You rose through the ranks of a Fortune 500 Company and now you are at the top of your professional game. You save people’s lives through the practice of medicine. Your entrepreneurial spirit has made you wealthier than you could have ever imagined. You are a published author. And so forth.
But you are in the same boat as the person who has to make that awkward first date phone call this evening…and your intelligence and life experience should inform your understanding that the first phone call should not be scrutinized, fact checked or otherwise picked apart in ways that have helped your analytical, discerning mind succeed professionally.
The phone call has nothing to do with that person’s professional success, resumé of accomplishments, or, most importantly, who they are as a human being. The first phone call is not limited to a demographic or exclusive to a certain class of individual. It’s the great equalizer. So ‘you’ do not have to be any of the aforementioned masters to know what making that call is like. This involves everybody.
The first phone call is difficult. Yet, clients tell me it’s critical. Vital. A deal-starter and even a deal-breaker. If that’s the case, I think the first phone call’s importance might have to be reevaluated. There’s no easy ice breakers in the game of dating, and those who easily break the ice could be perceived as far too smooth and experienced and self-assured, crossing the fine line between confident and arrogant.
We are bombarded by lists of the 20 qualities of the confident people, the 10 qualities of the extroverted people, the 15 qualities of the optimistic people, but please point me to the list of the qualities needed to forgive another’s first impression over a phone call.
Continue reading on the Huffington Post: Exceptional You