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Because what you say is true, something strange happened to me, I think I leveled up my people skills like crazy. I kind of got a deep profound lesson out of it (Im a hacker, not natural with people).

I know we say one shouldnt judge a book by its cover but when it comes to people its kind of very wrong which is what I discovered.

Actually, in 60 seconds, you can tell who a person is and if you like her or not. Even with just a profile. The reason this is possible is because as a person you send a lot (think thousands) of signals every delta time and your brain percieve those signals from others. Now you just got to internally listen back to what your brains says in return. Actually, its more like you gotta listen to your body. Whats critical here to make it solid is not especially to judge the person with precision, but to realize that you already know something is wrong or amiss or whatever. It doesn't matter what (how could you know for sure after all) but you can tell "not for me". Talented sales people do that every day, they will got you at first sight. I used to think that they dont really just to feel good about it, but they do.

The consequences of that realization are huge (and numerous) and at the risk of sounding cliche, it did changed my life.

For example, interviewing for a company or whatever. Since my experience with CFM, I now often terminate the interview after 60 seconds. I already know something's not for me. I say something like "sorry its not for me, bye". Totally awkward I grant you that, but its worth it. Sometimes the way the meeting is set and the background check I do are enough to cancel the interview before it even happens.

This ability we have is incredible: you know internally, just listen to those registers. I have reviewed 2000 CFM participants in 2 days and ruled them all out (even if the majority were good talented people). Almost all, I was interested in 1 or 2 persons. Which is what you should expect right? Many times after that this theory proved correct in real life. And more importantly, I have saved myself from unconfortable situations in the blink of an eye (often understanding after the facts what was wrong precisely).

Before I got used to that, there is this interview I did for a company where I badly slept the night before and I was nervous. No idea why, everything was perfect but I was nervous and nervous and nervous. I did the interview until the end not doing what I swear I was gonna do: cut the shit after 60 seconds. Turned out the guy was a complete asshole, also a tone-listener as I call them whom I hate (a person who doesnt listen to what you say but listen to your tone only) and worse: the startup is a copycat of another succesful company in the web3 space which I discovered well after the interview. No wonder why I slept badly - which obviously happened before I got all those specific informations. The signals were there though.

I have now the conviction this is the best way to deal with people: listen to your guts and fire so fast it feels socially awkward. A person is too complex a machine to map entirely and that machine may arm you, which must explain why our brain is good at grasping people quickly, when you know how to do it.

Edit: what Im saying is that when you cant use a strategy, use another and here is one Id recommend (note I have just reinvented the wheel here, there is nothing new, many master the art of the first impression).