Presence is like riding a bicycle.

No matter how much you read or talk about riding, the feeling of being in balance on a moving vehicle is a feeling, not a concept.

This felt sense can be pointed at, and you might understand it theoretically. But until you actually have the experience of being in balance, it does not fully click.

And once you experience it, you can always come back to it rather effortlessly.

Presence is like this. We can talk about it, but until you find yourself present, it does not make a difference. This shouldn’t come as a surprise though, as this is how most of our daily experiences are.

For example, talking about sleep is very different from the experience of being asleep. When someone is terrified of falling asleep, and are constantly vigilant, it can help to talk about it. But only to the extent that it soothes their mind and relaxes them enough for them to let go and fall asleep.

Talking about presence serves the same purpose. I talk about it here only to point you to it, to alleviate your skepticism of it, to entice you to actually experience it.

And you have, all of us have experienced it at some point in our lives, when we felt alive, when we were in flow, and all sense of time disappeared, and there was nowhere else we wanted to be, and nothing else we wanted to do, except experiencing whatever it was we were experiencing.

But we mistakenly attribute such feelings to the specific circumstances we happened to be in. These feelings originate from being present, rather than being present to this situation or that.

And there is nothing you can do to practice being present. Because you can only be present now. And now. And now. And now.

There is nothing you can do to be present tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes and you experience it as now, you can be present.

It is simple, because you have direct and continuous access to it. But it is so radically simple that it is notoriously easy to overlook.

The invitation of Awakened Leadership is also the invitation of radical presence. You can change your world now, if you are present, because your world exists only here and now.

When you can access this presence, all areas of your personal and professional life become increasingly effortless, and executive presence happens naturally.