“Wear the blazer.”
During 2 hours of discussion focused on elevating adult learning, we talked about SO many things — from making people feel welcome and meeting their basic needs (feed them! have comfy chairs!) to the nuances of developing subject matter expertise.
We participated in 4 different exercises to demonstrate engagement strategies, answered 8-10 audience-generated questions, and I shared several pages of follow-up material for people to really dig in later.
But I’m pretty sure that 100% of the attendees had one surprising key takeaway: “Wear the blazer.”
It wasn’t something I planned to say, but it resonated so I ran with it:
- Wear the blazer like Mr. Rogers wore that red cardigan, to be fully present and announce “Yes, this is me.”
- Wear the blazer like Wonder Woman wore those cuff bracelets to demand attention and to feel fierce. (Couple it with doing one of those oft-recommended power poses for 30 seconds and you just might be unstoppable!)
- Wear the blazer — for that little boost of confidence, to stand a little taller, and to remind you to harness that “I’ve got this” energy.
It sounds silly, but if you’re a little nervous about your presentation, or want to be taken a bit more seriously, or just want that visual cue that it’s time to switch from “I’ve been doing XYZ all day but now I Have Arrived,” do it…
Wear the blazer.
Somehow, it has the unique ability to both be a power move and be Linus’s little blue blanket. (Instant comfort!)
PS: It’s not really about the blazer per se — a favorite sweater kept on the back of my office chair did the trick for quite a while, too.
