# People will only remember three things about you Everybody has a “emulation” - a small representation - of each person they know living in their heads. [[People carry around emulations of other people on their shoulders]]. You know that friend who’s “the badass interface designer who is looking to get into machine learning and consults?” She has an amazing projection and makes it easy for opportunities to find her. A projection can be distinct - “Ben is looking for X, Y, Z and can help with A, B, C.” Or it can be fuzzy - “Ben’s that guy with curly hair I think who I met at that meetup and we talked about a bunch of interesting stuff.” If it’s distinct, whenever X comes up in conversation, you will instantly come to mind, and you’ll start getting messages like “we were having a discussion about X and would love to bring you on as an advisor.” In my experience, there’s a direct correlation between how well I create a distinct projection and people’s ability to help. When I was “the AR/VR guy who’s interested in giving talks” it led to a new friend introing me to an organization in Brazil that was doing a course on future tech, cascading to lecturing in Sao Paulo, making new friends, and opening up several collaborations. The trick is that projections are small and can only hold a few pieces of information (rule of thumb - about three.) In order to maximize the effectiveness of your projections, figure out which things you want to be associated with in people’s heads and be excited about them. Nothing is more memorable than distinct excitement. Similarly, try to figure out the things that drive the whomever you’re talking to and incorporate them into your mental representation of that person. The best way to encourage people to keep you in mind is to keep them in mind. (NOTE: Many people take this to the extreme and straight up ask the question: “how can I help?” This is exactly the sentiment you should have, but it makes your counterpart feel like you weren’t actually listening ) ### Related * [[People will remember you more if you elicit an emotional response]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/People+will+only+remember+three+things+about+you) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/People+will+only+remember+three+things+about+you)