Confidence

T's VIEW
For a number of years now, I've been watching the way people walk, and I love to imitate the walk of one of our office beauties as she sashays across the room here at T-Views—the girl with so much oomph, all people have to say to describe her is "the very pretty one" and you know who they're talking about. Now, there are many pretty girls at T-Views, but none of them has the same confident, lilting walk that "the very pretty one" has, and it got me thinking—does the walk contribute to the "prettiness" or does the prettiness contribute to the walk? I've seen people who could be knock-outs but weren't because of the way they carried themselves; and I've seen people who would be considered average except that they carried themselves so regally, they convinced the rest of the world that they were better than average. Try it yourself—walk like a schlep and see if you don't feel like one; then throw your shoulders back, hold your head up high and walk tall, with a little chutzpah — see if you don't feel the difference. Sometimes even the shoes you wear make a difference. I notice when I wear the flat, bulky boots I bought in a discount store, I feel flat and bulky; but when I wear the more stylish boots I bought in one of the better shoe stores in town (on sale, of course) I feel like a different person. It's surprising how much your "step" has to do with your general outlook and the image you present to the world. Take the Rock star, Michael Jackson, for instance. His phenomenal success has a lot to do with the way he moves; "nobody moves like Jackson" is how he's described. If you tried putting any other young person in "highwaters" (pants that don't quite reach the shoe, allowing the socks to show, for those of you who don't have teenagers around), what you'd have is one very unhappy youngster, yet Jackson can carry it off flamboyantly because of the motion he puts into his every step. If I tried to put my kids in anything but long-enough jeans and the right brand of sneakers, they'd swear I was out to humiliate them in front of their peers.(If only I could make them understand that it's not so much what's on your frame but your frame of mind that makes the difference.) - Another example of what a difference a walk can make was made pretty obvious on a TV show I saw not long ago. A member of the audience was chosen to model a dress worn by Linda Evans of the TV series "Dynasty." They purposely picked someone approximately the size and coloring of the famous TV star, but even though the gown fit the girl picked from the audience perfectly, which was an accomplishment in itself, when she walked across the stage, in no way did she do for the dress what Linda Evans did, mainly because she had a whole different way of carrying herself. I guess what I conclude from these observations is that if you want to FEEL confident, you have to WALK confident! (Purists may substitute the word "confidently.")
*Terri the Typesetter
T-Views Week of February 26, 1984