First impressions
I produce a poor first impression. If you are reading this, know me, and you don’t agree, you are deep in the documented minority, no need to speak up about how special you are, besides you’ll sound like a sycophant - so shut your pie hole.
Yes, now you know how I speak to my friends. So, back to the vast majority.
There are endless books and videos about ‘first impressions’ (or what I think of as ‘first contact’), how you ‘only get one chance’ blah blah blah.
EXCEPT
My logic is the exact opposite. I have clearly destroyed far more relationships both personal and professional in the first few minutes than I have cut deals and made long-term friends. Really, truly, I’m a serious !@#$ up from any salesperson’s POV.
AND
This was all intentional. Some of my oldest personal friends know this deeply, they watched me do it, and discussed it with me 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years ago.
In my teens, I made a solid decision: best to get the weak or ignorant out of the way as fast as possible. Get people to reveal themselves.
Some of you may have seen my previous post about ‘pushing people’s buttons, even ones I agree with’ — yup. I may very well be harshest on people who agree with me instantly, grinding them to prove whatever outlandish thing they are claiming (that I happen to concur with).
I can tally some of this for you now:
- <1% Of those that were not phased by first contact with me, the majority go on to be friends with me…. forever.
- Of the other >99%, about 1% of them realised they judged wrong at first, and re-framed me or themselves. I have dozens of friends from just this culling, that are such awesome people. I’m so fortunate … they switched, or came to their senses.
I got a feeling of these numbers even as a teen. My guess was 1 in 1,000 people are really worth knowing, the rest are NPCs. 50 years later, looking back, I suspect I was being too nice. Might need to add a few zeros.
This all sounds horrible, I know. But, wow, I know some truly deeply amazing people. Some of them only have less than a hand’s worth of friends (most people do, do you have more than 5 REAL friends? you know the type ‘A friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body.’)
Also, it must be recognised, that I’m probably losing (False Negative) some great people. Indeed. I’m not sure there is a formula to yield a better success rate all given though.
One of my favourite people has 2 friends, I’m one of them, and he doesn’t really like the other 7,999,999,998 on Earth. Their loss. One of my other favourite people has no friends.
Now we’re going to shift down a notch, to something even more subtle.
I posted this = X=
𝘔𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦 ‘𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦’ … 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘳𝘦 18 + 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 + 𝘍 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯.
𝘛𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩:
- 𝘙𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 1: 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵.
- 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸 [ 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 + 𝘔 ]
- 𝘙𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 2: 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘬 𝘗𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺, 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘹? 𝘖𝘶𝘵!
𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩. 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦.
That was grossly summed up in 280 characters. She’s young, black, and female, yup, unless she’s writing a book or is part of some woke company’s marketing plan, she has the deck stacked against her. What I wanted her to know is — the deck is stacked against everyone. It sucks, now what?
I know a lot of poker players, meaning, people that make their living playing poker. They are not the best, but they make the most money. Don’t confuse these two. Want to make money playing poker?
If you don’t know who the sucker is, it’s you.
Find a game where everyone is about the same skill level as yourself, and don’t #@%$ up. That’s it. A reasonable player should clear $1K a day (2024), there, now you know.
I make these little cartoons for myself, and my friends. I’ve wanted to capture this one for a very long time, over a decade. Decades to form, 10 minutes to make.
I’m a tall white male, and while the world would have you believe we’re the bad guys (and we are), wait until any other group takes over (they will be the bad guys too).
Permit me to explain this through a true story that plays itself out constantly in my world.
A long time ago I started a hike group which grew to thousands of members worldwide.
A pattern instantly presented itself; everyone would look to me to lead. I actually don’t want to lead anyone, ever. People just assume I’m the leader. I don’t want to lead in business, or in my personal life.
One of the times I was arrested as a teen, two others arrested with me were shoved into the back of the police car with me. All three of us are in handcuffs. I don’t like handcuffs, and was very motivated to correct this situation. The militsiya [coppers] instantly called me the ring leader. I didn’t even know the other two, but something struck me… I turned to each of them and said ‘you know why they are calling me the ring leader?’ [looks of ‘could not care less’ swept their faces] — ‘They think I’m your boss.’
Oh, this changed everything. These two bookends began yelling at the cops ‘Officers, you have made a grave error, neither I nor my colleague are in the employ of this fine gentleman seated between us…’ Indeed, not one word even close to that came out of their mouths, but, as translated from 1970s slang street talk, yeah, pretty close to that sentiment. To which the police pulled us out, pulled my cuffs off, and sent me on my way.
Back to the hikers. So almost instantly I made a decision, whoever expressed even the slightest intention that our horde of hikers should start actually hiking, as opposed to milling about aimlessly as we always do before our hike, or that I should ‘take charge’ — was my cue to knight them… Sovereign Leader! Until then, I waited for the first impatience one.
Now, I’ve noticed a solid pattern here. If it is a male, they express confusion at being given this responsibility. Some take it, and others protest ignorance of where to go, and try to pass the responsibility off to the group.
But, women, almost all, almost every single one, regardless of age, or any other metric you might wish to apply — do this one same thing: they stare at me, and for approximately 942 milliseconds they scan my face to confirm I’m serious, like two Samurai deciding if a sword will even be drawn, and noting my unwavering hand on the hilt, accept this truth, and instantly take charge, pick a direction, and activate the throng to march onward.
This will be challenged again, as I have learned that after an hour or so of hiking our motley crew will take a break, and again meander aimlessly until told to move again. And, our newly christened maverick monarch forgets the new station. As ‘the hand’ I nudge them ever so slightly, of their duty and power, and again they snap to the responsibility of the role.
Finally, back to that cartoon. What does it mean?
Hopefully, you already get it, or upon thinking about it, get it. I began to actually play this out in my life in a multitude of constructs, business, and personal. In its essence, but also literally — back off on always being the first person to say hello, to offer my hand, to help, to engage.
And what I learned, painfully, sadly, dishearteningly, poignantly, others would rather demand of me to fit a role projected on me than take their responsibility in first contact.
Forever yours, the AHOLE.
Did I make you aware of something subtle or new? Give a clap.
