It’s ALL in The Presentation!

I recently went to a school science fair. It was very interesting to say the least. There were so many interesting things to be learned. The strange thing is that I would start reading the data and find myself getting stuck on misspellings and crooked pages taped improperly to the poster board and would lose interest. For some reason, I found the data to be secondary to the presentation. I continued my pattern as I walked from exhibit to exhibit…look, scan, look for errors, don’t read the data, move on…I chose the winner as though I had read them. The one I had picked due to its design had apparently won for content too. Go figure!

Growing up, my father was an artist. We never bought anything with a cardboard sign with the words “4-sale” on it. It didn’t matter how nice the car or the bike would be behind the sign, we would always pass it by. There is something to be said for considering that there is value in things that are stuck behind a rough exterior and we likely bought some lemons in our day…BUT…I contend that it’s still all in the person’s ability to present their product. Whether it is a car, a boat, scientific data, or a person with a kind heart…it is all the same. It’s an innate instinct in human nature to choose what looks the best.

People who take time to groom themselves and wear the “right” outfit appear more “successful” and therefore become more successful. A man with a straggly beard and a tattoo will come off like a slacker with no future even if he has a PhD? Come to think of it, I think I’ve known people like that. I have a feeling it was a game they were playing though. They were definitely smart enough to know that people’s perception of them would be far off base. Maybe that was part of the “educated” man’s challenge. Maybe those guys were trying to see who would look past the outer layer and look for a deeper meaning? Probably…isn’t that what the job of a PhD is? But I still can’t say that the straggly beard and tattoo would ever make it through my first once over. I would likely move on to the one who wore the suit and dressed as though he thought he was the president of the united states! (Of course then I’d be sure he was an idiot! Who the heck would want that job?)

So are we missing out by not going out with the guy who can’t spell or the girl who can’t seem to run a brush through her hair?…Is it the same reason that so many guys want really young girls without any life skills or thoughts other than to brush their hair?…Probably! But what can we do about it? If those things are important to us, they will dictate our first impression! Personally, I find it important to dress nicely and do my hair. I try my hardest not to let myself be seen selling a good product with a bad sign out in the yard in front. I’m sure there are people who want the beaten down old shoe with a million dollars stuffed in the toe. Maybe the project with the misspellings had the best data?…don’t know…I didn’t read it.