'What Not to Wear' Meets 'Dress For Success'

This is the best definition of 'Dress for Success' I've ever read. Wearing your best isn't about deception. It's about representing your inner self accurately.

Clinton Kelly's Facebook Status March 9th, 2014:

I stopped filming “What Not to Wear” almost 10 months ago now. Honestly it feels like it was 3 weeks ago, and for some reason, I’ve had a thought coursing through my mind lately. I figured I would write it down and share it on Facebook, because … well, why the hell not. Here goes:

I don’t care what you wear. I really don’t. And I don’t care what you think of what I wear. I really don’t. I care what I wear. And I think you should care about what you wear.

Your style can make you happy, and even though I don’t know you, I’d like you to be happy, because as a human being, you deserve to be happy. Clothes won’t make you happy in that really deep, profound way. A solid core of happiness, I believe, comes from expressing love to those who deserve it and accepting love from others because you know you deserve it.

Nevertheless, clothes can make you happy in an important way.

Your personal style is a form of nonverbal communication, just like your facial expressions and your body language. If someone were to smile while giving you some really bad news, you would feel especially uncomfortable. If an acquaintance invited you to her house for a friendly lunch and then sat with her arms folded and legs crossed, you would think something was amiss. Similarly, when your clothes do not match who you are as a person, you and others around you experience a lack of harmony, a dissonance.

It’s hard to convince others -- but more importantly yourself -- that you are a vibrant human being when you look like you can barely convince yourself to roll out of bed in the morning.

And for the record, dissonance works both ways. A $5,000 suits doesn't prove to others -- or yourself -- that you're a good guy if in fact, you're actually a jackass.

I guess I want you to know that you control your nonverbal messaging. And when you feel as though the message you want to be sending to the rest of the world is in harmony with the message you are actually sending, you feel more confident, more at peace, and quite frankly, happier.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.