It often strikes me that you are, or become what you think that you are. And you can not expect someone else to believe that you are capable of achieving that which you don’t believe of yourself. If you believe that you can be an honorary member of Engine Company 42 in Chicago, then you probably can be. That is the great thing about being 2 years old – you haven’t yet been told that you can not do too many things.
Daniel Kahneman in his best work, Think Fast, Think Slow describes two principles that apply in every day life. First, we all “anchor” others expectations. And second, we are by nature mentally lazy (some more than others) and would prefer to leave our impressions to “System 1″ rather than to use “System 2″ capacity. We size people up quickly, with a minimum of effort and critical thought. In fact, most of our impressions are subconscious.
