Chapter Introduction

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

The Nature of Self

Presenting Your Self

Perceiving Others

Forming Impressions

Improving Your Perception

Self and Perception

F or much of her career she has been number one in the world. She has 21 Grand Slam titles and is far from finished. She has been known to taunt opponents after beating them—condescendingly patting them on the back—and defends such behaviors by saying, “I’m there to do a job, not make friends.” But she’s also a woman who has struggled with negative body image and overcome the prejudiced perception of those who wanted nothing more than for her to quit.

Serena Williams grew up in Compton, California, the area of Los Angeles made famous by rappers for its poverty and violence. Rather than compete in the junior tennis tournaments, Williams’s father, Richard, trained Serena and her sister Venus in isolation—having them work on tennis fundamentals and practice by hitting against men. When she turned pro at age 14, Serena Williams had power few had ever seen. Now in her 30s, she still hits serves topping triple digits.1

1 Opener adapted from Rodrick (2013).

Despite her physical strength, Williams has struggled with negative self-image throughout her life, a challenge made worse by constantly comparing herself against others. “It wasn’t easy growing up,” she notes, “because I was thicker. Most women athletes are thin. I didn’t really know how to deal with it. I had to come to terms with loving myself” (Bronner, 2015).

Williams also overcame the prejudice of people who perceived her as not having the right to play. In 2001, she won the prestigious Indian Wells tournament. During the trophy ceremony, many in the mostly white crowd booed and shouted racial slurs. She cried in the locker room after. “I felt I had lost the biggest game ever—the fight for equality.” Serena boycotted the tournament for fourteen years, but then decided to return in 2015. Forced to drop out because of an injury, she found herself at a gas station at Indian Wells. “A parent came up to me and said, ‘my kid loves you.’ His kid was 11 years old. I thought it was great. This is a little person who has a life and goes to school and has friends and he’s a fan. That’s when I knew I had made the right decision to return” (Bronner, 2015).

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John Angelillo/UPI/Landov

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Serena Williams is far and away the most dominant player in tennis today. When asked whether she thinks Williams is the best player ever, Billie Jean King—one of the greatest tennis players herself—said simply, “Yes. I think we all do” (Ledbetter, 2015). In 2015, Williams made the “Daring” list in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, celebrating “incredible risk-taking, trailblazing women.” But beneath all the fierceness, complexity, and determination, Williams’s strength comes from her capacity for critical self-reflection. “Physically you need to be great, emotionally you need to be stable and I need to have a good connection with my spirituality. You can be down in life, but you can overcome things based on the way you think and how you set your frame of mind” (Bronner, 2015).

Few (if any!) of us have the athletic prowess of Serena Williams. But we share with her the ability to critically look within ourselves, see what hampers us, and change our mindsets in ways that optimize our potential. We also have the ability to understand how others perceive us, how we see them, and how these impressions shape our behaviors. By combining these two elements—critical self-reflection and an understanding of perception—you set the stage for successful communication in your own life. In this chapter, you’ll learn: