Vanessa Van Edwards says the first ten seconds of any interaction determine how warm and charismatic you seem. Your impression forms the moment someone sees you, not when you speak. Flash an open palm as you enter a room or video call to signal openness and instantly boost how warm people perceive you.
Your first 10 seconds, your first 10 seconds of an interaction that matters to you. That could be a date, a team meeting, talking to your family, walking into a party. Your first 10 seconds is your biggest opportunity for grabbed or missed charisma. And that is because often we miss those first 10 seconds. We analyze these interactions. We see that someone will do great once they've started, but that first impression, if you don't nail it, it's really hard to recover. So I want you to take back, I want you to reclaim those first 10 seconds. Video calls or walking into a business meeting or a room. First, remember, your first impression happens the moment someone first sees you, not the moment you start talking. My introverts like to think that their impressions happen when they start talking, but actually it happens when someone first sees you. So when someone first sees you, there's a couple things happening that I want you to do. If you can have visible hands, it immediately ups your warmth. A palm is like a window to the soul. It shows I'm literally not hiding anything. It does something very primal to our brain. When you walk into a room, when you hop on video, when you walk into a board meeting— morning everyone— palm flash, palm flash. Out of pockets, not behind your back, not stuffed into a purse or a bag, right upon first visual.
