Do You Judge the Book By the Cover?

Do you ever look at the way something looks and think, "That looks so lame. I would never want to use that or do that." This car was on I-5 on Friday. Pretty funny. It does catch the eye. As I looked at this I thought, "I would never call this guy to fix my computer. It just looks so cheap. It does not inspire confidence."





It could be that the guy is amazing, but what I see does not drive me to want to use him.

It made me think about how we present ourselves. What do people think about us based on what they see and experience? Do you lead people in any areas? Do they have confidence in you? Excellence tends to build confidence and trust in those we relate to and lead.

I'm not talking about what you wear. It's not the outside stuff. It's really what we do. For me it's returned phone calls, follow through, underpromising and overdelivering, keeping my word, owning my mistakes, consistently giving my best, etc. Is that how I live?

It's how I want to live. If I don't reply to phone calls consistently I know that people don't have confidence in me. If I don't follow through on my commitments I will have a reputation of being unreliable. If I underpromise and overdeliver, now that's a reputation I would like to have. I want to be worth more at my job than I am paid.

I guess I want to live my life with excellence. I want what I do to matter and when I do it I want to do it right.

What about you my dear bloggy friend? How do you live? What do people think of you? Do they trust you? Do they have confidence in you? Or do they like you but go to others for the important stuff?