How do others perceive you is NOT important?

I’m going to share with you this very interesting topic, that I usually share this with my people and other leaders verbally. This is the first time, I write this down in the blog. Let’s see if you really find this interesting…

When you just graduated from university or when you're still in school, you usually do not care how others perceive you as long as you think you're doing a right thing or the things that you like to do. So you don’t care about their perception as long as their perception is wrong or not valid.

However, the more you have grown up, the more you found out that how others perceive you is important. This is mainly because how others perceive you can turn you into who you are being perceived as. Others may perceive you wrongly, but the fact is whether their perception is right or wrong or the truth, it doesn’t really matter because what they perceive will turn you into what they want you to be. Do not believe me? Let me tell you why…


Have you heard of micro-messages?

You may not notice that your body send out millions of micro-messages every moment, every day.  These are all hidden messages generated from your body language which eventually can become a very powerful programming language to program another person’s mind without you even notice it. Let me give you an example:

Assuming you have 10 employees who work for you, one of them (let say employee A) is very stupid in your perception somehow. So everyday when you come to work and you see this employee A, your body language (although it is not obvious) send million of micro-messages to this employee A and the micro-message is “You’re Stupid”.  You’re actually sending millions of this affirmation message - “You’re stupid” to program this employee A’s sub-conscious mind everyday you see him. This message is then translated to “I’m stupid” by his sub-conscious mind and eventually turns this person to be really a stupid person even though initially he is not. The technical term for this is called “Neuro-Linguistic programming” or “NLP".

What so powerful about this micro-messages is that they can remotely program somebody sub-conscious mind. Of course, these-messages become even more powerful if more than 1 person to send the exact same micro-message. For example, you influence another manager to think or perceive the same about this employee A, thus not only you but also other managers also send exact the same messages to this employee A. The more people send the same message to this employee A, the higher chances this employee A will turn into what they want him to be.


How to defend these negative micro-messages?

Well, if what I said is correct, then everyone can remotely program anyone as they like. Well, not really. First of all, you can’t easily control your own micro-messages because it is in your sub-conscious mind.

For example,  you can NOT easily force your sub-conscious mind to send a micro-message that conflicts with your perception.  Secondly, you may not be so easy to remotely program a highly confident people because you’re sending a million of messages (i.e. You’re stupid) to him but he might be sending even more messages - thousands of million of micro-messages (i.e. I’m clever) to himself!


Who care as long as I’m confident?

Well, are you sure you are 100% confident? If the answer is absolutely yes, you got it. You do NOT really need to care about how others perceive you. If your answer is no, then you should really care on how others perceive you.

When they perceive you good, they send good micro-messages to you. When they perceive you bad, they send bad micro-messages to you. Good or positive micro-messages eventually help you to build-up your confident. That is the reason you should care about how others perceive you.


Summary
 
Usually people care about how others perceive them is because they may not understand themselves much. That’s why understand how people perceive them can help them to understand who they really are.

However, I’m talking at the different level that let’s assuming you understand yourself and what other perceive you is wrong, you still need to care about their perception. This is because this perception is extremely powerful and important that it eventually can turn you into someone else that you’re not. This due to the micro-messages and Neuro-Linguistic programming as I mentioned above.

Well, agree or disagree? Do you care how others perceive you? Any comments?

p/s: Having said so, if you care so much of how others perceive on non-important stuff, that may NOT be a good thing to you too. This is because you’re focusing on the wrong thing. So prioritizing and choosing what you should look at others to perceive you is also important. By the way, my very old post that you may find interesting: The Power of Perceptive Reality.