If you can’t be seen, you don’t exist
Last weekend, I went to a school reunion. What fun! We have all got to an age now where all the traumas of life have been dealt with. There was nothing but joy in the room.
That was until they showed the school photos on the big screen!
Now I remember at school, there was a stage where I was way too groovy to bother turning up for school pictures. I was, no doubt, too busy playing with the rubbish lid or doing some other unsavoury activity. Free spirit, man!
Well, guess what? I’m watching the screen and I’m not in a single photo where I belonged.
I’m not in the prefects’ picture; I’m not in the A grade netball photo, nor the athletics photo, nor the swimming, nor the lifesaving photos. Believe me. I was in all those groups! I was a goal shooter for 5 years in that lousy team, and I had to go through a stupid initiation ceremony in a white dress to be a prefect, and there were hundreds and hundreds of sports practice hours, and I’m not there in the photos!
But you have the right to question it, because unless we drag through long destroyed records, there is no proof (OK, should the history police arrive, I still have my school blazer pocket in a box somewhere with the evidence embroidered!)
I bemoaned the mistake to the people around me and they really could not remember and didn’t care. Guess what, Louise? To the rest of the world, you didn’t exist. If you ain’t in the photos, you were not there, and therefore, you never were.
A prospective client rang this morning. After a magnificent corporate career, she is starting her own consultancy and recognises that a critical part of her business will be to get out and be seen. She will need to present, do panels, appear on TV, podcasts and videos and attend lots of meetings. In doing that, she needs to know what she is doing.
I reflect on the Roman Emperors, whose primary responsibility was to be seen in public.
They then had the rhetorical skills to get out and deliver.
As a leader you can not ignore the facts. You have to be seen and you have to be heard, and I propose, even touched, to exist to the people around you.
I have rectified the photo above, and I’ll leave you with a tip from the head of the Conservatorium of Music when I studied there. His tip for success in the music industry was simple:
“TURN UP, AND TURN UP ON TIME!”
Let me hear your thoughts.
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