Читать книгу The Female Leader - Sonja Becker - Страница 39

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s soon as you walk out onto the business playing field, you lose your diffidence. As soon as you stand up for your mission, other people will regard you in a new light.

Listen to how others regard you, what they say about you. That is your personal image. Make it into a distinct brand before others label you with it. What character do you want to play? What costume goes with it? And what part do you want to play on the business stage? You still have freedom of choice. Your image is the one thing by which other people can read your intention. One can tell from your clothes whether you are going to get milk or going to a business meeting – at least, hopefully. Your style, and we are not just talking about your clothes, has to correspond to your advised target group, to your customers and business partners. This style (not style in the sense of fashion, thank you) is your manner, your native wit, your sense of humor, your character – whatever makes you unique. You discover your own nature when you let yourself be who you are. Only when all affectation is put aside and you are completely relaxed (without prosecco) can you look at yourself calmly in the mirror. There you are. With a bit of luck you are the person that you know rather than the stranger who greets you with, “Hello, do we know each other?”

You radiate the image that you have. It is the direct projection of your intentions or un-intentions. If you want to be successful, this image will galvanize others to work with you.

That doesn’t mean that your present image is already the appropriate one. Find it by trial and error, and don’t play the prima donna, an unrecognized goddess on earth, at whose feet everything should lie. The more natural and relaxed you become the more honest and stable your business will be. You notice this from the magnetism you have. You radiate energy from which others can create. And that will pay off when you are dealing with selling. So cultivate an image that you want to live and that is you. If you are not yourself, you attract the wrong people. If you have customers whom you can’t stand, who are not “your type” at all, you can feel how much effort and nerves it costs.

Pretending is the wrong way. And everything that you do will not only grow stunted, but also go in the wrong direction.