SORRY, YOU DON'T GET A SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION

We've all learned about first impressions. And how they last. Sometimes they really really last, and damn if they aren't hard to undo!

Take for instance Eve's serpent. She bought into his venomous pitch right on the spot. When Caesar and later Anthony met Cleopatra, they did the same thing. No amount of after-the-fact warnings changed any of these hearts. Then there's the report Kruschev's first impression of JFK was that of inexperience, supposedly whetting his appetite for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962

World history aside, personal history is more to the point. How many times have you muttered to yourself "Now what I shoulda said...!" right after that sales meeting or first date? Or what about the time you left your child's teacher wishing you had expressed your complaints a little more diplomatically?

Impressions are complex things. They're symphony of sensations including the look in your eyes, the tone in your voice, and the culture of your body.  Yeah, we all wear masks of various kinds, and yet they don't always hide as much we hope.

So the next poker game or bidding war, remember this. It may not be fair -- what's fair in this life! -- but the other party is judging you just as unconsciously as you're judging them,. They can't help it...you can't help it...it's just one of those funny little flaws to our human nature. We're always in a rush to get to the bottom line of the last chapter.

Slow down and think about it. It's that serpentine rush in Eden that got us all here in the first place!