Remember when you applied for your first job or started looking at college options? If your experience was anything like mine, someone in your life probably shared with you the one-liner that has singlehandedly shaped how I carry myself and function in new settings: “First impressions are everything.”
As a teenager, those four words rattled around in my brain for months on end as I carefully evaluated my personality with a fine-toothed comb. What do people see when they look at me? I’d ask myself. More importantly, what do I want them to see?

