60 First Impressions for Success
b'As we\\u2019re talking in a lot of these episodes about things that you might plan on doing, whether it be for business or changing your career, starting a business, etc. Most of that will depend a great deal on how you are greeted, or how you impress or not, other people. That is, first impressions, and that\\u2019s what I want to talk a little bit about.\\n\\nThis came up because in a couple of recent events I\\u2019ve been to, the speakers were telling people and urging people more to take action, and you better be prepared before you do take action. I\\u2019ll give you a couple of examples of that. When you\\u2019re starting up, you\\u2019re going to immediately have and make first impressions on other people. You want to make sure that you are prepared. That doesn\\u2019t mean to procrastinate for a long period of time, but it does mean to find the best way to introduce yourself to the public, other businesspeople, customers, etc.\\n\\nAs an example, I very frequently have heard people and they\\u2019ve asked me about podcasting, and they would say: \\u201cGee, I\\u2019ve been told that I just get started, and I\\u2019ll learn on the way.\\u201d The problem with that is the person first time they listen to you, they might listen to one or two episodes. If you\\u2019ve made a bad impression, they\\u2019ll never come back. It\\u2019s not like going to the corner grocery store and just because you saw a bad apple there doesn\\u2019t mean you\\u2019re never coming back, because that store is the one that\\u2019s locally convenient to you. You want to make sure that that impression that you make on someone is very strong and very good.\\n\\nThere\\u2019s a divergence, here. While other people will have a very quick first impression of you, you should be very slow on defining an impression of somebody else. I\\u2019ll explain that in a moment. First of all, it\\u2019s said, whether it\\u2019s 30 seconds, a few seconds, a minute or something longer, that a mental image is brought into people\\u2019s minds of you when they first meet, and it happens fairly quickly. We know that. Therefore, that first impression is extremely important.\\n\\nImagine that you\\u2019re a company and you have a product out there, and people have a bad first impression of you. During the late \\u201980s, early \\u201990s, Audi was the luxury car in demand for most popular. What happened? There was a series of articles and things about something called \\u201cunintended acceleration,\\u201d which today I still do not believe there was ever such a thing. A lot of the other luxury makers went and researched it, tried testing, etc., and nobody could ever find it. But that impression literally destroyed Audi at the time. They\\u2019ve come back now, and they\\u2019re now another very well-accepted car, but for so long they had suffered from that impression. It took many years, decades literally to overcome that impression that was made.\\n\\nWhen somebody has an impression that you\\u2019re not open or that you\\u2019re not appropriate for something, you know it\\u2019s going to be very difficult to change their mind. That\\u2019s the importance of first impressions that you would want to put on others. On the other hand, when you hear something, slow down a bit and try not to cast judgment with such little information. Think of it this way: You hear about something, you think of it, and there\\u2019s seven things in favor of it and three things against it \\u2013 if you absolutely determine: \\u201cOkay, this is good because seven in favor, three against, that\\u2019s a winner,\\u201d over time you may see other bits of information that make it look bad, but each time that information comes to you, you\\u2019re going to weigh that bad information against the entire decision you already made. It\\u2019s going to be very difficult to overcome it.\\n\\nYou want to be slow to arrive at a first impression, but very quick to realize that you have to make a very good first impression on others because they do arrive at them very fast. You\\u2019ll have an advantage if you slow your own decision down, but realize that others will have that very quick impression of you. This becomes very important,'