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: