(RV) Zelensky Suit Vs T-Shirt [0:00:00]
So, I saw this tweet the other day financial guru, Peter Schiff, “I understand times
are hard, but doesn’t the President of the Ukraine own a suit?
I don’t have a lot of respect for current members of the US Congress either, but I still
wouldn’t want to address them wearing a t-shirt.
I wouldn’t want to disrespect the institution or the United States.”
So, first up, Peter, it’s not the Ukraine, it’s just simply Ukraine or Ukrayina.
Second, you may have an understanding of finance, but when it comes to image and presentation
and sending a message, you don’t know jack [bleep sound].
[Music] Now, I’m not here to knock Peter and I see
his point of view.
If you’re going to be addressing the US Congress, if you’re going to be meeting
US President, you should probably dress up.
We see this all the time when people who have a normal uniform of let’s say they’re
professional athletes, they are college athletes, they go and they meet the president, guess
what?
They wear a suit.
Why?
Because a suit sends a signal of respect.
It’s pretty much the Western uniform.
You put this on, you’re here to do business, you’re here to show respect to other people
and they show it to you by dressing up as well.
That being said, Zelensky is a trained lawyer.
Yes, before he became a comedian before he became an actor, he actually went to law school.
He knows how to wear a suit.
He’s worn it many times and the guy actually looks pretty good whenever he does wear suit.
So, he knows how to wear this, why is he not?
Because as a trained lawyer, he understands the importance of controlling the frame.
Now, for those of you not familiar with this frame, the idea of controlling the frame is
controlling the way that you look at things.
Lawyers do this all the time.
Whenever they’re questioning someone, they’re talking with someone they ask questions in
a way that no matter how you answer it, they’re going to get what they want.
Whether you say yes or no, they put the, you know, the question in a way that you’re
either framing yourself or you set it up.
It’s making them look good.
They’re controlling the way that you see things.
And that, gentlemen, is exactly what Zelensky is doing here.
He is controlling, he is making sure that everyone that’s viewing him understands
he’s in a war zone.
He is not just simply at his cushy office surrounded by a lot of people that are just
there to do politics.
No.
He is there defending his country, you know, making his life he’s in danger and he’s
wearing clothing that is simple, practical, is the uniform of the day for him and everyone
around him.
And this is important because the audience who he’s speaking to is in many ways insulated.
They don’t even know where Ukraine is on a map.
Now, those of you guys over in Europe, you’re seeing the refugees come in.
We’ve actually have four people from Ukraine, family members that are now living with us.
I’ve gotten firsthand accounts.
I know what’s going on over there.
We’ve got tons of families we stay in touch with, but the majority of the representatives
in Congress, senators, even, you know, the US President, he’s actually been there.
But, it’s something that is a distance from them.
He wants this to become more intimate.
He wants them to understand that this is real.
That isn’t something just on a screen.
This is something that could affect them.
Now, the second reason he’s not wearing a suit is he wants to be relatable to his
own people.
So, like I said, I’ve got my two nephews, I have my sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law,
who just got to the United States in the last week.
For three weeks, they were without electricity, they didn’t shower, they were, you know,
had bombs going off around them.
They were in the war zone north of Kiev.
They managed after three tries to be able to escape.
They saw bodies on the side of the road.
They saw cars blown up.
I mean, civilians just like them that didn’t make it.
And, you know, these are people that were very distressed.
Everything they have in the world was in two small backpacks they brought with them.
And they’ve evacuated out of Poland, you have to go through Western Ukraine.
These are people that they watched this address and they, you know, you see a guy maybe that
showered is immaculate grooming, he’s going to see more detached.
He’s not like you because he hasn’t suffered.
But, when you see somebody with maybe a little bit of bloodshot eyes, somebody that’s wearing
a simple uniform that you saw other Ukrainian soldiers wearing.
Yes, he’s clean.
Yes, I know he’s not out there shooting a gun and, you know, that’s not the leader’s
job.
What this guy is doing is he’s inspiring and he’s showing his own people who, you
know, watch this and they are inspired when they watch this.
They are seeing somebody who is relatable, somebody who hasn’t left Kiev, somebody
that is still there, you know, in the danger zone actually standing up to an aggressor
and protecting their country.
And the third reason that Zelensky can get away with wearing a t-shirt or honestly whatever
the hell he wants because he’s transcended from being a politician to a legendary leader.
Now, some of you guys may not know the difference between a politician and a leader, so I’ll
explain it to you.
A politician is someone that’s just elected to a position, but there’s also a secondary
definition of someone who acts in manipulative or devious way typically to gain advancement
within organization.
Now, it can be argued that he was a politician before the war and he probably wasn’t a
very good one based off of the ratings talking to people in my family.
But, all of the Ukrainians I spoke with, they now view him as a leader as someone that they
would follow into combat and many of them I know are.
[0:04:59] And this is something that you can’t fake.
This is something that because the leader leads from the front.
A boss, someone that’s a manager oftentimes, they’re at the back with a whip telling
people what to do.
You’ve all had bosses like this that they never done the work.
They don’t even know how much it takes.
They don’t even know how to do the work.
But, a leader gets up there at the front.
He’s the one pulling at the very front and people line up behind him.
They know and they follow this leader because he’s willing to take the risks because he’s
putting himself out there.
And that’s where, you know, real leadership.
I know that’s something that we learned in the United States Marine Corps.
They were adamant about leading from the front.
Yes, there is the risk and many lieutenants have gone down many staff and COs have gone
down when, you know, corporals are right behind him.
And guess what?
Those corporals it’s not what you want to have happen, you know, no one wants to die,
but it is something that whenever it happens, it goes on to inspire and it becomes legend.
And notice I did say that he pretty much can wear anything.
I’m not going to advocate that he just wear a towel, but there was a great leader that
did, Mahatma Gandhi.
You look at, I mean he wore homespun.
This was a material he made himself.
It was a simple very classic Indian garment.
And why did he wear that?
Because it was a symbol, even when he went to meet world leaders.
And this is a guy that was a trained lawyer.
He was a barrister.
This was a guy that, you know, could wear a suit and look very good in a suit, but he
opted not to because he realized there was power in his presentation of being the simple
man of the people.
There’s a famous quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
It goes like this, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.”
Now, you may have heard that quote, but what you may be don’t know is the context.
It was actually meant to be a joke.
He had one character they were trying to get him to believe that another character had
fallen in love with him.
It was a complete, you know, play on words.
But, when I look at that and I look at someone like Zelensky, who started off as, again,
barrister, so he worked.
He had gone into comedy, so he literally was someone that people laugh at.
And then, you see how he achieved the presidency, he wasn’t doing super well.
And in fact, he probably would have gone down in history as someone that none of us would
remember.
Most people outside of Ukraine wouldn’t even have known about.
But, yet, I think because of the current events because greatness he’s been thrust into
this very difficult situation.
And unlike many other world leaders we’ve seen in the past, he isn’t backing away,
he isn’t jumping on an airplane and flying out with a whole bunch of money.
And that is something where something that I think we see people rallying around.
So, that gives him the ability to dress however he wants.
That becomes his uniform and I think he is paying attention to how he’s being perceived.
He understands that his job and this is, again, coming from someone that’s trained to be
up on stage.
He understands that his job is to inspire and that’s what great leaders do.
Now, if you’re interested in hearing more about my thoughts on his leadership style,
check out this video right here.
And I talk specifically about why I think President Zelensky of Ukraine is an amazing
leader.
And, you know, I made this video early on when everything started and it still holds
true.
So, guys, go check it out, it’s a good video.
I enjoyed putting it together.
Oh!
And Slava Ukraini. [0:08:00] End of audio