The Best Self-Help is Free: Creating an Effective Public Image

The key to successful self-promotion is not just being competent in all that you do, but also looking the part. In order to be perceived as credible and reliable by other people, it is not enough for you to have skills and virtues. You also need to present yourself as a skillful, virtuous person.

A simple case in point: a person who wears ragged jeans and a dirty T-shirt in public will be mistaken for being incompetent and having an apathetic attitude toward life - no matter how intelligent or productive he might actually be. A person who writes entirely in lowercase letters and without using punctuation will be dismissed as vulgar and uneducated, no matter how brilliant his insights.

On the other hand, a person who makes every effort to appear smart, professional, and productive will often be assumed to have these qualities at the onset. This assumption will not necessarily hold for all time - for a lack of genuine merits cannot be covered up by any kind of façade for long. If there is no substance behind the image, people will be quick to notice. But an image of competence serves as a gateway to the substance for most people. It gives those with whom one interacts the signal that one might possibly have something of value and quality to offer. Once you have people's eyes and ears, you can comfortably show them what you can do and further solidify your good image in their minds.

It is important to recognize that somebody with good skills and an image highly representative of competence is likely to encounter much greater success than someone with the best skills but a mismatched or incoherent image.

I remember in particular how essential cultivating an image of intelligence and respectability was in high school days. I was always a straight-A student in the most advanced classes available, but I was far from the quickest or the most skilled in mathematics. My high school had many students who emigrated from the Far East and whose cultural upbringing focused intensely on mathematics proficiency. I attended math tournaments with these students, and many times they outperformed me - although I did well enough for myself.

Many of my Far Eastern mathematician friends were genuinely good people, and their basic human qualities made association with them extremely worthwhile. They did not know, however, how to cultivate an image of consistently intelligent students. They did not dress in any way to distinguish themselves from many of their far more ignorant peers. They often engaged in behaviors typical of immature teenagers - making pointless noise, discussing less than tasteful tidbits of popular culture, displaying remarkably short attention spans, or just wasting time in many minutes or irresoluteness and indecision - in short, feigning their proximity to "the common man." I knew that these people were absolutely brilliant and much, much wiser in their understanding of the world than their behavior would suggest.

Why did the brilliant math students choose to act like the lowest common denominator, even though they knew better? Many explanations are possible. Perhaps they feared the unfortunate and rampant persecution that comes in public high schools to anybody who is "outed" as being smart and different. Perhaps the mob mentality got to them and they behaved much less rationally and sensibly in large groups than any of them would act individually. Perhaps they exhibited some cognitive dissonance between the tremendous organization and structure they displayed in their math work and the lack thereof in their public behaviors among their friends. I cannot look into their minds; I can only say that to an impartial observer who did not know them well, they would have appeared as typical students, rather than the hyper-intelligent and highly talented students they actually were.

I chose a different route. Having voraciously read history books from my early childhood, I was particularly fascinated with how virtually all the great people of the past managed to look the part. They - or at least the artists they hired to depict them - were able to portray many of their essential qualities simply through the clothes they wore, the objects they had, and even their facial features and expressions. Certain external attributes convey decisive messages to onlookers, such as "I am intelligent," "I am wealthy," or "I am influential." In eras when intelligence, wealth, and influence were not nearly as common as they are today, it was vitally important for the people who possessed these precious qualities to loudly advertise them wherever they went - lest they be mistaken for one of the peasants.

In our age, there are no more true peasants or proletarians. The lowest common denominator is higher now, so more people who are above it nevertheless feel comfortable with it. Virtually everyone in the First World is wealthy enough to live and dress like the aristocrats of old, and the conveniences to which our contemporaries have access are much greater than those the kings of the past enjoyed.

And yet, human psychology has not changed. Conveying effective signals regarding one's attributes and merits remains as vital as ever. If one dresses and acts like the majority of one's peers, then one will be treated as just one of that majority - and most groups of peers are unexceptional, immature, and fickle. I never wanted that for myself. If you want to accomplish beyond the average, you should not want that for yourself, either.

Early on in my academic career, I therefore decided to cultivate the image of an talented student as well as actually displaying the relevant skills. I did not change my hairstyle with the fashions and instead opted for a simple, classical style that would have been just as acceptable in the 19^th century as it is today. I grew a beard and mustache to appear older and more mature than my numerical age suggested.

I refused to wear T-shirts and blue jeans in public, as they were too commonplace and unremarkable for the impression I was trying to create. Instead, I always wore collared shirts and formal or semi-formal trousers. Over time, I added sweaters, sweater vests, ties, and suit jackets to my everyday attire. Not only did I manage to cultivate a serious, intelligent, no-nonsense appearance; I was also able to save a lot of money compared to what I would have spent had I dressed like my peers. A $50 suit jacket is a far more effective signaling mechanism than a flimsy, deliberately worn $200 Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. And yet the latter is priced so much more highly because too many people today demand items that enable them to fit in rather than to stand out. Oddly enough, I acquired a reputation for being fairly stylish, even though I resolutely refused to follow ever-changing fashion trends and instead opted for a look of timeless formality.

Behavioral habits contributed to my image as well. For instance, I refused to engage in any kind of horseplay, pranks, vulgar jokes, or humor at others' expense. I kept my humor in good taste, confined to either innocuous puns or satire along the lines of Voltaire. I abstained from ephemeral popular slang and did not curse - except when I used the infamous curse, "rabbitskins," that I made up in order to mock all curses. I sprinkled my conversations with references to my favorite music - virtually all of it classical - and to great scientists, philosophers, and economists. Instead of just learning academic subjects to pass the tests and get good grades, I earnestly tried to apply them to my own life and to involve them in my discussions with others. If any of my interests or behaviors seemed to require justification, I never said, "I do it because it's fun" or "I don't know why I do it." I always had a rational explanation ready and would refuse to engage in any non-mandatory activity without being told why it would be beneficial for me to do so. I developed habits of composure and intense focus. Unlike most of my peers, I was actually able to sit calmly and quietly and to work or develop ideas while others acted rambunctiously and were making intense, seemingly random noise around me. I refrained from small talk - to the point that I either never learned or forgot how to engage in it. I only spoke when I believed I had something of substance to say - but when I did speak, I could adhere to a single thread of conversation for hours without wearying.

People noticed that I was different and that I was highly intelligent and accomplished. But I was surprised that I obtained a greater reputation for intelligence and accomplishment than many of my Far Eastern peers who outperformed me in math competitions. Often, their proficiencies in one discipline or another were recognized, but when conversations turned to who the best students in the school were, my name inevitably came up first. Whenever there was a group project or school-wide team competition, many people expected the team which had me on it to get the best results, well in advance of the actual event taking place. I often had far more doubts regarding my team's prospects than they.

My reputation, though, was not just a pleasant afterthought. It served a vital defensive function for me, as my libertarian streak often got me into serious disagreements with teachers and administrators, who were less than tolerant of views so far out of the left-liberal mainstream as mine. But I was never punished to any truly detrimental extent, despite my dissenting ideas having angered many people. If and when I was given a punishment, it was either just a stern warning or a substantial mitigation of the official penalty - more of a slap on the wrist than a genuine setback. Everyone knew that I was a good student and a vital asset to the school, and the administrators and I seemed to have an implicit understanding that I would do my best to secure the school's good name by performing well in classes and extracurricular competitions, and in return my role as an intellectual gadfly would be largely overlooked. I graduated from high school at the top of my class, tied for that honor with one other student, who also tended to cultivate a reputation as a respectable, mature, hard-working person.

Think about the merits you possess and what kind of image would be most conducive to expressing them. What attributes of your personality and skills do you want people to notice? In what ways do you want them to approach you?

In an era when virtually everyone is materially comfortable, the issue of class has ceased to be one of how much money or family status one has, and has rather become an issue entirely open to individual choice. No matter what your financial or social background, you can choose the class to which you belong by the ways in which you dress, speak, work, and behave in public. Your manner of acting in all ways that are open to choice is what will determine how effectively you will be able to promote yourself in the areas where you desire to advance.

Read all chapters of The Best Self-Help is Free.