Hi there, my name is Priya Prasad. I live in Morristown, New Jersey and I’m counsel at Exxon Mobil Corp.

To me, the word presence means being authentic, giving off that vibe so that others around you form an impression of you that matches your true self. In some cases, we have time to practice and perfect our presence, such as before a big presentation or speech. But in most cases, we meet people every single day in casual settings and don’t have an opportunity to rehearse every interaction. In the next few minutes, I want to share some stories on how I try to be authentic, as well as a few tools and techniques I’ve used.

I’m currently pursuing an MBA at Columbia University, and an exercise I did in my first semester leadership class is something that I encourage others to do to have a good grasp of what it means to be your true self.

– Take some time to jot down five to eight values that are important to you. You can use a dictionary definition of a value or whatever definition comes to your mind.

– Draw values tree by ranking these values in order of most concrete at the root trunk of the tree to most abstract and your highest value at the tip of the tree. You can draw branches to connect related values. The idea being that everything at the bottom leads up to the top.

– Jot down this tree on an index card and keep it in your wallet.

Anytime you need to make a decision whether it’s personal or work, ask yourself, “Is this decision in line with my values?” Now over time, your values will be ingrained, so you don’t have to keep referring to the index card, but this simple exercise is a great way to gut check yourself. You can do this exercise every few years to redraw the tree. But generally studies show that your values tend to remain constant once you’re in your 30’s, unless you have a major traumatic life event. Now, I’ll admit when I first did this exercise in class, I didn’t see the value, no pun intended. But having to face several work and life decisions over the last six months, I found myself constantly referring back to how each major, and sometimes even each minor, project I take on or hobby I dive into or time I spend aligns with my values, mainly my highest value.

Now, besides being true to yourself, what can you do and what have I done to help give off that true self to others? In smaller settings, I tried to make a conscious effort to maintain constant eye contact to genuinely be interested in getting to know others and how their day is going, and actively listening and responding about others rather than just waiting for someone to finish and talk about myself.

To prepare for being in larger settings, I’ve recently watched YouTube videos of speakers who I personally think have a great presence, and two I want to espouse are former President Barack Obama or Dr. Bernie Brown. From body language to voice modulation, there are a lot of other things that can be learned and modified with practice. But that being said, make sure adjustments to your style don’t deviate from your authentic self. If you start implementing drastic changes to your speaking mannerisms and hand gestures that don’t feel natural, this whole exercise may become draining. More importantly, you may have a hard time mimicking this behavior in smaller more casual settings. And then having two different types of presence; one in smaller and one in larger will confuse both others and confuse yourself.

All in all, be true to yourself. First, find out what that means to you through exercises like looking into your values. Then use videos and books to compliment and improve your techniques for displaying and espousing presence. As they say, make sure you do you.

Karen Martinez Perez, Longitude fellow, Rice University:

I admire how Priya emphasizes the importance of reflecting on our values. I recently participated in a career development week during which we also spent some time trying to discern what characteristics we valued. Personally, faith, gratitude, and love are some of the most important values to me. Because of these values, I want to help others achieve their potential. I am a person who believes people deserve to feel like they matter. I think that I may try Priya’s index card suggestion to help guide my career path as I navigate through the opportunities available to me. Regarding Priya’s advice on presenting yourself in smaller settings, I agree. By indicating your engagement in the conversation, not only does the speaker feel listened to, but it furthers your connection with them, increasing comfortability overall. And when your comfortability is increased, you can relax and talk freely with each other, helping reveal your true selves. Additionally, I find that sometimes copying other people’s mechanisms at first can help with my confidence in larger settings as Priya discussed. Eventually, with practice or with time, I adjust those mannerisms to feel more natural to my style. I think that through Priya’s advice, the person that we want to be and the person that we truly are can be unified into one.