Are You Impeccable With Your Word?

These are the days of Personal Branding, reinforced by your internet presence via LinkedIn professional profiles and participation in online discussion groups, Facebook, Twitter and various other venues. There are country western songs parodying the online persona you can create and how that compares with reality (yes, I like country western music… opera too for that matter).  There are blogs, led by Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog, that extol the virtues of creating your Personal Brand. Sales Aerobics for Engineers training and consulting incorporates social media into business development strategies for technically intensive companies.

So much for all this internet hoopla. It seems daunting keeping your online personal brand strategy up to date.  The bottom line is: are you impeccable with your word? If folks had to describe what you are about, personally and professionally, how many of them will say your word is your bond? Think about it.

Dan Schawbel and many bloggers – this one included – emphasize that the internet is not the place for hiding behind a murky veneer that doesn’t match up once people meet you in person, listen to interviews or participate in webinars. Yet, how many of us are comfortable with who we truly are, 24/7/365? How many of us constantly strive to do the best possible job we can at any point in time? How many of us are impeccable with our word?

Don Miguel Ruiz, in his landmark book, The Four Agreements, lights the beacon for the importance of being one and the same with your word.  And this one singular agreement – as are the other three – becomes critical to your providing value to yourself, your customers and your organization.

If you are true to your word, you don’t have to remember what you said to anyone because you tell the same thing to everyone. There is consistency and uniformity in your responses as a person and as a professional. You don’t tell people what they want to hear; you don’t say one thing to one group and another thing to another group. Come on, you know people like this within the workplace. Perhaps this is your own modus operandi. I strongly suggest that you cease disrespecting yourself and your peers. Strive to be impeccable with your word. It is not easy, not easy at all.

In this most challenging of economies, with companies zigging and zagging as they jockey for competitive position, being one and the same with your word, values and ethics is no mean feat. In unifying your approach, you focus your energy towards the underlying principle of impeccability with one’s word. And you know what happens when you engage in becoming impeccable with your word? You have more energy to give, professionally and personally, because you aren’t as fractured or compartmentalized. This is a journey you take by yourself, for yourself. And ultimately, everyone is on the receiving end of your efforts.

In this most challenging of economies, with self-help books, how-to sales books, online sales blogs and folks looking for recipes for personal and professional success, you are only as good as your last sale. If your year-end sales record is your greatest self-defining moment , your context for self-evaluation must reside on a constantly shifting playing field.  Take a step back, and another step back. What is the 50,000 eagle’s eye view you have of yourself? At the end of the day, do you peers and friends define you as “Oh, that’s Bob. He sold $250K of new business this year. Wonder how he’ll do next year.” And…?

In this most challenging of economies, your engineering and technical acumen will only carry you so far. There’s more to who you are than your last completed project or the last technical certification you received.  OK, so you are a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Look, I used to process map my kids’ weekly sports practice, game and tournament schedules during high school (I’ve since recovered). Being precise and organized and minutiae oriented is admirable. Being the go-to person who organizes chaos is a pretty good skill set. But…..?

We all bring far more to the table than our jobs allow us to. What if we decided to “bring it” anyway, all the time? What if you take the time to discover or re-discover “what” you are all about and become impeccable with your word?

Being impeccable with your word allows you to bring passion, enthusiasm, objectivity, consistency and energy into everything you do for yourself, your family, your clients and your organization.

Yes, this is something that all of us need to work on daily. Being impeccable with one’s word has a significant impact on our relationships. We feel everyone has changed as a result of our being impeccable with our word. In fact, we are the only folks who have changed and, in turn, the people we interact with are impacted, and react, well, differently because we are truly bringing ourselves to the table, authentically, impeccably, every time they meet with us.

Did you ever think about what the real meaning of Walking The Talk is?

Be impeccable with your word.

Comments

[astma]

But we all know that the two-faced get promotions and bonuses, while the honest get used and laid off. Politics is more important than performance. So in practical terms, how can I be impeccable with my words and grow any kind of career?