Thought of the Day:
When you want people to pay attention to what you’re saying, make sure how you look and how you sound don’t get in the way. If they’re fixated on your dangly earrings or shiny forehead, they won’t be listening to what you’re saying.
The saying goes: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
A picture can also be worth one word: BAD.
Looked at your official photo lately? On the company website or with a recent article you published?
I am amazed by the number of business people who allow unflattering and out-of-focus photos of themselves released into the public domain. My rule about photos to clients is simple: Never let a bad photo of yourself get published. Control how you’re visualized in the media. Put even more simply: Make sure all your photos rock.
A picture is worth a thousand words when a possible client, boss, investor is using it to assess you or even to just learn about you. How valuable is that to you? Are you a smart and innovative business person who can lead those around you? Or, does the photo say you’re sloppy and can’t be trusted?
Realize that some of the messages your photo sends out may be obvious and conscious from the viewer’s perspective. Others may be subtextual subconscious messages you never intended and your viewer doesn’t even realize he or she perceives. Can you risk a message that says unqualified not a leader next?
What does your photo say about you? Here’s hoping it’s always WOW!
As Fourth of July Weekend winds down, what a great time to think about abundance.
As many Americans (including myself) worry about the price of gas, the price of food, and just how looming is a throwback to the late-70s?…it’s also appropriate to focus on just how fortunate we are as Americans.
We enjoy some amazing freedoms.
We eat whenever we want.
We talk with whomever we choose.
We read whatever source we desire.
I had lunch with my parents on the Fourth of July and believe it or not, I pulled out my pocket copy of the Constitution. I really did that. I started re-reading it the other day when the United States Supreme Court threw out a DC law banning guns. I wanted to find out if the justices got it right…solely based on the word of our supreme law of the land. According to my political and legal training, the majority did not interpret the framers’ words correctly. My step-father was on the fence. My mother didn’t comment. The very fact we could sit in a bistro in the middle of the day in a suburb of Minneapolis and not worry about carrying on this conversation in any tone is a credit to the number of rights we Americans are privileged to have.
An abundance that makes the price at the pump seem like something we can handle.
