Putting on the Game Face is a Roll of the Dice

Just the other day, I finally met one of my out-of-town clients/associates who stopped over in Dallas on his way to points east, and while it’s not at all unusual for me to meet my out-of-town clients in person, this was the first time we had met face to face.

That’s not the unusual thing that happened – it’s what he said to me that I found kind of surprising. He said I came across exactly the same in person as I had over the phone and in e-mail. I was a bit humble, and said something like, “Well, WYSIWYG,” or “What you see is what you get.”

This was a huge complement to me, of course – and I thanked him for it. Just so you’ll know, it’s Gary Schmidt of West End Consulting Group, who offers custom executive coaching programs.

Then I started thinking … how often does it happen that people aren’t the same in person as they are long distance? If he called attention to it, then maybe it does happen more often than I think it does!

Sure, I’ve known business colleagues, family and friends who put on a public face and a private face, but never gave it too much thought other than to think that they were wasting an incredible amount of time trying to come across as one persona in public versus in private. Why waste this kind of time? As naive as this may sound, why can’t we be the same all the time?

Someone, please, help me out here. Maybe I’m just too old to play games, but why can’t we avoid the game-playing and be more true to ourselves?