I arrived at the building near Miami’s Biscayne Bay a few minutes late. My hands were shaking, my neatly pressed suit was already wrinkled in the oppressive Florida summer, and my neatly blown-out hair was already starting to frizz from the humidity. In short, I was a mess. It was my very first job interview since graduating from college. I was living in an unfamiliar city, driving my friend’s manual-transmission car with a slipping clutch, and even several years of living and driving near LA hadn’t prepared me for the Miami traffic. By the time I made it the several blocks from the parking structure to the building where my interview was being held, all my hopes of arriving calm, cool, and collected were gone, blown to sea by the stiff wind off the bay.

I underperformed at that interview, too frazzled and flustered to communicate what I was capable of. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

Fast-forward ten years, after several sales and marketing jobs where my sole purpose was to meet new people, put them at ease, and then ask them to buy things from me. I was bulletproof. I could walk into nearly any new situation without breaking a sweat or giving any inkling of the nerves that might or might not have been tying me into knots. In short, I had become the master of the first impression. I was truly successful at my sales and marketing jobs. And yet over time, I began to be disturbed by how easily I could put on the persona without any thought to how I was feeling inside.

There’s no denying that first impressions are important. As I found out from a string of failed job interviews straight out of college, hiring managers aren’t likely to probe beneath the surface presentation when they have no more than half an hour to spend with an applicant. For that matter, few relationships progress after a disastrous first date. Few friendships are formed if you’re rude on the first meeting. There are exceptions, of course, but first impressions are how we navigate the world and make decisions about how we spend our time. So there’s value in cultivating the ability to be friendly even when we’re nervous, to think on our feet, and to present ourselves well in the professional sphere.

The problem comes when we begin to believe our own PR, when the first impression we promote to the world becomes a way to hide who we truly are inside.

There’s a phenomenon in the writing world that I like to call “contest syndrome.” Aspiring authors polish the first chapters of their manuscripts over and over until they are as good as they can possibly be. They may even win contests based on that first chapter. But when an editor or agent requests the full manuscript, it disappoints. The writer has spent so much time polishing that first impression, they’ve forgotten to give the rest of the manuscript the same focused attention. The first chapter promises something the rest of the book is incapable of delivering.

It’s easy to do the same thing with our lives. We can continually polish the exterior so we look like the perfect job candidate, friend, or spouse. We can be the best hostess, the most charming dinner companion, and the most reliable room parent. But inside, our neglected hearts, minds, and spirits are crying out for attention. Before we know it, we’ve become a shell, more focused on “appearing” than “being.”

Analyn Sanchez in The Solid Grounds Coffee Company knows firsthand how important the exterior can be: as a crisis publicist, her job is to smooth over appearances and return respectability to clients who have been embroiled in a scandal. She imparts confidence in her ability to do exactly that by making sure there’s not a single detail about her image that is out of place, from her manicure to the car she drives. But inwardly, she’s plagued by insecurity and guilt over who she truly is, to the degree that she can’t even let down her guard to her best friends. She feels that she’s built relationships based on the promise of a first chapter that the manuscript can’t possibly deliver. So she hides and tries to keep up pretenses . . . until she can’t do it anymore.

It’s easy to believe that if we “fake it ’til we make it” the rest will fall in line, but that’s a trap. Of course, we should be pleasant, personable, and professional—part of our responsibility as Christians is to show Christ’s love to those around us and to show what’s possible with the Holy Spirit working inside us. (And anyone who has made themselves be friendly and polite after a truly awful day knows it is only possible with divine help.) But if we neglect the things that develop who we are inside—prayer, Scripture, rest, true open relationships with people who love us unconditionally, activities that feed our souls—then anyone who attempts to dig deeper than the surface will find nothing but a void. We’ve spent so much time on the exterior, we’ve forgotten to attend to the interior.

A truly powerful first impression is not one that is cultivated out of what we think people want to hear, but one that emanates from who we really are inside. And the more time that we devote to the interior being and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us, the less worry we need to have about the image we present to the world. Our joy and contentment will automatically radiate from the inside out.

I still have what I call my “on” personality and my “real” personality—it’s impossible to navigate week long conferences and conventions without ever feigning enthusiasm or well-restedness—but the more I become comfortable with the person God is molding me into, the more the interior aligns with the exterior. It’s a work in progress, one I will likely never complete in this lifetime. But I know now without a doubt that I am far more than a first impression.

Always love your words and your heart, Carla – thank you for sharing. And congratulations on the release of The Solid Grounds Coffee Company today! Love your intelligent romances. 

Thanks to Carla’s publisher, Tyndale House, we have a copy to give away, so be sure to enter below.

Analyn Sanchez can handle the long hours and arrogant clients that come with her job as a crisis management associate at Denver’s largest publicity firm. The high-powered job, expensive condo, and designer wardrobe are all part of her plan to prove to her family that her life choices haven’t been in vain. But when she’s asked to cover up a client’s misdeeds with serious moral and legal ramifications, she can no longer sacrifice her conscience for her career . . . and the cost is no less than her job.

Ever since a devastating climbing accident in South America eight months ago, and a bad decision that dried up his sponsorships, professional rock climber Bryan Shaw has found himself at similar loose ends. When the opportunity to buy a coffee farm in Colombia arises, he jumps on it—only to discover his wandering ways have left him utterly unprepared to run a business.

When Bryan returns home and offers Ana a role in his company as a solution to both their problems, she’s desperate enough to consider working with the far-too-flippant and far-too-handsome climber, even though he’s the polar opposite of her type A nature. As they delve deeper into the business, however, she begins to suspect there’s much more to Bryan than she’s given him credit for . . . and that sometimes the best plans are the ones you never see coming.

Carla Laureano is the RITA Award-winning author of contemporary inspirational romance and Celtic fantasy (as C.E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons, where she writes during the day and cooks things at night.

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Buy at Amazon: The Solid Grounds Coffee Company or Koorong

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