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Six strategies for making a better first impression: 1. Stop acting and be your best self: “Be yourself” is the best all-time phrase in personal development. However, you can plus that by being your best self. During your next networking or social situation, just show up with the intention of being fully authentic and alive. Have faith that showing the world who you are will always result in good things, because indeed it does. 2. Don’t network if you don’t want to do: Everyone thinks you have to extraverted to succeed, but it’s not true. If you like being introverted and you don’t want to join the party and go out and network, then don’t feel you have to. You can compensate by arranging smaller gatherings or lunches. However, if you feel your growth or greatness require you to get a little uncomfortable and go out and meet lots of people, then do it. Learning to become comfortable in uncomfortable situations is part of life mastery. 3. Have fun: Nothing makes a better first impression than you choosing to have real, authentic fun. Bring the joy! Have the intention to absolutely appreciate and enjoy every situation you enter. Nothing is more attractive than a person who is authentic and alive with joy. 4. Be present: Whatever level of presence you have in your current relationships is probably the same level of presence you’re bringing to social situations. To have a greater impact in people’s lives, you have to “level-up” and be more present with them. Challenge yourself to truly listen and engage with others. 5. Be interested in others: Ultimately, a first “impression” is about the other person, not you. Demonstrate interest in others by asking them questions you genuinely care about. By doing this you learn about the other person and you can start to praise them to others and connect them with others. Become their champion and connector and you win their hearts. 6. Leave things better than how you find them: How you exit is more important than first impressions because people remember how you leave them feeling more than how you met. Ask yourself, “How can I leave this conversation or context more positive than how I found it?” If you leave people feeling validated, cared for and praised, then you will leave a lasting impression (and legacy). Try these strategies in your social world and you will start to experience what we call The Charged Life! Download the audio podcast of this episode here. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get notices of new videos.

Six Strategies for Making a Better First Impression

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BY BRENDON BURCHARD

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Six strategies for making a better first impression:1. Stop acting and be your best self:Be yourself is the best all-time phrase in personal development. However, you can plus that by being yourbest self. During your next networking or social situation, just show up with the intention of being fully authentic and alive. Have faith that showing the world who you are will always result in good things, because indeed it does.2. Dont network if you dont want to do:Everyone thinks you have to extraverted to succeed, but its not true. If you like being introverted and you dont want to join the party and go out and network, then dont feel you have to. You can compensate by arranging smaller gatherings or lunches. However, if you feel your growth or greatness require you to get a little uncomfortable and go out and meet lots of people, then do it. Learning to become comfortable in uncomfortable situations is part of life mastery.3. Have fun:Nothing makes a better first impression than you choosing to have real, authentic fun.Bring the joy! Have the intention to absolutely appreciate and enjoy every situation you enter. Nothing is more attractive than a person who is authentic and alive with joy.4. Be present:Whatever level of presence you have in your current relationships is probably the same level of presence youre bringing to social situations. To have a greater impact in peoples lives, you have to level-up and be more present with them. Challenge yourself to truly listen and engage with others.5. Be interested in others:Ultimately, a first impression is about the other person, notyou. Demonstrate interest in others by asking them questions you genuinely care about. By doing this you learn about the other person and you can start to praise them to others and connect them with others. Become their champion and connector and you win their hearts.6. Leave things better than how you find them:How you exit is more important than first impressions because people remember how you leave themfeelingmore than how you met. Ask yourself, How can I leave this conversation or context more positive than how I found it? If you leave people feeling validated, cared for and praised, then you will leave a lasting impression (and legacy).Try these strategies in your social world and you will start to experience what we callThe Charged Life!Downloadthe audio podcast of this episode here.Subscribeto my YouTube channel to get notices of new videos.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:Hey guys, its Brendon. You asked, How do you make a good first impression?And I was like, Youre asking me? Im pretty awkward and weird at first impressions sometimes.So, let me bumble through this and hopefully it works for you. Like all of our videos, this is completely freestyle.1. Just answering the question, the first one is pretty simple.Dont try to make a first impression.It comes across when youre trying and I know you know that. You canfeelit. In a social environment and youre supposed to be networking. And if you aretryingto do something, people feel that from you but you know it and it makes you uncomfortable, doesnt it? When youre in there trying to do something or be something that youre not. The best first impression is for someone saying, That dude is just totally being himself.I think about my dad. He was anextraordinarilygood man. Just incredible. He did three tours in Vietnam. He served his country. He was a jolly, just happy guy; had a big Buddha belly because mom always fed him good food. And we lost him in 2009 to leukemia, unfortunately.And I think about the way that he handled that situation and the lessons he told us. And one of the things he was always just saying is,Be yourself.I thought about it. The things he went through during that time dealing with chemo and treatment. How easy would it been for him to try to act a part. But if he wasnt feeling good, he wasnt feeling good.He was always positive, but he washim. And he remained himself through the end. Just be yourself and that remains the all-time best two words in personal development. All right?Just be yourself!Add that with the next two best words in all of spiritual development Have Faith and now you got a winning combination.Go into the next networking event, be yourself, have faith that it will go fine and youll be on a much better ground than being one of those guys, Hi, how you doing?You just like, Oh my god, get away from me creep.Youre like when youre not being authentic; it oozes someone who is trying or someone who is not trustable.So, just be you.And some people say, Well, Brendon though me is someone who would not interact in that social context. Me is a wallflower. Me is a very introverted person. Who wouldnt want to go do that.I go, Then dont go do it?Weve all fallen prey to this mass hysteria that says, We all have to go in and network and party and do all that things.Who said? Who is telling you, you have to do anything that youre not wanting to do?2. I tell people all the time, Just because its hard or uncomfortable doesnt mean you shouldnt do it.Matter of fact most of your growth will come from placing yourself and being yourself, being your best in situations where you may not be comfortable.Part of mastery of life is learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.So, if a networking situation will be good for you and your career and your goals and your dreams, yeah will yourself to get your butt in there and go be the best you. Get in the game.Thats fine.But dont think youhaveto.I get invited to parties and fundraisers and speeches. I mean, every single day, hundreds of invitations coming to us because we are reaching millions of people every single day. So, we get tons of requests and its all, No.If its not on my path, I dont have to say yes to it and I think you need to approach that the same way.You dont need to do every networking situation that comes up. But if you do go there, donttryso hard. Go and make sure you do very simple things.3. Have Fun: Nothing makes a better impression than you choosing to have real fun.Being authentic in the moment, making yourself enjoy the situation vs. trying to struggle through. Go have fun in whatever way is fun for you. If fun for you is one-on-one with somebody, connecting, learning their story, great! If fun for you telling a big story and being dramatic, great. Go do that!Make the party or the social situation fun and the first impression on everybody will be significant and it will be positive.4. The second thing is, I dont want you to forget that first impressions have nothing to do with you as much as they have to do with the other person.I know you know that as well, but how present do you really get for other people?Think about the last time you were with your partner, your spouse, your lover, the person youre in intimate relationship with, if you are. How present have you really been with them at dinner? How present are you with them when youre walking in the door? How present are you with them in general?Because that level of presence is probably what youre carrying into the social world too.And I want you to remember that if you really want to make a difference and you really want to make an impacta great First Impression, it comes from being present with other people and truly listening, being engaged and interested in who they are, what theyre about, whats going on in their world.5. Part of being great at first impressions is asking questions of other people and genuinely meaning them.Not, I read these are the five great questions to ask at networking events makes you another ass who is asking you those five questions.Go ask questions that arerealfor you.Like if you meet somebody, ask them questions that areauthenticfor you. Thats it.Do what youre interested. Tell people, Hey Im interested in this. How do you perceive it? What do you do?Learn from them. Dont be so focused on bragging about yourself to make a first impression.Instead, learn enough about someone that you can brag about them to the next guy.Meaning if now, youre talking with someone you learn something about them and then someone walks up and be like, Hey whats your name? Oh Pete. Hey Pete, this is Barbara. Barbaras awesome, she was just telling me how shes like this.And now youre just bragging up on Barbara vs. worrying about bragging about yourself and in that situation you will be the person of influence.6. And I think the last simple reminder that we forget all the time that what makes the great difference in making a good first impression in addition to being ourselves, having faith that all will go well and being interested in other people is tochange the emotional toneof the conversations and the context we find ourselves in life.If youre on first impression and youre talking with somebody and everyones kind of bland but you just say, "You know what? Im going to change the tone here a little bit with my energy, my physicality, my spirituality. Im just going to leave this situation a little bit more positively energized. Whatever that means for the context youre in.If youre volunteering in hospice and someones very sick and theyre going through a tough time, you dont need to go in there and party and chat. Go all crazy and be a clown around them.But if you just served authentically in that situation to make that person feel cared for and you left on a positive upbeat tone, they would feel that they would remember you.How you leave is much more important than the first impression and we always forget that.People only have a memory for so long that they might not even remember the first time they met you. But they remember how you left themfeelingand thats what you have to focus on.That when you go to leave, when you go to leave the conversation or the social context, is to say: How can I leave this better than I found it? How can I have contributed some positive energy or positive perspective to this?Because if you walk away and theyre like, That person is who they are and they are interested in us and that was a positive feeling when they left, youve accomplished everything you need to have done in your first impression.Go out there, try these ideas. Remember them next time youre in a networking situation. Youll start to experience a whole lot more of what we call,The Charged Life.