I’ve always loved this phrase from Jon Kabat-Zinn. It is meant to convey the idea that rather than live in the past or the future we should be more attentive to the present moment. In fact all of our memories of the past and our imagining of the future can only occur in the present moment so it really is all we have. One moment after the other.

How different things are in business. We obsess about the past, raking over the coals of previous disasters, or we fantasise about imagined futures spending months strategising about events that we delusionally expect to control.

Even when we are talking to each other we are never there. We are always racing ahead, anticipating our next smart answer to the question we imagine to have been asked or implied. Senior people are often the worst at this. I used to describe them as propeller heads. Always looking around for the next, more important, conversation to have rather than taking part in the one they are meant to be engaged in.

But it can be different. We have all experienced leaders who are truly present. Who lift our spirits with their attentive listening, who engage with the real world in the current moment rather than holding it at bay with a barrage of management bollocks.

Real presence takes courage, a willingness to face down and grapple with the world as it is in this moment, and the next one, and the next.