Are you writing off opportunities, people, and situations before you've really given them a chance? Your snap judgments might be limiting your potential more than you realize.
In this episode of "Conversational with Carrie Olsen," I explore the hidden cost of instant judgments and why stopping at your first impression could actually be costing your business. You'll discover how to find unexpected value in scripts, people, and situations while developing the curiosity that separates exceptional leaders from average ones.
Episode Highlights:
Hold Your First Reactions As Data, Not Decisions Your initial impression that something is boring, difficult, or not worth your time is valuable information about your immediate reaction, but it shouldn't be your final verdict. Research shows that snap judgments stick even when we encounter contradictory evidence later, so the key is to notice your reaction without letting it become your conclusion. Ask yourself "why am I reacting this way?" as the beginning of curiosity, not the end of analysis.
Find The Logic That Makes Complexity Coherent Whether you're interpreting a voice over script or understanding a difficult team member, your job is to find what makes their complexity make sense from the inside. The employee everyone has written off as lazy, the client who seems impossible to please, or the business partner who just doesn't get it—they're not one-dimensional. They're navigating complexity, pressures, fears, and motivations you can't see from the outside. The richness isn't in making everything simple; it's in honoring the fact that human behavior is layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory.
Professionals Bring Deep Engagement To Everything, Not Just The Exciting Stuff As a voice actor, when you only dig deep on scripts that immediately inspire you, you're leaving money on the table. The scripts that appear less interesting on the surface are actually where you can add the most value. The same is true in leadership—when you only deeply engage with easy people and exciting opportunities, you're leaving massive potential untapped. The people and situations that require the most work to understand are often the places where you can create the most significant transformations.
I used to be terrified of what people thought about me, wasting mental energy obsessing over every conversation. But voice acting taught me that the more authentic I was behind the microphone, the better I performed. That authenticity started spilling over into everything else. I stopped micromanaging other people's experience of me and started showing up as myself. This same principle applies to how we see others—when we stop flattening people into simple categories and start honoring their complexity, relationships transform.
Apply this systematic approach to one person or situation you've already judged this week:
(1) Observe without deciding—notice your reaction but don't let it become your conclusion
(2) Research the context—what's happening in their world that you can't see?
(3) Get curious—why would their behavior make perfect sense from their perspective?
(4) Make it coherent—don't stop until their actions make complete sense,
(5) Test interpretations—could this be something other than what you assumed?
Document what you find and notice when your first judgment was wrong.
Text VOICE to 55444 to receive the framework, or visit CarrieOlsenVO.com/finding-gold to leave a voice message about your own experiences finding gold in unexpected places.
"The best leaders aren't the ones who only engage with easy people and exciting opportunities. They're the ones who find gold everywhere, even in the scripts nobody else wants to read." - Carrie Olsen