Expert Styling Tips For a Powerful and Confident Self-Image | The Mindvalley Podcast

I want you to think about how you go out. Do you feel great in what you're wearing? Are you super excited about it? Or is it like, oh, people sometimes are uncomfortable about wearing something that's not trending right now. But look at celebrities that wear vintage. Learn how to apply makeup. Men, this goes for you as well. I mean, foundations, contouring things. There's some simple things men can do to just make their skin look better and even look better on camera. Like to remove shine, some basic things.

Tell us about that, because just before we got on this webcam, I was telling my team, gosh, I'm looking really oily today because I'm sitting in a different position. The sunlight's kind of different. I just came back from Croatia. I got kind of an uneven tan. What can men do to make us skin look better?

My favorite thing for men, especially guys who don't want to deal with foundations and color matching and all that stuff, is to get.

Welcome, everyone, to the mindvalley podcast. Our guest today, Sandy Grigsby, is a style expert. And the reason I'm bringing Sandy onto this podcast is because we are entering a world that is becoming more and more visual. Whether it's the iPhone 13, which I'm carrying with me right now, which is basically one of the most advanced cameras in your pocket, or the fact that almost any business owner or CEO or coach needs a presence on social media, the way you look in photography and your style matters. Now, I want you to know this has nothing to do with age. One of Mindvalley's authors, Maye Musk, is 72 years old. She has gray hair, and she flaunts her age and her hair that she knows how to come across as her best self. What we are talking about has nothing to do with the quality of your skin or your body shape. Rather, it has to do with how you come across in terms of your style. And style today matters. I just saw a quote from a. From an investor. This was. It was shared widely across Instagram. And the quote said, I will not invest in any company whose CEO does not get social media. And this is something that I prescribe to as well as a belief when it comes to investing. I want to make sure that the CEOs I work with know how to speak clearly, know how to articulate their message, and also come across as elegant, powerful, confident, and have a sense of style in their photography, in their news articles, and on their Instagram. This is why today's topic is so important and why I've been Looking for a while to bring a style expert to mindvalley. So the mini styled channels on YouTube mainly run by men and it's so exciting to see that men's style is growing in popularity. I love watching these channels. I've learned how to groom my beard, how to comb my hair, I've learned about men's skin care and fascinating fact. But men's skin care is so rapidly growing, the industry is seeing 300% year on year growth. Right? But because the mindvalley community is 65 to 70% women, I wanted to bring in a female style expert as our first guest hench. Sandy. I met Sandy by accident in Dubai when I was there for a conference and Sandy's partner Ken and I became good friends. We had dinner together and I was impressed by Sandy's mind and so I invited her to join us on this podcast and take us on a journey on how to come across as our best self. So a little bit about Sandy Grigsby. She was born in Switzerland with a black American father and a Swiss mother. Raised in California, she founded Brio5 in 2005 which is a creative studio specializing in branding, photography, web and graphic design. She's the author, author of I Am who I Am, an illustrated children's book teaching self worth and confidence. She's worked as a commercial print model, modeling for companies like Tempur, Pedic, Apple, Sony T Mobile. She is a big sister at the Big Brothers Big Sisters la. She now lives in Santa Monica and she practices wildlife and nature photography in her spare time. Now, if you want to check out Sandy's Instagram page, go to Sandy in Focus Now. Just a caveat here, guys. I don't want you to judge someone by the number of followers they have on Instagram. We get celebrities on who have 12, 13 million followers. That's not what Sandy does. Sandy, rather is a consultant who advises CEOs and coaches and men and women playing at the in the big leagues on how to come across in terms of style. So she's not going for millions of followers. Rather she's going for dedicated followers who are interested in learning personal branding and how to improve their image. So, Sandy, welcome to the mindvalley podcast. It's great to have you here.

Thank you so much, Vishen. I'm happy to be here.

Sandy, firstly, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get interested in this field?

That's a loaded question, Vishen. The story goes back, but to sum it up, I actually started out as a commercial print model when I was about 18 years old. A friend made a joke about you should be a model. And I was like, yeah. So I did it and it worked out. I was in the San Francisco Bay area, so that's where I started. And from that I went to university. I was studying international relations. I wasn't in love with it, so I ended up going into visual communications and pretty much just a graphic design degree. And I learned some photography, but it wasn't my specialty. I just loved doing art and creating. And I started working. My first job straight out of college was with a photographer in Los Angeles. And he was working with all of these celebrities like Carmen Electra and Shemar Moore and like all of these famous people in Hollywood at that time.

And.

And I got to do their websites because I was a graphic designer. And they onboarded me to build out their websites and do the graphics, and I took the beautiful photographs from him and I used that. And that ended up me leaving that job because of some sexual harassment stuff that I wasn't happy with, going and working for another photographer who also sexually harassed me. And then I had to leave that job and I started freelancing on my own. And I did what I knew. And what I knew was modeling, which I did, and building websites for people that was for their brands. And I kind of fell into it that way. And over years it just grew into a bigger business for me. And that's when I started my company, Brio5. I actually started it in 2005. And what ended up happening was I got burned out from doing websites because I had so many clients giving me these horrible photographs of them. And I was making these beautiful websites and I was trying to say, you know, you need to have your brand look like this and carry yourself like this. And they weren't listening to me, and. And I ended up just having to take charge and photograph them. So I said, okay, I'm going to take your picture, I'm going to make it work, because it needs to look great. And what I did was I taught them everything that I knew from modeling because a lot of the people that I was working with, they were chiropractors, they were jewelry store owners, they were authors, they were artists. They weren't people who were used to being in front of the camera. And so I taught them everything I knew.

And.

And I ended up getting this incredible result. And before I knew it, I started phasing out all the web design stuff and I only did photography. And that grew even more because in the clients that I was Getting, which were, again, Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. You know, I work with people at Facebook, Instagram, all these huge companies. And I realized that confidence was a thing for them. They weren't confident about their self image. So it was the way that they were carrying themselves, it was the way that they were dressing themselves, the way that they styled their hair. I learned quickly that they were doing things that they had learned in their 20s, but they were in their 40s and 50s, and the things that they learned in their 20s weren't working for them anymore. And so I came up with a process to help them create a unique style that was exclusive to them. Something that they could maintain, something that was manageable, not something that they had to have someone else do or that was temporary. Because, you know, you go to a photo session and they do your makeup, they do your hair, they style you, they make you look incredible, you look fabulous. You get on camera and then you can't duplicate it, right? So the next time you have to be in front of the camera, you don't have that same makeup artist, you don't have the stylist, you don't have any of that. You don't look as good, and then you don't feel as good, and then it comes across that way. And then when you're on camera on your own, or you show up at an event, or you have to meet someone, your confidence just takes a hit because you go, oh, well, I was looking great at this one time, but I can't maintain it. So I teach people how to maintain it and how to feel fabulous and own it with confidence.

I love that. I love that. And that is so true. I never thought that I should invest money in a style coach or a stylist until maybe about 2019. And it was expensive. I think I invested about 10k in a particular style coach. But the transformation that it did for my career was mind blowing, which is why I believe that this is such an important piece of personal growth that everyone needs to pay attention to. I found that I got more interviews. I found that my Instagram absolutely exploded. I went from maybe, gosh, maybe like 70,000 followers to 830,000 followers over the next three years. And I've been at 70. I've been under 70 for almost like five, seven years. And I also noticed that the number of speaking engagements that I was asked to do went up. The amount I could charge for speaking went up. But here's the most interesting thing. Sandy, my. So as the founder of Mindvalley, I frequently have to appear in advertisements for my own company. And what happened is that the advertisements that I was in started performing better and better and better. So I ended up probably generating millions in additional revenue because I learned the nuances of style. And this is why this conversation is so important. So I would love for you to break it down for us. What is style? What should we be paying attention to?

Well, before I get into that, I actually want to explain why it's important. Because you can know what style is, and you can do it. But if you don't know why it's important, what does it matter, right? So the importance of having style, and not just any style. It's style that's authentic to you, that feels true to you, is important because it represents trust. I know you're like, what are you talking about? But if you take care of how you look, you take care of how you are, that means that you trust yourself, and that means others can inherently trust you. It all comes down to trust, because that is what confidence is. Self confidence is trust in yourself. And if you are showing up without a good style, that means you don't really care. And if you don't care about your yourself like that, you don't care about the work that you're doing for other people. You don't care about the relationships you're building. I know it sounds kind of vague, but it's the thing that other people receive. It's what they see from you. So if you show up and your style's all over the place and you look messy, you just look like you don't care, then the people are gonna think, wow, you're not caring about yourself. You're probably not gonna care about helping me. You're not gonna care about the way I feel. You're not gonna care about what you do with me. So it's really important to show that trust by taking care of yourself. So that's why. And then what is style? Style is the thing that shows off the deepest version of you. Everyone has a different style. You'll see. You know, we had mentioned some executives that wear only one thing that might be their style. And yes, that came from the past where it was just easier. They had to manage their time. They didn't want to think about fashion. They didn't have someone to help him at the moment. So wearing a black T shirt and jeans was just easy, right?

Like. Like Steve Jobs. Like Steve Jobs. Like Mark Zuckerberg. But remember Steve Jobs? This was the area, the era before social Media. Mark Zuckerberg, he created the popularity of social media. Right. But when Mark Zuckerberg started, there wasn't a Facebook, there wasn't an Instagram. He built it. And. And back then, if you were a CEO, you communicated through memos, you communicated. Communicated through the written word. Not true Imagery. And that world has changed. Yes.

And back then, as a CEO, if you had to do something important, then a stylist would come in and style you and it would be fine.

Exactly. Right?

So now it's different, especially with the world gone completely virtual. I mean, the zoom calls, the. The FaceTime calls, all of the meetings. People don't go places and meet people anymore. And when you do, that's even more critical. That's why this whole process is important, because it's not just on your photos, it's not just in your zoom calls on your videos. It's also in person. So having a style that's innate to you, that means it resonates with you. You love it. Getting up, getting dressed in the morning, you go, oh, I can't wait to wear something from my closet. Because I love everything that's really important. Because that is a confidence boost, especially when you're kind of feeling. You're not really feeling it, you don't feel so good. And you wear something that you love that saves your confidence like you wouldn't believe. Imagine walking out in something that you hate. You don't even know why you hate it. Your shoulders slouch a little bit, your head's not held as high. You're kind of like, oh, gosh, this sucks.

Right?

And then you walk out in something that you love. It's like you're flaunting yourself, kind of like a peacock. Like, look at me, I'm a rock star right now. So your own style is really important to have because it gives you that confidence. It tells other people that they can trust you, and. And it just feels really good, and it's a good representation of who you.

Actually are, and it's not hard anymore. Like, style today doesn't really cost much. Right. So, yes, if you can afford it, hire a style coach. But there are also tips and techniques that you can take back before the end of this podcast that will radically transform your style. And, Sandy, I'm going to ask you to share your tips, and I'm going to share mine as well from a male perspective. Okay? Absolutely. So where would you like to begin?

Let's start with what you're doing now. So right now, everyone listening, everyone watching this I want you to think about how you go out. Do you feel great in what you're wearing? Are you super excited about it? Or is it like, oh.

When I.

Go places, I ask people, what are you wearing? Do you love it? And not very many hands go up because we tend to wear things that were learned. Our mom bought it for us, a partner bought it for us. A friend said, oh, my gosh, it looks so good on you. You should wear it. And then you wear it, and you're like, oh. Or it's trending, or someone in the store actually convinced you to buy it even though you didn't love it, but they said how great it looked on you, and it was such a great price, so you picked it up. Yeah, that kind of stuff, right? And then you're wearing it, you're like, oh, just doesn't resonate with me. And then it gets shelved in the closet and it sits there forever. I'm sure you have something in your closet that you just don't ever wear, but you won't get rid of it because it was so expensive, or your grandma gave it to you, or someone gave it to you, and it's just sitting there collecting dust. Right. So let's look at what we're wearing, and then let's find a solution on how to actually wear what you love. And I have a process for that, and we can go into that. But wearing what you love changes everything. So the first step is look at what you're wearing, and if you don't love it, get rid of it. It's that simple. Give it to a friend, sell it on online. There's so many platforms. You can sell stuff on Instagram and Facebook and stuff. Now sell it. Your giveaway might be someone else's dream come true. And then go and get things that actually resonate with you. And what's beautiful about this is you don't have to follow trends because your unique style can be something from the past, it could be something from the future. You can make it up because it's unique to you. And people sometimes are uncomfortable about wearing something that's not trending right now. But look at celebrities that wear vintage, right? Like, what's the. There's this one celebrity, Gal Gadot. Every time you see her in movies, like she was in Death of the Nile, she was in Wonder Woman. All the clothing she wears is always kind of a vintage look. Does she not look absolutely phenomenal in everything that she wears? You look at her and go, oh, my gosh, that Blouse is gorgeous. Look at the way that skirt sits on her hips. Look at the way that, the length of that, like, I would never wear that length, but that length looks so good, I want to wear it. She can get away with wearing vintage looks because it's sort of her thing. Even though she styled in movies, look at the way she dresses outside. She kind of dresses the same. So you don't have to follow exact trends. You can create your own look. I had a client that hated her wardrobe so much she dreaded it. And if you look at pictures of her, the things that she was wearing just didn't match. She was beautiful. She had this beautiful blonde hair, creamy skin, blue eyes. And she would wear the colors that were assigned to her. Like blue makes your eyes more blue. She wore all of that. It just didn't resonate. And when we went through this process that I'm about to tell you, the end result was she came out with a vintage, inspired look. Her style was completely from the 40s and 50s, and she realized that she actually owned pieces in her closet that were representative of that era, but she didn't really focus on it. And once she realized that and she actually focused on it, she bought modern clothes that felt like they were from the 40s and 50s and they look so phenomenal on her. And we did her photo session and she just rocked it. And now if you go to her social media, it's like night and day. She owns it. She got the right haircut for her face, she wears the right clothes and she has that nostalgia. And she's in real estate and she actually sells homes that are kind of in the era. So when people see her, they feel like it's right. There's like a connection to it. Right. If she's selling a home from the 50s and she's kind of dressed like in the 50s, something warm and inviting is about her as your realtor and you just want to work with her.

You know, that, that, that is so cool. It reminds me of a. Of a 50 year old gentleman I met recently at a. At a conference. And as soon as I saw him, I couldn't take my eyes off him. He had, he had gray hair, beautiful gray hair. Okay. And it was that. But it was kind of in a certain way where he had grown his hair long, put it to the side, shaved the sides of his hair. He had painted his nails purple. He wore jackets and outfits that look almost shamanic. And he wore pants that stopped just above the ankles. You know, those baggy pants which which get narrow as they come down to the ankles. And he looked like a shaman from the year 3000. That's the best way to describe it. He wore the most interesting shamanic beads. And I just, he was just the coolest guy ever. And I asked him like what do do? And it turned out he, he produces Hollywood movies. But I love the fact that this man, despite his gray hair, he wasn't trying to be younger. He was embracing his age. He just stood out. And he had such an incredible personality. He was probably the most memorable person at that conference. But he was just wearing non branded items that he had probably picked up from his travel. So his adventure because they represented who he is. And I think this is a really important lesson. I have friends here, I have a friend over here who loves dressing like the 1920s. And this man. And these clothing is, this clothing is not expensive. You can literally go to a trip store, you know, in the US or in Europe, buy items on the cheap. I recently bought a leather jacket for €1 at a trip store. Can you believe that? And then if it doesn't fit you, you can always get it altered, right?

Yeah, of course.

So important to find and identify that.

Style, you know, and the power of that is you were drawn into that person. He magnetized you with his appeal and the way that he carried himself, his style. And that's the. You had trust in him instantly. You didn't even know why. I was like, why do I love this person? There's someone in a community that I have who dresses kind of like a high end burner from Burning Man. He wears like the tassels and the weird colors and the crisscross jacket and the leather and the hats and all the stuff. And it's like in the rings and the chains and the layers and the tears in his jeans and it's the. When you see him walk in, first you have to stop. You look. I'm like, what is he from Burning Man? And it's so weird, but at the same time it's so cool that you just hypnotized by him and you want to hear everything he has to say.

So finding your, finding your own style is really, really important. Now I just want to, just want to give some tips to men over here. Okay. Firstly, don't worry about your hair graying. Don't even worry about your hair falling out. Yes, taking care of your hair is, is important. But they are ways like I, I have men who have lost all their hair. It's not a problem if you Want to go get a hair transplant or whatever, you know that that's your thing. But many of the male friends I know look strikingly gorgeous. They simply shave it, shave their head and they grow a beard. And honestly, they look so damn good. So if you're a guy, never, ever, ever in today's world, you do not have to worry about losing hair or your hair going gray. Right? There are so many ways to really make that work. One of my one male friend I know, he is just so attractive. Women cannot stay away from him. He's lost all his hair. He just has the most elegant beard. He has a. He wears a yearing and he just knows how to dress and he's just remarkably positive and friendly, so you don't have to worry about these things. So. Oh, so you're asking me who? Well, it would be. See, I don't want to give out the names. I really don't want to give out the names because I want us to stay focused and I need to get their permission before giving out their names. Okay, so we won't give out names. But you know, you'll see these people, everyone I've mentioned. You'll probably meet them at a Mindvalley event or you will see them on the mindvalley podcast. Okay, now, but listen, I want to.

Add something to that with the gentleman that you had mentioned with the hair and the beard. No hair and the beard and the earrings. It's not just this haircut and the style and the grooming. It's also the confidence. It's how you carry yourself. It's that feeling of, I know right now I feel good with who I am, how I am showing up and the way the world sees me. It's walking out with that. So you can wear the craziest thing, you can dress like psychedelic from the 60s. Bell bottoms, flower print. There's a guy on Instagram who does this. He has like flowery shirts and the whole thing and he dances all the time and he's got this crazy bear hair. It's like in a beard, a long beard. And he looks so insane, but you're absolutely magnetized by the way that he carries himself because he has the confidence. So if you have amazing self confidence, you can wear a potato sack and look fabulous and you can shave all your hair off and look fabulous, or you can grow your hair crazy long and look fabulous. It's just. It all belongs to how you actually feel about yourself on the inside.

Okay, so we've spoken about. We've spoken about the original style. Now, let's talk about other elements. Let's talk about hair. Beard, skin. What would you recommend for coming across as your best self in these aspects?

Well, first of all, for your hair. Most people don't really know what to do with hair, so they go to a stylist, and they are unhappy at the end. So what I recommend is, and this is the same process that I do for styling. I have people create a Pinterest board. It's really important. Go on Pinterest. And when you're searching for pins, you must pin things that you love, things that make your heart flutter, things that make you go, oh, my gosh, this is it. Even if you don't know why you love it. It could be a picture of a puppy, but if you love it, pin it. Okay? And do the same thing when it comes with hairstyles, makeup styles. Go through and see the things that you love, even if the face isn't your face. There's something about what your heart is reacting to that is intrinsic to you, that's your subconscious speaking. So go in, look for hairstyles, look for things, and then once you have them all together, start picking your favorites, even though they're already feeling like your favorites. But I want you to pin, like two, 300 pins. And then from that, narrow it down. And then what you do is you take those in to a professional and say, which one would work best for me? And you'd be surprised. A lot of people can get away with some amazing haircuts with a good stylist, with a good person who knows how to deal with your hair. And also, don't go to someone just because they're cheap. Right? Find someone. Find someone who is an expert at cutting hair. Go to their social media, look at it. Spend the money to get the initial haircut. It doesn't mean you have to keep going back. The key word is the initial haircut.

So here's a tip. Okay? So I had really boring hair. Like, really, really, really boring hair. Because I went to the same barber out of loyalty for 10 years. Why? Because he was my friend and we'd have wonderful barbershop conversations, but it was the same boring barber. Now, one day I went to my regular barber, and he was closed. So I thought, well, you know, I'll go to the fancy place down the street that. That my friends were. That my friends were always talking about. That My. My. Some. Some of my close family members went to. These were mostly women. And they'd also, they would always say, Vishen, you got to go to this. This barbershop. And I never really felt I needed to switch barbers. But that day I went to the fancy barbershop. I paid three times what I regular paid. But this is what happened. Okay? So the barber over there, he looked at my hair and he goes, this is so boring. Do you give me permission to do something different with your hair? And I said, sure do do it. And he changed my hair. My hair used to be really flat. Now you can see my hair kind of stands up, and it actually looks so much better. But he explained something to me. He's like, okay, look, if you have this much space between your. Your eyes and your forehead, your hair should be higher. And he showed me all of these different ways on how to style my hair. He explained to me why I needed to shave the sides. He showed me how to use a hair dryer. I had no idea how to use a hair dryer for combing my hair. He showed me the correct way of parting my hair. There's a. There's a technique where you can find the perfect spot for your parting. He showed me how to create volume. And he showed me how to take care of my hair so I keep it longer and it doesn't go as gray as fast. I paid maybe an extra 50 bucks. But since then, I felt and looked so different. I look better in photographs. I feel more confident. And the best part is this. I later moved countries. I couldn't go back to my former barber, but he had styled my hair so well, I could go to any barber, describe what I wanted, and my new barber would just be able to take care of it. So I get my hair cut now every two weeks. Every two weeks. I think that that's. That's important as a man. It's not about saving money. Every two weeks, it cost me €22. €22 every two weeks. It's hardly. Hardly anything. Right. But I go to different barbers that I have a specific style, and it's easy to replicate. But this is why hair is so important.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, I have this saying, a professional is expensive, but an amateur is a fortune.

Right?

What does that amateur haircut costing you in terms of your confidence, in the way you're showing up, the way you look? And like I said, go to an expensive stylist, get the right cut for your face, show them what you love, see if they can match something similar to that. That'll work for your face. That's what's really important. And then after that, it's just a maintenance cut. Other people can follow the existing cut unless you let it completely grow out, but exactly, exactly. And the same thing goes for beauty. The same thing goes for beauty. Hire an amazing makeup artist, go online, find makeup artists, and they can teach you virtually. You don't even have to do this in person, but have them teach you how to actually apply your makeup. Or go on YouTube and watch a video. The only thing with YouTube is sometimes it's hard to discern which is the right type of makeup for your face. But go on YouTube, learn how to apply makeup. Men, this goes for you as well. I mean, foundations, contouring things. There's some simple things men can do to just make their skin look better and even look better on camera. Like to remove shine, some basic things.

So it's easy to tell us about what. Tell us about that. Because just before we got on this webcam, I was telling my team, gosh, I'm looking really oily today because I'm sitting in a different position. The sunlight's kind of different. I just came back from Croatia. I got kind of an uneven tan. What can men do to make us look better?

My favorite thing for men, especially guys who don't want to deal with foundations and color matching and all that stuff, is to get a primer. So an anti shine primer. I know Revlon makes a really inexpensive one. You can order it online. It's like seven or eight dollars for a container that lasts forever. And it's white. You just wipe it on with a little. It has a little pad. You just wipe it on, and it just. It makes your skin matte and it doesn't reflect the light. So your skin looks really beautiful and flat without having shiny hot spots like the forehead and the nose, things like that. So it's just a very simple that you get.

I just learned something here. I had no idea that such a magical invention existed, and I'm seeing that it's a real thing. Face primer for men. What the hell? Nobody told me this. How do you.

The key is, though, how am I.

26 years old and I've never heard of this?

You want to do this before you style your hair. And the reason is you want to sort of push it into the hairline because guys will get oily and shiny in the scalp, right? So pushing the hairline, if you have no hair, then obviously just use it on your whole entire head, and it'll keep that reflection and light from happening. So that's the best way. And Also, make sure that you're clean shaven. Not if you have a beard. Don't shave off your beard, obviously, but shave up to the points, because stubble and things like that, it's not as clean on camera and the makeup will just stick to it. So you want to be clean shaven so that it's nice and smooth and then moisturize. Moisture is really important. The issue that I see with men that come in for photo sessions with me or my clients that I work with is they don't take care of their skin. So their skin's dry and patchy, and then makeup sticks to it weird. Even the primer will clump on it, and then it just looks uneven and not good. And also stay out of the sun with your face. This is a really big one. I can't tell you how many of my male clients are getting skin cancer removal off of their nose. So when you touch your nose like this and it feels dry and patchy in little sections, not the whole thing, but like little circles of dry patchiness, that's your first sign that you have oncoming skin cancer. So.

Wow. Wow. Yeah.

And I've. I've diagnosed that in a lot of my clients because I'll be doing photo sessions with them, and I'm trying to, like, get their makeup to be smooth, and I realize it's patchy. And I send them in. Women as well. I send them in. I said, go see your dermatologist after this. Really important. And they find out that they had a skin cancer patch forming and they had to have it burned off. So that's.

That's intense. So for those of you who actually want to go. For those of you who want to go further in skin, we have a previous episode on this podcast that talks about skin. I interviewed one of the leading skin doctors and he tells you exactly what to buy, male or female, where to get it from, the exact brands. He's not affiliated with these brands, so I appreciate him for mentioning it. I bought these brands and they've worked really well for me. Type in mindvalley Podcast skin and you should be able to find it. It's by Dr. Barry Leica Lycka on how to have radiant amazing skin. Okay. If you put it in Google mindvalley Podcast Skin, you will be able to find this episode and feel free to go deeper and identify the best skin care products and the best skin care regimen to have.

Having amazing skin allows you to be more confident and look better on camera in person. And that just requires a little Bit of maintenance. Can't just let it slide.

Okay, so we've spoken about hair, we've spoken about skin. I just want to touch a little bit on beard for men. Okay. So I didn't used to have a beard. And I had a wonderful friend in the office. He was a guy who worked for me. His name was Ali and Ali was from Denmark. And he had the most amazing beard. And Ali one day came to me and said, boss. He calls me boss just to kind of tease me. He's like, boss. You know, for a CEO, you really dress bad. Could me and my wife actually take you shopping? And by the way, can I also teach you what to do with your beard? And he literally educated me on how to grow a beard, how to trim a beard, when to start shaving at my beard line, what type of beard wax to do, to use. And the results were dramatic. Like, I cannot even express this to you, Sandy. The amount of attention I got from women, the. The way I came across on camera and photography all changed just because of a beard. So. So my tip for men is if try growing a beard. There was a study done and it showed that especially, okay, if now this doesn't matter whether you're single or if you're in a relationship. There was a study done on women and it showed that there is an optimal beard length that women find attractive. And it's not clean shaven, nor is it a full, bushy beard. It's sort of like what I have over here. Okay.

Exactly.

Okay. Yeah. And then if you happen to have like a recess, like a recessed chin, you can also grow this part of your beard a little bit longer. And it's also important to have a beard trimmer and this will do wonders for your look. So I want to give a tip now for, for men and women. So somebody asked me, could you recommend a few of your friends whom you think have really good style? I was just talking to this man. His name is Sten. Stan runs an incredible clothing clothing store just down the street. And his Instagram is Guild G U I L D. Okay. So he runs it with his wife. Sten is a man with a beautiful beard, a very unique style. His wife Joanna is equally stylish. They are in their 40s. Go check out Guild on Instagram if you want to see an example of a man really embracing, really embracing his own unique style. So his is more of a vintage style and really knowing how to use accessories like beards and sunglasses to really amplify their looks. When I see Stan walking down the street, he immediately stands out. Everything from his pants to his jacket to his hat. And because of that, I want to shop with Stan. So I spend so much money at Stan's clothing store because he represents this formidable style that makes him stand out. And if you're a business owner, know that whether you're selling chocolates, right, or you're a lawyer and you want someone and you want to get more clients for your law firm, your unique style is really going to make a difference. It is. It is your canvas. It is your brand. Okay, so Guild G U I L D on Instagram.

Okay, so one other tip I wanted to ask add when you mentioned the beard wax, another amazing thing is eyebrow wax. It's like the best thing ever, especially if you have longer eyebrows because it keeps them in place. So when you're doing wardrobe changes from, you know, you have a photo shoot, you have to be on camera, you have to go somewhere, it doesn't mess up your eyebrows. So.

Wow.

One other tip.

Eyebrow wax. Okay, so again, this is something I. Okay, so I'm seeing something on Google how to wax your eyebrows. So this is different, right? It's not waxing your eyebrows. It's eyebrow wax.

It's eyebrow wax. So the beard wax that you have, just take a touch, tiny bit and you can just use it in your eyebrows, keep them in place for. There's also eyebrow wax. It's like a mascara wand, and you can just brush them in place. I'm using it right now, so my eyebrows are in place.

Your eyebrows are fantastic, Sandy. Thank you.

Thank you.

So I. So I love that. I love that. I'm okay. So those, those are really good tips. We've spoken about hair. We've spoken about beard. We've spoken about the importance of sunscreen, eyebrow wax. We've spoken about that. That item you mentioned earlier, primer for men. Any specific tips for women?

Well, for, for makeup, you mean?

Yes, well, for. For coming across as your best. But I'm sure. But I think women get this, right? It's men who tend to be the idiots about it.

Let me, let me tell you the thing that I see the most with women. It's women who are in their 40s and up who tend to do their makeup like they did when they were in the 20s. So the thick, heavy black eyeliner, the, you know, the overdrawn lips, things like that, it doesn't work anymore. So I always recommend for women if you're over 40, because the skin around your eyes and the skin around your mouth, unless you've had them filled right, is generally crepier and thinner. So it can't handle the same makeup that you can do when you're in your 20s, where the skin is supple and full and healthy and happy, and you just can't. So what I recommend for women over 40 that are starting. Some women over 40 have amazing skin, and it doesn't matter. They can get away with a lot of. But some women start to get very thin crepey skin. So what I recommend is take it down to a brown instead of a black and don't put it on so thick. And what it does is it doesn't cause the skin to have a collapse and a caking look, and the eyes actually look bigger. The only time I would say don't do this is if you're going to be on stage. Like, you see a lot of women who speak on stages. In the stage, they're speaking in front of 500 plus people. And then you can cake on the black because you want your eyes to be defined a little bit more from a distance. But in photographs, in person, in videos, it doesn't really work. So just be really careful with the black around the eyes. So that's one of my tips for women. And then when it comes to makeup, there's so many things. Contouring is one of my favorite things that women tend to skip. I personally don't like wearing a lot of foundation. I don't like the feeling on my face. Actually, I think it makes me look older because the smile lines, it starts to crack in there. Even when I put primer on, it starts to cake in there. I feel like my skin isn't as supple and dewy, so I don't use it. But I do contour. So I'll take a bronzer, I'll take a contouring stick, and then I'll contour my cheekbones. I'll contour around the forehead, and I'll contour under the jawline. Jawline's really important because you want to sharpen that jawline to give a nice definition. And it works beautifully in your photos. It works in person. So that's what I do. And then blush, of course, because adding a little bit of color and then eyebrows are key. Use your eyebrow pencil. Get your eyebrows microbladed, fill them in, use the wax. Eyebrows make you look younger. The thicker and fuller your eyebrows, the younger you look.

Very, very, very cool tips. Now let's talk about dressing. Okay, so we spoke a little bit about in terms of dressing, your style. But what I'm interested in understanding here is because I, I know the tips for men, but I'd love to hear your take on it. I often take male authors that are part of Mindvalley, especially authors in the fitness field. Authors in the fitness field, they tend to dress like they're perpetually in going to the gym. And I'm actually going to bring this up. So I'm going to show you some pictures of Ronan because one day I told Ronan, I asked Ronan to host an event and I said, Ronan, you cannot dress like you're going to the gym because Ronan teaches. He's one of the most remarkable authors on Mindvalley, but he basically teaches fitness. Actually, you know what? I can't squeen chest. So that's fine. Let me just.

So you're saying that he dresses a little bit too fitness?

Yeah, like he dresses exactly like workout pants. Workout pants. Like a gym style T shirt. And so I took into Zara and for something like €180. That was it, €180. We were able to completely change his style. That's all it took. So again, I want men to know this does not really take that much time. Right. €180. But a couple of key things. White sneakers, like white sneakers are really fashionable.

I was just gonna recommend that. Absolutely.

White sneakers without socks. So you want to buy those hidden socks that hide within, that hide under the sneakers. A good white T shirt. You can't go wrong with white. A good black T shirt. A good navy T shirt, a good gray T shirt. In Zara, these T shirts cost like 19 to 29 bucks. But you want to wear it and test it out to make sure that truly fits you. And then a great pullover. And then with Zara, you can get really affordable jackets that last year. I'm going out for dinner right now and I'm about to put on a jacket from Zara that cost me maybe 49 bucks. I've had the jacket for four years and it's just a simple brown blazer, but it looks good. And so I was able to take Ronan Diego, who's our author of 10X, completely transform his style for just 180 bucks at Zara. Yeah.

And you can keep that sporty feel by just picking pieces that are a little bit more sporty. So I'm actually going to take that to the next level vision. So when I work with clients, you can style a ronin, but he might not actually maintain that style. So if you want to maintain a look, we go back to that Pinterest board. Pin things in fashion that you absolutely love. You might find out that the things come from a different era. They might come. They might be sporty, they might be super sophisticated, might be corporate, whatever it is. Pin the things that you love. Then start incorporating those things into your wardrobe. And also, I ask for you to pin two to 300 pins, not more than that, because then Pinterest slows down. It gets really difficult. But two to 300 pins is the sweet spot. And I want you to look collectively at all of your pins, and you'll start to see a pattern. You'll see the same colors showing up time and time again. So you might see a burnt orange. You might see a blue. You might see a fuchsia. Then you're like, I don't wear fuchsia. But you might see it show up again and again. And usually it's five to six different colors that people see. And the one thing that everyone skips is the white and the black. If you're seeing white and black show up a lot, like, maybe all the clothing you picked was white. That's really important. I've had clients skip that, right? So go through. See what colors are showing up again. And it's not just the outfits. It could be in the backgrounds. It could be the accessories. It could be things. Like, I had someone, he kept pinning cats, and all the cats were fawn, like that topi kind of camel color, and white. Well, guess what? Those were two of his colors. So that's a really powerful way to narrow down what your colors are. So the basics are great. Black, white, things like that. But you might actually find that you have five to six colors that are unique to you, unique to your subconscious, things that you gravitate towards without even realizing it. And then when you're shopping, look for those colors, because then you're going to find your wardrobe is more powerful, and you're more excited about your wardrobe, and you're happier to wear it.

This is really, really, really cool. I realized I do not have a Pinterest board for style. And here's a little tip. If you go to Pinterest and you create. If you don't have a Pinterest account, if you create an empty Pinterest board and you just call it my style, Pinterest knows what this board is going to be for. And Pinterest will recommend beautiful style pictures of style for men and women that you can immediately follow. So I just did this, and I already Found a really, really, really nice shirt and tie style that I just pinned to my board. So I just created my first Pinterest board style image. Thank you for that. That's a really important tip.

May I give one more tip for Pinterest to make it easier? Because Pinterest can be amazed. They throw so many things at you, you'll see the same things pop up and it's hard to search for stuff. So here's how I have my clients do searches on Pinterest. You first want to create a list of all of the things that you love. So if it's, if you're focusing on clothing or just style in general, I want you to list things from hats, shoes, types of pants, jeans, heels, accessories. Also locations like if you love tropical beach, cafes, fancy living rooms, forests, include animals, include food. What's your favorite food? For me, I love, believe it or not, I love ice cream. Even though I don't eat it that much, I love the look of it. So I pinned ice cream. Pin pizza, if that's your thing. And then the extra thing that you want to do when you write down that list of favorite things when you're actually entering them into Pinterest, to find that search, add the keyword photography. Sometimes add professional photography. Because what you want to pin is you don't want to pin anything that looks amateur because that's going to make it really hard for you to distill that pin that, that board into a nice mood board for yourself. So you want to use higher quality, professional looking images. So when you're pinning, for example, ice cream, write in ice cream photography or ice cream food photography. If you're painting animals, do wildlife photography or animal photography or professional photography animals, things like that, then the quality and the level of the Pinterest pins are so much greater then when you're looking at them, they're a little bit more artsy, they have more simplified colors. There's just more texture to it. There's so many things that you now you can go, I love that. And then what happens is as you're pinning, there's going to be an option that says view more. Right. Or as you pin it to your board, you can go to your board and sort of see the summary and then underneath it it says see more like this. Go there and it's easier to start pinning things. So if you can't find something. Exactly. Go to the more and then see what else you can find and see what resonates with you and pin those things to your Board.

I love that. These are such good tips. I've not found an excuse to use Pinterest in years. And I think you just gave me my first excuse to get back on Pinterest.

And you know what's great about this? It doesn't just work for your branding, it works for everything you brand. So I've had my clients and I've done it for myself. I use this process for my personal styling, my personal branding, and also my business. If I have a new business and I want to create a look and style for that, I use my Pinterest board. If I have a home and I want to decorate that home, I use my Pinterest board. You can use it for anything. You just have to pin things that resonate with you, that you love.

Beautiful. And you know, sometimes I feel, I feel guilty doing things like this because I'm also aware of the huge damage that fast fashion is having on the environment. But here's a tip. If you also are not the type of person that want to engage in this mass consumption behavior. There was an interesting statistic in the 1980s. The average American bought something like eight pieces of clothing a year. Today it's 62. And part of that is because of fast fashion clothes like shopping brands like Zara and H and M Instagram creates this cycle where you constantly see clothing you want to wear and very often you buy multiple pieces of clothing. And a lot of this ends up in landfills. But remember this, for me, the single best article of clothing I ever bought, I bought from a thrift store. It was a thrift store. It was an outdoor market in Amsterdam, right? And it cost me maybe €8. It was the single best jacket I've ever, ever, ever owned. And so don't give up on shopping at a thrift store. You can go to thrift stores around the world. Like every city pretty much has a thrift store and an outdoor flea market. And you can get amazing things there too.

I actually see a question that I'd like to answer in the chat.

Yes, go ahead.

It's about style. So the question is if I have a tip for jeans that fit overall, but have a bit of a gap. First of all, jeans, pants, dresses, it doesn't matter what it is. If you find something you love, especially from a thrift store, a vintage piece, a piece that you've owned, a piece that someone gave you and it just doesn't fit, have it tailored. It's so inexpensive to go have jeans tailored or have a dress made to fit that it saves you so much money because if you went, let's say you got something at a thrift store for, let's say you spent top $20.

Ooh.

And it didn't fit you properly, let's say it was a size too big, you can have it tailored for another $20. And for $40, it's much less expensive than buying something from a retail store that you're not going to wear after a while because it's that fast fashion. So. And also look at people who have a style that you really admire. You know, we were talking about the gentleman with the beard and the outfit and the whole thing. A lot of their clothing actually might be vintage because most of the people I know that actually wear things that are really powerful or impactful, their pieces are not things you're going to find in a regular store. They're things that you either find in a custom shop or they're vintage or it's something they've had for years or they got it from their parents or whatever it is. So just have it tailored to fit. I've had my jeans tailored. I have my dresses tailored. Skirts. I've had so many pieces in my wardrobe tailored. And it keep. You can keep them longer. Just take care of them. Wash things on gentle cycle. Don't put them in the power wash because that's what destroys things. So gentle, gentle cycle, air dry. I try not to dry clean things because dry cleaning can also destroy clothing. So just be very careful about the washing. But you can keep the longevity of your clothes for lasting so long and so well that you don't have to spend a fortune in clothes, clothing.

Very, very, very, very true. When in 2016, when I did WildFit, I went from 22% body fat, so I was kind of chubby. I went from 22% body fat to 13% body fat in 90 days straight on Wildfit. Right. And then. And then I decided to get the license and bring Wildfit to Mindvalley because it was so fantastic. It's mindvalley.com forward/wildfit. 70% of the clothing I own could no longer fit me. All the shirts started to look baggy, and so I just took. I tossed away a couple or I gave it away to two thrift stores. But the ones I really like, I just got them tailored. It didn't really cost much, but now my body changed and I could still wear all of my old shirts, just tailored. The shirt I'm wearing right now is one of those shirts I just had it altered to fit my body better.

That's amazing. I love it. I had. I actually got a pair of pants. A client gave them to me because she's like, oh, these don't fit me anymore. And they're too long. Whatever here. And they were like some Yves Saint Laurent pants or something, and they did not fit me. They were super long, and they were super baggy, and they're kind of frumpy, actually. They were like a straight cut, but they were a nice designer. And I was like, sure, I'll take her pants. Why not? They were like, I don't know, $800 pants. I took them to a seamstress. She put pleats in the front. She tapered them so they became a pencil pant. And she made them fit me, shorten them. They are the most incredible pants. They're my favorite ones to wear now. They look so good on. They're so comfortable, and I just have to take care of them. They're a wool material, so I just take care of them. But they're my favorite pair of pants.

Such great tips, Sandy. So, Sandy, we've come to the end of this podcast. Thank you overall for giving us some perspective on what we can do to instantly look better. Okay? So I want to put out a little challenge there for you guys. I'd love to see. And Sandy would probably love to see this as well. If you take this advice, whether it's your hair, your beard, your skincare regimen, the way you apply sunscreen, what you do with your eyebrows, your unique style that you identify the clothing that you buy, I'd love for you to send me a before after photo. Just message me on Instagram. You can also message Sandy, Sandy in Focus on Instagram. And we'd love to see the transformation. So I can't wait to see the impact this podcast has on you. And we will see you back at our next mindvalley podcast episode. Stay tuned. There's going to be a lot more content on style on. On showing up as your best. One of the things I've come to understand is that charisma, magnetism, body language, all truly matter in life, right? And so we've been signing up tons of great authors in this field. Linda Clements is joining mindvalley. She's teaching body language for dating May Musk, who's Elon's mother. Her new program on mindvalley is coming out, and you're going to learn so much about presence and confidence. Rowlene Strauss, she's a former Miss Universe winner. She won Miss Universe globally. She has a program coming out on mindvalley on Queen Energy, how to be the woman. When you walk into a room, everyone notices. We have Bibi Brazoshka, which is really about how to really work with. It's a program for women, how to work with sexual energy so that you are just so fulfilled with yourself that you are just incredibly sexy no matter what age you're at. And we also have Vanessa Van Edwards, who wrote the definitive books on charisma. Her new program is just out on mindvalley. It's called Magnetic Charisma. So check out these programs if you want to work on your style, your presence. Oh, one more. Alan Pease, one of the grandfathers of body language, his new program comes to mindvalley as well, and it's called Body Language for Power. So you're going to learn, you're going to be able to go really deep in this whole field just from your mindvalley membership. Thank you, guys. I will see you on our next podcast episode. And thank you, Sandy. You can follow Sandy at Instagram at Sandy in Focus. It.