You can now read Things I Thought About in the new Substack app for iPhone.
A few weeks back, driven by the need to challenge my writing skills, I decided to offer my services to people in need of a new professional bio. One retweet from a popular friend I had previously helped and my DMs started to explode.
The large amount of inbound requests for this particular type of writing had me thinking about how challenging it is to talk about ourselves and highlight our qualities without coming off as a conceited prick, especially when it comes to our work as creative professionals.
Most of the people I took under my wing faced the same problem. They didn’t know what to highlight and how to arrange their experience without boxing themselves inside one particular discipline, or sound narcissistic.
As someone who walked the path of chaotic professionalism, I could relate. But as somebody who is particularly good at describing myself, I started to interrogate what made me so good with descriptions.
If you have ever heard any of the podcasts I have ever been on — or personally know me — you may know that I have no problem filling the time between one question and the other, often running over and leaving no space for extra conversation at the end.
I have always been particularly skilled at talking about myself, meaning I always ace the part of the interview where I am asked to describe my background, spotlight the peculiarities of my character and/or to outline my life achievements. Descriptive words roll out of my mouth easily, demonstrating outstanding self-awareness and extroversion.
Same goes for when the roles are reversed and I find myself in the shoes of the interviewer. I am impeccable at interpreting a person’s qualities and translating them into words that accurately match their personality. Often, my semantic tricks exceed the subject’s expectations.
Thanks to this uncanny ability to maneuver language, I have often been told I would make for an excellent biography writer (hence the idea to help people with their blurbs).
The above introduction might paint a pretty self-centered picture of myself, however I think my ability to talk about myself - and subsequently others - in such direct and confident manner sprouts from an innate aptitude for evaluating, absorbing and spitting out my surroundings in a very descriptive way. I am equally an eloquent talker and an attentive listener. Quiet when others are talking, loud when it’s my turn.
Resilient, curious and witty. These are the three adjectives I often use to detail my demeanor. Opinionated and direct, if the description requires a deeper analysis. Well spoken, passionate and experienced when it comes to professional commitments.
The latter isn’t always a walk in the park, as during the ten years of my career I have dabbled in more than one discipline.
As I studied the backgrounds and history of my clients, I came to the realization that talking about ourselves is generally quite hard because we do not take enough time to evaluate ourselves and meditate on the characteristics that make us unique. Also, it is easy to be ambushed by insecurity; but if we don’t take time to look inwards, how can we expect others to understand who we are?
During my adult life, I have spent a lot of time alone. Since moving out of my parents house at eighteen, I have relocated seven times. Each time I ended up in a completely different destination, making it harder to pursue long term relationships of any kind. The obvious solitude that came with separation brewed heavy introspection and self-appraisal which resulted in heightened self-awareness.
At times, this deep clarity can trigger unnecessary self-consciousness and anxiety. The rest of the times, it helps see yourself for who you truly are, stripping away the superfluous and leaving you to face both your great qualities and most frightening demons.
Personally, it helped me metabolize my personality, accept my flaws and extrapolate the essence of who I am; it offered the opportunity to manifest this concatenation of tiny self-epiphanies through impeccable narrative skills.
Having built my career on the basis of being a public figure, with an open online presence and a very opinionated mind definitely forced me to take self-perception and its subsequent third party manipulation extremely seriously.
Being the subject of scrutiny of thousands of people across all my platforms (including this one) stressed the need for a concise and direct blurb about myself. A gimmick to avoid continuously introducing myself and wane people’s curiosity ahead of formal introduction, and so I trained myself to become my best spokesperson (if not me, who else).
But I digress. Why is it so hard to talk about ourselves? Well, because as humans, we constantly live in the fear of judgment. We care about how others perceive us, we strive to always make a great first impression — especially when a job is at stake. Underlining our outstanding feats often feels like boasting; and nobody wants to come off as a boisterous egomaniac. Analyzing, interpreting and translating the assessment of our own self on paper awards us an embarrassing sense of disgust, like we are hanging our dirty laundry in the middle of a crowded square. It feels like writing a huge lie.
To help me corroborate the professional biography of my new clients, I sent them a survey asking a bunch of questions about their history and background. All of them provided thorough answers, except for one. When asked to describe themselves, they all added a disclaimer: they were not sure what to say and meekly admitted they had to actually ask around before emailing back.
Frankly, I was surprised. Most of these people were working in marketing and communications, yet they had no idea how to go about their autobiographies. It made me wonder.
Curious as I am, I decided to do some digging. The results of my research were interesting. Turns out putting ourselves out there professionally literally makes us feel gross.
In a study carried out at Cornell University, the researchers found out that “instrumental networking in pursuit of professional goals can impinge on an individual’s moral purity—a psychological state that results from viewing the self as clean from a moral standpoint—and thus make an individual feel dirty."
Unfortunately taking a shower is not the solution, nor is completely bypassing this grueling task and as the world becomes more and more enamored with appearance rather than competence, it is mandatory we — artists & creative professionals - skip over this burden and learn how to overcome this autobiography block.
A few tips to get over it and do it:
Start writing. The notebook won’t judge you and you will be able to visualize your achievements and qualities on paper. It may sound silly but putting things down has more benefits than not.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Need to write a cover letter for your dream job? A bio for your brand new website? Ask your friends/your mentor/your mother to help you identify the characteristics that most stand out.
Ask yourself: what am I most proud of?
Ask a pro! I am open and happy to help anybody in need of a new bio. My rates are freelancer friendly.
Matter fact, check out my very simple, very direct website/portfolio, maybe you will be inspired :)
I am hoping to find someone to join me in a project. That person will have about 2 to 3 hours per week available for what will probably be several years. The project is sharing our life stories using a particular AI platform. Please contact me for more information if this might be of possible interest to you.