How to Dress for Success
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
How to Dress for Success in Today’s Brave New World
“How to Dress for Success” – Grab anyone around you and ask this question, and you’ll get a smorgasbord of tips and a bevy of “good” advice…
For women: Hair up or down, smart pants suit or form-fitting dress, heels or pumps, how much makeup is too much, which one of your 327 purses matches the best, what season is it, which color looks best on me…
For men it’s more like this: Casual or formal, laid back or professional, jacket and tie or dress-shirt-only, brown shoes or black shoes (‘cuz that’s all we own…), fitted jeans or baggy jeans, clean shaven or a little “just so” stubble…
As you can imagine, there are entire websites dedicated to teaching people How to Dress for Success…
Now don’t get me wrong… there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look professional.
But here’s the deal with the whole Dressing for Success deal…
It’s all geared towards impressing someone else. (not you)
Get that. Really get that.
Dress for Success? What does that even mean?
Hey, if you’re after that certain position with the big firm or whatever, then dang, you may need to suck up and dress like they want you to dress.
But just for a second, take a peak inside the mind of a guy who’s started and lead more than 300 companies in 34 countries with a combined total revenue of (that’s Billion, with a capital ‘B’…)
…and let’s take a look at his idea of How to Dress for Success…
(Warning: this is a guy who wrote a book called, “Screw Business as Usual”, so if the idea of being a non-conformist makes you feel like you’re on the Egg-beater at the county fair, then you may want to stop right here…)
There’s a killer article on Branson in the latest issue of Success Magazine (August 2012). Go ahead and read the whole thing right here:
()
Check out this quote from Richard from the Success article…
“I often have a pair of scissors in my top pocket to go cutting people’s ties off. It is time to say good-bye to the tie. Why was the tie ever invented? Everyone in business looks the same and dresses the same. I’m sure they only exist because bosses, after being forced to wear ties all their life, are determined to inflict the same fate on the next generation.”
Well said, Richard, well said. I love it.
Basically what Branson said about how to dress for success is this…. Just Be Yourself.
The “New” Dress for Success
My goodness, we already have enough copy-cats and cookie-cutters out there to last us ’til Michael Moore or Rosie goes on a diet.
Enough already… The worlds YOU. Not another suit. You’re pretty dang unique. Use it.
Hey, if you look as good as Brad Pitt in a suit, or if you can put Eva Longoria to shame in a little black dress, more power to you… just as long as that’s you being YOU, and you’re not trying to be Brad or Eva.
Because let’s face it, there’s only one Brad and one Eva… and that’s all we need.
Be You. Dress for Success. Same thing.
So here’s my 3 tips on how to dress for success, no matter what you do…
1) Find your look.
2) Work it.
3) Find something you can do where you can dress like that.
Look, I get the fact that you can’t show up at your current workplace on Monday like it’s casual Friday. I get that. But don’t let that limit you.
I work with a guy right now who wears either no shirt or a t-shirt with bermuda shorts out of his custom home in Costa Rica and pulls in 6-figures a month.
Do you think he gives a crap what anyone else thinks? No, he doesn’t, because he’s found his look, he works it, and he does something that allows him to work it. (and now about 35,000+ people are trying to imitate him in their own unique way…)
He’s dressed for success and having an absolute blast!
How I dress for Success
I’m a big Michael Jordan fan. Even been to his home (un-invited, but so what?) Not just because of the 6 rings, but because he wanted to be the best at everything he did.
So here’s my daily wardrobe-
I love being able to wear soft, comfortable MJ t-shirts that let me “Be Like Mike”. For me, that’s how I “Dress for Success”. Here’s my favorite one…
That’s my goal. To be the Michael Jordan of my company.
Because this company allows me to be myself… and have a blast doing it.
Does yours? If not, you might want to consider what Branson said above, and then think about working with a guy wearing MJ t-shirts in Hawaii and a guy in bermuda shorts making 6-figures/month out of Costa Rica.
Find out more right here. We promise… we won’t make you wear a tie.
In fact, I’ll bring the scissors.