Dressing up at work

  

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I've decided to dress a little nicer at work lately.

It wasn't any particular thing that did it, but more like a confluence of events within a few days that pushed me over the edge.

First, I heard or saw something about "Dress for Success", a book that shows and tells you how to dress better to get ahead.  Then I listened to Brian Tracy's excellent "Success Mastery Academy" audiobook in which he mentions how important it is to dress for success and recommends the same book.  Finally, I got a few compliments at work when I wore a nicer button-down shirt with khakis (instead of my usual jeans and polos).  That did it.  I decided to take the plunge.  It's the beginning of a new year, the company is starting to really take-off, and I wanted to make a subtle statement about how we're changing gears and stepping up in the world.

With new book in hand (Image Matters for Men: How to Dress for Success! - an awesome book with lots of full-color pictures that tells you which colors and styles you should be wearing for your skin color, build, etc.), my wife and I headed off to the mall.  Far too much money later, I now have a pretty nice new wardrobe.  I've decided to jump straight from jeans and polos to dress slacks and sports coats, reserving dockers for casual Fridays.

I know it's a pretty strange thing to do, especially coming from an extremely casual guy like myself, but I really do like the feeling I get from putting the time and energy into my appearance and looking nice.  The psychological impact on me and the sociological impact it's had on others has already made it worthwhile.  It's just like Brian Tracy says in the book, make internal improvements to impact the world around you, but the reverse also works.

Mark Cuban wrote about this topic recently in his blog entry, "Why I Don't Wear a Suit and Can't Figure Out Why Anyone Does !".  I agree that imposing a stringent dress code on people is generally a bad idea, but in this case, I made the change purely voluntarily.  That's really the whole point.  If it were forced on me, I'd be far more likely to rebel than to change gracefully.  But by simply walking into work one day having already made the change mentally, I've been able to get some significant results in a very short period of time.  More on that in the future.

BTW, did I mention I'm also starting to replace my buzz cut with "real" hair?