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I was down at the mall today, doing a little household shopping. If you’ve ever been to a mall on a Saturday, you know how busy it is. Deciding that a little snack was in order, I wandered over to the food court, and grabbed something to munch on. Spying no empty tables, I asked a gentleman if the seat at his table was spoken for, then joined him.
Now at this juncture, I just want to add that the t-shirt I’m wearing today is actually my son’s, not mine. Once I was securely ensconced in the hard plastic seat, the gentleman commented on the t-shirt, asking me did I coached soccer? (I don”t) Over the next few minutes of conversation, it turns out that he coached at the Provincial level for 17 years, and finally quit to spend more time with his family, etc. I actually got a fairly detailed picture of his life, at least as it pertained to soccer.
All of this got me to thinking about the messages we send every waking moment of our lives, from the clothes we wear, to the way we carry ourselves, to the very words that come out of our mouths. We are broadcasting out, loud and clear to the people around us, a message, one that declares who we are, and if we might be someone worth talking to. In my case, t-shirts and baseball caps get me into a lot of sports related conversations, usually with strangers at the mall or bank or wherever in this wide world I might be.
When I let my hair grow out to shoulder length, you can add way too many offers to buy drugs to that list. Those are short conversations, beginning and ending with the word NO, but they do happen. So as I continue on my quest for business success, I find myself beginning to think that I need to change the way I look and dress, if only to make myself feel more like a businessman, and less like “one of the guys”. Because the truth of the matter is that however you present yourself, the odds are strong that you actually feel that way.
We choose our clothes and haircuts based on personal preference, ie: what we like. It’s a two way street, though. If I decide to put on a nice button down instead of a t-shirt, it will change the way I feel about myself, and therefore how I behave. It doesn’t matter that I work from home, and nobody ever sees me, if I dress in a professional manner, my professionalism should rise correspondingly. That’s the theory, anyway…
What do you think, do the clothes make the man?
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pmand is filed under Business, Self Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
