The Truth About Body Image

Have you ever considered how much your body image - your personal packaging, contributes to your business and personal success?

The multi million pound cosmetics industry is acutely aware of the value of packaging. You'll know this if you've ever bought anything from those glamorous ladies whose counters are always just inside the front door of Department Stores.

However, from time to time we're presented with surveys about the creams we rub on our bodies which take years off our age and make our skin as soft as a baby's bottie. The surveys tell us "Buy the cheap stuff or the own label one from the supermarket, 'cause they're all the same."

But do we? Of course we don't. Human beings are driven by emotions not logic and never more so when spending their money.

People buy with their eyes, we love packaging. The marketing and merchandising experts have it down to a fine art and know the colours and shapes that we're most likely to buy. They then design their packaging accordingly and make sure it grabs our attention.

The product in the packaging has to do what it says it'll do, however if it looks like it can do the business, then we're more likely to believe it can.

It's just the same with people. Whether we like it or not, people are likely to make judgements about us by our body image, the way we're packaged.

They'll then decide whether they like us,whether they'll give us a job or even just believe what we say.

This seems to be so obvious. Yet I've seen professional speakers with scuffed shoes, business leaders with outdated suits and politicians wearing clothes that don't fit them or suit their shape.

A few months ago I attended a function where an accountant was invited to speak about his business. He told the assembled audience how efficient his business was and about their attention to detail. However his tie was undone and his shirt looked like he was breaking it in for a smaller friend. His suit, though probably expensive, wasn't the right colour for him and merely drew attention to the fact that its wearer liked his food. All of the things he was saying were totally contradicted by his body image.

Lawyers, accountants, plumbers or software engineers; it doesn't matter what you do, other people are very liable to make a judgement about your abilities by how you're packaged.

Your colleagues and your boss will all make decisions about the quality of your work and your promotion prospects by your dress and body image.

There's the famous story about the 1960's pre-election television debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. These debates were also heard on radio, which was much more popular at the time. After the debates a poll was taken of how TV and radio audiences had reacted to the two participants. The radio audience voted for Nixon, however the TV audience voted overwhelmingly for Kennedy. The TV audience liked the look of Kennedy better than Nixon - they liked the packaging.

We also tend to make decisions very quickly about people we come into contact with. Psychologists have established that we subconsciously make around eleven decisions about other people within the first six seconds of meeting them.

Personnel managers have admitted in surveys to making a decision about a job applicant within the first thirty seconds of an interview, these decisions being made primarily on how the people looked and carried themselves.

How we look will confirm or contradict what we say. First impressions are also lasting impressions and take a lot of changing.

Okay, so we can't all have the perfect looks or the perfect body, what ever that is. It doesn't matter what shape you are but it does matter how you package that shape, if you want to make an impact on other people.

How you package yourself can also make a huge difference to your self-confidence. Have you ever noticed how confident and self-assured you feel when you dress in something you feel good in? Particularly when someone genuinely compliments you.

How you dress can have a huge impact on how you carry yourself and project to other people.

The problem is that many of us don't have a clue as to what really suits us and compliments our shape. This is why so many business people are turning to an image consultant to improve their personal impact. This may seem like a costly luxury however consider the cost of restricting your career or possibly not winning a new account.

So what do you do? Well you could ask your nearest and dearest to be honest with you and tell you what they really think about what you wear. The thing is, you really need to listen and take heed of what they say.

Buy some of the fashion magazines and keep up to date on the latest fashion. It can also help to find a good clothes store where the sales assistants will give unbiased advice.

It's also important to look after the details. Do your spectacles suit your face? Are you in need of a more modern haircut? What does that cheap plastic watch say about you?

Men need to be careful about novelty ties and fancy socks with a business suit. Women need to take care with make-up, colours and perfume.

You may have a lot more to offer than a jar of anti wrinkle cream or a packet of cornflakes; however no one is going to pick you off the shelf if they don't like your packaging.

Alan Fairweather -"The Motivation Doctor" - is the author of "How to get More Sales Without Selling" To receive your free newsletter and free ebooks, visit: http://www.howtogetmoresales.com
Alan Fairweather, 'The Motivation Doctor,' is an International Speaker, Author and Business Development Expert. For the past fifteen years, he's been turning 'adequate' managers, sales and customer service people into consistent top performers. He is the author of - 'How to be a Motivational Manager.' A down-to-earth guide for mangers and team leaders. To receive your free newsletter and free ebooks, visit: http://www.themotivationdoctor.com/  

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The Truth About Persistence and Success

If you really want to be successful, you probably spend a lot of time reading motivational books and articles.  You want to know what qualities are required for success.

When we read about the tools required to achieve success, very often we are told that if we really want to be successful, we must have persistence. 

Persistence is the quality of never giving up when we encounter challenges.  Of holding on to our dream.  Of refusing to be discouraged no matter what the odds, no matter what happens.

And when you read the life stories of very successful people, they will often tell you about all the hardships they encountered along the way.  They will tell you about the discouragement they occasionally felt when they encountered failure, and about all the people who laughed at them along the way. 

And then they will often tell you that the reason they are successful today is because they were persistent.  They perservered in chasing their dream, no matter what happened. 

So if you have been facing a bit of discouragement while you pursue your dream, reading these success gurus can give you the boost you need to keep on doing what you?ve been doing.  After all, persistence is the key to success. 

Almost everyone says so.

And all those people who encourage you to be persistent are wrong!

Persistence can lead to certain failure if you do not apply persistence in the right way.

Let me explain what these people are leaving out when they tell you to be persistent.

Every day as I drive to work in the city where I live, I always see a middle-aged blonde woman who paces back and forth on the sidewalk in front of a big government building.  She is always carrying a big protest sign.  She smiles and waves at all the cars that pass. 

I?m not sure exactly what her sign says because the words don?t really make any sense. 

There seems to be something about an injustice that happened to her when her husband?s pension was divided up during their divorce.  And there?s a few comments about a government conspiracy to cover up the injustice that was done to her.  I guess what she?s trying to accomplish with her protest is she?s trying to get this divorce decision changed.

Every day, no matter what the weather, this woman comes out to walk back and forth for two hours in front of this government building and wave at all the people.  Her smile never fails.

After the first two hours of protesting are up, she goes to another place downtown.  She  spends another two hours walking back and forth, smiling and waving, in front of a different building a few blocks away. 

She has been doing this every day for at least seventeen years.

She is certainly persistent.

All that persistence and dedication for so many years does not seem to be having any effect, but she does not seem to notice. 

If seventeen years of her walking back and forth carrying this sign hasn?t had any effect, I don?t think that one more day of walking with this sign is going to change the outcome of her divorce.  But she is persistent in continuing her protest.

Probably every big city has a few people like this woman, people you can see standing on the sidewalk.  People who spends years holding some sign that doesn?t make sense. 

These people can teach us all about the real value of perserverence and persistence. 

These people are certainly very persistent, but usually they are not successful.

When success gurus tell us that persistence is an important quality on the road to success, they are often leaving out something important.

When successful people tell you that they got to where they are today because they were persistent, they are actually leaving out part of the story.  A very important part of the story. 

And the part that they are leaving out is this:  They forget to tell you that before they were persistent, they had a goal, and they had a plan on how to get there. 

And all along the way, after every step they took, they stepped back to evaluate the results to see if the results they were getting were the results they wanted.  And if they weren?t getting the results they wanted, then they would change the steps they took, and try something different, until they found a method that worked for them.

These successful people did have persistence, but they were only persistent about holding on to their vision. 

They were never persistent about the method they took to get to their goal.

All along the way, they were prepared to be very flexible and experiment to see what techniques and strategies worked best to get where they wanted to go.

Why do so many successful people leave out this important detail when they tell us the secrets to their success?  Why do they so often neglect to mention that if a strategy wasn?t working, they abandoned it quickly and moved on to another strategy?

I don?t think that successful people deliberately leave out this key information because they don?t want us to be successful.

I think that successful people often leave out this key detail because they assume it?s very obvious to everyone already.  They assume that everyone already knows that you test each step of what you are doing to see whether it?s working or not.  And if it?s not working, you change it.  And you keep trying new approaches til you get something that works, something that gets you closer to the result you want.

People who admire persistence often use the example of Thomas Edison who kept trying to produce an electrical light bulb even after ten thousand failed attempts.

But people often forget that while Thomas Edison was persistent in believing in his goal, he was not persistent in the way he tried to achieve it.  Thomas Edison did not repeat the same experiment over and over again ten thousand times.  

Thomas Edison performed about ten thousand different experiments on his way to trying to find a practical electrical light bulb.

Every time he tried an experiment to produce an electric light bulb, he then stepped back and took some time to evaluate the results.  He figured out what was working and what wasn?t working.  Then he would try something different the next time.  And he would keep track of the results.

So, remember this crucial difference the next time someone tries to tell you that persistence is the key to success.

Without taking some time to evaluate whether or not what you do is actually working,  you can be persistent for years, and not achieve the goals you want.

So, if you want to be successful, be sure to hold on to your dream, but remember to check frequently whether the actions you are taking are getting you closer to your goals.

This article is written by Royane Real, author of several self improvement books available at her website, including ?How You Can Be Smarter ? Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative?  If you would like to learn how to boost your brain power, download it today at http://www.royanereal.com  

Royane has been a science educator for twenty years and has a wide range of interests. Besides writing self help books and reports on a variety of topics she also likes to sing paint and garden and spend time with loved ones. 

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