Apparently I'm much cooler than expected.
"Dude you're way cooler than I thought, I totally expected you to be scary as hell no cap"
They thought I’d be the sort of chap who spends weekends hunting orphans for sport.
But that’s the thing about assumptions. People conjure up an entire personality for you based on three spurious data points: accent, job title, and whether you look like you’ve ever said “I’ll get my PA to arrange it.”
They don’t see you, not really, they see a caricature patched together from old Bond villains and LinkedIn posts.
Some people are absolutely convinced I spend my free time shooting p̴̶̴e̴̶̴a̴̶̴s̴̶̴a̴̶̴n̴̶̴t̴̶̴s̴̶̴ pheasants in the country.
It's expectation bias at its finest. It’s so much easier for them to imagine me turning to the camera and saying 'Mogambo khush hua'.
Brands get the same treatment, of course. You could launch the best product in the world, but if it looks like it was designed by a cocaine-fuelled Henry, people will make assumptions you may not like.
Perception’s a ruthless little tyrant. It decides who you are before you do, and people will always jump to conclusions.
Surely it’s only polite to give them something worth jumping to?