This is the battle of “perception”.

When you meet someone new, it is very hard for you to shake your first impression of them and visa versa.

The way we are first seen by people is most often how we will be remembered by that person.

Crea Tyler went viral for his “College Dropout” video… it’s unlikely than anyone who has known about him since then will ever remember him as anything else. Obviously he may create new content that a new audience will find him and know him for, but his original audience from the College Dropout will likely never change their perception...

That girl or guy who rejected you in high school is almost never going to have respect for you no matter how successful or how much you change.

Something in our minds pushes us to see people as we have always seen them.

What if we intend to change our image? Never fear, it is possible.

From my experience, the best way to change you perception in one audiences eyes is to have social proof of many other people viewing you a certain way.

Social proof alone is a powerful emotional trigger that influences people to change in order to fit in with the group or herd mentality… Otherwise they are weird, and weird is not safe to our reptilian brain!

Remember the song Skater Boy?

He was a skater boy, she said see ya later boy

He wasn’t good enough for her!

Now he’s a super star, slamming on his guitar

(whatever the rest of the lyrics are.... she takes him back because he's popular I think?)

But, ultimately, I think the main message of this post is that you should really take a moment to consider who your audience is. Who do you want to help the most? Who do you want to create content for to entertain, inspire, or educate?

More on choosing your audience and why it is the most important thing ever in a future post! promise*