In the modern world with so much change, so much conflict, and it just goes on, doesn’t it? The question is posed, can I still live an elegant life? Can I? So what is elegance? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines elegance as the quality of being graceful and attractive in appearance or behavior.
So it’s kind of a combination, isn’t it? You have the exterior self, the self that you present in the world and then you have the inner you. The inner you that must also be elegant and beautiful. Now, the other day when I was coming into my building, there was someone going out and they caught my eye and the door was there and they didn’t hold the door. They would have had to stand there for literally one second and they didn’t hold the door.
They just pushed on and I caught the door. It almost closed, but I caught the door and I went in and it didn’t really bother me. But I thought, gosh, let’s suppose for a moment I had been someone profoundly important and you had been an individual who was looking for a job. And later that week, I interviewed you for a job that you were applying for. And I would remember, and yes of course, I would say to myself, now Leon, you cannot be biased.
Give everyone a chance. Maybe they were just in a hurry, but unfortunately, you would never forget that, would you? That would always be in your memory. Many, many years ago, I went to a wedding in Poland and it was a big wedding about 700 people. And I went out and I bought a new suit and I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought, gosh, you’re so good looking.
You’re so handsome, charming, etcetera. That youthful vanity, that hubris that we must have in a sense when we’re young. So I went to the wedding. I opened the door into this vast chamber, people dancing, what have we. And I was the only man wearing a suit.
Everyone else was dressed in a tuxedo. And my friend ran up to me and he said to me, Leon, where’s your tuxedo? And I lied. I said, oh gosh. The airline lost it.
Oh, that’s terrible, Leon. And we’ll come in. We’ll do our best. The entire evening, when I walked past people, they would do the standard that gossiping whisper, that social opprobrium, if you will. I never forgot it.
So the old adage, you can always dress down. In other words, if I go to a ball or a dance or an interview, I can always dress down. If I’m overdressed, I can take my tie off. I can take my cufflinks off, tuck them in my pocket. If I’m a woman, I can rub my rouge off, my lipstick, I can rub it down if you will.
Take my earrings off and I can dress down, but I can never dress up. Literally, I cannot go up if I don’t have the tie or if I’m not formally dressed as a woman at a certain business interview, for example. So the corollary to this story, I once started a big company and they interviewed for the salesman’s position, and it was really a good job. The company shall remain nameless, but it was large. Family owned, good money, nice people.
And they got a bevy of MBAs, and they selected the two best they felt. And on the interview day, there were two individuals, one a man, one a woman. The woman came and she chewed gum the whole time for the interview. So the president told me later. And the young man who interviewed, the president entered the room.
The young man didn’t stand up to shake his hand, and the young man was also poorly dressed, the president’s words. So obviously, neither of them got the job. Now how difficult would it have been to be elegant on that day? Not too hard at all. Instead, they threw their chances away.
It’s the old story, isn’t it? There is no one like me. There never has been and there never will be. But unless I open the door to me, it remains closed. If I decide that the exterior world does not matter and I decide to be crude in my mannerisms, speak in a poor sense, vulgarity, etcetera, I will destroy my brand and I will go nowhere in life because we are social beings.
You can dismiss this concept. You can be as informal as you want, but we are social beings. So the question becomes, how can I possibly maintain my elegance? Well, I think firstly, you must think to yourself that you are a cerebral or spiritual being. So you need to nurture that.
You need to have a relationship with the cosmos, with God, with Gaia, the universe, whatever you wanna label it, but you need some relationship that’s exterior to you to really have a serious chat with yourself, whatever that means. And to do that, you need to embrace silence. You gotta find your solitude to talk to yourself. Write in your notebook to yourself and show no one. You need rituals.
You need daily routines. Get up in the morning, make your bed, say your prayers, write in your notebook or whatever you want. When you speak, speak with precision if you can use that term. Don’t be foolish or don’t speak. And of course, be on time.
Very important. And remember, you’re lucky to be you. There’s no one like you. You have to believe this without vanity. And the world is a beautiful place.
Yes. It’s filled with ugliness, but mostly beauty. And then step into the psychology of you. How to master your attention? How do you focus?
Well, one way to focus of course is to read. Always be reading a book. Always. And then, of course, keep away from the dark, the negative. Throw it away.
Don’t stay in the dark. For sure not. Because life is an adventure, but it’s also a lot of fun. And then finally, look at your body. Everyone has one.
Very few people are profoundly some more beautiful, so you need to enhance the body. How? Obviously, you have to control the substance abuse. At some point in life, the alcohol has to end, the smoking stopped if you partake in other things, drugs, what have you also. These are useful phenomena for sure.
Then, you need to get to a gym. But most importantly of all, you need to believe that you’re a beautiful being and look for the inner beauty in you. Because if you find the inner beauty, it will come out into the outer beauty. Ultimately, elegance is not superficial. It’s the entire being.
It’s really a part of you. So look for the elegance in yourself. Get your notebook out right to yourself. Find that elegance. You know, on my desk, I have a picture from Rembrandt, beautiful picture.
And I think that, wow, I’ve read this that you should have something that really excites you on your desk. Something that makes a statement of beauty because that’s who you are, that’s where we’re going. Seek elegance in your life, not crudeness. Throw that away for sure. And you know what they say, you know what they say.
Critical thinking is everything, especially when you’re looking for elegance in your life and in other people. And critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.