We all have our morning rituals. As a part of mine; every day after breakfast with my family and on my way out of the door I download the “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” podcast from the previous day’s show. One day, after my daily commute, I settled in at my desk and began listening to the show. I had no idea that on this day I would accidentally stumble upon something so uproariously funny that for just a moment I would actually have to question Jim Cramer’s credibility. Apparently as I tried to press the “Play” arrow in my IPhone Podcast App, I also pressed the half-speed control as well. Now I’m not a person that laughs very often by myself. When I’m with a group of other people laughing I may burst out with a good chuckle, but that’s usually because I really think other people’s reactions are hilarious. If I find something really funny it may get a light snicker when I’m alone, but rarely anything more. That day, hearing Jim Cramer speaking about “finding a bull-market anywhere” in a drunk-uncle at Thanksgiving voice resulted in a true, from the gut, “guffaw” from me! If you have ever heard Mr. Cramer present on his show you understand that his cadence is very fast and he speaks with intensity. He is an excellent communicator that triumphs above anyone else I’ve come across at explaining the details of our economic system and how to intelligently navigate the waters of investment strategy, but in his intensity some annunciation is expectedly lost.

Now, I am by no means a financial expert; as a matter of fact I would barely call myself an amateur (thus why I’m listening to Mad Money every day to learn) and I greatly appreciate what he has done in educating those of us who do not work on Wall Street about how to keep and grow the money that we work so hard to earn; but man that was funny.This incident made me realize something: Those of us that have the privilege of leading teams of people need to be so very careful of the daily presentation of ourselves and the businesses organizations that we represent. We may be experts in our field, leaders of excellent teams, the founders of growing and prosperous corporations, or ministers to fruitful churches; but we have to make sure that our messaging is not lost in the small details that we may not notice but others cannot help but find distracting.

I will say that Jim Cramer had no way to defend against what happened to him that day but with the right circumstances I was pulled away from his message. Luckily the only one that it effected was me and I was the one who caused the distraction. Hopefully you will never find yourself in a situation where your messaging is lost in mistakes or weaknesses that you overlook, but realize that there are people out there who need to hear what you have to say. They want to hear you and your message, but their attention can be lost with the wrong gesture, appearance, or language. Never forget that whether you are in business, ministry, or public service there is always an alternative to what you are trying to get people to believe in. Remember to be careful about how you portray yourself in front of others as they are always looking for the gaps in your armor, and the competition is always ready to catch those that you lose. As for me, I now understand that there will never be a time in my life where I will not have weaknesses that need strengthening. I’ve got plenty of areas in my life that need reinforced and hopefully they will be taken care of before I lose any impact due to them. I also understand that I can only dream to one day make it to the same level as The President of CRAMERICA, but I suppose that if I ever do I’ll be spending a lot of time practicing high speed annunciation.

Think fast