"Image Scrimmage"

Hey Guys,

Have you ever been told that you have great hair? That your eyes are bright and beautiful? That you’re so tall or so small? Well, all these things contribute to one thing about you, and no, I’m not talking about self-esteem. I’m talking about image.

“Image scrimmage… why should I care about that?”

Because it’s what makes you unique. And people remember others who are unique or original. People who look normal will be treated like normal people − they’ll be ignored. Someone who’s different, on the other hand, stands a good chance of being remembered. Being remembered by new acquaintances, being remembered by new business opportunities, being remembered when they get read about in the press.

So, let’s go back to our pal Elvis Presley. He really had an image, and knew who to swing it. Let’s examine parts of this image, shall we…

Sideburns

Sideburns were not very popular in the 50’s. Take a look at ninety percent of the movies coming out Hollywood at the time (minus the Elvis ones) and you’ll notice the leading men, including Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, James Dean and Frank Sinatra, did not sport sideburns. Hollywood’s portrayal of most attractive, modern men did not wear them, as they hadn’t in the 30’s or 40’s, as well. Elvis took a piece of facial hair that was out of fashion and by wearing it made himself unique while taking sideburns to a whole new level of interest. I mean, how many men inspired by Elvis grew sideburns in his example. I did…

Voice

Nobody talks like Elvis, but a lot of people attempt to. Elvis had such a versatile voice, which is probably why he was such a good singer. He could hit those low notes with such power while at the same time belting out the high ones. He could be mumble out an old 50’s ballad or yelp out “Burning Love” and still sound good, still sound like Elvis. And when he talked, he had that unique southern accent; fun loving but conservative − soft but full of expression. With the advent of the Elvis Impersonator (now, commonly, the Elvis Tribute Artist (ETA)), that voice has been heard more times than ever before. But we know one thing; every time we hear that sweet southern accent, it represents one man − Elvis Presley.

Clothes

Elvis had pretty typical suits in his youth. There was the time when he wore a ‘suit with tails’ on the Steve Allen show, or the time he wore the Tupelo Gold suit, but on the whole it was those popular 50’s sack suits. But wait until 1968, and in his comeback special came the birth of the Elvis jumpsuit. It was tight and black and leather, well fitted to the king’s curves and giving him full range of motion while he sang. It was such a hit that the white cloth one replaced it in the early 70’s in films like Elvis: That’s the Way it Is. Later on, they got fancier with more gold and jewels like the jumpsuits seen in Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii and all the way to the end of the King’s career. These outfits were so unique. Nobody used them but Elvis and when people did start taking to them, it was obvious who they copying. The jumpsuit became such a symbol of Elvis that it is still uniquely Elvis’s, even all these years after his death. People still associate it with him. That’s how strong an image can be.

Elvis’s Lessons:

• Get yourself an image! It’s not as hard as it might seem as in many cases it’s only emphasizing what you already have. For me, people notice my brown curly hair, my height, my eyes and my English accent. You can use anything essentially: hat, clothes (as Elvis did), hair, eyes, facial hair (as Elvis also did), a habit (such as running or reading), ANYTHING! But once you have a couple, people will remember you for what you are associated with (the image) as well as what you are, perhaps more so. You’ll become more distinctive than ever before, people will bear you mind and since people tend to be friendlier (or meaner, given the reputation) to people they now of, your success will be influenced by your new, distinctive image.

P.S. If you want to see Elvis sporting his sideburns, voice and jumpsuit, here's a Youtube link to Elvis singing "I'll Remember You" from Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii.

P.P.S. I would love to hear your ideas and memories as well as any feedback you have to my posts. Please make full use of the comment section!

Cool Down!

Hey Guys,

Thanks for tuning into Graceland, Ontario for another week of Elvis-teaches-success awesomeness!

This week I’m going to talk about something a bit more qualitative than I tend to. No names or dates being dropped here. But it will do wonders for you once you put it into action.

This week’s article is inspired by an article I read in John Alanis’s daily newsletter. John Alanis, for those of you who don’t know, is a direct marketer and a seller of attraction guides for men with unsatisfactory romance lives. His daily newsletters deal with the problems men create when they show unattractive behaviours to women and what men can do about it. Needless to say, reading it is always a highlight of my day.

In the article I read a couple days ago, Alanis points out that people buy Apple Ipads not for functionality, but because they’re cool. Not only that, people will actually buy expensive Ipads year after, despite limited use, to be considered cool. And more than this, no copies of the Ipad are considered half as cool as it is. And they flop, consistently, trying.

It kind of reminded me of something my Mum and Uncle once said about the fashion climate in England, where they came from. They said that it was always changing, not only annually but seasonally, too. And if you didn’t have the latest gear, well, you weren’t quite in vogue. You weren’t quite cool.

Now John Alanis, Apple Ipad’s and English clothes got me thinking: why do people like Elvis? I mean, he did have a great voice and watching him onstage was incredible but there’s something more than that, a reason why people have followed him even after death.

He’s cool.

Simple as that. Even when there were these other acts back in the fifties, like Eddie Cochran, trying to take his fame. Elvis was cool. It’s not that Cochran or Buddy Holly weren’t, but though they were newer, they couldn’t take away the King’s electricity.

And even in the late sixties, when the Beatles were rocking the world with the White Album, or in the early 70’s when Led Zeppelin was out. The only reason Elvis could compete was he was as cool as they were.

I mean, he had the clothes, he had the looks, he had the shades. People wanted to, and still want to be, like Elvis. They are more interested in taking a share in his coolness than trying to be cool themselves. Perhaps they think it’s harder being cool when you can simply use someone else’s cool persona.

They’ve got part of the idea right, about emulation, but not the part about lack of identity (I must write an article on identity soon). You see, like the Ipad, copying something cool directly won’t work. It’ll make you look like a copy and people will think that you aren’t genuinely cool, only pretending to be.

So, how do you be cool? As John Alanis writes, you simply state it. You state it and you don’t sweat the small stuff and you act cool. You know what cool is. You’ve been brought up with it. And you certainly know that Elvis was it. You only have to act like it and you will be it. It’s subconscious.

And once you’re cool, well, you’ve changed the ball game. Now, like Elvis, you will be the one people want to emulate, the go-to person in the group, the people your friends want to be like. All of a sudden there’s something about you that is so appealing, so attractive, yet others can only imitate it, or mirror it. You’ll have that edge that no one else can portray like you. You’ll be different.

You’ll be cool.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø Take it from Elvis, and John Alanis − be cool. People will flock to you when you are unique in a group of people. But how do you be cool? State it. Once you declare (to yourself, not to the world) that you are cool, people will feel your vibe and subconsciously agree with it, or be jealous. It sure as heck worked with Elvis. Why don’t you give it a try today?

P.S. If you want to see an example of Elvis being cool, here he is joking about during a press conference prior to his Madison Square Garden concerts in 1972 (Youtube video).

P.P.S. If you're interested in some of John Alanis's attraction products, here's a link to his site.