Who am I?

That deep question in life, “Who am I?” is sometimes phrased as “tell me about yourself.”  In business school, we learn it as your elevator pitch.  What can you say about yourself, that you think is meaningful, in 30 seconds to 2 minutes–or what you think your future client or future boss wants to know about you.

It is a tough question because it makes you evaluate yourself and then start playing mind games about your audience.  How you answer the question depends on where you are, who you are talking to, why you are being asked and are you comfortable with the person asking.  Is there just one elevator pitch for everyone?  Should there be?  What is my elevator pitch?

 

I definitely struggle with this question, whether it is my profile on a blog or other social media, if I am meeting someone for the first time and even when talking to friends.  What deep meaningful thing do I have to say to explain myself–do I really believe that I am that important that the person I am talking to will care what I have to say without judging me in a negative way?

I can tell you what I do for a living (or the many things I do for a living), but that is boring to some–though some people find my many “careers” fascinating.  I can tell you what I like to do–but I struggle putting my passion for running and photography into words.  After all, isn’t that the purpose of photography?  To express yourself without the need for words; and for running as well, let your body do the talking.  Also, some of my running adventures intimidate some of my non-running friends, and I am not trying to do that–I’m very modest when talking about some of my adventures and races to my non-running friends.  So what else is there to say?  I can tell you that I like to travel.  But who doesn’t like to travel–that does not make me an individual.  I can tell you that I struggle with expressing myself.  But you should never have a negative in an elevator pitch–or should you?

So that is where I came up with my “Me” for this blog.  Simple, yet I think it encompasses who I am: “I run, I live, I enjoy…the rest is just details.”

I originally wrote this blog many weeks ago because I was working on the website for my real estate business.  But I put off publishing it.  It is a Friday night now, and I find myself at home updating my LinkedIn profile–this is what motivated me to publish this.