My first impression of people nearly always turns out to be the correct one. Almost all uncertainty is the result of second guessing myself rather than things I missed in the first impression.
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Usually the second guessing is about giving people benefit of doubt either because I like them or dislike them. When the original impression is correct it’s just a small cost of being right later than I needed to be. But when the original impression gets revised it’s worth a lot.
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Judging people accurately is 30% having a large library of patterns to match, 30% the courage to caricature, and 30% knowing that people rarely bother to hide who they are, beyond basic etiquette. And 10% willingness to be dramatically wrong sometimes. But not a lot.
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Why do people say not to judge a book by it's cover? It literally tells you what to expect in the book. Rarely do the contents of the book surprise me.
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I made a 6-month and $100k mistake on this last year. Quite probably the biggest mistake of my life. I actually went with my first impression but then later succumbed to compromises that I shouldn't have.
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