My dad always used to say to me and my sister, “The world is a mirror.” As a kid, I would repeat the phrase, but I never really thought about what he was trying to tell us. Then one day he stood me in front of a mirror and said, “Smile.” I did, and the person in the mirror smiled back at me. He said, “Look angry.” I gave the girl in the mirror a nasty look and got the same nasty look right back. He then sat me down and explained the lesson: What you show the world is what the world will show you. The energy you put out, the thoughts you share, are the energy that you will receive from the world, the thoughts you will hear. So true is this that I later realized there are a million sayings that express the same idea: “What you give is what you get,” “You reap what you sow,” “What goes around, comes around,” and my favorite, “Karma’s a bitch.”

Over the years this concept has crystallized for me. As I completed my education and began building my career, I saw more than ever how “the world is a mirror” plays itself out in life. I noticed that, whether I was working with a new client or an established colleague, the energy I brought to the situation deeply impacted it. If I was having a rough day, the encounter would be difficult. If I was feeling confident and on top of my game, the encounter would be positive and productive. My attitude at any given moment—how I thought, my assumptions about a situation, how I acted—influenced other people’s first impressions of me. It was how they formed their perceptions of me, and it influenced the connection between us. The more aware I became of my own mood, the more I was able to ensure that my authentic self came through during different situations, and I was able to adjust my behavior when necessary to communicate in the most effective ways.

What does it all boil down to? Some of the work of making meaningful connections and growing relationships happens before you even meet someone. Taken together, the four chapters in this section are about increasing our awareness of what is genuine and valuable—in short, likable —about us, and discovering how the energy we bring to a situation impacts other people’s perceptions of us and our ability to connect at a meaningful level. Understanding these things is the first step toward expressing our likability to others. Once we fully recognize this likability, we can harness it to create lasting, mutually positive connections with the people in our lives, whether we’ve known them for years or are just meeting them for the first time.