Don’t be Boring When You Talk About Yourself
You’re at a conference and someone asks, “What do you do?” What they really mean is, “Who’s the big dog?”
Reject the need to impress. Ignite imagination, instead.
Boring:
- I’m VP of …
- I’m Director of…
- I’m the new …
When someone asks what you do, don’t tell them!
- Don’t try to impress.
- Don’t give job titles.
- Don’t explain job responsibilities.
Explain your passion, not your job.
Passion statements:
I feel awkward when I talk about what I do, but energized when I share my passion.
- I save lives in the emergency room. “I’m a doctor,” is boring. “I save lives,” is passionate.
- I develop talent and strengthen teams.
- I analyze businesses and help them develop new products.
- I enable our sales team to serve customers.
- I strengthen team relationships with technology.
- I create efficiency where there is waste.
- I inspire leaders.
- I create jobs for disenfranchised workers.
- I protect children.
- I help people find financial independence.
- I protect people from danger.
- I help teams and organizations get unstuck.
Tell a story:
My first grade teacher made me feel like I really mattered. Today, my passion is helping people believe they can make a difference.
Passion statement tips:
- Say something that touches your heart.
- Remember why you chose your field in the first place.
- Think about benefits, not the work itself.
- How are you making the world better?
- What are your best hopes for the impact of your life?
Bonus: How do you want people talking about you at your funeral? How are they talking about you now?
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Simon Sinek
How might leaders develop passion statements?
How might leaders help others develop passion statements?
*Thank you Larry Putterman. Our conversation about passion inspired this post.
great article……made me rememebr why I do what I do… as sometimes I forget!
Thanks Karen. It’s so easy to forget why we’re doing what we do, even while we’re doing it.
Thanks for posting this! I just this past weekend had an aha moment of why I feel so awkward when I have to introduce myself as the manager of my team. It’s because it’s boring and says nothing about who I really am!
Thanks Karen. Perhaps it’s too easy to focus on what we do and a little risky to let people see who we really are? In any case, here’s to the journey.
This is possibly the best article I have found on passion. I wouldn’t dare say that these are mere words but feelings and emotions to the truest of senses. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful post. (:
Thanks adikaul16. Your kind words encourage me.
Would love to see more such posts. Hoping…!
I am very passionate about what I do but when I try to answer that question people’s faces fog over. I specialize in a very narrow field of medicine called Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography. (ERCP) It makes a huge difference in the population that it serves. I’ve now reached the level of expert and am training novices. As they learn it’s great to see the passion grow in them as well. But, as they say, it’s like learning a new language and it’s nearly impossible to explain to the general public. The technology and anatomy is totally lost on them. When I tell them that big word they are awestruck but totally fog. When I say the initials ERCP they think I work in the ER. I give up! The best thing I’ve done is told them to go to YouTube and watch some of the videos and if they ever need us they’ll be glad we do what we do. But it would be nice to have just a one-liner! 😉
Thanks Alexandria. Love your comment and feel your passion, even if the technical side of your career is too much for most of us to quickly grasp.
I googled, “Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography,” I still don’t get it. 🙂
Tell me, how are people’s lives made better because of your work?
If you did a procedure on me, how might I be or feel better?
I do something that in previous years required a very risky, major abdominal surgery. Many times you go home the same day, completely cured. If you have cancer of the pancreas, liver, or gallbladder, this procedure will increase your quality of life and length of life. How’s that? I think I’m getting it down to a one-liner! Maybe I should stick with the first two sentences of this response??
Alexandria! You get out with tiny tweezers what used to take bulldozers! You save lives and quality if life, and you contribute to the advancement of medicine!! 😁
Dr. Cheng, ahhh…someone who speaks my languange! Thank you for putting it so well. I shall use those two sentences next time! Perhaps the fog will clear a bit for my listeners. 🙂 Thank you again!
Oh my gosh, please call me Cathy, we are peers!! So happy to ‘meet’ you here, very much looking forward to reading more of your writing! 😀
This is a great post! I struggle with this by swinging between the two extremes of over-enthusiasm and deathly dull. A problem when you get into very technical fields is trying to put it over in a way that doesn’t switch the listener straight off! I’ve got used to eyes glazing when the detail starts!
Another problem I’ve hit and seen in others is one of authenticity. We’ve all heard the story about the janitor at NASA who said he was helping to put a man on the moon. To many people, those statements don’t feel authentic. In the field of contract research, you might say “I’m safeguarding the food chain” or “protecting the environment”, but you know deep down that what you are doing is helping make money for a large, faceless multinational.
Thanks Mitch. Love where you take this. It’s true that an inauthentic passion statement is tolerated at first and disdained in the end.
It’s also true that you are making money for a large faceless multinational. Maybe you can do both. “I’m protecting the environment and making tons of money for one of those faceless multinational corporations.” 😉
I love that passion statement. You should totally do this, Mitch, but you gotta “own it”…big smiles and all. Then just wait for the response. How fun!
Dan, the problem at that point is that in many peoples’ minds, protecting the environment is totally incompatible with money making for large multinationals. You’re not perceived as being authentic if people know that.
Hi Mitch! Maybe you could think of it as inviting curiosity and conversation. If you believe what you say, people will sense it, and they will want to know, how do you reconcile those opposites? An exchange of possibility can start right there! 😊
I’m inspired to rewrite my introduction right now.
I. Love. This. And will be deploying a revised statement of what I do immediately. Thank you for this – it is so very powerful. 🙂
That’s great! Thanks Jeanine.
Thanks Lucille. I wish you the best.
thinking of the way to “brand oneself” helps us discover what we love about what we do.
Thanks Bill. Nicely said.
What an absolutely great way to change my thinking on this topic! Love it when my perspective changes and I have a whole new view. Thank you! : )
Thank you Dianna. Keep on keeping on.
Great advice. When leaders focus on why instead of what they can develop passion statements. The second question is more tough and I don’t have answer for your 2nd question.
Thanks lalitbhojwani. Yes, the second question does seem more difficult. I suppose the process starts with people who care about passion.
Another “Considerations provoking” post. As I read it, I was reminded of the late Stephen Covey’s “Four Needs” for happiness. This, I’ve always taken to apply to my personal life. Not sure what Covey was thinking (have to go back and read again); but there’s no reason it can’t be with regard to that satisfaction / contentment / passion we have for our career.
[ASIDE: I’ve read a few posts lately arguing against following your passion in choosing your career. My response has always been to follow your passion IF it makes sense for your life style and your skills. Some passions are not career compatible for us (I can see myself in a lot of careers but airline pilot and police officer are not among them). But I do believe this: If one does NOT develop a passion for the career fairly quickly, that career will never last very long. Notice I’m using career, not jobs; today jobs can change quickly and careers will evolve for sure but can be longer lasting.]
Back to the four needs for the career. The scholarship, physical, and social needs are different for the career but I don’t think that translation is either difficult or non-applicable. Clearly one has to be a lifelong learner more with each passing day. There are physical skills and safety considerations involved. And the connections within the organization and beyond it always play an important role. And, I believe, the fourth need, what I call the internal need, is again the key to that passion related to the career. Regularly, each one of us must ask how the other three are going. Are we expected to be upgrading our knowledge and skills / are getting to do it? What changes / additions do we need to make? How are the communications and interactions with important connections going? Most importantly, what do I need to do – changes that are refinements or maybe even as much as seeking another opportunity, possibly even a new career! Only with attention to all four needs can I expect to be passionate about my career – be the engaged, productive employee I want to be and will contribute to the organation success. Only then will the passion statement tips have meaning…
Thanks John. Hats off to your insights. For me, your “ASIDE” is most helpful. I might be passionate about basketball, but I’m never going to make a living at it. It’s a hobby, not a career.
I just had a conversation with Ken Blanchard. I asked him what he was learning. He said he was learning that he still needs to learn. 🙂
That just shows how truly humble and wise Ken B is…sounds like he might be a Socrates fan. I agree with your statement about hobby vs. career. For me, it’s golf. I turn 39 next week and have been playing since I was five, but it’s never been a focus of my career other than being blessed to be able to play with some great colleagues and customers from time to time. I think there’s a real gap today with regard to passion. I believe there’s a lot of it out there and it does exist in each of us, but understanding it and identifying it is another story.
Excellent thinking and writing, Dan. Leaders respond to deeper thought, as we all need it. Your idea of talking about oneself has become introspection on the meaning and purpose of one’s professional life—where our meaning is to find our gift, and our purpose is to give it away. And instead of constantly thinking “what we want to do in life,” you’ve got us thinking “how we want to contribute.”
Perhaps the point is those who have a “why to live” can bear almost any “how.” Yet, not every “why” is created equal. To build the strongest life force possible—one that can bear the weight of any “how”—we need a “why” that in some way involves contributing to the well-being of others. This fills us with the greatest sense of pride—and makes us feel the greatest sense of satisfaction—and thus is what we can say about our life’s mission that brings us the greatest fulfillment…if we wanted to talk about ourselves at all.
Congratulations to YOU, Dan. How you continue to come up with these wide-array of profound topics and write so well on them–takes extraordinary talent. Continued success be to you!
Thanks for your briliant idea. I hope that one day you will post an article about how to TALK ABOUT YOUR LEADERSHIP!
Interesting views today, really good conversations as usual. Now the mission of declaring what I really do…..Cheers!
To learn more about Reiki, thanks
Dan, I am just amazed that you grab my attention EVERYDAY day after day with what you write! Thank you very much!
Love it! Well said and very simple to follow advice!