Work/Life: Trophy Wives and Honesty
| posted by Lynette ChiangI'm sitting on the train to Connecticut and there's a poster for Donald Trump's PARC Tower framed in front of me. Executed in cerise pink and azure blue, it features a big ornate gold key and below it, a blousy blonde in a busty blouse.
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The headline is: AND NOW ... THE TROPHY CONDO FOR YOUR
TROPHY WIFE.
I like it. It's exactly aligned with Donald Trump the brand, pretending to be nothing more or less and certainly no more noble than thou. It makes me almost like the guy even if I don't want to, just for being authentic. I got almost as big a kick out of seeing it as stumbling across this Charmin' Mega Toilet Roll ad (scroll down)
A charmin'ly honest ad - I know my ad pals will now call me a hack, but I couldn't help but smile when I pulled this out of the 12-pack, and that's more 99% ads have done for me lately...
In advertising they say, 'say it straight then say it great'. Perhaps it should be preceded by 'say the truth'.
The truth, as I said before, is vastly underrated. I have to be truthful 24/7 in my seamless worklife - I'm staying under the roofs of customers, and there's no way to slip into a some persona more comfortable when I get home - it's their home. It's way easier to adopt the one persona and and just live it.
A friend and mentor recently gifted me with a bootcamp run by Aussie public speaking guru Matt Church, www.thoughtleaders.com.au
I was surrounded by a room full of walking success stories, many on already stratospheric incomes with an eye on deep space. I know we've attended our fair share of motivational seminars and we probably agree we always get something out of them - at most, a cathartic change with no going back, at the very least, a shoulder rub by the registrant behind us, or a singed toe from a hot coal.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that authenticity raised its Zen-like head in this boot camp, and the notion of putting more 'being' rather than 'doing' into your work, letting water find its level rather than a lot of splashing around.
We heard a compelling account from a fireman, Peter Baines, who spoke of spending months at a time in the tsunami region helping reunite families with lost ones living or dead, using the money he raises from giving boot camp speeches to build orphanages. He faced a tough decision as to whether to heed the cries of his kids who 'missed
their daddy' and get on the first jet home, or stay and enable thousands take comfort that their lost relatives are now resting in peace in a place they can point to on a map.
We heard from a woman, Lorna, who does not allow her large physical size be an excuse to evade greatness. She knowingly nailed us all for thinking about her size while trying to listen to what she had to say, which immediately dissolved the problem. We were able to absorb her words of extreme wisdom without our judgmental infant distracting
us, an infant few would admit to.
Some may think it's 'woo woo' to do touchy feely courses but I've found it's never a waste of time, whether it's reading a half page of a self-help book for free in Borders or doing a spendy seminar. 'Breaks up the concrete' as one of my customers put it.
Right after I did the boot camp I had to negotiate on two assignments in the bicycle industry, an industry where people earn little and expect to pay even less for any kind of expertise.
The first assignment resulted in an all expenses paid door-to-door trip to Italy reporting on a tour, and the offer to be a part time evangelist for that tour company. The blog I produced as agreed is at http://www.bikefriday.com/italy/bai
The company wanted me to split the airfare with my employer and
other tour company - not an unreasonable request; there's no harm
in trying. After my initial gentle giantess reaction to enter into plea bargaining all round, I was able to tell them that they needed to feel really good about investing in me to do this work. That if the airfare was the problem, perhaps they should postpone my trip and channel their marketing budget into an alternative activity, and absolutely no offence would be taken on my part.
The result? They ended up paying for all my expenses door to door on this 5 star trip, and everyone is happy.
My second assignment was to be the keynote speaker at a major bicycle conference. Again, the committee wanted me to foot the airfare and speak for free - something I'd relish if I was able to. They wanted me to speak to 200 instructors on how
they could market their skills more effectively. Once again, the pang of being a good Samaritan rose its flower-wreathed head, for about 5 minutes.
I put it like this: how can you expect me to speak with authority to 200 people about being commercially successful, when I can't even get YOU to pay me for my expertise?
The result? They paid my expenses, and I think everyone was happy.
Even at the boot camp, I could tell that the core issue running through the mind of even very successful people is that deep seated question: am I good enough? Will you pay me to be my best?
They may have been dealing in tens of thousands where I was dealing in double and treble digit sums, but the feeling of needing to prove oneself, of not being sure, lurks in all of us at times, if not in business then in personal relationships and vice versa.
In all of the above examples I was being honest. The course enabled me not to manipulate or cajole, but really examine what true for me, and have the outcome be based on that. The breakthrough was being able to access my honesty rather than have have it obscured by the reflex action of always wanting to look good, to look right, appear bright and shiny at all times.
Trump probably has no problem being honest in his ad campaign, but you never know. We honestly can't tell for sure unless we sat down with him over a quesadilla and sussed him out. That's the honest truth.
What if someone asks you for a commitment and you're not quite up for it? Who hasn't churned with the obligation of overcommitting? Here's one way to tackle it: a friend told me that when she is asked to commit and cannot, she will say 'I like the idea, but I'd like to make a decision closer to the time, so if you need an answer now, it will have to be no.'
Closely aligned with honesty us being a person of your word. Things can still happen but with less stress - half truths rent valuable space in your brain, think about it. How many times that thing 'pops' into your mind.
The most successful man in Ireland, a real estate baron, was heard to say, 'I don't have a degree and I haven't read any of those management books. All my success has come from making decisions quickly, and being a man of my word.'
I'm forever working on the first part, the second ... just gets easier.
