A Sharp Dressed Man - Why men should care about personal appearance - fashion style
advice
Hi.
Iím Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
And today I'm going to be talking about the importance of being a sharp dressed man.
This video is in support of an article that I wrote about being, you know, sharp dressed.
And so Iím just going to go point by point.
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subscribe to our YouTube channel, right above here.
And if you want to follow, go check out the article in which Iím going through a lot
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and visit our website, realmenrealstyle.com where we have a lot of great information.
Okay.
So let me go ahead and jump right into this.
Why is it important to pay attention to your appearance?
Why be a sharp dressed man?
Well, especially when you look around, I actually just read an email today of -- a guy emailed
me and he is like, ìHey, everyone in my college class, none of them dressed sharp.
I am an older student though so my big concern about is should I be dressing a bit nicer
or should I dress down to the way everyone else is dressed?î
And this got me thinking, you know.
Dressing sharp, it doesnít matter how old you are.
It doesnít really matter what situation youíre in.
I think taking pride in your appearance is important, whether you are a blue-collar worker,
youíre a white-collar worker, youíre a student, youíre a 75-year-old retiree.
In any case, I want to make a split-second decision about you, whenever I first meet
you, before I talk.
Because if you think about it, most people we see on a daily basis, we donít talk to.
We pass by them but we still make judgments about them.
Because if you see a guy and he looks like he is, you know, he is waving his arms around,
heís dressed like a homeless person, and he just gives the physical sign that, you
know, he looks like a homeless or a drunk person or someone thatís on drugs, youíre
going to get out of the personís way.
And unless you a death wish or something.
But you know, most of the time, we look at somebody, we make snap decisions.
We have ideas in our mind of what a bank president looks like or what a skater looks like or
what a professional athlete looks like.
And if we ever meet somebody and they kind of go against that grain, itís a bit surprising.
And you know, we are oftentimes a little bit, you know, hesitant to believe that this person
whoís dressed like this could really be this.
Because we have this preset notions of what someone in a certain, you know, type of, you
know, area of society looks like.
So why handicap yourself?
Why put yourself in a position of having to work your way up?
Why not start at the top, dress sharp and then you know, people, you know, ìOh, youíre
a student but you dress like a professional.
I would have thought you worked here in the Marketing Department.
You looked just so sharp.î You know, thatís much better than for someone who say, ìHey,
can you point me to someone who works here?
Oh, youíre the president.î I guess if youíve reached a certain area in success you can
do that.
But for most of us, we need to pay attention to our appearance.
So my article was broken up into two parts - how dressing sharp affects you and how dressing
sharp affects others.
So let me talk about the three ways that dressing sharp affects you.
So whenever you dress sharp, thereís a bit of a transformation effect.
And this can best be illustrated by a quick story.
So the FBI did a study and they took two different groups of agents.
They put them in two separate rooms.
They gave them the same problem.
And both groups came up with entirely different scenarios of how they would rescue the hostage,
that was the actual problem.
And the only thing that changed, and this was done doing number of random samples, was
the way that they dress them.
One, they were dressed in suits and they choose to negotiate.
The other group, they dressed in combat gear.
And guess what they decided to do?
To rush and to go in and to forcibly, you know, free the, you know, the hostages.
So you think about how -- what you wear oftentimes dictates how youíre going to behave.
I mean if Iím dressed sharp, Iím gong to behave a certain way.
If Iím dressed to, like you know, like Iím going to go in and I want to be a demolition
guy destroying a building, Iíve got another type of attitude.
When I put on my steel-toe boots versus my, you know, my dress shoes that are made from
really delicate leather.
And itís not saying that you know -- basically Iím just getting across the point.
There is a transformation effect.
So if youíre not feeling good, -- the women know this, they actually donít dress sharp
whenever theyíre not feeling great, because they know that dressing better, dressing you
know, to a higher degree oftentimes kind of forces them to feel a little bit better.
Now, self-discipline.
This is something where, if youíre going to dress sharp, you need to have the discipline
to make sure that your wardrobe is going to work.
Itís pretty easy to dress bad.
I mean, you donít have to pay any attention at anything and just throw any clothing on
your body.
But if youíre going to dress sharp,
Öyou have to plan ahead.
The night before you need to make sure your shirts are ironed, that your suits are pressed
or that you know, if youíre simply going to wear a clothing, that it fits you.
And Iím talking more for, you know, in a casual realm, polo shirts, shorts, sandals.
If youíre going to be wearing those, you know, you can wear that and you can look sharp
or you can wear that and you can look bad.
Usually the difference is, the guy that look sharp, heís wearing very similar clothing
but heís making sure that it fits him, that itís clean, that itís free from stains.
Little things like that make a huge difference.
And thatís self-discipline.
The other thing is appreciation and respect.
So if you dress sharp, youíre going to pay attention to how other people are dressing
sharp and youíre going to appreciate that because you know how much work it is and how
much you have to pay attention to detail in order to get that type of appearance.
Youíre probably going to, you know, look at perhaps your wife or your girlfriend, and
youíre going to realize that, ìWow.
She does put quite a bit into how she dresses.î
And Iím not saying that you know, dressing sharp, Because if you look at, you know, some
of the top militaries in the world, look the British Special Forces, United States Special
Forces, you meet with the professional soldier, what does he pay attention to?
His uniform, his gear because he realizes a lot depends on that.
And itís a simple reflection of who he is and pride in how he dresses.
So how does your appearance affect others?
Well, there is a lot to be said about the power of visuals.
Simply look at, you know, if youíre in a red sports car, what do we all know about
red sports cars?
Theyíre more likely to get pulled over.
Simply because they are more likely be caught driving fast, people take notice of the red
sports care versus a blue Corvette or a black Corvette or a white Corvette.
So red is a color that weíre drawn to.
I mean if a woman walks into a room and sheís wearing -- or a man walks in room, I donít
want to appear statutory thing -- but Iím going to use a woman example.
She walks in a red dress into a bar.
What do we all look at?
Boom!
We are attach to her.
Now, if she comes in dressed in colors which do not just draws to them, then that makes
sense.
I mean, think about weíre like bees, weíre like animals.
A bee is drawn to a flower because of ñ Iím sure there is botanist here or some etymologist
that study with bugs, theyíre going disagree but my understanding is itís something to
do with the color spectrum of the flowers, and the shape, and all of that which draws
the insect to it.
And weíre the same way.
And believe it or not other men, if you can give yourself a very masculine, healthy look,
other men want to work with you.
They want to learn from you.
They want to be around you.
And thatís not a bad thing in business.
Itís not a bad thing at all because we donít want to be around sickly people or people
that in a sense, give off a feeling of ñ an isolation type of feel.
We want to be around people who attract us, who naturally weíre drawn to and make us
feel good, whether youíre a man or a woman.
All right.
First impressions.
Very important, you want to set the best on first impression.
Because first impressions are formed before you open your mouth.
People look at you and they make a quick snap judgment.
And whether that be a high one or a low one, youíre set there.
And itís almost like cement.
And it takes a lot of effort and force to move it up or to move it down.
So why not start up?
All right.
The power of color, Iíve already talked about patterns.
Now, patterns can have the effect of actually making a short man look taller or a wide man,
you know, look a little bit thinner.
Patterns you know, you go with a solid monochromatic look, itís going to allow the eyes to go
up and down.
Itís going to give you a taller, slimmer look.
Thatís something you want.
All right.
Influence and authority.
So I was kind of hinting at this.
But we have an idea in our mind of what a manager, what a business owner, what a successful
person looks like.
Whatever that picture maybe in your mind, think about, you know, mixing your individual
style and go for it.
I mean, yes there are exceptions to the rule, yes Tony Hawk doesnít dress like a multi-millionaire
and the CEO of an amazing brand.
But that is a unique case.
But every ñ even the guys ñ but Tony Hawk, he still ñ he still brands himself.
He still pays attention.
He still wears the kind of clothing that represents the lifestyle that he represents.
That is style.
Whatever your walk in life, pay attention to it and, you know, make sure that you are
crafting that and you are having the influence with your clothing that you want before you
even open your mouth.
And the last thing, you know, positive assumptions.
And this is tied closer to everything I talk about, you know.
You want people to have aÖ
Öpositive first impression.
Because once they cement that positive first impression, youíre given a lot of leeway,
you can do and have a lot of mistakes, you know.
The opposite is that you create a negative first impression.
And then whenever you can ñ if you screw up or you have a small mistake, people say,
ìOh, well.
That just reinforces what I initially thought.î And thatís not what you want.
So the importance of being a sharp dressed man is that your appearances are incredibly
important, more important in a first meeting than what you say.
Because so many times you donít get a chance to say anything or people are, you know, theyíre
just paying attention to all these other visuals and really paying attention to how you dress.
Itís a small thing that you can do.
You can control that.
You canít control, you know, peopleís stereotypes.
You canít control peopleís backgrounds and what theyíre going to think, except you can
control what they think about, you know, you based off with how you dress.
They at least, you know, will respect that.
Okay.
this has been Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style.
Again, if youíve enjoyed this, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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