee situation, with their boss, as well as we want to start to dig into what piece of that can we start to apply and become fully aware?

It was interesting Mike, I was sitting in a meeting out in California, it was probably 2, 3 weeks ago and I was with a group of about 8 people and there’s one person while we were all talking and going through information and sharing what we learned that day and this person just would not get off their phone. They just sat there, whether it was texting or social media or whatever it may have been. It was probably at least 5 or 7 minutes that they sat there nonstop and then finally I went over and just bumped the back of his arm and he dropped his phone on the table and looked up. I kind of shocked him. I was like hey, we’d love to hear what you learned today and tried to reengage him.

Michael:          I think the key is to be present in official kind of business, really helps increase your revenue is making sure that you’re a well scheduled, on purpose person. Trying to [inaudible 00:16:07] people that are distracted by their [inaudible 00:16:11] their iPhones, just because they don’t have a system in place for a way to address their communication.

You might have to [inaudible 00:16:29] your emails, you can [inaudible 00:16:39] and allowing yourself to be distracted. [inaudible 00:16:48] engaged and [inaudible 00:16:52].

Josh:                Right.

Michael:          [inaudible 00:16:56] and when you’re in those communications, you’re not thinking about anything else. You’ve got to [inaudible 00:17:01] be fully present in a focused state with whatever you’re doing [inaudible 00:17:07] reaction mode. They’re just going with the flow, instead of really thinking about everything they have to do and responding [inaudible 00:17:19].

Josh:                Sure and that’s one of the big things, I know, that take away for me that I’ve utilized is first thing in the morning instead of sitting there going through emails and checking all that stuff, is scheduling that in. It’s like a set time to respond to the emails and set time to actually access and get in front of that social media to keep pushing it out there. From my standpoint, it was a huge productivity change. It allowed me to be more fully present in the morning, especially with the kids and everything going on. I think that’s a huge step for people, just taking those little steps and making those changes. Part of it is scheduling it in so you then can be fully focused and present with what you’re doing and everything.

Michael:          To be fair, there’s times when we have to take emergency calls. You sit down somewhere and you listen. You’re in the middle of negotiations, you’d say I need to take my phone out. I need this call. I’m going to have to take it. People will give you the opportunity [inaudible 00:18:31] media. It’s when you’re constantly checking your phone and for no other reason than you’re into checking it every 15 or 20 minutes [inaudible 00:18:46] really starts to cost people tell you, you mentioned earlier being frustrated with folks that were at the seminar, I have time and time again, I’ve been sent there to teach. I walk around and I see people turn off on social media during the seminar. I will actually grab the phone and take it away.  and I ask them a question. What is your outcome for being here? Is it to tag yourself in a bunch of photos on social media or seeking a change?

If you’re going to do business with somebody, you’ve got to stay focused on your outcome and not allow those things to distract you from being focused on getting…

Josh:                For sure. It’s awesome. With your business, when you started your business, I think the first one was a comic book store?

Michael:          Yeah.

Josh:                What did you find moving forward with your business that helped you maintain your focus and were able to be fully present so you could get the results you did with your comic book store and become one of the best in the area?

Michael:          Look, there’s nice profit margins in retail opportunities or in comic books, great margins, but if you’re not paying attention to what your customers are reading and you’re not present to what’s going on in the store, if you’re not listening to what they’re saying at the counter or what they’re saying to each other or feedback, social media, then you’re missing out on an opportunity instead of .

I think that’s one of our big mistakes. You need to be present with their encounter and also present in every communication and be very focused and present with what they were telling us what the customer wanted, because we were listening and hearing what they were saying instead of taking a guess. The amount of money you can save by just listening to your customer and delivering more of what they’re asking for, it would be huge. It takes the guessing out of ordering, the majority, allows you to stock exactly what you need.

Walmart is a great example of that. How do they listen? With their ears, but they listen by looking at what the customers purchased. Each Walmart really only stocks what is already purchased regularly at that particular location. By doing that, they grew their business by leaps and bounds they were fully present with their business, fully present with their customer and meet the customer’s needs, instead of trying to ask the customer to meet their needs.

Josh:                That’s awesome. One of the things with being fully present, we have to stop being checked out. You know. Just stop checking in and become fully present. In your business, you’re costing your business money. You’re costing your family precious time with you and you’re costing your friends and possibly even costing business deals. One of the things that we have to stop doing is being checked out by checking in so much.

Mike, I’m so excited that you’ve been on the call today. It was such an honor to be here with you and share the information that you’ve learned from your high profile clients and your years coaching with the Anthony Robbins Companies. I’m really excited to be able to spend this time with you today.

I’m Josh Felber on the Whatever It Takes Network. You’re watching Making Bank.

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