Reason Successful People Wear the Same Thing Everyday

Success comes easy to some of us, while to others it takes time, money and effort. We aren’t all gifted with a strong sense of fashion and a strong sense of business acumen.

However, those who understand the importance of showing off and panache are the best at consumer facing businesses. Unless their livelihood depends on making an impression, most of the high-tech CEOs aren’t too interested in dressing up.

They’d rather focus on feeling comfortable and optimizing the way that they dress, instead of dressing up all the time.

Convenience and savings

It saves time and money. Instead of going out there and buying Gucci after Gucci, you don’t want to invest that kind of attention on something that doesn’t add value to you or to your brand.

You’d rather spend that time in doing the things that you love or even enhancing the corporate portfolio. In fact, that’s another important reason why CEOs do that. They want to appear as committed as possible and wearing the same thing repeatedly becomes a symbol of commitment.

It’s like saying – I don’t care about what I’m wearing because I’m too busy building Facebook, or Blockchain.

In another aspect, it's also a great check-in, or being ‘in the zone’. When you dawn that hoodie or wear that turtleneck, you get reminded and flushed with memories from across the memory pond, that you are a reliable leader who has a lot of responsibilities. Otherwise the mind tends to flutter, and you don’t end up focusing head enough on the things that matter.

A lot of times it is just about convenience. Buying the same things in bulk and then wearing them one after the other makes sense for a lot of people. They don’t want to think about what they must wear to a cocktail party or what they want to wear at a birthday event.

Standing out, being unique and differentiation

They wear the same thing that works all the time and it separates you from the pack. For successful people who are looking for a way into the game, it's important to stand out from your peers. It’s also a great way to ‘peacock’ yourself to meeting with a great investor. This is because all eyes are on you, as you try to stand out by not caring too much.

Greatly successful people do things that average people don’t. This requires speed and precision, and fashion just isn’t in that equation. The dynamics change so often, when it comes to fashion and what work and what doesn’t that successful people just tune it all out.

They want to focus on what works and stick to that so that they can experiment with things like sleep, diet, exercise, expertise, management, etc. They want that one constant sense of roundedness so that they can fly without worrying about what people are thinking or saying.

It could also be all about being in a uniform. In the brilliant documentary – Defiant ones, Dr Dre wears the same shoes every day, Barack Obama wears only grey or blue suits, and Mark Zuckerberg sports a grey Brunello Cucinelli t-shirt.

With Steve Jobs it’s about his black turtleneck, jeans, and New Balance sneakers. This is the end point for a lot of people who want to wear a uniform that fits with their body. They don’t want to wear uncomfortable shirts and pants, that don’t make them feel like they’re being themselves. A uniform worn like that is just an expression of they are being themselves.

Decision Fatigue from making so many decisions

There is also the idea of decision fatigue that plagues successful people every day. They are tired of wearing the same things daily and want to change it up when to comes to their style. However, after a while they want to fluctuate within a simple set of parameters. For Jobs it's about appearing like – the everyday man.

For Obama its more about appearing authoritarian-like. Different people play different roles and have different jobs. They don’t want to rock the boat too much because they care freely about their public persona. Its quite counterintuitive when you think about it. The more they try to not care, the more they actually care so that they can check that pointer off.

Many times, it also comes down to how you’re feeling doing the things that you are doing. If you truly believe in the power of creativity through self-expression then by all means you should do it. But you are so goal oriented that nothing can come in the way of doing that, then there is something that you should focus on – not caring.

Looking at it logically

SO much time and effort go into what you want to wear on a particular day. A successful person also tends to be a highly analytical person, so they’d go into logic mode when picking out the right color or style. They think about all the meetings they have, all the work that’s pending and all the battles they have to fight. They pick out a particular color and go with it.

A lot of the times it backfires, and they go back into the drawing board. They also want to appear consistent in their leadership and so they believe that staying in one format is easier for their team members to mirror off to. If the leader wears too many outrageous colors, they may be termed as such. However, if they wear too bland of colors, they may be termed as lacking vision.

Therefore, successful people and leaders must mix it up and balance it out at the same time. This juggling act can take 2 seconds for a thoughtful successful person, and hours for someone who’s just learning the ropes. It isn’t so much about leading a pack with vision, it's also about appearing as if you know what to do in tough situations.

Conclusion

It's not about fashion. It’s a deeper game than that. Most successful people tend to want to formulate one image and one brand for themselves. This creates a sense of reliance on their leadership.