In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, and the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re doing a deep dive into 1 of the 3 Personal Brand framework components: Appearance. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!
- Episode Summary & Player
- Show Notes
- Strategic Counsel Summary
- Transcript
The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: A Deep Dive into Appearance
We just launched our new book! You can grab The Power of Your Personal Brand: A Playbook for Struggling Middle Managers Who Want to Do Big Things on Amazon or at ForthRight-People.com
In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re doing a deep dive into 1 of the 3 Personal Brand framework components: Appearance. We define your Appearance as your visual & verbal presence. Visual presence is the impact of how you look with your clothes, facial expression, and posture. Your verbal presence is the impact of how you sound via your tone, intonation, vocabulary, articulation, and style. In this episode, you’ll learn how to convey the image you actually want. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- Breaking down the components of Verbal Presence
- Irony of Anne’s “forthrightness” going from criticized at P&G to celebrated at their company now
- If something isn’t going well for you, it’s likely rooted in your appearance
- Your appearance indicates your current state of mind to others
- Visual appearance includes more than clothes – posture, stance, facial expressions
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: A Deep Dive into Appearance
- [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [00:31] Power of Your Personal Brand series deep dive into Appearance
- [01:00] Appearance defined as visual and verbal presence; gatekeepers to your big things
- [01:53] Recap of the Personal Brand Framework: Characteristics, Appearance, Behaviors & Actions
- [03:43] Characteristics show up in Appearance through Behaviors & Actions; it’s your job to modulate them
- [05:08] Appearance is the bridge to take Characteristics and show up consistently and authentically
- [06:04] Inauthenticity makes people question your trustworthiness and see you as a moving target
- [07:25] Your appearance indicates your current state of mind to others
- [08:20] Anne’s example: Using humor to break down barriers, but it doesn’t always land
- [10:12] Learning to manage humor on a spectrum based on the audience
- [11:12] April’s example: “Resting bitch face” (RBF) and learning to control facial expressions
- [14:28] If something isn’t going well for you, it’s likely rooted in your appearance
- [15:20] Appearance feedback is rarely given because it can feel personal and sensitive
- [17:12] Getting accurate appearance feedback is tough, especially related to physical attributes you can’t change
- [19:22] Leaders often mask appearance feedback as something more general and “safe”
- [21:15] Irony of Anne’s “forthrightness” going from criticized at P&G to celebrated at their company now
- [22:14] April’s example: Hard-charging nature and learning to relax urgency over time
- [26:02] Triggers and defensive posture can make people misinterpret your characteristics
- [27:53] Removing yourself from triggering situations as a strategy vs always trying to regulate your reactions
- [29:18] Breaking down the components of Verbal Presence: tone, intonation, vocabulary, articulation, style
- [31:08] Anne’s example: Powerful voice and learning to modulate excitement levels
- [33:46] Taking mental and physical steps to make delivery more effective
- [34:15] April’s vocabulary and love of language as engaging but also over-intellectual at times
- [37:28] Visual appearance includes more than clothes – posture, stance, facial expressions
- [38:25] Value evaluators observe and translate your image; visual and verbal have to work together
- [40:18] Do regular self-assessments of your appearance and get authentic feedback from others
- [40:48] Authenticity is not permission to act however you want; you have to modulate to be effective
- [42:36] The book The Power of Your Personal Brand is available on Amazon with a companion workbook
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Prepare for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business. Referred to by some listeners as an “MBA in podcast form,” this show is dense with personal stories, proven strategies contextualized by practical steps, and tools to put what you learn into action now.
Your hosts Anne Candido and April Martini are Co-Founders of ForthRight People, a leadership performance company focused on developing leaders from the inside out. They are also Authors of the book: The Power of Your Personal Brand: A Playbook for Struggling Middle Managers Who Want to Do Big Things. They thrive on engagement from listeners and welcome any show topics! So, reach out and connect!
Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.
Transcript
Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it. Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast.
00:31
I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we continue our series, The Power of Your Personal Brand. As a reminder, which we shouldn’t need to remind you by now, but we’re going to, this series is based on our new book, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. And today we’re going to take a deep dive into one of the three personal brand framework components, and that is your appearance. We define your appearance as your visual and verbal presence.
01:00
Visual presence is the impact of how you look with your clothes, facial expressions, and posture. Your verbal presence is the impact of how you sound via your tone, intonation, vocabulary, articulation, and style. Why do we feel like it’s important to do a deep dive into this topic? Well, as the old adage goes, it isn’t just what you say, it’s how you say it. Right? And that speaks to your verbal presence. And as we say in the book, value evaluators are these are the gatekeepers to your big things, if you will.
01:30
Well, knit together your visual and verbal presence and that defines your overall image, right? And whether you intended for that to be your image or not, they will do that. And so you wanna make sure that this is the image you actually want to convey, thus the importance of your appearance. Yes, so with that, let’s jump into the power of your personal brand series, a deep dive into appearance.
01:53
So before we get too far into this, I want to make sure that everyone listening is clear on what the framework is. So we said in the beginning that this is one of three of the components and appearance sits right in the middle. So characteristics, appearance, and then we group behaviors and actions together. But I want to make sure that we define these quickly so that in your mind, you can understand where we are in that framework and then again, why it’s so important.
02:20
So characteristics are your features or attributes. They are what make you you, and they are rooted in things like traits, beliefs, values, points of view, ingrained long, long ago. And typically for this reason, they don’t change. Now, they are neither good nor bad. They are just who you are. And yes, you can manage them, but we find that more often than not, you cannot fundamentally change them. Appearance, I outlined up.
02:47
but just as a quick reminder, that’s your visual and verbal presence, which collectively makes up your image. And then your behaviors and actions are how you show up and engage with the world around you. It’s how you conduct yourself. It’s how you act to achieve an aim. And we group them together because we find that people get tripped up in the nuances of, it a behavior? Is it an action? And actually it doesn’t matter. It’s just more that these are the things that help you show up in your appearance the way you want to and the things that you can control and impact day to day.
03:17
So because you can’t, or mostly more often than not, can’t change your characteristics, you have to manage your behaviors and actions to show up in your appearance the way that you want to. Before I go any further, Ann, do you want to comment? I can see you have your lean forward. My lean forward face on, my visual cue is lean forward. visual cue, look at that. I have something that I want to say. The behavior that I have learned to know.
03:43
Good read, good read. I think I just want to make one small build on this, is, you know, a lot of times we’ll say that your appearance and your behaviors and actions are manifestations of your characteristics, which means that your characteristics will show up in them. And so it’s really about like acknowledging the fact that your characteristics live on a spectrum. And so it’s not about saying that they’re good or bad, as April mentioned, it’s about saying, how do we want to modulate them?
04:11
and the way that we’re showing up in our appearance and our behaviors and actions in order to meet the goal of whatever we’re trying to achieve that day. Because as you know, people’s perceptions are the reality and we’re going to get into that in a little bit. But if you are showing up in a certain way and people are internalizing it differently than what you wanted them to, or how you wanted them to internalize it, that’s on you. So just be mindful of that as we’re going through the conversation.
04:38
Yes, I think that is a great build because as we say in the book, everybody is a brand and if you don’t define yours, someone else will define it for you and their perceptions are their reality. So one of the things that I find myself saying a ton to our clients is it doesn’t matter what you say if people can’t internalize the message. And that is really in how you are managing those behaviors and actions to appear in a way that is amenable to how they can receive you and what you’re trying to achieve. All right. So.
05:08
Your appearance is that bridge to taking your characteristics and showing up each day consistently and authentically or not through your behaviors and actions. So let’s break this down a little bit. And then Anne and I are both going to give examples and we’re going to try to do a lot of examples throughout this so that you can really start to think to yourself, okay, I can see how I might be showing up how I want to, and I might be showing up how I don’t want to, right? When you show up authentically, people know what to expect from you.
05:38
including those value evaluators that we were talking about before, right? This builds trust with people. And in order to succeed in business and really in life in general, you have to build trust with those around you to get them on board to helping you achieve the things you want to in life or your big things, as we say. On the other side, when you show up in authentically, then other people question who you are.
06:04
What’s your intent? And they doubt the trustworthiness because to them you’re a moving target. So you’re showing up perhaps differently or you’re trying to flex characteristics that maybe you don’t actually have, or you’re trying to manufacture a persona, which we talk about a lot of times, which is today I want to be funny and you’ve never been funny before. And it’s like, well, what the heck, right? I mean, this is something where I try not to dive too much into that one. So personal example there, but.
06:30
Really, ultimately, we want you to understand both sides and the repercussions of not showing up authentically in your appearance. So I’m going to stop there, let Anne give an example. And then like I said, we’ll both do this throughout or any other comments. She’s not leaning forward, guys. So I don’t have a cue of whether or not she wants to speak on this or she wants to just give her example. Well, I probably will do both. Okay. You know how it goes. I expect that. Yeah.
06:58
So I think this is really, really important because a lot of times we ignore our appearance, but it’s the thing that a lot of people will use in order to understand how we’re feeling. Right. And so it is super important indicators of our current state of mind, our current way, are we how we were taking whatever situation is going on. I mean, how many times have we sat in meetings and we’re trying to read our bosses?
07:25
trying to understand are they liking what we have to say? Are they not liking what we have to say? Are they following it? Are we tracking? Are we not? Like these are the things I’m talking about. We know how frustrating it can be to be on the other end of that. So whether you’re on that end or whether or not you’re on the leader end, just keep this in mind that the way that you are sitting, the way that you are
07:50
looking, the way that your face is reading, the things that you say and how you say it, they all are indicators of how your current state of mind is in that moment in time. Yeah, really good. Yep. So it’s kind of funny that April said funny because we’ve had a lot of conversations about her funny, like I’ve I mean, we’ve had a lot of conversations about my funny too. And so I overall like to use humor to kind of break down
08:20
barriers, especially with people. It could be people I’ve just met or people that I already know. whether it’s like just to take the energy down if it’s a little bit of intense or if it’s a little awkward. And about, I would say I have a pretty good hit rate. I think I could hit like maybe 75, 80 percent. Is that fair, April? I think so. I’m laughing because I would say you actually use it as a test to whether or not you like people too.
08:47
Oh, that is a really good point. do like, are they going to be able to relate to me? Right. Are they going to be able to like, you know, are we going to be able to go back and forth like that? Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I don’t like sometimes I’m not very conscious about my reading the room about who I’m using it with. I just kind of blanket, you know, the funny to everybody. And I particularly use it if I’m uncomfortable. Right. So if I’m getting into a space and I don’t, you know, I don’t know a lot of the people or I’m
09:16
trying to socialize, I’ll use funny and it doesn’t always land because a lot of times my funny is ironic funny or it’s kind of like, how would you describe it April? It’s not ha ha funny, but it’s kind of like making the asides, you know, or trying to be a little bit clever or something. if people like- you like, I think you, the reason I said you evaluate whether people like you or not, it’s like, it’s a little bit jabby, but all in good fun. And so then you’re looking for somebody
09:45
that’s able to respond and kind and jab back, but also someone who likes the banter and knows it’s just banter. Yeah, and knows it’s just banter. And pros is big, people who take it extremely seriously and then don’t know like how to take it. So that’s got me into trouble before where I’m like, oh, maybe I shouldn’t have gone there, but I do it as my own personal sense of like, I’m feeling awkward in this situation too.
10:12
So I’ve had to learn from that standpoint that sometimes humor isn’t always the best solution. Sometimes I have to use different techniques or tactics and it’s okay just to ask some questions and let people answer and kind of warm them up before I hit them with the funny. So I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned is that I have to manage my funny on that spectrum and understand my audience before I kind of go all in with the funny.
10:43
I think that’s a good one. I think that’s a fair one. was like seeing situations having been alongside you and I was like, yeah, I could see that. I could see that. So I think it’s a great example. Very authentic, very self-aware. Well, thank you. I’ve been working on my first LeBran. Yeah. So the one that I’m going to talk about, so I have said before on the show and I say this fairly often to people is that my face has subtitles. Yes, for sure. have subtitles. And it occurred to me
11:12
As I was working on this episode and trying to think up an example that over the course of the years, my verbal used to have a lot more bite to it than it does now. Like I’ve gotten really good at modulating my directness about listening first and taking in the person I’m sitting across from. And this is what I believe makes me a good coach. Right. And then my directness comes out and did you hear, can you hear what I said? Not in like a biting remark, right?
11:39
I have not succeeded as much with my facial expressions. And this is both personal and professional. So I had an experience recently with a mom on the sidelines who I’ve known now for years. And she also likes to banter and she’s real dry. And so she made a comment to me. I don’t even remember what it was. And I shot her the side eye and she goes, Ooh.
12:07
that’s the look I don’t like from you because I’m never sure if you’re laughing or if you’re seriously giving me that look, right? And then it made me think of that I had this girl that worked and I think I might’ve even talked about her in the book, worked with me, not necessarily for me, but she was on projects with me for a couple of years. And she said she would lose her ability to speak if I gave that look. And now with my kids, they,
12:37
will come into the office. And I think I’ve said this too in various places, but when I’m concentrating, my face is very, very stern and serious. And I’ve had to learn to like delete that before I look up at them because they’ll respond like, are you okay? Are you mad? Did I do something? So as I was thinking through this and those examples all came to mind and in working on my personal brand and thinking about the visual and verbal cues, I was like, oh,
13:06
I’ve gotten so much better at the verbal. It’s the visual that I think I need to remind myself of so that people don’t take away, like we said, whatever their internalized reaction is when that’s not at all what I mean in any of those situations. Well, maybe in those situations, but there is a look that you have when you’re just like,
13:31
completely frustrated, do not want to be there and whatever the person is saying is gotta be like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. I do. And that’s when your eyes get really big and your forehead gets really scrunchy and your lips get really small. And so I know that I’m like, Oh, you where that look comes from? Pam, your mom. I can see that. You described it as the exact same face. Cause Mia has the side eye. So she could do the side eye. She did that at softball. She did.
13:58
I was taking a picture of her because she was so cute in her catcher’s uniform and she was not having it. Yeah, because you’re sitting there going, I need to take a picture. I need to take a picture instead of being sneaky and just taking the picture. We all learn. We all learn. We all learn. We all learn. that in that case, that face, I was like, oh, I need to jump in. This isn’t going to go well if I don’t jump in. So that was when Anne jump in. You know, I see that face. I’m like, OK, it’s time for me to jump in and kind of like take this to a different space to give her a chance to calm down because she speaks. It may not go well.
14:28
Yeah, that’s very fair. We know each other well. Yeah. So that kind of sums up this point, which is if you feel like something isn’t going well for you, it’s likely in your appearance, which leads us to the next point, which is I am lucky enough and hopefully Ann feels lucky enough that we give each other this feedback. A thousand percent. And we know each other really well in this feedback. And so, however,
14:53
and especially we find it in corporate environments, but I mean, it’s kind of all over the place. Appearance feedback is rarely given because it can be personal and sensitive. And this happens for a variety of reasons, right? Like we’ve talked on the show about how Cincinnati is Midwest nice, right? People don’t wanna give feedback at all. And you’ve mentioned before that we seem to be in this place of perpetual positivity where we need to put a positive spin on everything, right?
15:20
But ultimately, regardless of why it happens, people don’t want to tell other people things they don’t think they want to hear. And that is further complicated when you put appearance into the situation because it gives people pause because it can feel like they’re attacking the person, right? And then that’s where their personal brand comes into the play of the way that they can deliver feedback and all of those types of things.
15:47
And so when I say that if something is not going right for you and you’re not quickly getting feedback or you’re not sure or something that worked before doesn’t seem to be working, a lot of times it is grounded in your appearance. And this is another reason, honestly, that we decided to do this episode because we want people to feel empowered to ask the questions. And we also want the people that are supposed to be giving the feedback, like the value evaluators.
16:16
to start giving honest feedback. It has to start working on both sides. I mean, this is one of the things that Anne and I are regularly coaching because there are so many situations professionally, even personally, where people’s progress stalls and then things just kind of start to unravel from there. What do you have to say about that, Anne? Yeah, I mean, this is such an important one. And I mean, if I were just going to be just really transparently honest,
16:43
It’s a really hard one to internalize because I mean, we live in a world now where there’s a ton of litigation for just about every little thing that can happen. So people are going to shy away from doing or saying anything that they think it could even be remotely sensitive. so being, as April said, being able to get like really accurate feedback here is really, really tough. And I’m going to give my example here in a second about how it was tough for me, but like,
17:12
the super tough part really comes with your physical appearance, right? And there’s some things that you can’t change. You can’t change the color of your skin. You can’t change certain attributes about yourself. And so some of those things just are going to be, and this is not the things that we’re talking about. We are talking about the things that you can change about you, how well you present yourself at work, how well you dress, how like…
17:39
healthy you look with regards to, is your hair put together? know, if makeup’s your thing, are you wearing makeup? And we’re not trying to prescribe a certain style or a certain image that you have to show up in because it’s all basically dependent on where you work and what your role is, but just always, always just keep it in your mind that especially if you’re meeting with
18:05
in your work environment, with clients, with customers, with other team members that you should feel like you’re on par with how they’re dressed, how they’re stylized, because people will judge you on that. They will judge your image based on how well put together you are, right? And so I just say that.
18:27
Just uh give everybody a reality check because not many people are going to say that. And I think that it’s really important for people to hear it. We talk about it in the book as well. Just pay attention to that. And you can be able to tell sometimes the signals by how people are looking at you. If you’re aware, you’ll be able to know based on how people are looking at you or how much respect they give you when you are
18:55
speaking a point of view, if you are presenting in front of the room, those sorts of things. So just be aware. So I’m going to go with my example. So I talk about this a little bit in the book, but I’m going to go into a slightly different angle about this. So a lot of times when people, especially well-meaning leaders and mentors and coaches don’t know how to give you the feedback, they’ll mask it as something else that’s more general and safer. So I was told
19:22
bunch of of bunch of times I wasn’t collaborative. And I’m like, I never understood that. I thought I was highly collaborative. I would work with my teams well. It just didn’t, that just didn’t seem to jive with me. And once I kind of dug a little bit deeper and I asked a few people, what I found out was that they just didn’t like my forthrightness. I was like, I’m saying it as I saw it. I mean, I would, if I saw something and I thought it was…
19:50
you know, bad idea. I don’t think I would necessarily call it a bad idea, but I would say, don’t know if this is going to work well. And so I was always, I would kind of call it the truth teller. um And that wasn’t really well received in a lot of different places. And so instead of saying, you know, Ann’s right, but we didn’t like the way she said it kind of thing. It was more of like, she’s just not collaborative. So having to peel back the onion on some of these pieces of feedback.
20:18
um can be very difficult again, because unless you’re gonna go looking for that feedback and you’re gonna ask people for that feedback, getting the direct feedback of like what the real, real thing is can be very hard to get. So you’re gonna have to be very inquisitive and you’re gonna have to really go seek it out. Now what’s ironic about that is even though in that case, it wasn’t something that was leading me to my big things. And outside of PNG, it is.
20:48
Our company is forthright people and now people pay me to be forthright. So I find that incredibly ironic and I feel very just justified in my forthrightness now. Still manage it on a spectrum, but I always want to use that because, like you said, these things, characteristic can either be good or bad, but how it shows up in certain situations can either lead you to your big thing or away.
21:15
And it can be totally different based on different situations that you’re in. Yeah, I think that’s a good one. I mean, it is ironic, right? Like you say, I hear you say this all the time. Like you’ll come out of a session and you’re writing that dopamine high and you’re like, oh, it worked again. People pay me to be honest. actually want to what I think. then guess what? I went there and they went there too. The more straightforward I am, the happier they seem to get. I’m like, wow, this is amazing.
21:45
Well, and the one that I will talk about in my history and when I was younger was the fact that I’m a hard charger. And I talk about this in the book too. And again, I was trying to think of like, not just one example, but thematic anecdotes that I could give throughout this episode where I’m like, oh yeah, I came up there. Oh yeah, came up there too. Oh, well, yeah, came up there too, right? So I was thinking about, and I said it before that I’ve gotten a lot better at
22:14
modulating the tone of my directness, but this was more around sense of urgency. I had this boss and I talk about him in the book, not good for me because he loved the hard charging nature of me, right? Couldn’t do things fast enough or, you know, so he fueled that. But there were several instances at that company and even beyond that company that come to mind where I went at something and I would have done far better to just relax a little bit before I did anything.
22:43
And so one of the recurring things under that boss was I would run around like my hair was on fire. Like everything was an emergency, right? And I remember one of the creative directors pulling me aside and was like, you run around here and you talked about the wrinkles in my forehead, right? He said that to me. He was like, you’re going to hate yourself when you’re in your forties, because those are going to be permanent. And also everything cannot be a fire. And I know who you work for and I know why, and I know that you’re young and you’re trying to prove yourself, but nobody wants to be around that frenetic energy.
23:13
Right. And then there was another situation where I was supposed to be teaching someone to take over components of my job. And I thought she had to do it in my hard charging way. And we couldn’t have been more opposite. Right. She needed to sit with it, be thoughtful, work herself up to being able to do things. Wasn’t as much of like a list maker checker as I was. Right.
23:39
And so we got into it because I thought that I was very clear on my expectations and I came back an hour later and only half the things that happened, right? You can imagine how that went. And then fast forward to a position where I was working in an organization where folks were legacy. Like more than half of the organization had been there for decades. And I was new to the retail side of the business. Although I was coming in from another office, from the same company to teach.
24:08
the brand piece and to take on client accounts where we had an opening to do a lot more of that work and then go into the retail side of things. Right. So it translated CPG to retail. It’s the same process of how you would build a brand. Right. And I had this person that he had been there for 22 years, I think at that point, they kept going around me to my boss, no matter what I did. And I was like, what is happening? So.
24:36
And she was softer spoken and they had worked together for, I think, 15 of those years and whatever. And she cautioned that maybe my approach that I wanted to take wasn’t going to be right. And I didn’t listen. And I asked him to come to my office for a meeting. First mistake, I should have done neutral ground. He thought I was like trying to one up him. And he came in and the words out of my mouth were, I just feel like you don’t respect me. Help me understand why that is. And it was an explosion.
25:05
And it was like, I will never respect you because you’ll never have enough experience and you know, this and that I’ve been in this business for this long. And I left and I mean, I’ve ruminated on that for like a solid week. And to the point where Bryce was like, I need you to stop talking about that. Clearly you did not handle it in the right way, right? But so these are some of the examples as I started to think about that hard charging nature of me and how I had to keep maybe having the missteps, but to be able to eventually start to
25:34
course correct and show up in the way that I actually really needed to. I think it’s a really good example and I’m going to kind of put a fine point on something too because the one aspect of appearance too is what we do when we’re triggered. Right? And so, right. And so if we get triggered and then, you know, we’re consistently then in a posture, defensive posture, and we take on a very serious tone and we’re very short.
26:02
When if that happens frequently enough, people start thinking that is our characteristic. Right. And this is the this is the thing that you guys need to be aware of is that when those value evaluators are looking at you and they’re putting together your image, if they’re constantly seeing you in a specific way, a consistent way, because remember, April said consistency builds trust, they’re going to start to believe that that is you. That is the real you. Right. And so that’s why we to be very mindful of things like
26:32
when we’re triggered, is it people that trigger us? Is it environments that trigger us? Is it situations that trigger us? Because we are not our appearance. Our characteristics are manifested through our appearance, but we’re not our appearance. if we show up, or we’re constantly showing up in meetings and every time somebody sees us in the meeting and they think that we’re standoffish, no, you’re acting standoffish.
26:58
We might not necessarily be standoffish and that’s why sometimes it takes people back when they find out these things like I did about clever. I’m like not collaborative. I’m like, what are you guys talking about? Standoff it. What are you guys talking about? And then you kind of start peeling it back again. You’re like, Oh, every time I get in this meeting, I hate to be in this meeting. I don’t like the people in the meeting. And so, yeah, I’m in a cranky mood and I’m like very short people and I just can’t wait to get the heck out of there. That’s how they are seeing you. And then they start assuming even though
27:27
your appearance is one of standoffishness. You may not be standoffish, but then you’re kind of wondering how did that even happen? Yeah, I mean, and I think also with the triggers are a really good point. And the build I would have there is realizing the situations that maybe you could remove yourself from if it’s a constant trigger. So not to say that you shouldn’t work on showing up without being triggered.
27:53
But it just occurred to me as you were talking, the other side of this for me is because of the high achieving, was very impatient. And so there were certain meetings that I realized, and specifically they were status updates where you just rolled through the list, right? And it was like, this project, blah, blah, blah, this. I made a note, I remember when I was like five or six years in of over time, this was gonna get off my list because I felt like I could not.
28:21
control myself and sit through an hour of just like status updates, right? So the first move in my career was like, okay, how do I get out of that and offload that as I became a manager? Then when I became a leader in an organization, in large part, I got rid of those. yes, it was triggering for me, but it also was because of, was like, this isn’t how I want to run this show. It’s inefficient. If we need to do that, let’s do a 10 minute standup once a week.
28:48
with that team, not have the entire company in an hour plus long meeting where we roll through project updates. Right. So not again, not that I’m advocating that you don’t address triggers, but you may also sometimes find ways to not regularly and continuously put yourself in meetings where you just can’t. Yeah. I mean, that’s a strategy. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So we’ve talked about appearance in total and I, we just addressed a lot about the visual stuff and we talked verbal too, but
29:18
I wanna make sure that everybody is clear. I think the visual presence, people can understand that a little more, right? So like, it’s what I wear, like Anne said, it’s how my hair is, um it’s if it’s appropriate based on what everyone else around me is wearing, we get that, I think more. With the verbal presence, I just wanna make sure that everybody is understanding and able to dissect this for themselves as they’re showing up. So one of the big exercises,
29:46
probably haven’t memorized by now if you listen regularly that we give people is spend some time reflecting at the end of each day, a couple of times a week on where you showed up the way you wanted to and where you didn’t necessarily. So from an appearance standpoint, that assignment is the same, right? Where did I show up and I was effective through my appearance and my behaviors and actions and where did I maybe not? So the things that your verbal presence entails.
30:13
There’s a list of them that I think you just need to be cognizant of and be thinking about in your mind. So the tone is how your voice sounds. The intonation is the pitch. Vocabulary plays a role here. So the actual words that you say, articulation. So the way you say words, where you emphasize, you know, how you end sentences, where you maybe emphasize words and phrases more, the way you talk to people that way.
30:40
And then the style would be the overall generalized category of your verbal presence. So like someone who’s soft spoken, that would be a style. So when you think about it, you need to take into account all of that in your verbal presence, not just, I think sometimes people do it more from an effectiveness standpoint and don’t take the time to break down why is that happening for me? So I think that’s where these are really important.
31:08
Yeah, I mean, we hit it in the intro where it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. you say it, yeah. Right? And in that speech… It’s a little grayer, right? It’s like sometimes I think people are like, what? That’s how I talk. Exactly. and coming from somebody, I mean, if April’s face has subtitles, my voice has subtitles. Yes, it does. It does, right? I mean, I’ve gotten in lot of trouble with the tone of my voice. And it…
31:35
For me, it’s just like, mean, I’m Italian. mean, my dad’s from New York. I mean, it’s just kind of been in me against those are those characteristics are deeply ingrained. I we I grew up like that. It’s kind of like your as April said, and it’s the same with me. You’re kind of direct. You kind of say what’s on your mind. You kind of it’s in a voice like my voice is power. Like I have power. have my voice. My voice is loud. It carries. I’m like, I know that I’ve learned that the hard way.
32:03
I’ve seen you get in trouble for that in all situations. I’m like, I’m whispering and April’s like, no, you’re not. like, I am so whispering. When you stop moving your lips, but your voice is still coming out the same, you are not whispering. So, um, that’s That’s not tone. So true. It’s so true.
32:24
So I think those are the things of like, I’ve really had them to pull in some other characteristics in order to be able to modulate my tone and just be very conscientious of the fact that when I get in a room, I take up a lot of space. Not physically in my stature, I’m actually a pretty small person, but I have a big presence and I’ve been told that. On top of that, I can get very animated when I’m talking.
32:49
I get very excited when we’re starting to talk like big ideas and opportunities and my voice rises and everybody else is just kind of like, whoa, what’s going on here, right? And so I wanted to make the point that sometimes it’s not even just in the verbal presence, it’s the verbal match with the physical or the visual that starts to magnify everything that’s going on. And you think you’re just in it and you’re in flow and you’re just kind of talking and everybody else is kind of like,
33:18
what is going on here, right? And so I’ve had to learn that I need to take a back a few notches, right? I need to physically and like mentally take my voice down a couple of notches. I need to talk slower. I need to take some breaths in between when I’m actually talking. So these things start to become part of my practice in order to be able to go into a room and be effective in a room. It doesn’t…
33:46
less than how excited I am about things. It just makes my delivery one in which that other people can hear it. So I’m more effective in those meetings. Yep. I totally agree with that. Well, and the one that I was going to pick on for me is vocabulary. I love reading. I love the English language. I was such a nerd. I read 8 million books when I was a kid. I cannot
34:15
read enough. Like I would say on average in any given week between listening to books and reading physical books, it’s probably at least 10 hours. I just love, love, love to read. However, or I guess as a result of that, I do have a really big vocabulary and that has been met with positive and not so positive feedback. I keep snickering because I’m like,
34:43
I can always tell when April has a new word that she’s read a new book. Uh huh. Oh yeah. Because we exercise that word on a regular basis. then everything’s that word. like, I’ve heard that word 10 times in the last like three days. She must be read it in a new book. read it in a new book, right? So on a good side and back, I’m going to bring it back to funny. So I have said to some people about not being funny, right? But
35:09
What I’ve been told recently is that I’m actually a very engaging storyteller and that the use of vocabulary. said it, my therapist said it, one of our coaching clients said it. But I’m sure I said it first. Maybe you said, okay, fine. Giving them the credit that she wants. Something in her personal brand needs that. we’ll just give it Yeah, my ego needs that. Thank you. And so.
35:31
And actually that I can be funny in that way. And I think it’s actually a little bit self-deprecating in the way that I do it is kind of like the style by which, right? But that use of vocabulary paints a very colorful picture for people that causes them to feel I’m engaging when I’m telling stories. And that’s where my, I feel like I’m firing on the extraversion and the like animation of how I show up and all of those things, right? Good from that perspective. I have also been given the feedback and actually that same
36:00
creative director that talked to me about wrinkling my forehead gave me this feedback that there are switches sometimes where at that point in my career, it was like when people would meet April as like personal April versus business, that there was like a switch. And so he’s like, you’d be telling this great story and people would be engaging with you. And then all of a sudden they’d ask a business question and you would go very professional and all these massive words would come out of your mouth and it be like, and I’ve actually been told by my husband and my sister,
36:30
that when I get on one, as they call it sometimes, these words come out and they’re like, come on, bring it down to the regular people, right? And I can see how that could be perceived. And it’s not me trying to flex my ego or like, you know, anything other than a love of storytelling and language, but that is a spectrum of how it can be internalized based on the environment, the people around me and how I’m being received. Yeah, I mean, that is so true. I’m sitting here, I was trying to rack my brain for there was one word that you had and it was like,
36:58
the word of the week and I can’t remember what it is, but I actually had to look it up. was like, I don’t even know what this means. I’m like, my mom’s a writer, a professional writer. And I’m like, I didn’t even know what the word meant. I had to look it up. I’m like, she’s used it now four or five times. She’s going to use it more. And I just, I need to know what it means. Well, and Bryce now has no shame when it comes to this. He’s like, either go back and tell me what this word means or I’m not listening anymore to this part of the conversation. Yeah. Oh my God. That’s so funny. That is true. Yeah. So.
37:28
So anyway, just the point, and I just wanted to make sure that we talked about the verbal piece a little more in detail, because like I said, I think visual, you get it faster, whereas verbal sometimes people are a little bit more like, what all does that entail? Well, as long as people also know that visual, as we’ve been talking, does include more than just what you’re wearing. It includes how you stand, how you posture yourself. All those sorts of things are really, really important. It’s part of your visual appearance as well.
37:57
that a lot of times we disregard as being unimportant. Yes, and you cued me to the last part to bring this all home that I want to make, which is we talked in the beginning and throughout about your image, right? And that other people will decide whether they’re receiving your image authentically or not. And also you have to be responsible for whether you’re showing up how you want to through that image, right? So to Anne’s point,
38:25
your value evaluators are going to observe you in situations, translate it into themes, and then knit that into an overall impression. The visual and verbal work together. And to Anne’s point, they have to work together in such a way that they build that consistency and authenticity so that the whole experience of you and your appearance makes sense to people. And then the other side that I want to reiterate is that if you’re struggling
38:54
or you’re not sure what’s going on, or you feel like you’re not getting the reaction like Ann said in the room where she gets on one, she gets going, and then she looks and everyone’s kind of like sitting back in their seats because they’re like too much, right? Or I’ve given the example before of coming out of COVID, God help this team. It was a team of introverts. It was our first video shoot in a year plus. We were outside, it was a beautiful day, and my golden retriever puppy came out.
39:22
to the point where I realized- Her internal golden retriever prepping, not her real golden retriever. Yeah, my internal, right, let’s clarify that. The bad experience of April, especially in an audience of introverts, that I had to walk myself around the block three or four times and have a talk with myself about how this was not gonna help me. So there you go. But the point here is just to make sure that you’re thinking about it holistically. So we started out with what appearance is, where it fits in the framework.
39:50
And then we broke it down and gave you lots of examples today from our personal experience, but also in depth about visual and verbal. so Anne’s point here, and the point I want to make to finalize this is it all works together. So you have to be in the driver’s seat and constantly be paying attention. That homework that I mentioned can be extremely helpful. Like at the end of every week, just even if things are going great for you, just making sure that you’re doing a temperature check for yourself.
40:18
and then building people around you if possible that will give you the authentic feedback, which I find invaluable. But if you can’t get that, just know that this is yours to manage. This is why we wanted to talk in depth about it today. And we wanted to bring you a perspective that it is something a lot of people won’t talk about. And so you have to really make sure that through your appearance, you’re showing up with the personal brand you want to present to the world. Such a great way to cap this off. The thing that I want to add is
40:48
When we’re talking about authenticity, it’s not permission to act however you want. You always bring this one up. I always forget this point. always bring this up because it is a thing that we face a lot. And I mean, I just gave you the example of how I show up and I’m Italian and I’m very Italian and I don’t, I’m unapologetically Italian, right? Yep. But I can be Italian and I can be my authentic self and I can still modulate my appearance.
41:15
so that I can be effective in conversation. So this is where you need to really be very careful because we’ll tend to take the position of, I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean for them to take it that way. That’s their fault that they took it that way. That’s their fault that they are bad at me because of somehow I showed up or they’re misreading me or they misread the situation. No, it’s your responsibility. Absolutely. Because you are the one who has goals in mind, your big things in mind, and you need
41:44
in order to achieve your big things. You can’t achieve your big things alone. So if you’re gonna disregard what people have, their perceptions, which are their reality, and you’re gonna continue to go forward, you can do that. That is a choice you can make. You may just struggle to achieve your big thing, and you just need to be prepared about that. And remember, your big thing should be anchored in a very big Y. if your big thing is not a big enough
42:13
doesn’t have a big enough why to really check your appearance, then you need to really think about whether or not you have the right big thing in mind. So I just wanted to say authenticity with a capital A is living your personal brand and being responsible with your personal brand and cultivating it in a way that helps you put you on the path to achieve your big thing.
42:36
and then consistently showing up in that way so that you can build that trust. You can build those relationships that are so essential in order to achieve your big thing. Look at you bringing us home. Authenticity with a capital A. Capital A. All right. So I would be remiss if I did not plug the book, right? So again, the title of the book is The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. You can find it on Amazon.
43:04
Right now it exists as ebook or actual book, or there’s a link from our website, forthright-people.com. And there is a workbook playbook that goes along with this that helps you work through your personal brand as you experience the book and is really a great tool for helping you dig into this and also get started and hopefully not be overwhelmed, but feel excited about the fact that you have the framework and then the path to getting there.
43:35
And with that, will encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put it into practice. Hopefully shameless plug for us. You heard a lot today because remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action. we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!