Oops! Your Attitude is Showing…

Thank you for your article. Personally, I feel like what’s being said here is akin to pitching my personality through an umpire’s extremely narrow strike zone. If I go too far wide/left/high/low I may lose the job. Be yourself, but not really. You may be right about commenting on blogs and such, and given the nature of the web, perhaps the simplified version of what your saying is “be thoughtful”, in other words don’t just write the first thing that spills out of your fingertips without at least reviewing it for the underlying message it sends. That isn’t bad advice at all.

In the real world however, given the extraordinarily diverse range of personalities we’ll encounter, this sort of constant self-monitoring, might be employment-suicide. If your weighing every word in your head for what it reveals about your true nature, then you’ll eventually reduce yourself to word searching instead of putting forth an honest answer.

Look, I’m enthusiastic, almost polyana-ish, and this part of my attitude drives morose, hardcore types crazy. I still get hired to print t-shirts for the local tattoo shop, even though I don’t have a single tattoo/peircing/brand/horn or bone through my nose, and never cuss in their presence despite some of the “colorful” language I hear there.

There are lots of people in the world that you’re just not going to jibe with. But there’s one thing that everyone appreciates, and that’s honesty. If you look like you’re searching for the right answer all the time, then that, more than even a lousy attitude, will keep you from getting the job. It looks dishonest.

I think it’s a good idea to examine who you are very carefully, and then conform to the rules of basic courtesy. If you don’t know how to be courteous, learn, and then force your personality through that strike zone. Confidence, courtesy and honesty are the three traits that I try to present to a customer, as they are things that almost everyone can appreciate. Couple that with a swell portfolio and you’ll be on the right track.

Thanks for the article, and God bless!
Beau

Great Article! I think this is an area that people are constantly struggling with online. You hear the horror stories of what has happened to some that have been themselves, let loose and forgotten that everyone and anyone is watching. But at the same time you want to be yourself, you don’t want to sound and appear to be someone your not. So how are you suppose to act? What I tell my daughter, and how I try to address it is, to never post anything online that you wouldn’t want the world to know about you, or that you don’t want to hear people talking about in a negative way, and don’t behave in a way that you might one day regret. Think before you type, so you don’t have to say to yourself, damn I wish I hadn’t just said that! Be yourself, but if you think it’s necessary tone it down a notch. And please be honest!

Very good points. The idea that everything you do on the way to an interview – talking to the secretary, driving (you may be cutting-off the person who will interview you!), everything – can end up reflecting positively or negatively in your interview now applies to the Internet as a whole. Everything you do everywhere online is searchable, so you’d better be on your best, marketing-friendly behavior at all times!

I love this article. I think you nailed it here on the attitude part of it. Whether you are on a blog, in an interview, on social media sites, or in print, every single interaction someone has with you or your business is an EXPERIENCE with your brand and will shape their perceptions about you and your work. It is so important to stay positive and optimiztic and to have confidence in your abilities. Remember, someone will always be better than you, smarter than, you and thinner than you – but on the flip side, you will always be better than, smarter than, and thinner than someone else. The key is to have confience in yourself and know that with enough hard work, research, and trial-and-error you can achieve anything.

Great points, and ones that I’ve thought about myself before now. Personality-wise, I tend to be quite diffident and under-sell myself — partly this is an internal problem (working on being more confident!) and partly it’s to do with the way I naturally want to communicate. I often self-censor emails, taking out words like “I think” or “I can probably” or “I might be able to”… because generally, even if I’ve not carried out a specific writing/web task before, I can look up and learn how to do it without any problems.

I think it’s not just about what you say (whether on Twitter, in the coffee shop, etc), it’s also about working on your own attitude. Frankly, if you’re secretly worried that your work is all crap, there’s a bigger problem than your ability to say the right things at the right time! Either you need to skill-up, or you need to work on taking a realistic and positive view of your abilities.

Thanks for the post!

@ Ali – That’s the ticket. I think we always try to downplay how confident we are (except in my case; I seem to wear it like a badge) so that people don’t think we’re arrogant or bragging. But there’s nothing at all wrong with conveying confidence and helping put other people at ease with a nice, “I can.”

You’re also right on the “work on your own attitude”. There are a lot of people acting like Eeyore these days, and those who complain they aren’t doing well certainly aren’t going to be doing better because of complaining! Get active, get positive and shine on.

@ Jennifer – I think of it this way. Someone is smarter, better, more successful than me, and for that, I’m DAMNED glad, because I have someone to observe, analyze, examine and eventually… kick butt

@ Colin – I went to the doctor’s today to discuss how he feels I should drink less coffee and then he says, “What is it you do again?” So I tell him.

Turns out his wife is a marketing expert who just left CN Rail to launch on her own, she’s looking for both a website and some networking peers, and he asked me for my business card.

You never know when you can land an opportunity.

@ Deb – It’s much like Jennifer mentioned. My behavior online and the attitude I convey is part of my brand. Confident, casual, a little cocky… and when clients visit my site, bang. They see the same, so it’s consistent. Who I am online is my business image is me.

So yeah – never write anything you won’t want to read in ten years!

@ Beau – You mention self-monitoring is employment suicide. To the extent that you suggest, I’d say it’s more like a guaranteed ticket to the insanitorium What I propose is that more people pay attention to how they come off in public.

Honesty, as you suggest, is great. But Eeyore is Eeyore and he’s damned gloomy – that kind of honesty is in serious need of an attitude check if it’s clients the person is looking for. Y’know?

Really Great Points. It is important that how we behave, how we talk, how we comment as it is directly affects to our freelancing business.

Thanks,
Great Read

This post made me think about some of the stuff that others and myself put out there on a day to day basis. Very interesting points. Great piece.

Well written article, but I’d take it with a grain of salt. While maintaining -some- level of decorum is called for, I think censoring yourself is far worse.

I see way too many professionals try to make themselves in to something they aren’t on their websites, or try to come off as mindless work-producing robots.

I recently re-designed my website because of that very issue, I wanted to show off my personality, not just designs or lines of code. Has this approach lost me any possible clients? Maybe, guess I’ll never know for sure. But I can guarantee that it has earned me more clients than I’ve lost, and those that I do work with are much more accepting of my personality because they got a chance to know a bit about me before we started working together.

Bottom line is don’t make yourself into something you aren’t. You don’t need to share every detail of your life, but if you work with someone they are going to find out about your personality eventually, and if that’s a problem then there’s a bigger issue at the core that needs to be addressed.

When we put others’ priorities first to ours then we understand how we should behave. We need to be gentle in our speech and behaviour, even in disagreement. But, creative people talk and act too casual. Sometimes, that’ll be construed as arrogance(which they’re not actually). We better watch out at that. This post reflects our different situations where we may sound weird, good points to watch out.
Thanks for extending this thought from your main post at Men with Pens blog, James!

Very timely article. I like the focus on attitude because it reminds me of a current project on the home front.

I live and work in a house that’s 53 years old. Like most houses its age, it has issues. The current issue is the water line between the meter and the house. It’s a galvanized line, and that sort of line is only rated for 25 years in this part of the US.

Earlier this spring, I was doing work on the interior plumbing. When I went outside to turn off the water to the house, I noticed that the water line was leaking.

Uh-oh.

I knew that this would happen someday, so I’ve kept a cash-stash in reserve for when it does.

But the cash-stash needs a plumber to actually do the work. I got the names of seven plumbers, interviewed four, and I chose the company whose employees showed the most enthusiasm for doing the work. (The company was also highly recommended.)

Mind you, I’m writing this from Tucson, Arizona, where the daytime highs are reaching the 100-degree mark. (That’s Farenheit. On the Celsius scale, we’re getting close to 40 degrees.)

But that doesn’t stop the plumbers from digging out the old line with gusto. Heck, they even called me out to admire the trench. (Nice work, if I may say so myself.)

Found two uses for this excellent post:
1. Gave it to a young freelancer just starting out so she might further think about her online persona.
2. Wrote a post for my community (sales professionals) as they are getting more active in social communities, frequently with less regard for who is listening.
Thanks,
@shorespeak

This was a great, great post! As a freelancer, you are your own PR team. It’s important to constantly be self-aware, but not self-conscious. It’s easy to forget about the little things from a comment on a blog to how you interact with a customer service rep.

Another good thing to think about– this old saying regarding people who work in service jobs– “They may serve you, but they are not your servants.” I think it’s a good way to think about all your professional interactions with others, whichever end you are on.

Im have a problem in my night of freelancer… i need some advises

Im doing a magazine in my house for a client and he comes personally to delivery the business… but i got a little problem, the magazine is 80% cleared and he never payed one cent to me now and every time i talk about the money he says “its coming man stay cool” but it wont affect me at all i know i will only give him the complete magazine after he pays me, but the real problem is.

The client comes to my house at 20:00h but i live in my grandmother house and my PC stays in her room and i talked with him to end a day of work at 22:00h since all layout was done by me one month later of start project so the process of magazine is very fast, but the client every day want to extend the work to 23:00h and because my grandmother sleeps in her room at 22:30h, and sometimes i burn in hate and my expression change a lot, he knows it but he don´t care about it and he stay in the room at 23:00h, i don’ t wanna know how to end this nightmare and keep the client, know i will lost this job after the release of magazine…. i just want to keep him as my loyal client but he wont care about my life if its possible he stays in my home at 2:00h.

I need some advices.

Great Post, It is important to be real with people but also do the courtesy of providing them with a positive and beneficial design experience it’s a relationship not just a source of money. I want to be on a boat with a captain/people that knows what he’s do’n and where he’s take’n us and has a vision and is excited about it… I also want others to feel that way. but not that other thing.

Too true.

Its still possible to come accross as personal and fun you have to just do it right.

I think I respect people that talk about, for example do watersports, or go out, because it shows they have a health work/life balance.

Useful piece, thanks.