You are one whole person who wants to live a great life and make an impact in a career that you love. Today's podcast is an example of a small step toward your goals – one that can have BIG benefits in the long run. The simple act of cleaning out your closet, in the way I am going to teach you, will have many benefits to your career, no matter what field your dream job is in!

Takeaways:

• Women in leadership positions within various organizations have discovered a community that supports their authentic performance at the executive level.
• Today's episode emphasizes the significant impact of organizing one's wardrobe, which can lead to increased confidence and streamlined daily routines.
• The act of decluttering one's closet not only saves time but also alleviates decision fatigue, allowing for greater focus on important tasks.
• I encourage listeners to embrace their true selves by eliminating clothing that no longer fits or contributes positively to their self-image.
• A well-organized wardrobe can drastically improve your morning routine, enhancing both personal and professional productivity.

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Transcript

Hi, I'm Tammy.

The purpose of the Tammy Knoll show is to give high achievers actionable content to propel themselves to senior leadership while living a balanced life.

Women leading within corporations and government organizations who want to perform with authenticity at the senior executive level have found their community. Do not underestimate the power of today's topic.

It might seem simple, but if you go through the steps in this episode, you'll definitely feel a sense of relief and accomplishment when you look in your closet.

But more importantly than that, you'll realize some surprising benefits that will powerfully set you up to succeed in your career, including a few that you probably haven't considered. You know that I believe you are one whole person. You're a person who wants to live a great life, and you also want to make an impact in your career.

A career that you love.

Today's podcast is going to serve the complete you Besides refreshing your life vision and updating your annual goals, one thing you can choose to love about a new year is how it feels so fresh and new. It seems like so much is possible. It's like you have a new blank slate ready to create whatever it is you've been dreaming of.

This episode is just an example of one small step toward your goals, but it's one that can have really big benefits in the long run.

This, the simple act of cleaning out your closet in the way that I'm going to teach you will have many benefits to your career, such as you'll be able to streamline this part of your life. When you get ready in the morning, it'll be so fast and easy.

You know when you go to your closet and you open it up and then things are kind of everywhere. Maybe you have an area for your work clothes and an area for your at home wardrobe, but things are kind of mixed between the two.

Depending on who hung up the laundry, maybe there's some things in a basket. You have your scarves in a drawer. You have your drawer jewelry kind of in several different places.

You probably have a jewelry box, maybe they're hanging up. Or maybe you take your earrings off and lay them on top of the dresser or whatever, I don't know. But so things aren't exactly organized.

They're kind of a little bit everywhere. Maybe you have belts, maybe you have a lot of things you never wear at all. And so this is an example I'm talking about.

So you go to the closet and there's probably only like 15 things that you really want to wear, but you have a Hundred things staring at you. And so then you have to decide. And just that act of flipping through clothes, you can spend 4, 5, 10 minutes easily doing that.

But if you take the steps in this podcast, you're going to get that down to just a couple minutes. And that'll be just one way to save time. Another benefit is you'll feel extremely confident in everything you wear.

Do you have some of your clothes that you really want to love, but when you put them on, you kind of mess with them? You don't feel right, they don't really fit.

You don't really know which layers go with which jackets or which pair of pants looks best with whichever shoes or boots. This is what I'm talking about. That you have probably some ideas of the perfect outfit, but you're actually missing a few pieces.

And it would be better if you just had this one different undershirt. It would make a humongous difference in the way you felt in this overall outfit. That's what I'm talking about.

If you go through the steps in this episode, you will feel confident in everything you're wearing. And then what happens when you feel confident is you portray confidence to others without even thinking about it.

You know, this is what I'm trying to do by streamlining, improving your confidence with. With no effort at all, you're going to start coming off as much more confident to other people. And then decision fatigue will be reduced.

So you can save your brain power for way more important things than what you're going to wear. Another benefit is you'll clean up your mind about who you are today. This will really get you focused on who you are, who you are at home. Yes.

And who you are at work and how you want to come across. And including if you're teleworking, we'll talk about that.

So there's a high potential you out there that you are heading toward, and that's what we need to get focused on. And what does she wear? That's what we wanna focus on.

And then this is just one example of improving one area in your life that will make a positive impact on other areas in your life. In this case, your career and your family life.

Because if your morning is streamlined, if things are simple, your entire morning is gonna be better, which is definitely gonna have a positive impact on your family. And then overall, you're gonna come across like you have it all under control.

Okay, so the homework I have for you today after we're off this episode is to go ahead and clean out your Closet, clean out your dresser, any place, accessories like scarves, jewelry, undergarments, shoes, handbags, whatever. We're going to really dig deep into that work. But first I want to talk to you about executive presence.

I talk about executive presence a lot, and I actually have talked to a few people in my own life, and they say things to me like, well, I don't want to be an executive. So what I realized is people don't really know what executive presence means.

Executive presence is not just your clothes, although they are one important piece of.

According to Suzanne Bates, who's the author of the book all the Leader your Can Be, executive presence is the ability of the leader to engage, align, inspire, and move people to act. See, that didn't say anything about clothes.

And Sylvia Ann Hewitt, the author of the book titled Executive Presence, she defines it as a measure of image, whether you signal to others that you are star material.

She goes on to say, if you're able to crack the executive presence code, you'll be the first in line for that next plum assignment, and you'll be given the chance to do something extraordinary with your life. Even though she uses the word image in her definition, she also does not only mean clothes. Image can be a lot of things.

Image will mean your clothes if your clothes distract other people. But image includes how you speak, how you hold yourself, the confidence, the energy. It includes a lot of things.

And you can read her book to see what she means.

So the average person probably does think that executive presence means the way you dress or your ability to give a speech or presentation to a large group. But it is so much more than that.

If all you do is dress the way you believe an executive should dress at your workplace, and you don't do anything else about that, you're probably going to come off as fake. Executive presence is a lot more than your outward appearance. That's why it's so important.

In Sylvia Ann Hewitt's book Executive Presence, she believes that executive presence can be divided into three main headings, gravitas, communication, and appearance. And then Susan Bates breaks down her executive presence into three broad categories. Character, substance, and style.

So even though appearance and style are just one portion, it is one thing we're going to focus on today. And another thing I want to say about executive presence.

Even if you don't want to be an executive, having executive presence will still open up the world for you.

If people believe you can communicate with broadly up and down your chain of command, if you can hold yourself and conduct yourself in a way that your company is proud to send you out into the world.

And if you can manage broad, complex issues in a very calm manner, then people are going to start thinking that you do have executive presence and what that will do for you. It could get you promotions, including the promotion you want. It will also open up opportunities for new experiences, for new innovative challenges.

And if you think you want some sort type of education or you want type of some type of experience that your business only allows for a few people, then having executive presence, meaning having it all together, being in control, that is going to increase your chances that your company will believe you should be one of the people to have that opportunity. So it doesn't have to be that you literally want to be a CEO or a COO or a cfo. You don't have to be part of the executive team.

It could just mean that you are presenting yourself as a leader and then what I know it's the best leader leaders who often get the opportunities to do some of the really extraordinary things in the workplace. So that is why this is important. So this homework from this episode is going to give you a quick change.

This is one thing that you have complete control over and one place you can make major improvements in your life within one single day. The way you dress at work and the clothes you wear send non verbal signals about who you are.

You may have heard that you need to dress for the position you want, not the position you have. And the reason for this is, is because people take in so much of the information they process through their sense of sight.

So if you want to be seen as a person who's ready for a bigger role, who's ready to be seen as a leader of large divisions, departments, or even executive leadership, you definitely need to be productive.

You need to think strategically, you need to improve your emotional intelligence and you need to grow your ability to move groups of people toward a vision. Still, you could do all of that.

There's so much education about diversity, inclusion, and it's opened the door for women of various cultures to come and work in a beautifully authentic way. And I think that's only going to get better.

And this is one of the main reasons we need you, the gorgeous, powerful, amazing woman that you are, to rise within your organization so that you can bring a new understanding, new Policies, including expectations about what appearance and dress is accept acceptable within your workplace.

Keeping all this in mind, when I talk about what the appearance portion of executive presence means for you, I mean for you as a woman with the ability to celebrate your cultural norms while ensuring you see and understand what's appropriate for the organization you want to lead in. You need to find ways to rock your unique characteristics and at the same time do so in a way that's basically in alignment with your organization.

As I'm sitting here talking to you today, I'm thinking that there are other ways to lead within an organization and that if the expectations for appropriate, appropriate dress in your organization seem to exclude or unfairly hinder a certain gender, race or culture, you could choose to push the boundaries. You can lobby for policy change. Educate your leadership.

Make sure that when you're educating your leadership that you use strong references and metrics often. That's the way that very senior leaders hear things.

You need to bring it to senior leadership in a way that explains to them why what you're suggesting will actually improve the business.

It'll improve retention, it'll bring in better people, it'll drive up sales, it'll increase the value your organization is able to bring to the world, et cetera. This is one way to have a positive impact that will ripple outward and create a more inclusive organization.

So also due to the COVID pandemic and all the teleworking, it's quite possible that things have changed within your organization. So you might now, rather than actually standing up in front of people providing presentations, you might be in zoom calls frequently.

And then in this case, think of your executive presence has not only what you're wearing to show up on camera and what's appropriate for your organization, but also think about your background in your zoom call. Make sure that it's well lit, organized, fairly quiet. You need to consider your executive presence even as you prepare to join a video call.

It sounds, I know that people might make fun of some of that, but it's actually, you can actually ruin your career by how you show up on a video call. So just think of that. And you can also present yourself as somebody that has it all together by the way you show up. So it's up to you.

Okay, so take everything I said so far into consideration and when you're thinking about where you work or where you want to work and kind of what your dream position or dream job is. The appropriate attire and style of your clothing will be somewhat unique to you.

So one thing I'm definitely not going to tell you today is exactly what you should wear. You know who you are, you know what makes you comfortable, and you know where you're heading.

So get a vision of how you think you should dress to be the most powerful, confident version of yourself leading others at work. So think about it. Can you picture yourself leading in the way you imagine yourself to be leading? Do you have that vision set?

I think I've talked about this before, but whether you are in the financial district of New York City or if you are in Silicon Valley, or if you are working in a school system or a government organization, all of this can be completely different. So you know your situation, get your vision set, and when you're ready, then let's go on to the rest of the episode. Oh, wait.

I do have one more thing I want to say before you start pulling your clothes out. This is going to be kind of minor to everything else I said, but it's going to make a big difference because you see this every day at work.

Be honest with yourself. Do you have a favorite shirt or a pair of pants or something that really do not fit you anymore? Do they look aged or out of style?

I know it's really hard to give up that favorite piece, but especially if you wear something a lot, it's going to eventually wear out and look aged. Even if you send it to the dry cleaners, Know when it's time to let that piece of clothing go and just let it go. You'll feel so much better.

Did you happen to gain the COVID 19 happened to a lot of people. So keep in mind that you're going to look so much better if you wear clothes that fit you well.

If you gained a bunch of weight and you try to wear the old clothes, you're going to feel horrible, you're going to look messy. You're not going to rock your best self. This goes for military uniforms, too.

When you gain too much weight and your uniforms are busting in the seams, it's time to get new uniforms. You will look so much better.

If you're really serious about losing weight, like really serious about it, then you can hold onto those pieces for a little while. But if you're like, well, what, I might lose weight eventually, just let them go. Let them go. Be who you are today. Love who you are.

Rock it and go out into the world. Just make sure you have clothing that actually fits you. And then go out into the world. World and be who you are.

Okay, so let's get to the steps of what we're gonna do today. First thing, take all the clothes out of your closet. Yes. Take everything out.

I promise you, today's episode will not have the same effect if you try to clean it out piece by piece.

If you have a huge closet or you have items stored across multiple closets, you might have to take a couple days to do this challenge, but take it all out, wherever it is. Okay, so the second step is make sure you have large bags or bins handy to capture all the things you're going to donate to Goodwill.

If they're in really bad condition, they probably need to just discarded completely. Put them in the trash. Okay. Number three, commit to yourself that you're going to get rid of anything that is one of these following things.

If it doesn't fit you anymore, it's either too big or too small, as we mentioned. Don't say, I'm, I'm going to lose the weight or, what if I gain the weight back? No, just let it go. Be who you are. Be ready for who you'll be.

No more holding on to past things that are weighing you down. Just be the you who's ready to take on the world right now. Today. Get rid of anything that you have to fidget with when you're wearing it.

Shirts that slip off your shoulder V necks that you always adjust, skirts that are just a little bit too short, and you're always pulling on the back of them to make sure they're down. If you have anything like that that you're constantly having to adjust, you will not be comfortable.

You'll be self conscious, and you will not look confident and in control. Let them go.

Also, get rid of anything that, considering where you work and the amount of gravitas you've earned, if there's anything that's reducing your credibility that you wear, let it go. Be honest with yourself. Maybe it's just a simple thing of moving them from the work wardrobe to the free time wardrobe. May.

There's just a certain amount of things that these things I'm no longer going to wear to work, and you make that decision today and you move them to a different part of your closet. You can have flair and you can show your personality. In fact, that is a must.

Just make sure you do it in a way that's authentically you but doesn't distract others so that the real you has a chance to shine through. Another way to decide what to get rid of is I like to go all Marie Kondo on my things. Seriously, try this.

She says, hold an item in your hands and feel it it. If it sparks joy, keep it. If it doesn't, let it go. It's that simple. But honestly, you're probably holding on to a lot of things that just need to go.

Things you don't even like. So I don't know. Pick up your shoes and stare at them and think, do I love this? Does this make me happy?

And if you look at it and honestly the answer is no, you need to get rid of it. It's time. Let it go. Give somebody else joy. Keep in mind as you clean that you should dress for the position you want, not the position you have.

And this has always served me well. If the leadership in your organization don't see you in a more senior role, you might have a hard time moving ahead. So this includes casual Fridays.

So just because you can wear jeans on a Friday, doesn't mean they should be the jeans you wear in your backyard to mow the lawn on Saturday. Dress your jeans up with a cute jacket, accessories, a nice pair of shoes. Always present a neat and put together appearance.

And own casual Fridays like the rock star you are. And then go through all those steps for cleaning out, for getting rid of things.

Go through your dresser, other closets, you have the jewelry boxes, whatever.

And then as I mentioned earlier, consider simplifying your wardrobe into practically a uniform so that you only have a few decisions to make in the morning.

As I mentioned, Steve Jobs is an extreme version of this because he didn't want to waste any of his decision time on thinking about what he would wear. But you can do the same thing.

One idea is to have multiple similar colors of pants and layering shirts, for example, all black, all brown, all dark blue, tan, white, whatever, whatever works for you. And then have different colors of jackets, scarves, and jewelry to make the look new and fresh every day.

This will drastically speed up getting ready in the morning. And it's going to make packing for a business trip so easy. Okay, so that was taking things out of the closet and getting rid of things.

So the fourth step is to put your treasured pieces, the things you love, the things you you want to wear, back into your closets, dressers, whatever. So when you're putting things back in, I want you to consider your morning routine and the workflow of how you get Dressed.

Consider everything from your undergarments to the last piece of jewelry you're going to put on before you walk out the door. And include thinking about the handbag you're going to carry.

Place everything back into your dressers and closets to make sure that you have what you need to get ready for work in one place and that you don't have to run between rooms to get out the door. Okay. The fifth step is notice the now if you have any gaps.

This fourth step of how you put things back in your closet is one of the things about really streamlining your day. This is the part that's really going to calm your mornings down, and it's going to. This is the part that's going to make your family happy.

I've talked before about creating a morning routine, and I think you should always improve upon it. But one of the parts of your morning routine is, of course, getting dressed.

So think about the most streamlined way for you to get dressed and the most streamlined way that will work for you that will speed up selecting what you will wear and then literally getting it on your body. So think about the whole entire flow of that. And you can always improve upon it and rearrange or continue to iterate upon this. But it's kind of fun.

I. I'm a big process improvement person. And continuing to streamline your morning in all the ways possible will improve your overall day in life.

It'll save so much time and it'll increase the chances of you being on time places. It' help you adhere to a schedule. It'll make you seem like you're in control, all of these things.

And so really think about it and put a lot of thought into how you put things away. Just, I would really spend a lot of time on step four. Okay. Then step five.

When you look at the clothes you have left, the things you love, do you have any gaps? Is there a few pieces that you just wish you had? If you had a few key pieces that would bring the whole thing together, do you need new shoes?

Would a certain outfit look a lot better if you had a different color lanes? Do you have all the appropriate undergarments that will make you feel great and look even better? Notice this.

And then if there's anything you wish you had or think that it's an absolute must, then make a list of these, you know, kind of like the things you absolutely need. And then a wish list that would be things you could collect over the next few months.

And then just begin building a deliberate wardrobe that Serves you and who you want to be going forward. The sixth step is actually a pro tip. This is one thing I do in my daily planner. I track what I need to wear on a certain day.

And if I know I'm going to be front and center in a key meeting, or if I have a meeting with a briefing or a very senior person, I will ensure that I am dressed very professionally. If I know that my Entire calendar is 100% deep work and I'm probably not even going to see anybody, I'll probably slightly dress down.

I literally make a note of this in my planner so that my mind keys in on how I need to dress when I do my calendar reviews. So even on days when I am dressed down, I have a couple garments handy and I could pull a Mr. Rogers if I had to.

If I needed to go, for instance, for my cardigan to my blazer, I could quickly switch it out. No worries. Just food for thought and a way to keep yourself, of course, looking your best.

But also there's some days you don't want to be all buttoned up and you have really deep work to do and you'd probably do a better job if you were a little bit more comfortable. So just think about the flow of your week.

I think in a different episode I'll talk about planning your week out in a way that it really works for your success.

And there's ways to kind of organize your perfect week in order to make it so that you can kind of put the things where you need to be more professionally dressed onto one day or two days and then have days that are better for deep work and where you can be a little bit more casual and just really dig in and get some work done. Okay, so think about all the time you spend flipping through hangers, trying on clothes, trying to decide what to wear.

You have an entire world to conquer. So I don't want you to spend so much time every day worrying about what you're going to wear. You can look amazing and professional.

You can feel confident and strong. You can even feel feminine and beautiful if that's your thing.

You can rock your genuine self who you are, all the while demonstrating that you are ready to lead within an organization.

All the things we talked about today will make your day to day life a snap and people will just think you have everything under control that is just easy breezy for you. And that, my friend, is one of the most powerful places to be.

You can connect with us on Facebook at Genuine Driven Women or to learn more about what we offer. Check out genuindrivenwomen.com.