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Greg Tracy

Of course the shoes can make you run faster and jump higher. Maybe not to the extent a child believes but you don’t see Olympic sprinters wearing shoes that just make them look cool. Just think of how the right shoes might have even improved your child’s confidence. That might of come in handy a little later in life. As it was, anything would be better than what I had as the shoes I was wearing at the time were pinching my toes.

It’s more than just economics. You made your decisions based off what was good enough for you when you were that age. That seems to be rather limiting.

Your view is based of the idea that something (in this case a K-mart quality shoes) is good enough to be acceptable and within your budget. There is nothing wrong with that if you want to be acceptable. If you want to be exceptional you might want to aim a little higher.

Regardless of what you think, it’s a fact that people can’t put aside the visual appearance of people when making a judgment about their character, talents or the validity of their message. It might not be right but it is a certainty. It’s so pervasive that most people don’t even know they are doing it. It doesn’t seem right to judge those that consider personal appearance so highly as inferior or even as a less enlightened social group. Somewhere along the line you need to draw a line in the sand as to what is practical. Thankfully, we differ in where we draw that line.

You said, “Whether something is expensive is a function of how much money is available to you.” That’s true but it is also a limiting belief if you were to let it dominate your decisions. You can always make more money or adjust the budget and thus change your view of “expensive”. What’s stopping you? Perhaps your K-mart shoes are sending the wrong impression at your job interviews.

If your shoes suggest you are a practical, economic person and you’re looking for a job at the penny pinching bank, you’ll probably get the job. If you want the job at a marketing company, they might not send the right message. It’s all pretty silly but that’s the way it is.

Let’s try to keep this business oriented. That was my intent here. It would be pretty silly to suggest that appearance when it comes to business and marketing shouldn’t matter even if it really shouldn’t matter. Why? Because it matters and there is nothing you can do about it.

As far as being expensive, my intent was the observation that businesses will fail if they don’t adapt. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Big changes aren’t cheap, but big changes might be necessary. Customers make their decisions based off the packaging of a product or the appearance of the salesperson or their proxy. Marketing and websites communicate more than just the printed message.

How do you really know when to make a change and what the benefits could be? Open your eyes to how things actually work and how to take advantage of them. Don’t just try to argue the validity of the discussion. The discussion is being had.

Ask your employees, co-workers, peers, and perhaps even your children what they think would improve the situation.

Thanks for the input Dad. I’m not knocking your child rearing skills. I simply don’t believe you could understand the benefits since you long ago dismissed the desire to fit in socially as a frivolous waste of time.

(in the interest of full disclosure, that really was my Dad)

In most cases, “the big picture” is precisely what a 10-year old does NOT have. It’s easy to fantasize about the possibilities of what one can do with someone else’s money. It takes seeing “the big picture” to see that what makes you feel good is not necessarily the best choice for all concerned- the family, in this case.

The “run faster, jump higher” thing was largely a figment of your imagination, since you likely had not read any objective studies indicating Nikes allowed one to run faster and jump higher than one could with another shoe; you wanted and imagined it to be so because your friends had them or placed a high value on them. And a social circle that put such a high value on expensive material possessions rather than on good personal qualities would not be an “improved” one, though your 10-year-old (or junior high) mind might have thought so. The complexity of “complex social interactions” of junior high are highly overrated; they are only as complex as you want them, and allow them, to be. (I went to junior high too.)

As for the definition of “expensive”, I find the customary definition quite adequate:”Commanding a high price and especially one that is not based on intrinsic worth or is beyond a prospective buyer’s means.” Whether something is expensive is a function of how much money is available to you. I would suspect that few things are “expensive” to Bill Gates, based on the above definition; they would be so only if they cost more than he were willing to pay for value received. If your funds are NOT unlimited, you must determine whether you can afford it in the first place, even before you thought of what value it might bring you. If your financial status is such that $12 per pound is more than you can afford to spend for meat for the family’s meals, it doesn’t really matter how good it tastes. It’s too expensive.

(In the interests of full disclosure- I’m Spencer’s dad.)