“Some say he hydrates by licking the moisture off the backs of ducks and that he sleeps inside out to replenish his epidermis. Rumor has it that he meditates more peacefully when he’s at least 100 yards from any Chrysler product and gets his fiber by eating the corks from used bourbon barrels. But for most of us, he’s just Rob”
Wouldn’t it be great to introduce ourselves like this? And why not?
It was with such grandiose and completely ridiculous notions that Jeremy Clarkson would often introduce The Stig; the legendary driver of Top Gear. Why bore people with a dull list of his talents, accolades and achievements, when we can put everyone at ease to just enjoy his performance without expectations or boundaries?
Instead of filling the atmosphere with cognitive bias, pretentiousness, or judgement, we’re open to the experience as it unfolds. It’s organic and natural. We’re relaxed and open.
How about these two options for introducing a martial arts instructor:
Intro 1: “He holds three black belts, including a 4th Dan in Aikido, a second-degree black belt in Hapkido, and a first-degree in jujitsu. With 25 years experience … blah, blah, blah.”
And we’re all snoring.
Intro 2: “Some say the Discovery Channel awarded him the title of Grand Champion for Naked and Afraid without ever having to compete and that in the middle of the night, Chuck Norris looks for him under his bed.”
Big difference! Who wouldn’t want to meet this guy?
We all have a tendency to take ourselves and our accomplishments way too seriously. I’m quite guilty of that. And why not? After all, it’s something we worked hard for and made sacrifices to accomplish.
Walt Whitman once said, “If you done it, it ain’t bragging.”
Sure, we need to toot our own horn a bit. Personal marketing, you know. But, we have to be careful not to come across as self-aggrandizing. Blagh!
We also have to be careful not to self-deprecate too much. I often say, “I suck at math.” Not true; I’m actually pretty good with numbers. But when it comes to the kind of math that uses Klingon hieroglyphs, I’m about as useful as unsweet tea in Georgia.
A little self-deprecating humor goes a long way to lower peoples’ guard so that we seem approachable and grounded, but use it too much and they’ll actually believe it.
There’s a nuance here, somewhere between bullet-point facts and analogous storytelling, laced with some humor.
Just once, I’d like to see a resume with an overview something like Jeremy Clarkson’s Stig introduction. While I seems like it says nothing, it says everything I need to know. This is an actual human!
What’s your intro?
I Am No Yogi 