Shake On It

Basic Advice Is Always Relevant Advice

I've had the privilege of working with many inspirational journalists, one of whom was a brilliant young cricket writer called Mudar Patherya, who now heads his own Calcutta-based company, Trisys Communications.

He and I have never lost touch and a few days ago, I received this email from him: ``One day in `Sportsworld' you told me you judged an individual by the firmness of his handshake, the eye-to-eye contact and the shine on his shoe. Now I want you to see the scanned stuff that I chanced upon in a book called ‘Success’ which I bought from Bangkok last week.''

Naturally, I went to the attached scan immediately.

``Get a good handshake,'' is the advice from Brian Lamb, founder and CEO of C-SPAN, ``you'll never forget the handshake of a person if it's bad. Shine your shoes. First thing I notice when someone comes in is the handshake ... and are their shoes shined.''

And on the same page of the book, Susan RoAne, writer and communications coach, writes: ``Eye contact and being in the moment are critical''.

Up the top of the page is the great message: ``Don't think that computers and cell phones have diminished the importance of physical presence''.

Thank you, Mudar, for einforcing a message that has never - and will never - go out of fashion.