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Sticky Learning Lunches #3: 3 Principles to Know What to Wear When You Are Working From Home
Understand the ‘3 Wardrobe Principles’ to make it easy to know what to wear when you are working from home. Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon everyone. We’re just waiting for a few people to turn up. There were a couple of minutes early, so I just wanted to get this, get the broadcast going, get you into the room and as those extra people start to arrive, we’ll then kick this off promptly at one o’clock. So I’m just gonna put myself on mute. Uh, turn my camera off just for couple of minutes.
Nathan Simmonds:
While we’re waiting for those last few to getting, do, make sure that you’ve got a drink, whatever you need, make sure you’re hydrated. The sun’s come out in here in the uk, so making sure you’ve got plenty of water, making sure you’ve got a pen and pad ready for this. Okay, so a couple more minutes and then we’re gonna start. So I was gonna put myself on mute again and I’ll be back with you in a minute.
Nathan Simmonds:
Coming back in now. Alright, where is that button? There we go. Good afternoon everybody. Really great to be here again, great to be sharing some insights with you and sharing some new concepts to help really support those newly working at home and even some of those people that have been working at home for a while with some different ideas to keep you focused and even the people that are working at home in a crisis to really help keep them focused as well so I can maintain that thinking that’s gonna help us get the best possible results. It’s great to see you on again.
Nathan Simmonds:
I know we’ve got some repeat attenders, which is really, really nice to see. Really hope you got value from the previous sessions. And if you haven’t seen the previous sessions, they are now up on YouTube. So we will share the links with ’em. If you wanna go back and have a look, that’d be, you know, there’s some great value and great content in there that’s gonna help continue to support you in a different way using this model we’ve got, which is the mindset model that we’ve set up for working and at home. Make sure the right angle there. Good. Everyone drinks? Everyone got fresh iPad? Make sure you’ve got pen, paper ready to go. Okay,
Nathan Simmonds:
What are we covering today? Today we are gonna be covering the n from mindset, which is about neat. This is about making sure that we’re working, um, our wardrobe in the best possible way and making sure that we are, we are dressing for the job that we are doing or the, or the job that we want to be doing while we’re in working in this arena and making sure we’re bringing that to life mentally as well as physically. Firstly, my name’s Nathan Simmons. For those of you who haven’t been here before, my name is Nathan Simmons.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m the senior leadership coach and trainer at MBM Making Business matter, which the home of sticky learning. And we are the soft skills provider to the UK grocery and manufacturing industry. I come with over 20 years of leadership experience and some reasonably hard learned lessons around homeworking and also leadership.
Nathan Simmonds:
So these are the ideas. We wanna share these concepts with you so that you can get the best of these experiences and practically apply them in what you are doing right now, immediately applicable concepts that are gonna support you to be the best version of yourself. Okay, so today, neat, the m from mindset. Let’s make sure we get that out there for you guys. Number one we’ve got on here that I’ve written down is to separate your wardrobe. What do we mean by this?
Nathan Simmonds:
As I said just now, it’s about dressing for the job that you are doing. It’s about not getting those elements confused. Now you don’t go to work dressed in your gym clothes and you don’t go to the gym dressed in your work clothes because it’s not gonna have the desired effect. ’cause if you’re going to the gym in your suit, you’re gonna tear your shirt when you’re trying to do, uh, trying to use the rowing machine. And if you’re going to work in your gym clothes, people aren’t gonna take you seriously if you’re sitting there in your shorts.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it’s really important that we start to understand and separate those elements so that we can mentally, if we need to, depending on our working arena, is put that outfit on. So it helps us to think clearer when we’re in that space. So what we need to do is break it into three key areas so that we can help to, uh, to, to focus that attention in the right area. The first is
Nathan Simmonds:
Going out close is the best way to put it is the clothes that we wanna wear when we’re going out and enjoying things or maybe going to an event. Now that’s a little bit more challenging here at this point in time because we’re in lockdown as it were. But when we go back to isolation, one of the key points from isolation was arranging events. So even if you want to do a zoom call with a friend or do a pub quiz dress in the clothes that you would wear, if you were gonna do that, make the effort to bring that psychology and and physiology back.
Nathan Simmonds:
When you put those outfits on the second wardrobe, choice is gonna be your relaxation wardrobe. So how many people here right now, yes or no are meant to be working? Hands up with a yes. Say yes if you are, you are meant to be working right now. I’m one I’m, you can see me working. You got some yeses coming up, Colin? Yes. Thank you Colin. David. Nice.
Nathan Simmonds:
I wanna make this window wider so I can see people’s. There we go. How many people are wearing a normally wear a shirt to work and are wearing a shirt? Now let’s have some more yeses and nos up there. Are people actually wearing their work clothes? Darren say, yes, Colin, no sports shirt. Okay, is that normal attire for you, Colin, for work or how’s that working? At the moment
Nathan Simmonds:
What you may find is when you put the you mixer, no figure your shirt like here, is depending on how you are working and the meetings that you are going to, what you may find is as you put a more relaxed attire and you may start to find, you start to relax more. So you may start to sit as if you are watching television rather than paying attention to a meeting. So you need to be aware of the psychology and physiology of how your brain is working in this space.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when we want to, when we want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing, sometimes we have to put the right clothes on to mix and match that. So the first outfit choices are the going out smart and and smart, casual, whatever, going out, out type clothes. The second one is your relaxation, your third one is your work clothes.
Nathan Simmonds:
So what is it you are gonna be wearing to work? What do you normally wear to work? And making sure that you keep the, the, there’s a differentiation between those things because like I say, the psychology that goes with that, with that outfit can dictate how you sit biologically in the chair. How you approach a conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
How many people here then have mixed up their wardrobe? Colin’s done it a little bit. How many people are mixing up their wardrobe at this point in time? Yes. Mixing question for you David. Have you found that, you know, depending what sort of meetings you’re going to, are you wearing smarter attire for certain meetings if it’s a conference call or are you still mixing and matching as you’re doing this?
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes. Mixing. Okay, good. Check how you feel physiologically with this and psychologically, depending on the, the, the necessity of the meeting, the seriousness of that meeting, think about actually what you wanna bring to that address code is dress for your day. So dress appropriately to what you have. Uh, why Guys, hold on. It’s gonna make that chat box bigger. Uh, come on.
Nathan Simmonds:
Okay, so dress appropriately Good. Think about when we’re doing this. So the first thing we want to do as if I’m training on dress smart. Good. So when you’re delivering training content, absolutely separate the wardrobe. 1, 2, 3, going out, relaxing, doing work. This is the first thing. The second element we wanna start bringing to this is actually preparing our wardrobe.
Nathan Simmonds:
What do I mean by this? What’s one of the first things you do if you are working away from home or you are going to a hotel? What’s the first thing you do when you get into that hotel room or one of the first things you do with your wardrobe when you get into that hotel room? Let’s see some answers over here. What do we do for those people that work away from home? There should be a fairly quick response. Unpack. Thank you very much Christopher. Absolutely do hang, show up so it’s presentable. Perfect. So we’re starting to prepare a wardrobe, aren’t we?
Nathan Simmonds:
What normally happens is, you know, you full well what’s gonna be going on tomorrow. So you are in an alien environment, you get your clothes out and you put them where they need to be. You hang your shirt up so I know where it is. I put my, you know, socks and underwear over here. I put this element here so that the moment I get up I can go to the bathroom, do what I need to do, get dressed in the clothes and walk out the door to breakfast. So we create a set routine when we’re in that alien environment and it’s the same we need to do with our workloads as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
Prepare ourselves mentally to get out of bed at home and working in this alien environment. Our clothes are ready for us so that we can walk straight into them, put them on, we put the mindset in gear and then we go and do good work. So this is hugely important. The second element of this is then we start looking at habit stacking and putting things in place to make sure we continue certain routines. Who here is doing a Joe Wicks workout on the morning? Yes or no? Who here has done at least one Joe Wicks workout since being No, you Colin, you need to, it’s good. You’ll enjoy it.
Nathan Simmonds:
Who hears exercise ro uh, regime couch to 5K in the morning under the washing out. It’s a good exercise still who hears root exercise routine has also changed and potentially gone up or down as a result of working from home. Gone up Good. Mine too. The challenge that we have often is when we are working, whether we’re working a normal day or good go to hear it Krista and you and me both on this when we’ve restarted and I’m definitely moving forward, is that if we don’t prepare the outfit for the next element we’re in is very easy for us to walk in our front door or leave our office go and sit down and engage in something else, which then makes it more difficult to stand up to engage in the next phase of exercise.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the suggestion here, and this is even if you’re working at home or in the office in the future, is you prepare the outfit that you want to walk into. So you have no reason to stop and pause. So you go from work, clothes, undress, gym, clothes move forward. And by having that in place or having the the the prepared wardrobe, there’s no stop starts and no reasons for excuses. So the first element is having the work workload prepared. They’re good to go as if you are in an alien environment.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m in mentally, physically go. When I finish my gym, clothes are already prepared for me and I go again because I’m straight in. So we start to make the habit and we start to make these little new routines in the alien environment of working from home. This is super important. And then when we finish that, we then want to go into stage three, which is then going into relax clothes and we then start to wind down whichever is the running order for this. ’cause what you don’t wanna be doing is sitting down in the sweaty clothes or attempting to go and do some sort of exercise in your sports chair, which maybe you should have been wearing footwork. So let’s not get these things mixed up. The third step to help improve the the neatness here start claim
Nathan Simmonds:
This then takes us back to the beginning of the day. So we’ve got our wardrobe separated, we prepared our wardrobe for the, the day after, sorry, the day to come potentially we’re doing that over nighttime. Starting clean is when we wake up in the morning, our clothes are ready for us as if we were in that hotel room ready to go. The first thing that we do to create the mindset of being neat is to make your bed. How many people here, crikey who got sick of their parents when they were younger telling them to make their bed? Me for sure it was always make your bed. Come on.
Nathan Simmonds:
Psychologically what’s happening is we’re already creating a success. We’re already creating an environment that’s um, respected by ourselves. It’s where we sleep, it’s where we rest, it’s where we relax, it’s where we recharge our batteries. So the first thing we do is we make our beds. So psychologically it gives us a win. First thing in the day. We’ve already prepared our clothes, we walk into our clothes, we’re ready to do good work.
Nathan Simmonds:
When we come back, we get straight into our gym clothes and we’re ready to do good work again in a different way. When we come back in the evening and we’re ready to go to sleep, it’s like walking back into that hotel room. What’s the first thing that you see and you take notice of when you walk into a hotel room and that lets you know and lets you feel that you will get what you need from this space. What’s the first thing you look, you look at open question tool. What’s the first thing you look at when you walk into a hotel room?
Nathan Simmonds:
The room’s been reset for you. Bathroom, the made bed. Exactly that. When you walk into a hotel room, you are looking to see if the room has been reset, as Christopher said is, you look at your bed, has this room been made? The first thing you look at is the bed. Then you’ll probably check maybe the carpet and where your belongings are and then you’ll go and check the bathroom because that creates a feeling of contentment.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah, I can rest here, I can relax. So as you walk back into your bedroom and you see that the bed is made, which is what you did at the beginning of the day to create that initial success and neatness in your head, you can then relax into that moment. ’cause you’re there to, you’ll can see that or feel that you’ll get arrested. Evening.
Nathan Simmonds:
One of the key things I remember and then from my first job when I was 15 years old, working in a very posh hotel, was one of the footmen there and the head of the restaurant, David Murray, fantastic guy. One of the key things he always said to me was Start clean, finish clean. And I’m 42 now and I still remember those words to this day. And it’s the same with our office desk, our spaces and where we sleep.
Nathan Simmonds:
Start clean, finish clean. If your bedroom is a mess, how is that actually gonna affect how you are getting rested and how you are preparing for the next day? Thinking about your clothes as well, when we’re doing this as well, what’s one of the nicest things we can put on? You know, when we get it to go, it’s a crisp shirt. Yeah, a crisp outfit.
Nathan Simmonds:
Something that is clean, something that is, is fresh and it makes you psychologically feel fresh as well. So my first job was working as a footman start clean finish clinic. It’s the same with the bedroom. Tidy up in the first and make the bed discipline a focus. Create a tidy space into the clothes. Now I’ll talk about my second job then.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when I left college very early and prematurely, I then went and got a job as a, in an apprenticeship and worked in retail and I was working in a shop for ma fashionable men’s clothing. When you walk into a clothes shop, the first, well one of the key jobs we did was just spend our time folding our clothes. As you walked into that shop, you would see rows and rows of tiddly folded t-shirts or shirts or jeans and everything would be in imprecise lines and everything would look enticing and it would look smart.
Nathan Simmonds:
And when you took it out, you know, you would have that crisp, um, the, the the feel of crisp new material and people would try that on again. It was, um, it, it was like I say enticing. It would draw people in because it was so tidy. But then when we do that with our clothes from the tidy bed to our tidy clothes, it makes us want to get dressed and it makes us wanna put that outfit on and it makes us feel good inside and outside so that we can go and do good work.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when we come back to this idea of starting clean, we can set these elements up in place with a separated wardrobe, preparing that wardrobe in the right way and making sure that actually we set the day up in the right way at the beginning so we can finish the day in the right way and prepare ourselves again to go and do better work the next day psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope this has given you some extra structure and a couple of ideas of habits to implement in your homework in lives right now. Ladies and gentlemen, just quick question for you. Super focus session today just on mindset around outfits. What’s been useful from today that you can implement immediately that’s gonna help you get more focus on your work? Gimme the top one that is helping you from today’s training.
Nathan Simmonds:
Start clean, finish claim. Absolutely. And this counts for your desk as well, Christopher? No, it counts for your office desk, your workspace, clear down, get all the things out. But I mean that’s why you’ve got in and out trays on the original desk, you know, being clear on separate clothes. Absolutely David close maker the man as my mother-in-law always said yes. Ah, interesting you said that. I’m gonna come into this. What’s the date today?
Nathan Simmonds:
I can’t even, I can’t see my thing. Where were we? The 8th of April. Something like that. Interestingly enough, clothes do make us the man and when put under pressure, it’s super interesting how our brains do certain things. Very personal story for me. Eight years ago, sorry, five years ago today, um, I was in a very serious illness or it was very serious situation where I was actually, um, bedridden huge.
Nathan Simmonds:
No, I had major organ failure and you know, I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck in my bed, I was stuck in my pajamas. I couldn’t move. Um, I just got back from hospital at this point and I was in recovery and I was in the middle of my coaching qualification, my leadership coaching qualification. Middle. I say coming towards more the end of it with the essays and the hours.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then what actually happened, you know, I ended up doing some coaching sessions from my bed in my pajamas, electric blanket on, um, because I had to. Now there was no way that I could put a shirt on, I could have put a suit on, but I forced myself to make that move if I had to in reflection. You know, I think those sessions definitely should have been postponed, but we can do things if we need to.
Nathan Simmonds:
But what I looked at when I looked back at the notes of those sessions, it wasn’t my best work. That’s why I should have postponed it. One, because of the illness and two, because I’m lying there in my pajamas rather than the outfit that we need to wear to bring to work mentally and physically. So it’s about making sure that we get the right clothes, right outfit, right impact, so we’re creating the right outcome as well. Um, and sometimes the clothes, I don’t think make of the man but the intention of putting the right clothes on.
Nathan Simmonds:
Definitely do. Colin, thank you great guys. Questions, what questions have you got to help you set up your wardrobe and your mindset to create focus? What questions have you got for me right now? And the other point Colin just raised there as well, the may bet. Absolutely. It just creates a diff discipline, a single focus point of the moment you get up, you are already creating a win in your date. Regardless
Nathan Simmonds:
If we see someone in the wrong attire, how will they affect us in our interaction with them? Hmm, good. Okay, let’s address that one. So address that one, not address that one that’s unintentional. Play on words there. If we see someone in the wrong attire, how will that affect us in our interaction with them? Brilliant. So one of the things that I teach and share is around the Pygmalion effect and the short version. Please google this, go and look.
Nathan Simmonds:
Uh, on, on on YouTube Pygmalion effect, P-Y-G-M-A-L-I-O-N effect. The short version of this is what we think of people is how we treat ’em. So the thoughts up here. So the content of your head dictates the content of your mouth. The truth is though, what you actually think of people isn’t necessarily the truth. It’s an interpretation or a judgment made on previous experience potentially of that individual or individual’s dressing in that way as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
The first thing, Walter wit be curious, not judgmental. What you are seeing is purely information. It’s just data. It’s like being in the matrix, green and black, just bits of data, bits of information. When we start to see it like that, what they’re wearing, how they dress, um, all of those things that habits of behaviors, that’s up to them. How I then come to that conversation, that’s up to me how I choose to be in that moment up to me.
Nathan Simmonds:
And that’s the one thing that we ever have any, um, control over is how we choose to react and respond in a moment. Because your response and it is kind of, it’s your responsibility, it’s your ability to respond. So regardless of what someone else is wearing or what they think is or isn’t appropriate, how we choose to respond and react to that is up to us.
Nathan Simmonds:
Now if they’re coming to work and um, you know, the, the worker attire is inappropriate for the job they’re doing, then that’s a conversation for delivering some feedback around having that coaching conversation with them and asking them some questions to help them realize that the outfit isn’t appropriate for the job that they’re actually doing or, or meant to be doing and that they need to go away and reflect on that and create something different.
Nathan Simmonds:
That curiosity piece is absolutely vital because actually you may be speaking to someone and find out that they’ve got financial hardship and they can’t afford those sorts of clothes. And for you to run in there as a bull in a China shop would be detrimental to that relationship and destroy it really, really quickly. So ask lots of questions, do the coaching questions, do the feedback, uh, SBI model that we teach at MBM, um, and or using the grow coaching model, I’ll drop a link into those coaching cards as well and share that with you guys. Use some of those questions, finds out what’s going on for going on for them and help them to understand what is and isn’t appropriate tied to the situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope that helps. Lemme know if that’s useful, Colin. Um, if we see, no, no, bear with me with the ve on dress down. Smart casual. Where is the line? Yes, good question. Depends on the business and the line goes up and down. Now, um, I often enjoy, I I enjoy wearing a three piece suit. I, you know, when I’m delivering content, but there are times when I go into organizations that that is considered overdressing.
Nathan Simmonds:
I now wear jeans and uh, and smart jeans and a and a Chris shirt and that’s okay. But depending on where you are going will depend on how you are or how people will engage with you. The prime kind of the normal thing with dress codes is, um, sports definitely not. You know, you sometimes you see people turning up in their shorts as if they’re about to play football in an office environment.
Nathan Simmonds:
That’s not okay in my mind. Or they’re dressing like they’re gonna go out on a Friday night or a Saturday night. Um, and again, it is inappropriate. Um, and you have to kind of raise questions or help that person to raise themselves, raise their own questions, okay, actually in with the values of the business and what this business stands for, what is appropriate outfit here, what’s the intention of this outfit and what message is being sent through this outfit to the people that hold those values dearest. So again, we can come back to some of those coaching questions and just help people to see the impact of what they’re wearing.
Nathan Simmonds:
Either my, yeah, the responsibility, people don’t look at it that way. Colin, Andy, I hope that’s helpful. How else popped into my head that’s gone again about dress codes and outfits. No, if it comes back, what I’ll do is I’ll drop it in the messages are on the YouTube channel, um, and, and help and, and share that with you guys, guys. Um, on a scale of one to 10, one being not at all, 10 being useful, how useful was that for today? 10. Thank you very much, Christopher.
Nathan Simmonds:
I hope you, I’m not sure if it’s Christopher or Chris or what you prefer. So I’m going with Christopher ’cause it’s there. 10. Thank you very much Christopher. Really appreciate it guys. Couple of things that are gonna happen at the end of this session ’cause we’re heading up to. Um, thanks. Um, we’re heading up to the half pass mark, so I wanted to keep the training focused on 20 minutes content, 10 minutes of feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
Nice. Thanks very much Colin. Appreciate the honesty. Eight but fits well with a set of, of sessions. Absolutely. You’ve got the previous sessions on YouTube, you can go and access them. Next thing to be doing, we’ve got the session tomorrow. If you haven’t already signed up for tomorrow, please do. Sarah is gonna share the link for that shortly.
Nathan Simmonds:
So you can connect straight there, um, and prepare you for tomorrow, which is all gonna be all about deliverables, setting your own targets, working to, to those targets and making them happen and overachieving them, making sure you’re getting that in your mindset. The other thing that we wanna talk about is the coaching cards. So actually we’ve got a deck of 80 questions based around the growth coaching model and these are questions that I use to ask leaders and people in my charge when I’m supporting them in their development.
Nathan Simmonds:
So if you want to head over to the MBM website, look for the coaching cards, you can pick up your packet there today. Five pound, huge, massive value from those and they’re already adding value to a lot of people. There’s some great testimonials from those cards. Some, some very, um, you know, well-respected businesses that have already picked up theirs as well. So guys, hope this has been useful. Really happy that I’m glad to have spent the time with you today and I’m looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow. One o’clock for the next session for deliverables. Have a lovely rest of your work day and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.
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