We live in interesting times, difficult times maybe, but interesting times. It is important to note that we have probably always lived in difficult and interesting times. It is really how I see the world to a very large extent, isn’t it?
Now, I’d like to chat a little bit about the first impression, the first impression that you make when you come into a room. What kind of person are you to other people?
Now, I think due to the advent of the Internet, we fool ourselves in a way, and we think somehow that I’m kind of this alter ego person.
I’m not really the person I should be, because that’s an image that’s on the Internet, my social media position, if you will. But unfortunately, that’s not the real world.
The real world is how I present myself physically at a job interview, or perhaps when I go and see a client, or I meet perhaps the family of the person that I’m in love with.
Other individuals I’ve never met before, I make an impression, and from what I see, many people make a horrid impression, and I just don’t think we somehow get it. We really don’t get it, that we are, yes, we are an inner being.
We have our private life, totally to me, it’s my private self, but the external world also exists, and you can actually look at yourself in this way.
If you have a shower, and perhaps if you’re young, not put your pajamas on at all, or if you’re older, put them on, and if you have a full-length mirror, run up to it very quickly, and just for a moment, just for a moment, you will be startled, and
the mind will ask, oh my gosh, there’s an old person or a young person, but there’s another person that I don’t know in this room, and then, oh, I made a mistake, sorry. It’s actually me, my body, but that’s the way everyone sees you.
That’s the way you present yourself. So, quite reasonably, you want to be the absolute best person physically that you can be in the world.
Now, if you say to yourself, virtually everyone that’s graduating today goes to university, mostly, at least in Asia, we mostly go to university, and we’re all from good families, we’re all good looking, we have our teeth, etc., etc.
So what makes me 100%? Plus, what can only be my personal brand, right? My personal style.
And my style begins obviously with my first impression.
So how do I make an impression? Well, first of all, you must ask yourself, you must do. Do I make an outstanding first impression, an impression I would be proud of?
If I looked at myself objectively for a moment, would I be proud of me as I present myself? Because I must remind myself that the first impression is made very quickly. Some people say 17 seconds, some people say 9 seconds, but you know yourself.
The first time you meet a person, you’re left with an impression, and most times we never change it.
Even if the person later perhaps changes and they become a more interesting person or more intelligent seemingly, whatever it is, doesn’t matter, the first impression stays with you.
I often tell my students, if I were to arrive in class for the first time and I had de-shevelled green hair, let’s say for instance, and I had on dirty clothes, well, people would accept me because I’m an old foreigner, right?
And then the next time I arrive wearing my little bow tie, you know, in my suit, whatever it was, everyone would go, well, that’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? But you would never ever forget the first impression. It would stay with you.
And so the chances of changing the first impression are very poor. Be late for your first job interview, for instance, and you are deemed to be a late person. Be rude to someone, and you are deemed to be a rude person, arrogant person.
First time, it stays with you, right? And of course, irreversible the first time.
So what am I to do? Well, I think at the very beginning, you got to say to yourself, I have this body, it’s been given to me, whatever ethnicity it is, whatever gender, and I have to bring it up to a standard that’s acceptable in society.
So I must go, obviously, and remain fit. And that is relatively simple, especially when you’re a bit younger, even older. Get to a gym, I go to a gym every day if I can, I like it.
I listen to my audiobooks, whatever it is, but stay fit, absolutely. And then you have to dress the part. If you’re going for a job interview, dress up, why not?
And we have this idiom, you can always take a tie off, which means you can always dress down.
If you’re overdressed, you can take off your tie, or if you’re a lady, you can wipe down your rouge, remove your lipstick, pull off your earrings, and dress down, but you can never ever ever dress up, never.
And look after your hair, gosh, style your hair, make it look like it’s something, right? And for men and for women, groom, make sure if you have a beard or a mustache, it’s been trimmed. Ladies put on the proper amount of makeup.
If you do such a thing, not too much. And then the posture, right? The posture, make sure that you stand up straight.
And if you stand up a little bit straighter, you won’t be 10 inches taller, you’ll be 20 inches taller. It’s amazing what will happen.
Basically, when it comes to personal branding, there are some strategies that I think to myself, number one, you got to be on time, all right? Extremely important. Got to say to yourself, this is my brand.
I’m wearing the correct colors for me. Now, you can go online and look up whether you are a spring, a summer, a fall, or a winter when it comes to color coordination.
And for me, I look much better in blue than I do in brown, for instance, or gray, right? Your smile, smile as much as you can, and if your teeth are not impeccable, go to a dentist, get them fixed up, right? Why not?
Not that expensive, and you can today have a winning smile. And for sure, be open, right? You want to be open, you want to be confident, part of your brand, you’re making this impression, right?
Now, there is something, of course, called small talk, and you remind yourself, that it’s divided into two tranches.
At the beginning, the weather, sports, and traffic, or movement, and then eventually, if you build a bit of relationship, you can make a foray into, perhaps, relationships.
Then, eventually, you can discuss, do you go to the temple, or you go to the synagogue, or mosque? Yes, I do. No, I don’t.
Then, perhaps, politics, though this is becoming a little bit dangerous in the modern age, maybe you don’t want to engage people with politics. I don’t share my political opinions. Just leave it alone.
And then, of course, never money. If you have money, bless you. Don’t brag to people.
People don’t like it, right? And then, in all of this, there’s something called a positive conversation. Now, this does not mean that you have to be naive.
I know that with Hope Corps, many people are looking for almost a false sense when it comes to positivity, and this is just not real, and it’s also not good, because bad things do happen, and you have to find a way to overcome them.
Very similar to Victor Frankl, Man Search For Meaning, that you must find a way to dig yourself out of the morass, out of the pit, and you can. It’s been done historically, right? And watch your manners.
Learn when to stand up, sit down, shake the hand appropriately. Do these things, because you are a physical being in the world.
I was reading now that because we are all 100%, a lot of the major corporations that are hiring people in perhaps the legal field or the accounting field are actually hiring people based on their manners, table manners, of all things, right?
And go to emilypost.com if you have any doubts about the way you eat or position yourself, et cetera, et cetera. Ultimately, you can be the winning person you want to be, whatever that means to you.
I think the biggest thing we want in this life is freedom. I don’t want to let my person be decided by external circumstances, right? I do not want to be controlled just because I didn’t know what to do or what to say at the appropriate time.
And we all can all learn to be sophisticated does not mean you have to be born into an upper class or aristocratic family. Obviously, these are phenomena that can be learned for sure.
So watch your first impression, because you probably won’t get a second one. There’s no second chance at a first impression. And you know what they say, you know what they say.
Today, critical thinking is excellent, especially when you’re going to develop your first impression, your personal brand, and critical thinking is great, absolutely great. You take care. God bless.
Bye-bye.