All the excitement of being a nominee, the pounding adrenaline as each category gets announced and they get closer to yours, the overwhelming feeling of joy when it’s your name that comes out of that little envelope.

What a rush!

The CBC 2011 Choice Awards last night was every bit as exciting as the Academy Awards. The crowd – the clothes – the conversations; it was quite a heady brew.

Here’s the other thing I learned last night: when you’re up on that stage, your connection to the audience is so strong that your brain simply cannot hold the names of EVERYONE you want to thank ~ even if you’ve practiced and visualized how it’s going to be.

It’s only the next morning after the adrenaline recedes and you re-emerge from the experience that you realize how many people you want to thank ~ and that fleeting moment on stage has passed.

Fortunately, there’s a blog.

Thank you to each of you for your votes, your support and your cheers ~ you know who you are.  Friends, colleagues and then there are some of you who I’ve never even met because you are friends of friends. Thank you for waiting with me and cheering for me. This is definitely a Community conversation and it brings the awareness of Powerful Presence to a whole new audience.

Thank you CBC Magazine and The House of Blues for bringing on the excitement for 5 years and counting!

It wasn’t until Monday that I realized that the relationship was well and truly over when the woman’s husband pointed out to me on Facebook that this was a consequence of my actions.  It wasn’t until Tuesday morning at around 3 am that I awoke with the understanding that a quote I have loved for years was true for me again.

It’s from Khalil Gibran’s book The Prophet: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding.”

The understanding I arrived at was this: My number one gift to the world is my happiness. It’s the fuel for my Powerful Presence. When I make anyone else’s happiness more important than my own, sooner or later we’re both gonna pay.

Here’s what that understanding makes patently clear to me: I am accountable for every one of my yeses and nos. If don’t hold myself accountable for them when I say them, I will be held duly accountable by circumstances, later, when the cost to me–and to the relationship–will be much more expensive than I want to pay.

When I say yes, it can only be because my body, mind and heart are completely aligned with the person’s request. My yes has to result in my happiness first; that’s the only way I’m going to be able to light up the world with my Powerful Presence.

If I’m not in complete alignment with this request and it’s not going to make me genuinely happy to say yes, then my answer has got to be no right up front. I have to remember that if it’s not a complete “yes” at the beginning, it will turn into a monster “no” later.

I have to remember that I can’t be swayed by all the reasons that make saying “yes” seem like the right answer to give: “but she/he needs me to do it; it wouldn’t take that much for me to do it; I don’t want to disappoint her or him.”

When I say “no” I have to remember that it’s a complete sentence.

Saying “no” is the requirement if my body, heart and mind are not completely aligned with the request. To put it bluntly, if it’s not a  “Hell, YES!” it’s got to be a “Hell, NO!” right up front.

Here’s the real reason why it’s got to be a “Hell, NO” right up front: when you say “yes” without complete alignment, you set up the expectations of the other person. He or she believes that you’re going to do whatever you said you would do. When it finally dawns on you in no uncertain terms that you can’t pull off what you said you would, it lands on the other person like a betrayal of their trust. Depending on the nature of the circumstances and the length of time you wait before you confess the truth, that betrayal can be huge.

There’s room in some relationships for the fact that we’re all human and we all make mistakes.

The people in a relationship like that understand something that’s crucial for their long term success: although it’s never our intention to hurt the people we love the most, we’re going to do it anyway. Each person will confess their error as soon as he or she realizes it; both parties will learn from experience. As a result, the relationship will be all the more deep and powerful because of each person’s willingness to work through any breakdown of trust with the other. Most of all, the people in this kind of relationship know how to forgive one another.

Some relationships simply can’t withstand the break in trust. If one of them can’t get past the betrayal, the relationship dies an instant death.

The good news about Gibran’s quote is that although there is pain involved, there is also understanding. When you put that understanding into action, it will build your Powerful Presence in ways that nothing else can.

Meanwhile, I hope my experience will serve you in some way. I hope it will help you to say NO when it’s the real answer from your body, heart and mind. I hope it will help you to reserve your YES for when it’s congruent, wholehearted and supports your happiness.

For my part I will be forever grateful to my former friend. I could only have learned this particular lesson from someone I loved as much as her, for as long as her.

In the epitaph for our relationship that is written on my heart are the words: “Thank you for teaching me.”

For the last 6 weeks I’ve been watching the year speed to a close in a way that seems like I’m hurtling through it. So many new projects, so much to do before the holidays hit and we all unplug. My friends and colleagues tell me that I’m not alone; they’re doing the exact same thing. We’re all trying to cram everything we want to accomplish into these last few weeks of the year.

What’s up with that?

It all came home to me last night after I drove out to and came home from my belly dancing class at World of Dances through driving rain and crazy traffic on 77 South and Rte 8, just before and just after rush hour. I don’t even know these people and I could feel them hurtling through their lives just like I’ve been doing. Driving with them was no fun at all, yet I completely understood what prompted them to drive so madly through the weather as if every second counted as they plowed through their to-do lists, and tried to avoid plowing into each other.

The entire experience culminated in my remembering an idea that I’ve been sharing for a very long time; I learned in as a Substance Abuse Counselor in the 80s. The idea that your body never lies is one I’d forgotten, until my circumstances brought it home to me with a SLAM that could have been heard throughout the state. Last night, my body told me exactly what she thinks of my headlong hurtling through all the excitement and challenge of the last several months: after I parked my car in the garage and tried to get out of it, I found that I was stiff as a board. My back locked up so solidly I could not move without pain.

That kind of feedback certainly got my attention!

After a rich lathering of Biofreeze, some tender ministrations from Chuck and my favorite pottery mug of hot milk with cinnamon & honey, my body was warmed up enough so I could sit comfortably and fall asleep easily. It was much better this morning, although my body is still doing the equivalent of giving me The Look, with arms crossed and foot tapping…I know I have do do something so what happened last night doesn’t get worse.

Have you heard the saying that “you can learn it easy, or you can learn it hard, just so be clear that you’re gonna learn it”? I want to learn this one easy.

If Powerful Presence is the ability to be conscious in each moment about your actions and their impact, the message I’m getting LOUD & CLEAR is that I, too, have to ssslllooooooowww down and take a breath so I can enjoy all the fruits of my last three years’ labor.

Slow down. It’s that simple.

So if you find yourself hurtling through these last few weeks of the year, I hope you’ll find my circumstances useful in helping you to slow down so you can take things at a milder pace. Although pain is not fun, it’s very useful in affecting behavior. The good news is that you don’t need to feel it yourself to get the benefit of its message.

As the holidays await you, just around the corner, I wish you the kind of slowing down that will grant you the peace and grace to welcome them.

Presence is a very intriguing thing.

Your presence is the way you interact with the world. It develops inside you and everyone who crosses your path experiences it.

Your presence either draws people to you like a magnet or pushes them away. Because it affects the way your prospects and customers experience you, your presence is your Personal Brand.

Your Personal Brand is the unique set of qualities and characteristics that makes you YOU. It’s the experience that people have when they’re with you. People make a decision about who you are, based on how they feel when they’re with you.

What sets you apart from everyone else on the planet is your ability to be most authentically YOU, consistently. Your consistency is what inspires and deepens other people’s trust in you, and ultimately, their willingness to buy from you.

When your Personal Brand is powerful, it’s because your presence is powerful. As a result, you’re a magnet for your target market.

There’s a very good reason for that.

When you have Powerful Presence, you have the ability to act effectively, in any situation, in a way that inspires trust in other people.

The secret to this ability is very simple (even though it’s not always easy.)

What makes your Presence so Powerful is that you know, like and trust yourself.

As a result, it’s easy for others to know you, like you and trust you, too. When you don’t, you behave in ways that make it difficult for others to trust you, even if they can’t put their finger on why.

Yesterday we said that selling is a relationship activity; people buy from people.

Here’s where the buying habits of your customers intersect with your presence when it’s powerful: it’s obvious that you’re buying you. That’s what makes you authentic, what makes it easy for your customers to buy you, too, and trust that they’ve made the right choice.

It’s not news that we live in a world that’s become increasingly impersonal. Many of us find it difficult to trust our leaders in business and in government.

As a result, we’re looking for those people, products and services that are personal and authentic. This can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack when we’re surrounded by unlimited choice and everything looks exactly like everything else.

It stands to reason that a brand that reflects what’s authentic is a brand that inspires trust.

If it’s true that you are the face of your business, then your presence is your Personal Brand. Powerful Presence, the result of you being authentically you, makes your Personal Brand Powerful.

Now that is a brand that inspires trust.

Have you ever been so impressed with the experience you had with one person at a store, restaurant or service business that you started to shop for that service or product exclusively with that company?

Have you ever tweeted everyone you know about your experience with someone in a store, restaurant or service business – whether it was wonderful or awful?

Your experience becomes that company brand for you; multiply the effect over a number of people and that company’s brand solidifies. If the company is not conscious of their impact, this might not be the brand they intend.

(If you want a quick example of the power of experience on brand, look up the restaurant reviews in your city. If you’ve eaten there, and you love the place, those negative reviews are irrelevant. If you’re looking for a new restaurant, you’ll read all the reviews and see whether there are more positive reviews or more negative ones. And if you had horrible food or horrible service…nothing anyone can say will change your mind!)

If you were to look up the definition of the word brand, you’d find something like this:

• A brand is a unique assortment of qualities or characteristics that sets one product or service apart from another.
  
• It’s the experience that consumers have with a product or service that inspires their trust.

The experience that people have with you becomes your personal brand. When you’re conscious of your customer’s experience, you can build a powerful brand that gives you an edge in your market.

I discovered this by accident in the 90’s, when I was a distributor for an international cosmetics company. Although the company had built a solidly positive reputation over decades, there were distributors in my community who were too aggressive with their sales approach. As a result, in the circles in which I traveled as a keynote speaker and trainer, the company had a very negative brand.

We humans are very particular creatures. We make decisions about our interactions with people and then take for granted that our decisions are the complete truth. This may not be accurate, but it certainly saves us time. When it comes to doing business, we back up our decisions with our checkbooks and our credit cards.

As logical as we may want to be, our decisions are based on our personal experience.

That’s what makes them emotional.

And that’s what makes them personal.

You are the face of your business

Back to my skin care industry experience: both my personal encounters with the product and with my beauty consultant were very positive. I had experienced this brand in a way that made me want to share what I’d found. My skin glowed–and I glowed with enthusiasm for these products and this company.

In the words of our CEO, I became the face of the company. It was more than skin deep! I soon realized that my customers weren’t just buying my product–they were buying me. They were buying the positive experience of working with me to get the results they wanted with their skin care and makeup.

Although I hadn’t defined it at the time, I was using Powerful Presence strategies. As a result, I was regularly the person at our weekly sales meetings with the highest sales.

How about you? Would you agree that every sales person represents their company when they interact with others in a business setting? When you’re the customer, do you make your buying decisions about organizations, businesses, and products based on your interaction with the people who represent them?

Most people tell me that people buy from people. In a world of unlimited choices, my clients have admitted that their buying decisions often come down to a personal interaction.

What do you think?

Tomorrow we’ll take this one step further.

This is the anniversary of my personal Independence Day and I celebrate it every year. It gives me the chance to consider what I’ve accomplished in the past year and to see where my Journey has taken me.

This year I celebrated it by rolling out a class entitled “Why Parents Don’t Understand… And What You Can Do About It” to five families at the Church at Stony Hill on Saturday evening, from 4:30 to 7:30.

As this day rolls around each year, I remember it in real time. Each year, I re-live the circumstances that prompted me to leave home–culminating in the events that transpired from about 4:30 that afternoon to about 8:00 that night. I can’t begin to describe to you the feeling it gave me to be facilitating this class at the exact same time as the events that inspired it.

It’s no secret that my experience in my family led me directly to the work I do.  As a result of depth of my communication breakdown with my family and the pain this rift caused all of us, I spent years learning everything I could about any communication strategy that would benefit relationships.

Along the way I discovered a multitude of strategies that have since become “just the way I do things.” I learned every bit as much in my two failed marriages as I did getting my degree in Psychology with a focus on Interpersonal Communication.  My 21-year old, thriving, third marriage regularly provides me with the perfect opportunities to practice what I’ve learned.

So this summer when two colleagues of mine inquired about the possibility of sharing the Journey to Powerful Presence with high school kids, that conversation led me directly back to thoughts of my own high school experience and what I wished my family and I had known.

The result is this course.

At the root of my running away were three issues that I’ve since discovered every family experiences as their children grow:

1. Children grow up to find their own way in the world and leave home. It’s their job.
2. Parents are responsible to keep their children safe as they grow and then let them go. It’s their job.
3. The true nature of these jobs is not always understood by either party, so everyone muddles through it as best they can.

Some families suffer more than others and some families seem to find their way through with more ease. The families who find their way through with more ease report that talking, and listening, to each other are the most effective strategies for working through the transitions inherent to these relationships.

The purpose of this class is to share three simple communication distinctions with parents and their tween or teen, with a strategy for using each one. These distinctions are the ones I wish my family and I had had all those years ago; they’re also the ones that are at the heart of the happiness I’ve found with my third – and final –husband.

On Saturday evening, as I watched these families work through the process of this class, I realized something intriguing.

The same strategies that I’ve been teaching business people for years, the ones that that I’ve built my business of sharing the Journey to Powerful Presence upon, are precisely the ones that can save families huge amounts of heartache as they maneuver their way through the challenges inherent to this phase of family life.

Here are those distinctions – see what you think:

1. There’s a difference between Perception and Perspective. Perception allows you to see, hear and feel the world around you in a sensory way; Perspective is your point of view. When you shift your Perspective, your Perceptions change.
2. We have 5 senses with which to experience the world; they reside in three Sensory Channels. We use these channels without thinking; we’re hardwired to use them in a particular order, so each of us is great at using at least one and is also challenged by at least one. With the Visual Channel, we see and imagine. With the Auditory Channel, we hear, speak, think and sing. With the Kinesthetic Channel, we move, touch, sense, feel, taste and smell.When you’re communicating with someone who’s using the same Sensory Channel as you, communication is effortless. When you’re using a different Sensory Channel, communication is difficult at best. Once you know how to instantly dial into the same channel as another, even if it’s not one you naturally use well, you will transform your conversations. Now you’ll be able to see what the other person means, hear everything  he or she is saying and get the full sense of their message.
3. Attention is the result of focusing your awareness. When you pay attention to anyone or anything, your perception speeds up and expands. You get more sensory information in a shorter amount of time. Communication thrives.

When the families in my class on Saturday tried out these strategies with each other, I witnessed their communication transform. I saw suddenly shifting Perceptions, newly matched Sensory Channels and a heightened focus of Attention. It was a privilege to be in their presence.

It was clear to me in that moment that my running away from home had led me directly to their presence ~ and directly to this conversation with you.

If my experience is any indication of what’s possible, wherever you are right now in your business or with your family, the journey will lead you to places you can’t imagine.

And you don’t have to run away to find them.

It took me awhile to get that; when I did, it hit me like a brick in the head.

It’s been a very busy summer. September has flown by like a speeding train and I have a 10-day project coming up that starts on Saturday. For the past two weeks, I’ve been pretty industrious, doing everything possible to clear up any loose ends. I don’t want anything to slip through the cracks while my attention is elsewhere.

After three packed days this week, I was sitting in the parking lot of The Mustard Seed in Fairlawn late Wednesday afternoon. Having “The Seed” as our local grocery store & date-night hang-out for over 6 years is one of my favorite bonuses of living in Akron.

I’d been sitting in my parked car for over an hour. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue and the temperature was perfect for fall. I was loving life after a very illuminating call with my coach, Lenora Edwards, and a very gratifying telephone conference with one of my favorite clients. As I looked around and surveyed the peace and beauty of my surroundings, I felt  powerfully present and exceptionally grateful for all of the delight in my life.

After soaking up those feelings with a deep sigh of appreciation, I got ready to head into The Seed for my groceries. As I started to get out of the car, I noticed that the parking space in front of me was empty. What another great opportunity! I would start the car again and move it forward; when I came out with my groceries, I’d just head out instead of back out.

As I turned the key in the ignition, it felt like it was moving through pudding. To make matters worse, the car made no sound.

All the beauty of the day that had been with me moments before faded a little.  This was so unexpected! I’d just driven in from an appointment in Kent and the car seemed fine. It fired up easily for me as I left my parking space and headed for Akron and this parking lot.

I had to take a deep slow breath and remind myself that this was truly a wonderful thing. (If I’m going to teach the belief that every obstacle brings a gift, I figure I have to be ready to be handed the opportunity to use it…)

After another deep slow breath, it hit me.

Here I was,  safe in the parking lot of one of my favorite places in Akron. It was a beautiful day and I’m a member of AAA. I have friends right up the street at the Fairlawn NTB, where I’ve been taking my car for almost a year. With a few quick phone calls I got the car handled and let Chuck know I wouldn’t make it home for supper, since his car was in the shop for a major tune-up that day.

Inconvenient? Yes.

Earth-shattering? No.

Worse things have happened to me ~ and to lots of other people. The thing that helped me to remain cavalier about the whole thing was my willingness to expand my perspective. Three things helped me do that:

1. I remembered Nick Vujicic, the man who was born in Melbourne Australia in 1982 with no arms and no legs who now travels the globe inspiring people with the story his transformation from “No Limbs to No Limits.” Nothing in life has stopped him; he’s just announced his engagement to his long-time, beautiful girlfriend, Kanae. I often take my two perfect arms and two perfect legs for granted; because of them, I had no trouble driving all the way from Kent to bring this this car safely into the parking lot. I had no trouble dialing the people who would help me to drive it away. I looked down at my limbs and knew how easy this was going to be.

2. The belief that I bring about what I think about. When I considered how I wanted to end this day, it was easy:  it was going to be a whole lot more fun to be deeply grateful for the twist of fate that allowed my battery to get me here safely from Kent before giving up its ghost. Fuming over my dead battery was only going to make it worse – and the battery would still be dead.

3. The memory of a movie I saw on Netflix last weekend: The Age of Stupid. I remembered the part of the movie in which people in a ravaged part of Nigeria had no food and no clean water. They were living in the jungle to escape some soldiers; their friends and family members were either dead from the soldiers or from typhus from the spoiled water. When I thought about my problem with that wider perspective, it was clear that I was merely inconvenienced. In a matter of hours, my  problem would be forgotten.

As I sat outside the NTB watching the day turn from dusk to dark, I remembered all that I’ve written in this blog about our need for rest and how much we skip it in favor of being industrious. I realized that industrious is perfect for batteries; rest is what humans need to be at their best.

It tickled me to think  of my car as a benevolent entity that had my best interests in mind…so it gave me this night off.

I promised myself to take more of them.

I got a new perspective about challenges, attitude and believing that I have what it takes yesterday, when my book research took me to a youtube video of Nick Vujicic. Nick was born in Melbourne Australia in 1982; he was a long-awaited first-born son, born with no arms and no legs for no apparent medical reason.

What started out as a family tragedy was transformed into a global phenomenon, because Nick decided when he was 15 years old that he had what it takes to inspire the world.

His journey took him to places few of us can imagine:

• a newborn whose parents thought they would leave him at the hospital. They never held him until they made the decision, when he was 4 months old, that this boy was God’s gift to them and there was a reason for their suffering. After that, they opened their hearts to him and did everything they could to help him maneuver his way through the world.
• a 6-year old who had been taunted so brutally in school one day that he told himself that one more taunt would make him end his life. That day a child came up to him at the end of the day and told him he “looked good today.” Years later he credited that child for teaching him the impact of kind words.
• a child who suffered because he couldn’t get his toys out of his toy box. His parents tried to help him by fitting him with prosthetic arms; they were so heavy on his tiny body that it only made it harder for him to move. He said later that that’s when he discovered that arms didn’t ease his suffering.
• an 8 year-old who considered suicide in the bathtub, just so he could end his suffering and struggle; only when he thought of what the loss wold do to his parents did he change his mind about taking his own life.
• a teenager who watched every Valentine’s Day pass in high school without a sweetheart, while everyone else was pairing off. Later he realized that this experience fueled his passion to speak to teens and help them through the difficulties that every teen goes through.
• a 20-year old, who had already been speaking at schools across Australia for over a year; who told a crowd of hundreds in a church that he was going to travel the world inspiring people and that he was going to be on Oprah, even though she didn’t know it yet.
• a young man traveling the world, with a message that “your attitude is your altitude – no matter where you are” (high school, prison, the barrio, the hospital, anywhere); using humor, laughter and grace to transform the suffering of others.

Nick blew me away.

Since that first youtube video, Nick made me think about things I never have before. Right off the bat,  I notice how much I depend on my arms and legs and how much I’ve taken that ability for granted. If Nick can inspire millions of people without his, what am I capable of with mine?

Yesterday I was looking for a role model for the 2nd Belief of Powerful Presence: You Have What It Takes. Instead, I found a treasure trove of every Belief, Ability and Action of  Powerful Presence in Nick’s presence and life story.

No matter what you face today (this week, this month, in your lifetime) I believe that you have what it takes to get through it.

Should you doubt that for a moment, spent a few minutes with Nick.

It’s no surprise that comparing yourself to anyone else is unproductive, as well as self-defeating. It’s also pointless to compare anyone else with any other person on the planet. There is no comparison with people, when each of us is completely unique.

So what good does comparison do? I’m so happy you asked! Comparison is only useful when you use it on circumstances.

Comparison is the behavior of choice when you want to expand your perspective.

Comparison can pop you right out of 1st Gear into 3rd Gear. In case you’re reading my blog for the first time, here are the distinctions:

• 1st Gear is your subjective experience; it’s always right and always true, although only for you.
• 3rd Gear is the objective perspective, like that of an interested observer.
• You feel your emotions in 1st Gear; you harness your logic in 3rd Gear.
• You can get stuck in your emotions in 1st Gear. That renders you unable to see past your current circumstances, or to find your way out.
• 3rd Gear allows you to step back and get a broader perspective; you’re not “in it” when you’re an observer. You can see more from that vantage point, because you’re not the captive of your emotions.

I had the opportunity to practice this strategy this past Sunday and Monday as I was attempting to get home from a long-overdue and extremely transformative visit with my sister, Susan, and her family in Auburn Maine.

Starting last Wednesday, three things happened in a row.

1. My Blackberry died the afternoon before my travel, while I was on the phone with a client. I had to go to the phone store that evening to get a replacement phone; in the hour-long process, I lost half my contacts, lost access to email and had no downtime with Chuck (who had just come back from 12 days of travel three days earlier). I was going to be completely out of touch with my office  for 4 days.
2. I had a wonderful time with my sister and spent 4 days completely immersed in the experience. Neither of us got much sleep.
3. My Sunday flight home was cancelled that afternoon as we prepared to take the hour-long drive to Portland. That put into motion some wonderful things (I got to spend Sunday evening with my sister and her husband as we drove north for 2 hours so I could depart from Bangor the next morning; we agreed that our bonus visit on the drive, and at dinner together, was worth all the inconvenience) and some very challenging things: (sporadic sleep on Sunday night as a result of noise inside and outside the airport hotel and a 10-hour layover at the Philly airport on Monday, due to cancelled and delayed flights.)

These circumstances gave me the perfect opportunity to practice my comparison strategy.

I read somewhere that when you’re stressed, you’re stupid; lack of sleep and airline travel definitely qualify as huge stressors. When you’re on your last nerve, it’s really hard to be resourceful. Without a Powerful Presence strategy that you can instantly access, it’s gonna be a very long, very baaaaaad day. Luckily, I’ve been using this strategy for over 30 years and it’s paid off in spades for me every single time.

Here’s how it works:

1. Pay attention to your feelings right now: You feel like crap and you’re on your last nerve. All of the circumstances you’re facing seem like “the worst thing that could possibly happen!” You feel like you’re drowning in difficulty and you’re on the brink of a nuclear meltdown.
2. Think of something WORSE: There are several circumstances I use when I need a comparison. Being on a train on my way to the ovens at Auschwitz. Walking out to the village square to be executed. Being a victim of a natural disaster who’s lost everything, including my husband.
3. Compare the Worst Case Scenario with your Circumstances: The minute you compare your circumstances with one of these Worst Case Scenarios, you’ll notice how quickly you feel relieved! All you’re dealing with right now is inconvenience and a lack of sleep. There’s a bed waiting for you when you get home; you’ve got all your body parts and your family; you will live through this. The physical impact of this strategy is immediate. Pure relief – like you just escaped with your life. You can handle anything now.

As a result of using my strategy, I kept my sense of perspective and got resourceful. There was a Marriott Hotel attached to the Philly Airport and I took myself there for five of the ten hours I had to wait. Because I’ve spent so much time in hotels as a speaker and trainer, being near the meeting rooms of any hotel feels like home to me. I got a chair in a quiet corner near the empty ballrooms, settled in with my very good book and plugged in my iPod for continuous classical music to sooth my soul and my nerves. Then I had an elegant dinner in the midst of people who were enjoying themselves; I felt supported, resourceful and surrounded by abundance. When my plane landed at the Akron Canton Airport at midnight on Monday night, I still felt that sense of peace and gratitude–even though I was tired.

I’ve never been more convinced that Powerful Presence really works!

One of the foundational Beliefs of Powerful Presence is that “every obstacle brings a gift.” The gift of my obstacles this past week is the opportunity to share this strategy with you.

I hope you won’t need to use this strategy this week. However, when you do, I’m confident that it will work wonders!

When you’re the buyer, and you can get anything from anywhere, what makes you want to cut out the middleman and just buy it online? When you do buy it online, how do you go about finding a site you can trust? When you can’t or won’t buy it online, what makes you want to find a person you can trust and buy it from him or her?

If you’re like most people, buying is a very subjective activity. Selling, on the other hand, is a relationship skill that makes buying easy.

What makes selling easy? Now that’s another story.

Think about the people you know who make it easy to buy from them. What is it about them that makes you happy to see them when you meet them, so you can discover what else they have to share with you?

Now, think about the people you know with whom your buying experience is less than pleasant. What is it about them that makes you want to walk the other way whenever you see them coming? Even if they sold you once, what is it that makes you unwilling to repeat the experience?

The differences are glaring, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to identify them for you. So what does this have to do with Powerful Presence?

I’ve discovered that successful selling is a relationship skill that requires Powerful Presence. Like Powerful Presence, selling is very easy when you are conscious of your actions and your impact on the other person (your customer or prospect).

It’s so simple that I’m amazed that more people don’t do it more often. When you listen more than you talk, when you consider your product or service from your customer or prospect’s point of view, and when your Attention is on the other person, you make it easy for your perfect customer to buy from you. You make it easy to be in your presence; you make it easy to like you and trust you.

Given that we buy from the people we know, like and trust, this is a good thing.

So here’s what I’m thinking: if successful sales is an inside job, and it starts with you being comfortable in your own skin and being completely willing to give your perfect customer an exceptional buying experience, the only thing that would keep you from doing it is that you simply haven’t done the inside work yet.

Any successful salesperson will tell you that the biggest obstacles he or she had to overcome were all on the inside. Taking the time to do the inside work shows up in external results. It translates directly into cash.

So discovering your Powerful Presence is one way to do the inside work that makes it easy to buy from you. When you completely “buy” yourself, you become a magnet to others who want what you have.

And that is a beautiful thing!