28: Swagger

The confident stride melts into the dramatic twist, a pause before you say the next few words, a dramatic little spin on your heels: these are all telltale signs of the phenomenon called “Swagger”.
Have you ever noticed how great performers are so at ease when delivering the masterpieces called their work? Consider how Fela Anikulapo Kuti would start a song with 30 minutes of instrumentals before even uttering a single word! When he would finally start singing, he was never hurried in his delivery, he could say the same thing seven times without a care if you liked what he was saying or not.

Consider Bob Marley, there was always something so unhurried in the way he sang his songs, his confidence in the fact that the audience would wait for him sometimes bothered on arrogance.
Consider Michael Jackson and the way he walked up to a stage to perform and would have so many dramatic pauses as he built up the expectation of his audience before feeding them with what they came for: an out of this world performance.

All these guys have/had what I describe as swagger. But before I deepen my explanation of its relevance, let us consider non-musical examples. When Bill Clinton mounted a stage to speak, he did so with an assurance that he would convert the audience to his way of thinking not only by sheer powerful reason but by the little dramatic things he would do: rub his big nose, stroke his hair back, cup his hands in an oval and stand with his feet apart in a solid position/posture.
Or consider Adolf Hitler giving a speech, he was quite a study in swagger! He would start with his voice low then dramatically raise it, swinging his face this way and that, jut out his jaw, jab the air with his finger and generally just drive his people to ecstasy watching him bring their pride in the Aryan race to life….yuk!

Hate him if you would but Hitler knew something about this phenomenon I call swagger. Why is it that other men with purer motives cannot even get their dogs to sit still and listen to them? Why do more intelligent, warm and kind people fail to develop a following to their cause? Why do musicians who sing clean songs not have as strong a following as Eminem, Bone Thugs & Harmony and Amy Winehouse (the confirmed drug Rehab poster girl)? What do these people have that makes them more attractive to crowds of people that the clean and good people lack?
The answer is SWAGGER. I wouldn’t want to lose the fine essence of swagger by quoting its dictionary definition. I would rather give what is called an operational definition in psychology: a definition given as related to the particular topic at hand.

Swagger is doing what you do with ATTITUDE, going about your things with the cocky belief that you “should” be listened to. It is a confidence that says “hey I’m not to be ignored”. It is the fruit of an elevated sense of self. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The only bad thing may be what is driving that sense of self. For many entertainers and politicians it could be pride, drugs or hubris. For many other professionals in other fields, it is a sense of mastery of their craft that gives them swagger.

This really is the differentiating factor. Many people spend little time developing the mastery of delivery of their expertise. It is possible to have a strong case but if you have not built the ability to deliver it with attitude, with panache, with swagger then many times your pitch would be so ineffective.

For a lot of people it seems obscene to even contemplate refining their ability to deliver anything, to them it seems like something sacrilegious! Truth be told every great song, presentation, sales pitch, sermon, interview etc had first been played out in the mind of the performer.

They had travelled the road before hand and knew the curves, valleys and hills of their project. Hence their mastery, hence the attitude they could command, hence their swagger.

I daresay that anything you do without employing swagger (as defined) will not be as impactful as It could be if you had employed swagger as a willing accomplice. It puts just that little extra that takes your work from good to great.
I’m opening a School of Advanced Swagger Studies….want to register? :-)