You might be sabotaging your first impressions
and not even realize it, and it's not because you're making some big, terrible mistake,
it's because a lot of the advice that we've all received over the course of our lives
is incomplete. And if you take that incomplete advice and you apply it to the wrong situation,
you're going to get a bad result. So in this video, what I want to do is talk about three
pieces of advice that need tweaks to actually work in the real world. And when you add these
tweaks, you'll go from sabotaging first impressions to really, really hitting home runs. And the first one that I want to touch on
is this. A lot of people aim for harmony in first impressions. They do not, under any
circumstances, want to create conflict, but the truth is when people cross lines, even
in first impressions, the best thing that you can do is set a boundary. I want to give
you an example, so you can really take this home. This is one of my favorites. A friend of mine, way back, was at a company--it
was a finance company--and he was presenting to the head honcho boss. This guy's worth
a hundred million dollars, flies around in private jets, and was generally an abuser,
like he was verbally abusive to everybody in the office. So he's got this meeting and
he's pitching to him whether or not they should invest in a company that they gave him to
research. And he gets around to the end and he says, "So based on all my research, I think
that this company is a pass, it's just too risky." Head honcho guy, David, stands up,
looks at him, the rest of the team, and says, "You guys are pussies." Everyone else there
gets quiet because they've taken this kind of abuse before. But my friend is not used
to this, right? He's never been treated like this. So he looks right back at the boss and
says, "David, where I come from, calling another man a pussy is the worst thing you could do.
You would immediately start a fistfight. Don't ever call me a pussy again," then he gets
quiet. And everyone in the room gets quiet. And David gets quiet. A few seconds passed and I'm sure it might
have seemed like eternity, and David says, "I'm sorry. I won't ever do that again." Completely
goes back, the meeting starts rolling, and people pick up the slack, but what happened
is, after that, my friend never ever received that kind of abuse that people in the office
continue to get from him. That guy never gave him any crap. Again, it's because he set a
boundary, and even though he was low man on the totem pole, he created respect. This is
what happens, when people cross lines, I'm not saying that you need to shout their faces
off, neither am I saying that you need to do what most people do and just go, "No, it's
okay." I've seen people do this in so many situations, right? Somebody makes a racist
or a sexist comment that they don't like, in a business meeting somebody shows up pretty
late, doesn't respect your time, or I know a girl in a business meeting, she was basically
being hit on by the guy and didn't know what to do, so she just kind of laughed it off,
pretended that it was just a joke. In these scenarios, what you need to do in
so many words, to say, one, "Hey, I don't appreciate what you just did," and, two, "Don't
ever do it again," and then quiet. That is it. I'm not asking you to yell at someone.
I'm not asking you to take it home. I'm not asking you to complain about it with your
friends. If you do this, you will find that the boundaries you set create more respect
in all of your interactions--incredibly powerful. The second thing is kind of a light version
of the boundary setting and it's this. A lot of people hate to disagree with anyone at
first impression and it's because we know that people like people that are like them.
They want people that went to the same school as they did, like the same sports teams, that
have the same interests. So when somebody says something that, maybe, we don't share, we tend to
gloss right over that and look for the commonalities, but the truth is, when you bring up things
that are not commonalities, in fact, that you might be polar opposites on in the first
impression, you create a ton of trust. Another example because I love this, first
time that I went to Brazil, I was in Rio de Janeiro and I went to the Copacabana Palace,
a really nice place. I don't know if they still have parties there, but if they do,
check it out. And I walked in, hang around for a while, and I saw a girl that I really thought
was very pretty. So I walked up, started talking to her, and I began to speak in Portuguese
after a few sentences in English. And she said, "Oh, my god, wow, your Portuguese is
awesome, like you must be so intelligent that people on this city are just not; they're
not worldly at all." And that was, one, a really nice compliment, but, two, it kind
of struck me as, "I don't know about this," because I was in Rio and I found that people
are extremely friendly, outgoing, exuberant, fun, and her sort of emphasis on these people
are dumb, was a bit of a turn off to me, so I said, "Listen, first of all, thank you very
much for the compliment. My Portuguese is only good, not because I'm some sort of savant,
but because I used to study Spanish. But I got to say, for me, the most important thing
about any individual is not that they've traveled to a bunch of countries, or they're worldly,
or they have a super high IQ, it's that they make the people around them feel good, and
that they're fun." And she said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, fun is shallow. I will
prefer a guy that was intelligent and worldly any day." And she kind of looked at me going,
"Are you that guy?" And I was tempted to, I want to go, "Oh, you're right, you said
I was this guy, you like this guy, perfect, we're gonna hit it off." But I had to continue
saying, "So, I mean, listen, I would take both, right? I want fun and intelligent, but
when it comes down to it, the people that I connect with the best are the people that
spread good vibes, the people that are happy and fun, and, honestly, if they're not the
sharpest, if they haven't traveled the world, and they don't speak six languages, they just
live in their city and they have kind of an insular view, I don't really mind that. I
just care that they're a good person." And we agreed to disagree, right? Right in that
moment, she said, "Well, that's not how I am." And we continued to talk. But what happened
is that a tremendous amount of trust was built between her and I, because I was willing to
disagree with her and she was willing to disagree with me. And what wound up happening is we did connect.
I spent the rest of the week that I was there in Rio with her. She let me stay at her place
when I got kicked out of my hostel and left me alone in her house while she went to work.
And I do believe that a huge, huge, huge component of that trust that was built was because so
early on, I was willing to say, "Listen, we might not be a match. We might not work out,
and if we're not a match, that's totally fine, but I'm going to be transparent about it." When you let people know about the ways that
you disagree with them, not shoving it down their throat, but just saying, "Hey, that's
not how I am. We can totally agree to disagree. I'm not trying to convince you, but you should
know that's not my feelings. People trust you so much more. So that's the second piece
to making a really good first impression and sometimes, the things that you don't have
in common can be just as important as the things that you do have in common. The third piece is this, fake it till you
make it is often misinterpreted, and it's a great piece of advice. Don't get me wrong.
But fake it 'til you make it applies only to body language and non-verbal communication.
When you start using fake it 'til you make it in the things that you say, that's when
you run into trouble. So, for instance, the CEO who had a terrible quarter, speaking in
front of his company gets up there and says, "Hey guys, we're doing great, you know, not
exactly what we want, but this is really on track and our numbers are kind of off in the
projections, so we're killing it right now," or like the guy in that networking event who
goes out and pretends that he has a kind of status at his company that he can help people
up because you know what, man? Just send me your resume, I'll get you a job, no problem.
And he's got no such power. This happens all the time.
People fake power that they don't have. Or a guy who wants to impress a girl, takes her
to a nice restaurant, really great, but rather than acting like, you know, this is a special
occasion, pretends that this is something he does all the time. That kind of stuff does
not fly. So here's what you want to do. Fake it till you make it in the way that you speak,
in the way that you carry yourself, your tonality, the way that you gesticulate, the way that
you breath, that's gonna affect your head, which is going to actually change the way
that you feel, right? Your physiology does change your emotion and
we've talked about this at length. I don't want to go into it here, but when it comes
to the things that are coming out of your mouth, be honest to a fault. So, for instance, that CEO might get up there
and say, "Guys, listen, this quarter was a disappointment. We did not hit our numbers.
We did not do the things that we needed to do. I've spoken to many of you. I've reflected
on what needs to happen and here's how we're going to do it going forward." The confidence that he speaks with is what's
going to inspire people to hang on, to continue, and the honesty is going to make them trust
him that "Holy cow, we can do this. He's not just going to sugarcoat everything." Take
the guy who takes a woman to a nice restaurant, right? Rather than going in like, Oh, yeah,
pretending he knows the maitre d' or that this happens all the time, or talking about
his investment portfolio. Whatever it is, he might go in there and say, "Listen, I got
to be honest, this place is way nicer than the restaurants I'd only go to, so I hope
that you're impressed by the food and that makes you laugh extra hard at my jokes," right? Play it off fun, funny, but you can let people
know, this is special, this is nice. That honesty is going to let her know, which is
a huge concern for women, by the way, that the man that they're dating are not being
real, are not being honest. When you show things that might not be to your favor, and
you're not doing it in a calculated way, but you're doing it because it's honest, that's
going to create a bond of trust between you that is actually going to make the relationship
go much, much better. The thing that ties all three of these together
is this. The charismatic person, the person that is comfortable with themselves is comfortable
with the truth, and they can sit with it, and they recognize it's gonna make me connect
really well with some people, and some people are not gonna connect well, but I will not
be disrespected, I'm not afraid to share my opinion, and I'm not going to pretend that
something is the case when it's not. So that is the thread that ties them all together
and I hope you see it in our other videos because it's a big one. There are other things that can sabotage first
impressions. In fact, one of them is the order that you create these 4 emotions in. There
are 4 emotions that create an amazing first impression. Get the order right, it's amazing.
Get the order wrong, it's sometimes not so great. So, if you're curious what that is,
hit the link here. It's going to take you to another video that shows you what those
4 emotions are, and more importantly, shows you the order that you need to hit them in
because that's the thing, a lot of people create them, but they don't do it in the right
order. So if you want to see that, click the link,
drop your email. It's gonna take you to that video right away. If you guys did like this
video, please subscribe to the channel. We're making more of these videos at least one a
week. It's gonna show up on your homepage when we do it. You'll see my face or you'll
see a charisma breakdown. Sometimes we do people that are fictional characters like
Tyrion Lannister, anyone from Game of Thrones. We did Muhammad Ali, maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger
coming up, but we take these very charismatic people and break down exactly what they're
doing so that we can learn from them. So those are some of my favorites. They take a long
time, but should have one of those coming very soon. So if you want to see them, subscribe to the
channel, and, of course, any comments, any questions, drop them in the Comment box below.
They inspire a lot of these videos and a lot of the people that we do breakdowns of. In any event, I hope that you guys have enjoyed
this video, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.
X-Post referenced from /r/livetowin by /u/eldare
3 Mistakes That Butcher First Impressions
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I know Charlie personally, tremendous advice.