I believe the way we present ourselves in those first few moments, what people call “first impressions” makes a difference that’s hard to undo.
You might not think of it as something serious, but when I meet someone new, trust me I notice right away how they look, how they speak and if what they’re saying feels genuine. I see the same pattern when I watch others interact. Yesterday I watched this YouTube reel, I think he's Called Vusi, but I forgot to save it to include it in this blog. He basically explains how those first seven seconds when you meet someone can shape what they think of you for a long time.
The speaker talks about three main things: looking the part, sounding the part, and being authentic. He gave a wonderful example that if you see someone who dresses like James Bond, you instantly connect that image with confidence and style even if you know nothing about them. That's looking the part and it's not about wearing expensive clothes, it’s just as simple as being neat, prepared and paying attention to details.
Then there’s how you speak. If you sound clear and thoughtful people usually start to trust what you say and have an impression that you're intelligent and know what you're about. Mistake is we sometimes skip this step and just talk, yeah, anything that comes out and hope it makes sense. Nope, you've probably screw up many times if you leave it to fate or something. I'm not saying fate is not real, I'm just saying you'd make a better impression if you think before you talk.
It matters more than you realize.
But there's the other thing which is that you can't pretend for long, so it's better to be authentic than pretend. This means we need to work on ourselves and not fake it. If that's you, you won't struggle to be you, so simply make you intelligent by getting some lots and lots of knowledge before you meet people. Anyways you're already meeting people so at least you can use the ones you already know to practice how to be better at it.
If I could give advice, I’d say always take care in those first moments with someone. We all remember how someone made us feel right away.
Disclaimer:
I generated the thumbnail Image of my blog using 4.1 Gpt model