Presence: part of your “Pod of Seven P’s”
Having presence is more than your physical body simply being in a given place at any given time. Just because you are standing in a particular spot or sitting on a specific chair in a certain location, doesn’t mean that you have presence.
When you have presence, your complete attention and every fiber of your being is focused on where you are and what you are doing. Taken to an extreme, all five of your senses are brought to bear with laser-like concentration on that specific moment in time and what you are doing there.
Note: this is one part of my seven-part series “The ‘P’ Pod: Seven characteristics shared by the most successful people in the music industry.” It is currently being serialized at MusicStartsHere.org
In reality, a total state of presence is virtually impossible to achieve and would probably make us unaware if the house was burning down around us! However, developing your sense of presence is an essential element in your own professional growth and in your relationship with others.
Songwriting needs you to ‘be here now’
On a personal basis, any act of creation – a song, for example – requires your total presence, or at least as total as is practical. If you’re constantly checking your email, responding to texts or (AAAaargh!) listening to someone else’s music on your earbuds, you don’t have presence in your creation and it will suffer.
Worse still, if you are in a writing session with co-writers and you’re answering phone calls because “I gotta take this” or you’re saying, “Wait! You gotta see this video someone just sent me,” you’re not only destroying your own presence but also that of your co-writers. That’s unproductive, but it’s also inconsiderate in the extreme and is disrespectful to your colleagues.
Continue reading the ‘Presence’ chapter at MusicStartsHere.org. MusicStartsHere is a great resource for singers and songwriters that I highly recommend!