Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway, and The Power of First Impressions

In May of 1937, Orson Welles arrived in a small, smoky projection room, where he was to narrate a propaganda film called, The Spanish Earth. Orson was 22 and already a big name in Hollywood. But he was still hungry for work, and this was four years before he would put out his most groundbreaking work, Citizen Kane. Orson took one look at the commentary on the screen, the narration he was supposed to be reading, and he hated it. And he wasn't shy about which lines he wanted to be cut either. Orson said, "Is it really necessary to say all this? Wouldn't it be better just to see the picture?"

Unfortunately, Orson wasn't alone in the projection room. Another man was sitting in front of the screen, listening to his criticism of the narrative. In fact, it was a writer of the narrative himself, hidden in the shadows. He was a man who was known for being quick to temper and violent. It was a man named Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was 38 and an established writer who was already an icon of his generation. He had returned a few months earlier from serving as a combat correspondent in the fight against General Francisco Franco. Hopefully, this provides some context for why he responded to Orson Welles's criticism by calling him an effeminate artsy amateur. However, the exact words he used were way more homophobic.

Orson Welles was never one to shrink from a fight. So, he put on an effeminate voice and said, "You only think you can bully me because you're a big strong hairy-chested manly man," which both offended Hemingway's sensibilities and his sense of masculinity. The two men put up their dukes, and the fight was on. According to Orson Welles himself, both men began swinging fists and chairs in the dark projector room. They swung wildly and with rage. Neither were really able to connect a solid blow until the lights came on, and they then realized who they were fighting. Both prolific genius writers, near the prime of their careers, were acting like brutes. Then, like a spell, it was broken. Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway began to crack up laughing.

Today, we're trying to set a good first impression because, as was stated on the shows before, the impressions you form can determine a lot in life, especially if it's during an interview. A good impression can set your salary, decide which college you attend, and can even limit which neighborhood you can live in. To guide us from the first handshake to the closing bid, we have a few missed to dispel.

Myth 1: What are we doing wrong? When it comes to first Impressions, what really matters? Is it the handshake? Eye contact? Your reputation? And what would it look like if we wanted to make the worst first impression possible?

Both Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles were writers. They were both manly men. They're both prodigious drinkers, great orators, philosophers, and loved Spain. In fact, both would live there a large chunk of their lives. In addition, they loved bullfighting. Hell, Hemingway was obsessed and wrote about bullfighting, and Orson Welles had actually been a bullfighter. Overall, these two should have loved each other at first glance. Yet, they clashed and discredited each other, in part, because they got off on the wrong foot.

We're going to start off today's episode by going through the science of first impressions. According to Psychology Today, they state how we can set the worst first impression possible, aka what not to do. Before getting into that, note that the first place to start is to not try and set a good first impression from a place of what you desire, but from a place of expectation based on understanding and experience. If you are new to it, that is okay. Over time you will learn how to read people, feel their energy, and get better at this. Having the right body and facial reactions when you meet somebody is stuff like that takes experience and practice.

With that being said, now we are going to design the worst first impression. When you meet someone for the first time, the first thing is to try to understand boundaries. Have a good idea of what the average is as far as meeting goes. You can ruin this by having a lot of expectations. In addition, if you want to set an excellent first impression, avoid trying to be memorable. You actually want to come off as a fair average. This means no bragging and no pounding on the chest.

Next is don't try to connect with people by revealing your life story. Generally, with first Impressions, you want to come off as able to communicate with them and not be self-centric. Another "what not to do" is don't fill the space with a lot of talk. I see people get this wrong a lot. It's tough because with any kind of silence, we get nervous, and we feel like we have to blabber our way through it. And as long as you show that you're listening, the silence is more of an invitation than it is an awkward silence. Another one is never to assume that the other person will agree with you, especially in terms of politics and religion.

There is no denying that it is essential to nail a first impression because so much depends on it, like a job interview. So, knowing what not to do is a great first step in doing it right. There was a study by Michael Krause, where they sampled 274 individuals with hiring experience, and they had them listen to an audio or read transcripts of the recordings. The hiring managers were asked to assess the candidates' professional qualities. Basically, they were going to determine starting salaries and signing bonuses. Also, if they could perceive if this person would be good for the job.

After the managers listened to the audios and recordings and read the transcripts, they were far more likely to hire the people who had a higher socio-economic class. They were also more likely to assign higher bonuses and higher salaries to those who already came from a high-class. They used very micro stuff to assess this. So, if I come in wearing a potato sack for my interview, I'm not going to make a good first impression. However, for this study, they only had audios and transcripts. So just voice alone conveys a lot about class. The only reason we bring the study up today is to remind everybody that if you're making a good first impression, consider how much class you are conveying in your voice and the way you speak.

Myth 2: For the love of God, what do we do with our hands when we talk? What is our body saying? What can we do to project trustworthiness when we first open our mouth?

Have you ever heard of the halo effect? Have you ever had a friend introduce you to somebody, but they start out by telling you about how amazing they are? That's the halo effect in practice. The halo effect is if we know the good attributes of somebody first, we will assume other good things about them. So, if you want to set a good first impression, start by reflecting on the things you are good at to convey that halo effect on others. It sounds manipulative, but it's not. It's basically just presenting things that you believe could benefit, and instilling feelings for others that you would also be useful in other things as well.

There is another article we're going to talk about called, The Science of First Impressions by entrepreneur.com. We're going to get into appearances and physical things that you can do to make a good first impression. We are going to start with appearance. We know that if you come to an interview looking shabby, you're not getting the job. For this article, they talk about a study where subjects examined images of a man, one of which was him wearing a tailored suit and the other he wasn't. And hiring managers rated the tailored suit image as better suited than the other. Now, it's not so much that they were judging somebody for being poor; what they were judging was self-awareness. If we see somebody in something that looks ridiculous on them, we're not judging them because they don't have money; we're judging them because they must not have good self-awareness to know that what they are wearing does not look good.

Our next metric is body language. Whenever we talk about body language, the one I hear from self-help people is project confidence. Projecting confidence can be done by good posture, not crossing your arms, and taking up more space when you sit in a chair because it means you were confident there. In a nutshell, confidence projects trustworthiness because if you have a lot to hide or are trying to get away with something, you're less confident, which makes you look less trusting.

Now onto hands. What do we do with our hands when we make a first impression? If you move or fidget, you may actually have something going for you because if you fidget, you may be able to build trust quicker, according to this article. You will be seen as a better communicator because people like to see ques of your intentions. So, if your hands are doing some of the talking for you, that's actually not a bad thing. However, if your hands go above your collarbone, like chewing your nails, that's when it's seen as unfavorable or seen as unconfident. In the end, if you're a hand talker, go ahead and do that. Just try to avoid crossing your arms, bringing your hands below your collarbone, and keep good eye contact. If you find eye contact challenging, try looking at the eyebrows or the space between someone's eyes.

Myth 3: Finally, we get to our biggest myth about first impressions. Once you've blown it, it's all over. If you make a terrible first impression, there's no going back.

Have you ever met somebody who made an awful first impression and won you back? Probably, right? Most people have had those situations where someone came off as a jerk but turned out to be a good person. I think Hemingway and Welles could have gotten along. In fact, they talked about how they were friends off and on. Now, we want to talk a bit about how we can do the same trick, how we can get back in the good graces of somebody once we've blown a first impression.

I think that is kind of an old misunderstanding or the folk knowledge, that once you blow the first impression, there's no coming back. It's all over. You had your chance, and you blew it.

For starters, we talked about this in other episodes, but it's something called the mere exposure effect. This is something that has been known for some time. The mere exposure effect is a phenomenon where you develop a preference for things because they have become familiar to you. In terms of first impressions, you can theoretically redeem yourself by repeatedly seeming like a good person in front of them. You can use the mere exposure effect to your advantage. Another thing to keep in mind is we humans are to want to like someone after a bad first impression. So, you may dislike someone if they come off as stuck up or if they overshare, but we are kind of built to get over that.

This comes from an INC article and all about how to overcome a bad first impression. They get into a Yale study that looked at 1500 people. Researchers observed these people and watched how good and bad moral acts played out. They watched strangers who were given a choice, administer an electric shock to somebody for money or not to administer an electric shock for no money. You may think that there should be no coming back from that. Everyone should just universally hate me for zapping someone for money. They were then asked to rate someone as evil or not, and those who were zapped said they were uncertain about the ratings. They left that open. This means that we are so compelled as a species to want people to be able to join us later that we are willing to overlook things. So, based on that Yale study, we're built to forgive a bad first impression. Were made to look for the good in others and are built to be able to forgive.

Final Thoughts

Want to get good at making a first impression? Meet lots of people. Exposure to new people will give you a greater sense of the average and let you know what kinds of behaviors and conversations you should expect in a first meeting. But for now, until you've shaken that millionth hand, we have a few tips for you.

·         Don't get bombastic trying to stand out.

·         Don't drone on about your personal history.

·         Don't assume other people agree with you.

·         Don't ask nosy questions.

·         If you can, try to act or be from an upper-class.

Appearance, body language, hand gestures, and eye contact all contribute to a good first impression. But all these are in service of a more powerful message, trustworthiness. You want to appear and give off trustworthiness with every breath. Finally, if you've already blown your first impression, you can always pull a Todd. Let your tireless positivity and mere exposure effect pull you back up on their good graces.

Remember, people want to form social bonds. It's in our nature to forgive bad first impressions. So, don't hold yourself back for fear of making a bad impression. If you get into a drunken fistfight with a world-famous writer who never forgives you, don't look back and don't sweat it. Just move on to the next handshake.