Tag Archive for Four Minutes

Summary – Chapter 1

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

In this opening chapter we have looked at some body language primers. Hopefully you have grabbed a hold of the frame of mind necessary to read body language. Not all reading comes naturally, but then again, reading people is not as difficult as it can be made out to be. We have looked at how to use this book; as not only a guide, but as a tool, an encyclopedia. It might not flow exactly in your ideal, but of which, can be used in varying sequences and be revisited from time to time as a refresher. In fact, this book should be revisited again and again. You will be surprised just how much you pick up the second and third time around!

We have learned that it is the first four minutes that often dictate life-long impression we have with others, how fortune tellers are like horses, how to read someone cold, how the mind mirrors through its neurons and the body and brain are linked, the vital importance of the limbic systems and how it is paramount in creating honest body language, and what it really means to read people. We also covered the difference between “OK” types and “Not OK” types as well as introverted versus extroverted, and how this can affect body language. From there it became more obvious to understand how to get the desired results with our new tools and how it can be difficult to fake body language due to microexpressions. Finally, we advanced a ‘fail safe’ technique which implied that looking at people as if they were nude can tell us a lot about body language and helps make reading a more common sense practice.

You Have Four Minutes!

by  • March 5, 2013 • 2 Comments

You're on the clock, so make it count!

You’re on the clock, so make it count!

It has been repeatedly shown that the first four minutes are crucial to formulating life-long impressions of others. The research has shown that the reality of the matter is that it might even be shorter than this. [!dw-post-more level=”0″]Once a judgment has been past, people will vigorously resist changing it. In fact, our first impressions are so strongly held, that we’d prefer to ignore, omit or distort information about someone as it comes in that doesn’t fit our impressions than to modify our initial impressions of someone. Add to this, the fact that only some our time formulating impressions is done verbally through speaking, but all of our time is spent sending signals nonverbally. Our impressions are made passively, regardless of our desire to create them, so being caught on an off day can really hurt future relationship. If, say, for example, we are caught in a bad mood, or happen to be dealing with a rare crisis, the judgment others make during this period will follow us for a very long time. Shy people who take longer to warm up to others know this all to well and are often reminded of this fact later. As their relationships flourish, friends will tell them how their initial impressions of them were quite different from the person they have come to know. Being shy holds their true personalities from sight, and this hurts them in the short term because the initial impression they make comes across as indifferent and cold.

Knowing that impressions are so important, we can use it to our advantage by placing added emphasis on initial impressions and concentrate our efforts. Once this time has elapsed, we can either relax back to our regular selves and allow our newly created reputation to keep us afloat, or maintain out initial behaviour. The choice will be ours to make. This book will cover the all important job interview and skills to portray confidence and knowledgeable and how to pack it all into the typical four minute interview. Fortunately, this book is almost entirely about formulating and maintaining good impression. [/dw-post-more]So the rule here is to never ignore the power of first impressions. More often than not, first impressions are the ones that last for an entire relationship and can’t be easily corrected later. I should also emphasis that what you ‘say’ is often far less important than what you ‘do’. Listening, and using strong body language will illustrate a much stronger impression then being a good speaker, so always pay more credence to positive body language.