Many years ago I enlisted my husband to help me clean the house before our dinner guests arrived. Just as we finished, he remarked, "We've worked all day cleaning, dusting, and vacuuming, and no one will ever know. It's very frustrating." "True," I replied, "but if we hadn't dusted, no one would even notice our beautiful flowers, crystal, silver, or china. All they would see is the dust." Dust trumps harmony and beauty every time!

It's like flower gardens. If you don't get rid of the weeds, no one is able to enjoy the beautiful flowers for all the weeds. Or, the delicious tossed salad with fabulous ingredients. Unfortunately, a little bit of dirt clung to some of the lettuce leaves and a piece of it turns up in every bite. It doesn't take much to ruin a good thing.

This can be related to other areas as well. The accomplished musician gives a performance and makes it seem so simple, so easy that you may think it was an easy piece to perform. Conversely, sit in on a performance of the same piece by someone who hasn't quite attained that level of expertise and you may walk away with the opposite reaction. It's like that in the world of image also. When you do everything right, no one notices. However, do one thing wrong, and that's all the world sees and remembers.

Image "dust" is any distraction that gets in the way of your message. Those who are less "visual" may refer to it as "noise" or clutter. Common forms of dust are spinach in the teeth, a run in the stockings, and a grease spot on the tie. There are more insidious forms. Among the most obvious forms of dust are clothing and accessory items that wear you instead of you wearing them. In other words, they are so distracting that they command more attention than your words. Chandelier earrings that move incessantly are a prime example. Moving objects alert our primitive brain to "watch out." Bracelets that make a lot of noise when you gesture also signal, "Alert! What's that noise?"

Large patterns in neon colors are in the same category. Neon signs were designed to catch your attention, and neon garments do the same. Famous neon colors are chartreuse, lime green, bright orange, and yellow. These colors need to be worn in small doses and discreet patterns. Unusual items or colors that make you look like an outsider or out of place are also big distractions. In Hampton Roads, wearing a string tie or a pink seersucker suit would definitely be big dust for a man. Women might stir up dust of their own if they wear lingeriestyle tops to the office. As I was picking up some merchandise this week, a young woman in the office was in a lovely stretch camisole top with lace trim. Unfortunately, my mind leapt completely from the task at hand as I was looking at the other office staff to see if they had noticed that she forgot to put on her jacket that morning.

Penetrating the famous "bubble" of space between two people also breaks the concentration and causes your message to be lost. Two conference attendees, an American and a Japanese, were filmed during coffee break, and each time the Japanese man (with a bubble much smaller than an American's) moved closer to feel more comfortable, the American took a step backward because the Japanese man had invaded his spacious comfort zone. When the film was sped up, the two appeared to be dancing, as they waltzed throughout the room.

Mannerisms can also be distracting. Constantly pushing the hair away from the face is big dust. A female comedian had just finished her act at a conference dinner I attended recently, and as she left the stage, I noted how funny she was to the man seated next to me. He replied that he had missed a lot of the punch lines because he was so distracted by the woman's non-stop act of pushing her hair from her face. Amazingly enough, I had been distracted also, but for another reason. I had wondered to myself each time she touched her hair as to whether or not she was purposefully affecting the mannerism to make her comedic character more neurotic.

Bad grammar may be the biggest dust of all. It isn't any less a distraction than giant cymbals going off in the midst of a discussion. "Him and me," "We was," and other seemingly mild errors make many a person tune out momentarily as they make the grammatical corrections in their heads. It's the equivalent of straightening a crooked painting on the wall for some folks. Get the picture?


Sandy Dumont, THE Image Architect is an image consultant and professional speaker based in Virginia Beach, with 30 years of international and national experience helping individuals and Fortune 500 companies improve their image. She conducts customized Branding for People™workshops on a regular basis.
For more information, visit www.theimagearchitect.com or call 757/627-6669.

To view the original article in Tidewater Women, please visit here  

by Sandy Dumont, THE Image Architect © 2005
Originally published in Tidewater Women, August 2005