First Impression
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US Mid-Atlantic) US African AmericanTranscript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Chapter one. The importance of first impressions. First impressions are the most lasting proverbs. This proverb sums up nicely why it's important to make a good first impression. Those first few minutes and exchanges with another person, set the tone for everything going forward. If you make a good first impression, they will always see you in a better light going forward than if you make a bad one. Before we look into what causes this human behavior and how we can overcome a bad impression. Let's start with why we make up our minds about someone else so fast. The usual consensus is that we form an impression of someone else in seven seconds or less. That's not a lot of time and you barely have time to get in a quick hello and a handshake. Why do we form those opinions so fast? Because we have to and it isn't just because we live in a busy and fast paced world where we meet vastly more people on a regular basis than we did a few generations ago. Our world has truly become global and as a result we meet more people now than ever, both online and offline. Interestingly though, this quick assessment of others isn't a new thing. We've been doing it for thousands of years. It's a survival technique that's hard coded into our DNA. In other words, this behavior of making a first impression quickly isn't learned behavior, it's hereditary and there's a very good reason for it for a very long time in human history and to a smaller degree. These days we had to be able to make a very quick assessment of whether the person approaching us was friend or foe. This gives us the chance to run or prepare to fight if needed. In other words, our survival depended on being able to make the first impression very, very quickly. Like many hereditary trades, it follows us to this day. That's not necessarily a bad thing since we meet so many people on a daily basis. Now, being able to form impressions quickly saves us a lot of time and helps us decide on who to invest time in and who to avoid ignore or let go. You can see how both being able to make a good first impression and being able to do a good job at judging others at a glance come in handy. It helps us make it through a busy work day filled with meetings, the evening out of the bar, with friends and new acquaintances and various work in social situations that involve meeting a lot of new people. On the flip side, Making a bad first impression is hard to overcome. Let me be frank, you're not going to be able to avoid it completely, you're going to mess up or circumstances outside your control, put you in a negative light, it happens all you can do is do your best to reduce the instances of making a bad first impression and when it does happen, do what you can to overcome it. Making up for a negative first impression is going to be an uphill battle, it takes time, work and a lot of effort on your part to change the other person's mind. That is if you're given a second chance in short, do your best to make that first impression, a good one. The more important the meeting or opportunity, the harder you should work at making an excellent impression. Don't leave it up to chance. If you can help it. First impressions set the tone for entire relationships. This is particularly true for people you don't have a very close relationship with. When it comes to casual acquaintances and business or job related relationships, you likely won't have the opportunity to dive deep enough to get over a bad first impression. Think back on some of your own experiences. Do you have a co worker that you pinned as a geek or nerd when you first met chances are you still perceive him this way, Whether that's completely fair or not, unless you spend a lot of time with another person and take a relationship to a deeper level. It's hard to reverse the opinions form during that first meeting, thankfully the opposite is also true. A good first impression buys you some leeway as time goes. By another way to think of this is that when you make a good first impression, people are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt as time goes by. This will come in very handy when you make mistakes or things don't work out as expected. For example, when you make an honest mistake on a work task, your boss is more likely to chalk it up as just that than to think that maybe you're not the right person for the job. In short perception matters. And it's often formed in the first seven seconds of meeting someone don't put yourself in a situation where you have to rectify a negative first impression. Not only can it be hard to fight for a second chance, but sometimes simply it isn't giving this right here alone should be motivation enough to always do your best to make a good first impression, how others perceive you and think of you matters. We are social creatures who have to work together for the benefit of all. As a result, we've gotten very good at judging people at a glance. First impressions are often made completely subconsciously and it isn't just if we like or dislike the other person or if they pose a threat to us or not. We make judgments about personality traits and abilities based on how the other person looks and acts. In those first few moments, I'm sure you can think back on plenty of examples where you made those type of judgments the next time you think that how you dress or what your body language and facial expressions are communicating isn't important. Think again, it has a bigger impact than you may guess. Speaking of dressing the part there is a long tradition of clothing and appearance indicating status and even what trade you were in in the Middle Ages. It wasn't uncommon to wear clothing based on what you did for a living. There were even rules as to what colors and what type of material you were able to wear based on your role in society. Along with it came manners, body language and even speech that indicated where you were from and what you did. You can still observe some of these traditions in europe to this day, chimney sweeps in Germany for example, whereas a very distinctive outfit and in England you can tell what class someone belongs to buy, how they speak. Coming from such a long tradition of judging people by their appearance, behavior and speech. It's no wonder that we still do it to this day. Start paying attention to how you dress, how you hold yourself and how you converse with people when you meet them for the first time that being said, it's high time. We get to some actionable advice. In the next chapter, I share my best tips for making a good first impression when you meet people in real life