The Art of Manliness - #102： The Science of Style With Antonio Centeno

00:00:00.000 brett mcgay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well today on the

00:00:19.260 show we have antonio centeno he's the owner of real men real style and also he's the man who

00:00:25.060 has written the vast majority of our style content on the art of manliness since 2008

00:00:29.240 and today on the podcast tony and i are talking men's style we're discussing the military origins

00:00:33.940 of much of the clothing that men wear today everything from suits to t-shirts to even shorts

00:00:39.700 have their origins in the military then we also discuss the science of style tony's done a lot of

00:00:44.840 research this past two years about what science says how dressing sharp can affect how you think

00:00:51.180 about yourself and how others perceive you as well and how that can benefit not only your love life

00:00:56.540 because i know it's a big reason why guys get into dressing sharp because they want to impress

00:01:00.420 a romantic partner but also your career and also your friendships with other men it's a really

00:01:06.300 fascinating discussion i think you're gonna like it so let's get on with the show

00:01:09.940 antonio centeno welcome to the show thank you brett it is nice to meet you

00:01:20.340 all right so for those of you don't know like tony and i go way back since like 2008

00:01:27.180 when yeah the artist first i still remember that email you contacted me through a random blog over

00:01:33.260 at my first website at tailored suit and you're like hey your articles are pretty good you want

00:01:37.960 to come right over here because we're starting to write about style but you seem like you know what

00:01:42.060 you're talking about and i had no idea what you were trying to do i think you still had the frugal

00:01:46.720 law student at the time yeah and i'm just like i'd have to say it really came down to i liked your

00:01:52.060 mission i like this guy's trying to help men be better men i can buy into that you know i i had

00:01:57.460 as you know a young son at the time my daughter was on the way and i was like hey i can buy into this

00:02:02.240 this is solid yeah and since then it's been off to the races i mean we've been going strong

00:02:06.640 since then you're the style guy it's good and i'm expanding out you know we've got a number of

00:02:13.940 different things that we've expanded into but i love communication i love the way that we're able

00:02:18.740 to use visuals to send a message and that's uh kind of i think what we wanted maybe to talk about

00:02:24.720 today and talk about why it's why it's manly why it's masculine to care about your appearance

00:02:29.680 because a lot of what i talk about is grounded in science and it's grounded in history and when you

00:02:36.760 talk to a guy about that he starts to realize that no it's not feminine to care about just care about 0.88

00:02:41.640 your appearance it actually is something that's very masculine very manly and really doesn't make

00:02:46.640 a difference and i think you were just talking about a study uh about testosterone yeah so i'm

00:02:52.000 doing so before we're talking got on the show uh tony our talk i'm doing a research on effective

00:02:56.860 testosterone on behavior and one study they found is that men with higher testosterone levels are

00:03:03.400 actually more vain than men with lower testosterone levels right because like you care about your

00:03:09.940 appearance if you have high testosterone because that's how you attract women that's how you

00:03:13.340 intimidate uh potential enemies um and it's how you i guess showcase your allegiance to a group

00:03:20.220 so you take a lot of care in how you present yourself but how that vanity manifests itself is going to vary

00:03:27.360 from like tribe to tribe or culture to culture but there is going to be if you have higher testosterone

00:03:32.520 you're going to care about how you look so for example a group you might not think would care about how

00:03:37.740 they look biker gangs for example they actually care a lot about how they look because the way

00:03:44.300 their jackets are presented the way they do their hair tattoos etc um manifests their allegiance to

00:03:51.080 their gain and is sort of their identity and sort of like an intimidation factor right and if you're like

00:03:56.940 lower testosterone you probably just like wear like sweatpants and a hoodie every day and not really

00:04:03.160 care uh one way or the other how you looked and the same thing is seen in the military uh i remember

00:04:08.940 when i was in the marines it was something that you measured the exact i mean to i mean to the

00:04:13.780 centimeter you knew exactly where your ribbons were going to be how they were supposed to look on your

00:04:18.880 chest uh where each of the patches each of the tabs everything went although we didn't use as many

00:04:24.440 as the army does but it is something that when it comes to uniforms the marines were very very proud that

00:04:30.420 we were the best looking service when it came to our uniforms and we we love that you know especially

00:04:34.540 getting all dressed up for the marine corps ball you got you know a beautiful woman on your arm and

00:04:38.700 you go out there and you have a great time and you start a fight and you know wake up in a ditch at

00:04:42.300 some point but but the point was your uniform looked pretty darn good going in there i mean and

00:04:47.260 that was something i think you also asked a question brett about it seems like a lot of things

00:04:52.280 come out of the military when it comes to men's style and that that makes a lot of sense because if you

00:04:57.420 think about it the best way to start a trend is to force a million men to dress in the same way or

00:05:04.060 or to go down a certain path and wear something and they like it they get used to it and we're

00:05:08.620 creatures of habit men when they find a brand when they find particular items that they like we stick

00:05:14.320 with them we're not you know going through every season changing out we we've got a date a jacket that

00:05:20.180 we like we're going to wear it again and again until it falls apart and that's one of the things i love

00:05:25.540 about you know men's style is that it does have that strong base in history um if you focus on

00:05:31.080 function of clothing a lot of our from our jackets it's not that and a lot of guys complain oh the

00:05:36.500 jacket isn't comfortable well that's because it doesn't fit you properly but if the jacket fits

00:05:40.280 you properly especially anyone that's ever worn a military a uniform or jacket i remember uh we you

00:05:46.800 know it was something that you could act we would have pull-up contests after you had a couple beers

00:05:50.540 and you're still in your dress blues you could still jump up on a pull-up bar and knock out 20

00:05:54.900 pull-ups if you you know because of the height of the armhole on the jacket and the way it fits you

00:06:01.600 so so well that it still gave you full function of movement that's something that i always focus on

00:06:07.120 with with style is it's not i don't dress just for the color you know it's not about the clothing it's

00:06:13.200 about how it sends that message and how if it fits you well it still gives you full you know full

00:06:18.360 form of you know movement and it sends that message that you're strong that you're masculine

00:06:23.400 getting back to your point about high levels of testosterone well let's think about let's go into

00:06:28.220 the animal kingdom if a peacock if a lion if they are exposed and they're coming from a lineage of

00:06:34.900 high testosterone of very being very desirable they're going to have a very strong it's a lion he's

00:06:40.220 going to have a very strong and healthy mane if a if a lion has has disease or has certain issues

00:06:46.000 wrong with them and they're getting older then actually the size of the mane drops uh their

00:06:51.480 ability i mean they just don't look as healthy and that's one of the things that we're if you have a

00:06:55.780 lot of testosterone you want to look healthy not just for the opposite sex also for your fellow males

00:07:02.140 who in a sense there's a there's always kind of a pecking order and and that's one of the reasons we

00:07:06.900 put off that image so for human males what would be the features that you would use style

00:07:14.780 the way you dress to accentuate to show like hey i'm doing okay i'm i'm high status what are some

00:07:22.200 of those features okay so let that's and that's one of the reasons i love the jacket so everyone

00:07:27.500 always says antonio you always say that the ailment to anything is to throw on a sports jacket or throw

00:07:32.300 on a suit jacket i'm like yeah you know for a lot of for a lot of guys nothing is going to beat what a

00:07:38.080 jacket can do for your profile for your silhouette uh from a distance one of the things the jacket does

00:07:44.100 is it builds up a man's shoulders so large shoulders the higher up the shoulders you can actually

00:07:49.880 have a perception of being taller so by building up the shoulders it makes you look taller it makes

00:07:54.920 you look a bit leaner but it's going to make you look stronger and that's something uh that you know

00:08:00.160 if you look in human beings you know as a male you want if you as a child if you received a healthy

00:08:05.720 dose of testosterone then you want to in a sense you you want to you want to look stronger you want to

00:08:10.980 have that muscle buildup in the upper chest area and a jacket does help that in addition you want

00:08:16.580 to have a bit be a bit trimmer around the waist area a larger gentleman if you've got a larger

00:08:22.020 midsection you want to you can kind of hide it a bit but it's still one of those things that yeah

00:08:27.860 it's going to be best to be in you know to be in good shape but if you've got you know 15 to 20 extra

00:08:32.620 pounds around the midsection a jacket can help trim you up and that right there you know it also

00:08:38.100 accentuates that you've got a big bit of curvature around the hips not as much as a woman but you 1.00

00:08:43.820 still want to have strong hips uh you know when it comes to human sexuality that is attractive in a 1.00

00:08:49.320 male another thing that the jacket does is it accentuates the size of the hands large hands

00:08:55.540 are perceived as a very strong masculine trait if you look at a well-fitted jacket especially once it

00:09:00.860 goes to the sleeve area then all of a sudden even if you've got smaller hands then a well-fitted jacket

00:09:06.040 is going to make your smaller hands look a little bit larger and larger hands uh especially you know

00:09:10.760 if we get into you know don't want to go down this path too much but if we look in apes or any large

00:09:16.540 hands are perceived as a very attractive uh trait because they enable you to grab onto things

00:09:21.760 interesting yeah there was one anthropologist i've read talking about uh the shoulders on a male it's

00:09:27.980 sort of like a sexual signaler but also a signaler to other males that you are strong he called uh

00:09:35.040 male human shoulders uh man antlers and think about that you know so let's look at antlers on 0.50

00:09:41.860 you know here in wisconsin people love deer they've got them you know they got them on the

00:09:46.620 back of their trucks and like little stickers and during hunting season of course everyone's got them

00:09:50.480 on the top of their trucks after they shoot one but everyone's going after that buck with you know

00:09:54.980 what is it the 30 point buck or something the mythical 30 point buck that doesn't exist but when it comes

00:10:00.660 to men it's going to be in our shoulders and the great thing about his jacket is it actually it

00:10:05.760 actually accentuates the shoulders and when a man walks and if he knows he's being watched by a woman

00:10:11.500 or he's around women or if he's around other men who he's looking to impress he will actually sway

00:10:17.040 his shoulders a bit more women actually do that with their hips if they know that they're being watched 1.00

00:10:21.780 they will instinctively sway their hips a little bit more so little things like that being able to add

00:10:27.300 kind of like a like almost a little bit of a shiny tassel to the end of it just draws our attention

00:10:33.000 to it even more and subconsciously sends the signal this is the kind of guy that if you're a woman that

00:10:40.460 you perhaps would want to meet if you're a man that you would want to have have your back in case you're

00:10:45.080 in a fight in a dark alley so let's go back to this so going linking up that science to the military

00:10:50.420 we're talking about how a lot of men's clothing comes from the military i guess military uniforms uh were

00:10:56.140 designed in a way to accentuate those masculine features the the white because like it seems like

00:11:00.900 a lot of military jackets the shoulders are very wide oftentimes yes and oftentimes i mean there's

00:11:07.480 two purposes with the military it was function you simply wanted something that i mean we go back to

00:11:13.660 uh the blucher the uh one of the classic shoes it actually was developed uh it used to be if you were

00:11:19.420 in if you were a foot soldier you weren't always i mean you weren't issued uniforms you pretty much had

00:11:23.840 to show up with what you had you had a lot of times officers definitely had the money to buy their

00:11:28.460 own stuff but foot soldiers i mean a lot of these guys were barefoot and that's horrible when you're

00:11:32.460 having to march a lot a long distance barefoot so you know a lot of these shoes developed out of

00:11:38.280 very simple ways a general realized okay if i got if if if my units if my army is well equipped

00:11:46.000 they're actually going to perform better so there was a huge function in a lot of the clothing another

00:11:51.100 thing is being able to send signals of you know of larger strength and intimidation uh you know

00:11:57.300 when you're on a battlefield and you've got uh you know not whenever knights were charging on horses

00:12:02.620 you look look at calvary uh so so the calvary whenever it was coming in part of it was a huge

00:12:08.720 intimidation factor uh not that those ribbons that were hanging down from the horse they weren't

00:12:13.900 necessarily going to protect the horse but what they would do is they made it look like you had a wall

00:12:18.480 coming towards you and literally you would have opposing forces just drop and run and of course

00:12:24.940 then get mowed over but so you're sending visual signals uh other things if you look at i mean we

00:12:31.460 go back to the the tie it's probably if anyone's familiar with men's style they know it came out of

00:12:35.900 the croatians uh the croats and they used it to actually it was it was it to be able to signal

00:12:42.200 what units they were with but if you go even farther back and you look at the uh the terracotta

00:12:46.680 soldiers uh in china they actually have scars as well so scarves and colors have been used to be

00:12:53.360 able to designate military units for a long time and that's one of the uh the beautiful things about

00:12:58.840 that and still to this day if you go to uh regimental neckties uh traditional english regimental

00:13:03.960 neckties they still use those in those signal different units yeah we're going back to the

00:13:08.140 regimental neckties isn't like the the way they angle like shows it's the real deal and the angle

00:13:13.040 the other way than it's saying you're just this is a phony yeah you know there is it's and i don't 0.51

00:13:19.580 know right i forgot i i forgot i'm having a brain fart here i don't remember which way it is but we'll

00:13:25.080 let someone uh maybe correct uh correct us at some point maybe at the art of manliness uh community

00:13:29.920 they can go ahead and write about this but yes uh one direction sign basic is a signal that is a true

00:13:36.640 regimental necktie the other angle is something that hey this is probably an american

00:13:42.260 version of this i mean we've ran with it and it used to be that a man was limited to the clubs

00:13:47.520 to the military units and to the organizations he was a part of as to what neckties he could actually

00:13:53.740 wear but yeah they've expanded out since then all right so we have sort of basically the suit

00:13:58.800 is a relic not a relic but like that came from military military uniforms exactly ties came from the

00:14:06.440 military as well yes um what other men staples have come from the military

00:14:11.700 let's go ahead and let's look at headwear uh a lot of guys you know if you if you look at hats and

00:14:19.140 and the function of them a lot of guys are always asking me antonio how can i bring a hat how can i

00:14:23.960 bring it into my wardrobe and if you look at the first function of a hat it's simply to protect you

00:14:28.000 from the elements to protect you from the sun and i know my experience of wearing headwear pretty

00:14:33.820 much was my five years in the marine corps i wore a hat or call it a cover pretty much every day and

00:14:39.940 then you look at a number of hats uh from you know the classic fedora which a lot of guys you know they

00:14:45.360 feel it you have to be a little bit more fashion forward to pull off unless you're really old school

00:14:49.420 but if you get down to some of the functional hats like the panama i mean you're in a hot weather

00:14:54.460 environment i mean pull it off no i was just an air show in oshkosh this last summer and that was a

00:15:00.780 great place to be pulling off you know you can pull off a panama you can pull off a straw but the

00:15:05.800 function of the hat right there is is solid we can also look at the the way that our clothing opens up

00:15:11.780 so if you look at the button placement one way if a lot of people ask they find maybe a trench coat

00:15:16.380 and they're like oh this looks like a great trench coat but it's actually a woman's trench coat because 0.75

00:15:21.040 of the placement of the buttons usually on a man's jacket we're going to have the buttons on the right

00:15:25.080 side and then it's going to flap over on a woman's jacket uh you're going to have usually the 1.00

00:15:29.560 opposite and the reason for this was the placement of our weapons most people were right-handed and so

00:15:34.980 you wanted to be able to reach over and slide your hand right in be able to grab your sword be able to

00:15:39.600 grab your sidearm so that's one of the reasons that uh we've got the actual positioning the buttons

00:15:44.760 on much of our clothing we can also get into uh other things uh you know i i'd say the length of a lot

00:15:52.640 of our jackets jackets used to be a bit longer and it wasn't it was when men started to ride in

00:15:57.880 vehicles such as tanks such as aircraft that we started to see uh like the bomber jacket uh the

00:16:04.240 the field jacket all of these were actually made a bit shorter so a man could get in and out of a

00:16:09.280 vehicle whether it be a tank whether it be a jeep whether it be an aircraft didn't eisenhower design

00:16:13.960 like his own jacket supposedly i think he had a lot of you know he i i'm thinking he had his own tailor

00:16:20.120 there and it was something that he was able to say hey i want to get this just it's just it's it's

00:16:25.580 snagging on my jeep yeah and you know someone took that and ran with it and probably made it a

00:16:29.780 bigger story i don't think he was staying up at night you know coming up clothing yeah he had other

00:16:34.600 things to worry about yeah like uh d-day frank europe yeah free in europe yeah okay so yeah a lot of

00:16:39.840 our formal wear uh suits like even do tuxedos have a military history they they do in the sense of

00:16:47.040 the build of them but the idea with the tuxedo was okay a man's been on a horse all day he's been

00:16:52.320 in the stables he's been out working so there needed to be a clear designation i mean when you

00:16:57.420 look at a military uniforms when we're out in the field we're not wearing our dress uniforms we're

00:17:02.320 wearing our camis or the thing that's designed for the field however whenever you make the transition

00:17:08.960 we wanted there to be a clear distinction of when you're going to celebrate when you're showing up

00:17:14.600 in garrison and you want you know everyone to kind of know who you are and you're making this

00:17:19.240 announcement so the same thing was with black tie the idea of having something that you could wear

00:17:24.140 in the evening to dinner that you clearly did not wear out in uh you know working out in the barn

00:17:30.200 that's where black tie comes from gotcha all right so suit tie a lot of our casual wear comes to the

00:17:36.340 military like t-shirts and chinos like our staple of a lot of these wardrobes but that has a military

00:17:41.420 connection can you talk about that sure uh let's go ahead and get to you know the color khaki and

00:17:46.580 supposedly out of the british military they showed up with certain colors which were getting stained a

00:17:51.480 lot of white uh and it just simply it was easy to manufacture and so they took supposedly coffee or

00:17:57.600 tea i don't remember which one and they were staining a lot of their clothing so that they

00:18:01.700 wouldn't have to spend time uh actually trying to get stains out of that uh we also see that with

00:18:07.000 the terminology of blue collar uh this doesn't so much have a military origin but i think it's an

00:18:13.300 interesting you know look at denim and you look at blue collar the word in general but it goes back

00:18:18.660 to blue work shirts which were dyed blue because indigo was cheap and it did a great job of covering

00:18:25.080 up stains so again that's why you know what i get excited about with clothing is you look at the

00:18:30.060 history and look at the function of it and then you see how we can bring it in um what was the other

00:18:35.360 one you mentioned t-shirts exactly so yeah t-shirts were developed supposedly in the united states navy

00:18:41.740 and they started becoming but they were initially in underwear the idea was that you could have

00:18:46.520 something that was very inexpensive that fit close to the body that would get dirty so you didn't have

00:18:51.480 to spend a lot of time washing your outer clothing and that's so it was designed as the undershirt a lot

00:18:58.020 of guys when they're up one of the privileges of being on a boat is that you get to swap the deck

00:19:03.020 i'm just kidding that's not a privilege and it but it's a lot of work and you do it uh often they say

00:19:08.680 the commanders you know or the captain he'll say it's because of maintenance but as everyone knows

00:19:13.200 it's simply a form of torture being up there and you're oftentimes in the hot sun you've got this

00:19:19.320 especially like if you're you know you're the gulf of aden or you're over in the persian gulf i mean

00:19:23.660 it's just incredibly hot i remember we were off the coast of jibouti and yeah i felt like that was

00:19:29.300 i've never been to yeah i i if there is a hell i felt that this would definitely be what it was like

00:19:35.020 in any case you're up on the deck and guys are out there swabbing the deck and they're going to

00:19:40.680 take off their clothing and so guys came out used to wearing their t-shirts what we saw in the 1950s

00:19:46.320 you look at go back to classic movies like uh i think it's the wild one uh with marlon brando and

00:19:51.780 i mean that's when guys started wearing t-shirts in fact when he wore that t-shirt only a t-shirt on

00:19:57.200 screen that was a big deal in the 1980s we saw the t-shirt come around as a fashion piece

00:20:04.040 and now it's become a de facto piece in fact most younger people they realize well haven't we

00:20:10.500 always worn t-shirts no we actually used to wear work shirts when you actually showed up and i still

00:20:15.840 to this day advocate that a man wear a work shirt if he owns like a blue collar let's say you own a

00:20:20.500 plumbing or electrical company actually get a series of work shirts made with that send trust

00:20:25.680 and also protect your workers from you know from scalding pipes or anything if they're underneath

00:20:30.260 working at a person's house awesome so we've talked about the the military connection to men's

00:20:36.280 clothing um but let's talk a little more about the science um so we talked a little bit about how

00:20:40.640 uh typically on the studies research shows that if you have higher testosterone levels you're gonna

00:20:45.820 be a little more vain or a little more concerned about how you present yourself but you've done a lot

00:20:50.580 of research on what happens when you do start taking care of yourself how other people perceive you

00:20:56.480 and how that can affect your professional life or your romantic life what's some of the the

00:21:00.640 research you've come across that sort of uh very convincing that you know maybe you should care

00:21:06.240 about how you present yourself and how you dress well one of the things i i like to throw out and

00:21:10.340 challenge people we've got probably a lot of people listening that think of themselves as rational

00:21:15.020 people we like to think we're rational smart human beings that we're not influenced by these visuals

00:21:21.020 and every study i see out there i mean we are just incredibly irrational even you know maybe if

00:21:27.860 you're spock maybe spock was the only person out there but he was only half human uh so understanding

00:21:33.660 that you are not rational then you start to look at these things that have had an effect and this one

00:21:38.920 actually did come out of the military what they did is they studied in the 1920s why certain officers

00:21:44.800 were always getting ranked higher than others and they they call it the halo defect nowadays it's

00:21:50.720 called the halo effect but the idea is that more attractive basically people that we perceive

00:21:57.080 to be something we will attribute other positive things to them so they saw this with military

00:22:02.640 officers a military officer that looked like the ideal military officer was consistently ranked

00:22:09.580 higher than those that didn't i saw this in the marine corps and to this day if you can in a sense

00:22:16.800 send that positive message you can have an effect on others because if you imagine what a successful

00:22:22.540 person looks like and you i mean you we think of people like maybe you know larry ellison over at

00:22:28.800 oracle uh maybe you know we think of warren buffett maybe someone thinks of bill gates or steve jobs

00:22:34.120 in any case we've got an image of what that person looks like and even in the case of steve jobs he

00:22:39.880 actually had a bit of a uniform that he wore but most of those people are going to be dressed

00:22:45.440 relatively nice especially if we start getting into more conservative industries like law or banking

00:22:53.280 or consulting and the the point is is that the ideal of success and what that person looks like in our head

00:23:01.580 very rarely does he ever look like a slob and so knowing that if you can meet that ideal visually 1.00

00:23:10.500 then people are going to attribute positive things to you despite you not having earned them and that

00:23:17.240 is the halo effect and that has been shown again and again that's why you know when we meet an

00:23:21.940 attractive person with a great smile nice white teeth they they look good we just assume that they're

00:23:28.860 going to work out at the company and we give them the benefit of the doubt and when they make a mistake

00:23:34.500 we don't like to think we're wrong we want to say well it must be an anomaly versus if somebody shows

00:23:40.740 up and they just got that bad first impression perhaps we see a tattoo that we almost we're like

00:23:46.460 is that like a gang tattoo or he's got tattoos all over his hands or perhaps going down his neck or

00:23:51.860 he's got like an eye uh i mean this may be a great person but if he's got a teardrop underneath his eye

00:23:56.980 you know that's not we we many people have a negative association with that type of tattoo

00:24:01.740 and despite his best efforts he's having to to go that uphill battle so well here's a question

00:24:08.940 sure so like you're a business owner right how do you how do you not let the halo effect affect your

00:24:16.200 hiring decisions right i try to because maybe because maybe you know because yeah there's that idea of

00:24:21.200 if he looks presentable he looks successful then uh if i need like a coder but he is not a very good

00:24:27.360 coder i'm still going to hire him because i think he's a good coder because he looks competent right

00:24:32.080 because the way he presents himself that could backfire on you as a business owner uh so what

00:24:37.140 do you do if i'm sure there's a lot of managers and hiring managers who are listening how do you

00:24:41.340 overcome the halo effect if you want if results are what matter to you in the end you know the first

00:24:46.660 two levels of and i run people through a number of hoops before i hire them but the first parts i

00:24:52.280 don't even see them in fact i don't even see their resumes i don't want them to send me a resume i

00:24:56.820 don't want them to send me a picture of themselves i simply said this is a these are a number of things

00:25:02.040 i want to see you answer and you based off of something that is kept the same for everyone

00:25:08.740 and they're able to show me what they're able to do in a non-scripted way uh because i if i see that

00:25:15.060 they went to harvard i'm gonna have a positive bias and that's you know i but when it comes down

00:25:20.940 to it i don't want to have that i want to look because when it comes down to is most business

00:25:24.840 owners know it really comes down to what can that person do to help my company succeed and it doesn't

00:25:31.100 matter what school they went to i don't care if they didn't go to school what i care about is can

00:25:35.920 you do the job and so my first couple hurdles of getting into my company i don't even want to see

00:25:41.520 any of that and then and then we have the skype interview then we have the phone interview and i

00:25:47.700 will take note of okay does this person have you know can they present themselves well uh then the

00:25:53.580 skype i i definitely do oftentimes see them um but i i've probably got it better than most because most

00:25:59.120 of the people i work with i work with remotely so we don't see each other very often and i'm often

00:26:04.980 surprised by how people look when i meet them because we do get a different image in in our head of

00:26:11.180 what that person is going to look like yeah i've had that happen to me a couple times so uh there

00:26:15.200 was a person i worked with over email that was named mugs and i just assumed okay it's a dude and

00:26:22.280 uh finally i i met them in person and uh it was it was a this nice lady and i was like oh so i had to 0.97

00:26:30.760 ask about the nickname mugs and apparently it's a it's a nickname for that's short for margaret

00:26:35.480 um which i didn't know um but now i do so there's an example of creating a an image in your head

00:26:42.900 without really having any details but here's a question i had you brought up skype interviews

00:26:47.420 what should someone wear for skype interview because that's becoming more and more common

00:26:52.640 instead of companies flying you out uh to do the interview they're just doing it over skype

00:26:58.600 so i mean should you dress up for a skype interview like i mean it'd be kind of weird i mean i think that

00:27:03.900 sounds kind of weird right you're in your your kitchen and then you put on a suit i mean should

00:27:07.900 you do that if you're doing a skype interview i think you should it depends on the job i mean if

00:27:13.100 you are applying to work with a bank it's a remote position and everyone at the bank wears a suit

00:27:19.640 then yeah i mean to me it immediately sends the signal that you didn't just roll out of bed

00:27:25.220 without saying a word you quickly say i took the time to be prepared every time i've and i meet with

00:27:31.980 a lot of people on skype oftentimes people just want to talk with me i'm always blown away at how

00:27:36.740 i guess they think i'm going to judge them on how they dress but it's always it makes me smile when

00:27:42.360 i see someone looking sharp oftentimes they're dressed sharper than i am i'm wearing a sweater

00:27:46.600 or something and i see this person wearing a full suit and looking sharp and i always compliment them

00:27:51.860 makes them feel great so i would say yes it's important but here's something that focus on the audio

00:27:58.900 uh that's something on a skype interview a lot of people drop down i would say you should if you're

00:28:04.280 going to be doing a number of skype interviews invest in a solid microphone in a good camera

00:28:10.240 and make sure you've got a decent internet connection i just had a presentation uh the other day that was

00:28:16.700 shown to me and there was a dog in the background barking and as much as i wanted to pay attention to

00:28:22.180 the presentation we're just all kind of laughing because there's this dog back there and it did detract

00:28:27.200 from the presentation um and try to control what you can that's what to me when when you dress sharp

00:28:34.220 for an interview you realize that maybe she couldn't have control that that wasn't her yard 0.97

00:28:39.440 you know it was the neighbor's dog she she but she did everything else right she had great slides 0.99

00:28:45.080 and i understand that but if you don't if you don't take control of what you can then that sends

00:28:53.360 the signal to me that well how do i expect this person to work for me gotcha all right so uh dressing

00:28:59.200 well you take advantage of the halo effect uh what are some of the other uh what else has research

00:29:04.140 research says that if you take uh some care into your appearance that what are the benefits well we've

00:29:10.420 talked about how it affects other people but it also affects you and there's a whole body of science

00:29:14.920 called enclosed cognition and they've done a lot of research over at northwestern and a few other

00:29:20.440 universities in which they show when people wear things it has an effect on them an extreme example

00:29:26.600 would be you know if a football player you know let's say the university of oklahoma you know football

00:29:31.740 team goes out on the field everyone's you know excited you know we're you know norm and everyone's

00:29:36.620 going crazy but then they realize wait a minute those guys are wearing you know ballerina tutus it's

00:29:42.780 going to have an effect not only on on the the crowd but it's going to have an effect on the

00:29:47.260 players they're going to be a little bit embarrassed they're going to wonder why are we i mean doesn't

00:29:51.100 they they're just not going to be able to play that well they're probably going to lose to the

00:29:54.700 university of texas you know but uh you know who won this year did oh you win this year yeah that's

00:30:01.220 true that's okay there we go yeah yeah i'm if anyone doesn't know like brett went to went to uh

00:30:06.540 oklahoma university and i went to ut so yeah i got that there's a lot of ut people in my life for some

00:30:12.380 reason yeah i don't know how that i don't know that happens yeah okay so the body of enclosed

00:30:17.400 cognition amazing so the study that they did that blew everyone away was they took two populations

00:30:23.180 they give they give them the same white jacket and they told one group hey these are doctor jackets

00:30:28.820 the other group they said these are painter smocks and they did these number series of exams and what

00:30:34.720 they found people that wore the doctor jackets performed statistically higher on every category

00:30:41.340 than the guys wearing painter jackets the reason being when they were wearing those doctor jackets

00:30:45.580 they felt a little bit smarter they felt like they had to pay more attention and do and and if you

00:30:52.580 think about that women have known this for a long time i remember when i was getting my mba at texas 1.00

00:30:57.760 a friend of mine she looked really good one day and normally she dressed down and i i asked her

00:31:01.980 like are you feeling okay today are you a little bit sick and she said yeah how'd you know and i'm like well

00:31:06.880 it's a trick that you know i know my sisters talk about which is when they feel sick they dress sharp 0.84

00:31:12.020 and they dress sharp because they know they're going to get compliments all day and it makes them

00:31:15.500 feel better and that that has an effect on us because it's from people giving us compliments

00:31:21.580 to us feeling like we are in control somewhat control of the situation and i know you've done a

00:31:28.100 lot of research you've got number of people talk about you know when you're in a situation in which

00:31:32.160 you can't control it like you're strapped to a rocket going into space well focus on something

00:31:36.500 you can't control like you're breathing and all of a sudden you feel more confident you feel you

00:31:42.720 don't panic and that's one of the powers of incognition and focusing on on your image because

00:31:49.940 you can't maybe you can't control what are going to be those test exams or what's going to be those

00:31:55.000 test questions but you can control how you prepared and that you got this got sleep that you

00:32:02.040 you know your shoes are shined that you look good you've received five compliments on the way to your

00:32:06.240 exam and i've heard i've had a number of students reach out to me and say antonio i did exactly what

00:32:10.800 you said i dressed up for my exam and i performed higher than i thought i would it sounds very familiar

00:32:16.220 it's very similar to the um that stanford experiment uh where they done in the 70s they had to shut it down

00:32:23.700 because it was just horrible what's happening so they got they took a group of students and they

00:32:27.720 made one group prison guards and the other group prisoners and uh they put uniforms on the prison

00:32:35.140 guards and they put like prison clothes on the prisoners and just right away uh the prison guards 0.91

00:32:41.940 just started treating the the prisoners like crap and they finally had to shut it down because there's

00:32:47.420 just like psychological torture going on um but it's very simply yes just putting on the uniform 0.95

00:32:52.420 can change the way not only others uh treat you but how you think of yourself and what you're

00:32:58.060 willing to do yeah the fbi did a study in which they again they took they took guys they put them

00:33:03.800 in two different rooms they give them the same problem and they said what are you going to do in

00:33:07.520 this hostage situation and one group said we're going to go down and kick down the door and we're

00:33:11.740 going to you know shoot the hostages in the head the other group said no we're going to negotiate

00:33:15.660 now the only difference between those two populations was what they were wearing one 0.64

00:33:20.780 group was dressed in camis and of course you when you're dressed in camis you're thinking action

00:33:25.560 i'm going to go kick down the door the problem with that is you almost always have you lose some

00:33:30.520 of the hostages versus the other group which is the preferred negotiations is you know they're

00:33:35.720 wearing suits and that's one of the reasons if you think about you know in civilian leadership you

00:33:40.300 you want i mean having been you know around military guys we think like military guys we

00:33:45.780 we feed off each other and we're all about action yeah and one thing we've talked a lot about the

00:33:51.980 site uh and i get questions about this all this time is like brett you know like i'm 25 getting on

00:33:56.460 to you know or 30 like i don't feel like a grown man what can i do and like one of the easiest

00:34:01.360 things i tell them to do is like we'll start dressing like a grown man you know kind of upgrade

00:34:05.360 make simple upgrades in your wardrobe like you know don't move from a t-shirt to a polo shirt

00:34:09.380 um stop wearing cargo shorts all the time and invest in a pair of just nice khaki shorts or

00:34:14.780 a pair of chinos and you'll be surprised how that'll affect how you perceive yourself 0.97

00:34:20.220 completely agree man this is uh you're preaching to the choir i i love preaching to the choir

00:34:28.140 yeah and so okay so anything else any other research well how about facial hair you you've

00:34:34.420 written about facial hair and how that affects how people perceive you you know and it goes from

00:34:40.280 culture to culture but in general having a bit of stubble is shown to actually be attractive it

00:34:47.160 shows that you've got a healthy dose of testosterone usually smoother faces uh especially you know when 0.98

00:34:53.200 it comes down to it i don't think it's as powerful as actually being in shape a lot of the stuff i talk

00:34:57.740 about when it comes to style it can be negated if you're really in poor shape if you've got a heavy

00:35:03.880 chin but the great thing is if you've got a double chin you know growing a little bit of facial hair

00:35:08.160 does a great job of elongating the face and hiding that double chin so that's where it can become very

00:35:14.300 powerful and it sends that signal that you're a good provider but i would say when it comes to beards

00:35:19.660 there's a lot of mixed research out there uh i'd say it comes down to more confidence and and you know

00:35:25.460 wear it with confidence you've been seeing them have a big comeback as of late i think that's a

00:35:29.800 good thing but it's something that you know just make sure that you own look um another thing and

00:35:36.600 when it comes down to aggression they do show that if you want to scare people definitely grow a beard

00:35:42.960 and you know you know leonitis just wouldn't look like leonitis if he wasn't screaming with that beard

00:35:48.240 you know so shave him down give him that clean cut face he's not going to nearly be as intimidating to

00:35:53.180 the persians no way what about mustaches mustaches ah you know they've gotten a bad rap and i know

00:35:58.980 you get a lot does anyone ever say anything about your mustache brett man i get compliments all the

00:36:04.320 time when i'm out and about like hey awesome mustache and that's the only thing i get um and it's like

00:36:09.560 it's become sort of like that's how people identify me uh now it's like the art of manliness is the

00:36:15.620 must my mustache i'll be out like at the grocery store like quick trip and like hey mustache art of

00:36:22.240 manliness guy i'm like yeah so i think if i shaved my mustache off i would become completely

00:36:26.220 unrecognizable uh i think you would too and i think that's the power of the mustache you have

00:36:32.620 to realize that if you're gonna if you're gonna own it you or if you're gonna wear it you have to

00:36:36.500 own it because you will be the only guy most likely in the room with a mustache uh that's not

00:36:42.900 especially if you're under the age of 50 it's going to be one of those things that you just need

00:36:47.520 to wear with confidence there are you know some negative uh you know charlie chaplin you know he

00:36:52.600 definitely didn't have the most you know he had a great career but then he had some negative things

00:36:57.300 that popped up but then hitler just ruined the mustache he did he ruined that it was called the

00:37:02.940 little tramp for a while but then hitler destroyed that one so don't ever go you know that's not when

00:37:06.940 you want to go down and there also is i hear a lot of people will make comments people that you

00:37:11.420 know remain anonymous on the web but they say it reminds them like of a child molester or something

00:37:15.420 like that yeah you know i'm like you know okay you know i can see some people saying that but i think

00:37:21.100 if you smile it it definitely sends a signal that you've got a healthy dose of testosterone and that's

00:37:26.680 what it comes down to is that when it comes to signaling strength and that you are either a great

00:37:32.260 mate or you're a great person to have your back and to be a business partner with that you know i i think

00:37:39.120 it's a good thing grow a mustache grow a mustache why not why not become memorable become memorable yeah

00:37:43.940 well no yeah on youtube uh a lot of the discussion on my videos always revolves around my mustache

00:37:49.540 and whether i should shave it or not and you're gonna let youtube you might as well have like a

00:37:55.600 big voting i should i should let youtube decide the anonymous commenters on youtube what i should

00:38:00.560 do like they tell yeah like how i should dress i had someone say i dress like a dad yeah can you

00:38:06.460 believe that like well well i'm a dad good you are good thing i dress like a dad because i'm a dad

00:38:13.060 anyways yeah so we might okay um so let's talk about this you got something coming up uh some

00:38:19.180 pretty exciting it's called style con can you talk a little bit about that and what's going on there

00:38:23.600 yeah it's going to be may 1st through 3rd in atlanta georgia and if anyone goes to the website

00:38:28.620 mensstylecon.com and you know it's definitely something that we're excited about you are going

00:38:34.900 to be there so i'm excited to have you there brett we're also going to have my partner is aaron

00:38:39.200 reno over at uh i am alpha m and if you find my style advice boring or a little bit uptight go

00:38:45.080 check out aaron he has it's just amazing and he's funny he's entertaining and he covers style in a way

00:38:52.220 that uh let's just say i probably wouldn't go down the path that he does sometimes but i love him

00:38:56.640 he is an amazing person we've also got ryan masters from uh spartan strength coming in and

00:39:01.820 rafael schneider over gentleman's gazette just i'm bringing the who's who of when it comes down to

00:39:08.240 i think men's uh men's lifestyle to one location i haven't seen anyone do anything like this and i'm

00:39:15.000 excited about it because i want to bring in i i would say people that want to meet us in person

00:39:19.780 and just shake hands realize that hey we're regular people just like you and i think that's important

00:39:26.480 so that men realize especially young men that they are capable of anything and that we are here to

00:39:33.480 support them and really want to see them take that net that jump because the world needs more better

00:39:39.500 men awesome so what's that site again they can people find out mensstylecon.com awesome well tony

00:39:47.800 as always it's been a pleasure speaking to you hopefully can have you on again and get some more

00:39:53.220 insights about about men's style sounds good brett all right thanks tony yep bye-bye bye our guest

00:39:59.620 today was antonio centeno he's the owner of real men real style you can visit his site at real men

00:40:04.180 real style.com and get access to just lots of great free content on improving your style also make sure

00:40:09.420 to check out tony's style content on our website artofmanliness.com category style and grooming or

00:40:15.980 dressing grooming excuse me and also if you are interested in attending style con you can find out

00:40:20.860 more information about that at mensstylecon.com well that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:40:27.740 manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:40:32.340 at artofmanliness.com and also please i'd really appreciate if you check out our store store.artofmanliness.com

00:40:38.260 we have a great looking coffee mug there that's huge beastly thing we have a ben franklin inspired

00:40:46.040 journal it's inspired by ben franklin's virtue journal that he made for himself when he was a young man

00:40:51.120 kind of track his moral progress we also have our books there posters a lot of great stuff go check it

00:40:56.920 out your purchases there will support the podcast and the site so i'd really appreciate it that's

00:41:00.900 shop.artofmanliness.com and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:41:07.320 peace note

00:41:11.300 so

00:41:13.700 you

00:41:14.860 you

00:41:16.820 you

00:41:19.860 you

The Art of Manliness - February 19, 2015

#102： The Science of Style With Antonio Centeno

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