Sometimes in our career, there comes a time when things don’t go the way we want them to, for whatever reasons. Whatever we do, any efforts we put in is not enough.  At such times we reach a dead end and don’t know what our next move should be.  We work harder to prove ourselves, but even then, we do not get the credibility or recognition we are looking for. The situation ceases to be in our control and this gives us a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and despair, not being able to find any concrete solutions.  This was my case.

I was a 39-year-old smart professional holding a General Manager-Sales position in a large automobile dealership in Delhi. The company had the dealership for the sale of luxury cars with a pan-India presence.

During that phase of lowliness, coincidentally I attended Mansi’s teaser talk at one of the corporate meets. I always thought, creating an Image was creating a false me. Listening to her concept of BI (Business Image), I thought of understanding more about it.

I also found myself nervous about the possibility of being told that all the things I liked to wear, that I always thought looked good on me, would instead be revealed as all wrong.  I hate to say I was worried about my ego taking a hit, but that really was a factor.  If my sense of image, style, the self has been flawed all this time, what would that say about me?  It turned out this wasn’t even remotely a concern, but prior, I was nervous about all of that.

With great courage, I made my first call to MLS-ICS and after that is now history.

From the earliest interactions, through the closet purge to the final fitting, the MLS-ICS  team was amazing.  Clear, professional, and focused on explaining their ideas and theories to me.  I didn’t feel criticized or judged, I felt empowered, respected, and supported.  It was a tremendous experience, during which I learned far too many things to list them all, however, the main ones were

1. Image and style are NOT illusions—they are real, with real importance and value professionally and personally.
2. Image consulting is about bringing out, and sharpening the best version of myself, not creating a False Me.  Image isn’t shallow, or “not real”, it is a way to focus and channel my energies into my work and life experiences and goals.  Looking at the part helps me bring all aspects of my life together to my benefit.
3. I enjoy feeling confident about how I dress and look, it built my self-esteem in ways I didn’t know I wanted or needed.    

My goal was to transition into a very senior role.  The roadblock here was, there were many contenders for the position.   To stand out from the rest, I needed the right mix of credibility, visibility, and integrity. This truly was a challenge.  Mansi designed a consultation solution focusing on visibility, credibility, and integrity. All in all, they developed a consultation solution that made the senior management take notice of the promising resource – That was none other than me. This resulted in me creating my right BI (Business Image). I have been consulting Mansi for the past 3 years and it has been working for me.