Tag Archives: Thinslice

How Do You Thinslice?

A conversation came up amongst some folks online about spiky hair. I was of the view that spiky hair is only appropriate if you are punk rock and/or Japanese. I am not Japanese, and my punk rock days are largely a thing of the past, so spiky hair is not for me.

My friend Whim replied to this conversation with the following:

Spiky hair is awesome. Especially if you’re Asian.

I’m yet to find a better thinslice that works for me.

Gotta love it when girls at McCarran come up to you screaming “heeeeyy!!!! We know you!!!!”

This thinslice works for him.

When I read this, a little lightbulb went off in my head. I thought this was a pretty brilliant idea, applying thinslicing to yourself.

For those of you that don’t know, thinslicing is an idea in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink. In this book, Malcolm Gladwell discussed how we make split second decisions. We determine a lot about people, things, and situations within the time of a blink of the eye.

Applying this to ourselves, people make split second decisions about us based on how we look, what we are doing, and how we present ourselves. It incorporates everything about us: our clothes, our facial expression, attitude, how we move, and even our hair. This is even simpler than a first impression, it is more like a micro-impression. It is the impression we get before the first impression.

Men thin slice all the time. She’s hot. She looks mean. She’s an ice queen. She looks nice. Without even talking to her, we have an idea in our mind of all sorts of things about her.

Take a minute to apply thinslicing to yourself. How do you thinslice? What do people think about you based on how you are dressed? How you stand? How you talk? Your facial expressions? People are always determining something about you based on these.

Further, what can you do that will lead to a particularly good thinslice? Whim is using something very obvious about him, his hair, to get a particular association and reaction from women. What kind of things do you want women to immediately think about you, and what can you do to create that? It’s good food for thought. Make sure you are thinsliced well.

If you want to read more about thinslicing and how it works, I recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s book. I read through it in a breeze, and really enjoyed it. It is a quick read, yet packed with really interesting information.

Click here to look at Blink on Amazon.com

Also, you can find Whim’s website at adventuresofwhim.com. He is a great guy, and very successful with the ladies. Good stuff there.