When I was a kid, my dad taught me how to shake hands. He’d say, “Make it firm and confident.” That was it. And it really made sense.

And of course as I grew older, (this was the 70’s), I learned all the ‘cool’ handshakes as well. You know the ones. Full hand wrap-around and then bump shoulder’s and all. Yeah, right on. The list goes on and on. But I always preferred the simple ‘firm and confident’ and as you say, don’t make it too long.

Then as time passed and I began to travel, made it down to the Caribbean and met a lot of Jamaican’s. Now that’s a whole different thing all together. One blood and the whole jerk-chicken. A lot of fist bumpin’ goin’ on. And that’s really a cultural thing. And once again, that was cool and all, but I still returned to the ‘firm and confident’ style every time. Nothing else says it as well. It shows a simpleness and a confidence with no pretention involved. I guess you could call it the ‘KISS’ principle of handshaking. And as in all things in life, keeping it simple seems to work everytime.

Anyway, that’s my take on it. And thanks again for the blog. I look forward to every post you make. Keeps me grounded.

Regards, Andrew

I gotta say that is about the BEST advice I have seen in a LOOONG time.

So many people pin so much bullshit meaning to the handshake that they just DON’T do it. Another thing that is a tragedy is that they judge a handshake using their own screwed up standards and forget that people come from so many different cultures where the etiquette of a handshake may be different. One thing I had to learn when working with the Native American community was that women are supposed to be “weak”, meaning that a woman’s handshake is supposed to be female… not a super-grip to break the hand, but a VERY brief fingertip clasp and go, almost fleeting.

So, people, don’t judge ability by a handshake. The person you are meeting may just be from a culture that has a different etiquette. And, don’t feel that you have to change your style just because you may be in the “big bad business world”. Be yourself, do what feels right and SMILE. A genuine smile will almost always make any mistake go unnoticed. If you fake it, it will show and turn people the other way.

Valerie

I needed that. Thank you.

Ray

As a fellow blog-runner, I know that never getting any comments ever is a bummer. So, here I’m to provide proof of activity AND a relevant comment.

The best advice I’ve ever seen on making sure you don’t screw up a handshake is this:

Before a handshake, open up your hand as wide as possible.

That’s it. Just act like you’re OJ Simpson trying on a bloody glove and you’ll have a great handshake.

It seems odd at first and you feel like people are going to react like you’re going to slap them, but they don’t even notice.

And it works. Every single time.

DanO