They say you shouldn’t try to please everyone. You shouldn’t try to make everyone like you. I was thinking a little bit about why. I notice this in how the people around me treat me. I casually observe, knowing I can’t make people think of me the way I want them to, hoping to figure out what their first impression of me must have been.
People make up their minds about you within seconds of meeting you, seeing you, and talking with you. Occasionally, a person’s first impression can be swayed, if they’re open to it and if it’s drastically different from how they see you after that. This may sound like common sense, but it’s impossible to be fully aware of someone’s perception of meeting you.
I have two opposite examples.
Let’s start with the negative. I was at PodCampAZ 2 and was out to lunch with about 80 other attendees. I had just sat down at the end of a very long table of noisy social media people. Someone walked up to me, said, “Hi, I’m Bridget.” and reached out to shake my hand. I immediately shook her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Brian.” As far as I remember, that was about it. I was a little perplexed when the person who had walked up to shake my hand immediately walked away. Little did I know at the time, I had been connected with her and her husband on Twitter for a few months. What — to me — was a random and strange event during a hectic lunch was also — to someone else — a terrible first impression. I found out later she told other people who had never met me I act like I’m full of myself. One bad first impression resulted in a few bad zeroth impressions!
Here’s one that’s positive. I helped organize Startup Weekend Phoenix. During the event, we encouraged bloggers, podcasters, and photographers to attend for free to make some media for the event. I was bouncing around the teams to make sure everything was going alright and I saw someone walk in with a camera. “Great!” I thought. I rushed over to him to get him situated with what was going on so he could take some photos. Turns out, the camera was an excuse to poke around and see what was going on. This was his first peek into the Phoenix tech community, and he had someone enthusiastically showing him around and getting him up to speed. It seems like the enthusiasm got through, because he went to all of the tech events in the following weeks. In a matter of weeks, he went from not knowing much about the Phoenix tech community to being a regular, and I was there to welcome him in. Also, at each of the events, I was either helping organize or I was speaking. If that isn’t an ideal first impression, I don’t know what is.
It seems like most people fall in between. No matter how “good” of a person you may think you are, first impressions can go bad and you usually won’t even know about it.
Watch your first impressions and examine what about people gave you a good impression of them.
Most people never think of things like this, they assume that if the person continues to talk to them or is polite, then their impression was good. I have learned that is rarely the case, because if you introduce yourself to me and you do it in a way that is unpolite, I will act polite back but my impression of you has already been made. Of course I believe we should give people more than one chance to make a good impressions, because it is impossible to judge someone that quickly. Like what you spoke about above with the girl who just walked away, I think she should have took into consideration what you were doing at the moment and maybe she could have came back later?
Have a good one,
Drew B.
Dude, I remember first meeting you at Refresh many years ago. I think my initial reaction was “this kid is going to be funny.” Aside from a few times here and there, I think my first reaction was correct ;)
Drew, I completely agree.
Sunny, Sounds like a positive first impression! I think most people have a negative first impression of me, for various reasons.
I can’t do much about it if someone jokes about me being full of myself and someone overhears that and assumes it’s serious — which happens quite a bit. People who hear about me first as “the guy that jumps” or “he’s popular on Twitter” assume there’s no depth (and I regularly get emails from people saying “I thought you were just the guy that jumps, but then one day I looked into it…”). A lot of it is because I don’t take myself super seriously and I don’t talk much about myself (my work, etc), so I can’t let the missteps bug me too much!
dear brian,
first i like to say you are the best and an i am proud of you & your family being a best on earth.
i don’t know your age, but pritty sure you like my son………
i adore person like you and i am fan too…..now on…….
i invite you to follow my tweeter community at vinnydesai1…if you do that it is my & my tweeter community honour…….
only i say…..think positve-be positive…listen to your heart and walk with it…i like to add few more words what i admire about truth….never afraid to tell the truth….truth has positive power..
mahatma ghandhi said”if you are walking with truth, you are always on winning side,no matter whole world is against you ”
dear brian,
feel free to contact me anytime…..you are rare gem for me.
thanks.
vinny desai.