Page 17 - How To Sell Yourself

16 How to Sell Yourself
strange persona, to try to look and act professional. In a sense we
become actors. Bad actors, but actors.
Get real
We make the very common mistake of feeling that an audi- ence needs to see the strong, competent, mature professional, for- getting that that’s what we really are. So we make the foolish deci- sion to try to impress the audience, when the true reason for the communication is to express ourselves to them. Again, we’re so eager to look like something we think we’re supposed to look like that we change out of our real selves into a caricature. We be- come cartoon creatures.
There was a wonderful and defining moment I happened on one night watching a television news program. The reporter was inside police headquarters. The shot showed the reporter in the foreground speaking to the camera. Two officers were seated in the background. They were chatting behind the reporter, unaware that they were in the shot and that the tape was rolling. Their faces were animated. They were gesturing naturally. Suddenly they realized they were in the TV picture. That was it. They wiped their faces clean of all expression, put on a posed “mask” and stared straight ahead, necks taut, jaws tight, not having any idea of what to do next.
In an instant they went from being real people to manne- quins. They couldn’t believe that the audience should see them as anything but serious police officers. They put on an act. They simply didn’t know how to be natural, to be themselves.
It’s almost exactly what most of us do when we’re getting ready for a picture-taking session. We chat. We converse. We have a pleasant time talking to the people around us until sud- denly the photographer says, “Look over here. Hold it!” Almost everyone immediately stiffens up. After all, this is for posterity. We have to look good. So we change. We simply don’t know how to stay relaxed and comfortable. We don’t know how to be ourselves.
The president of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce wrote the following letter to me: