What's so good about you?

Excerpted from
Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It
By Peggy Klaus

So, what's so good about you? It's a question we are asked indirectly in our business and social interactions daily, and how we respond determines the effectiveness of our bragging campaign. Yet how many times have you walked away from a golden opportunity to strut your stuff and thought "Why did I say that?" "What was I thinking?" "If only I had said ..."

Most of us think of the perfect thing to say about ourselves after the fact. As we later reflect on our encounters, we fantasize about how much more forthright, charming, and articulate we could have been, saying all the right things in just the right way, like characters do in movies. Then our courageous visions and thoughts slip away until the next time we are caught off-guard, when we make the same mistakes all over again. The reasons behind these lapses, as you've read thus far, are varied: entrenched bragging myths, weak interpersonal communication skills, and brag-fright. But there is also another big reason: We simply haven't done our homework, leaving us unprepared to field the questions thrown our way.

Effective bragging starts with you. It is based on having a clear sense of who you are and what you have accomplished, as well as what you are accomplishing right at this moment. It depends on your skill in communicating what makes you unique and interesting in the eyes of those you want to impress. Yet most of us remain curiously unable to articulate our stories and the diversity and extent of our skills, abilities, and attributes. We are equally unaware of how others perceive us and what exactly they like about us. We take ourselves for granted, thinking that we haven't really accomplished anything, that we're "just doing our jobs," and that the recognition we seek will naturally follow our hard work. Then reality moves in. We get overlooked for a promotion, special assignment, or pay raise. Someone else takes all the credit. We never get called back after the first round of job interviews. We get pink-slipped. We feel unappreciated and misunderstood. With life moving at such a frenetic pace, it's difficult to recall in colorful detail our successes from a month ago, much less a year or five years ago. Our accomplishments remain only as shadowy memories-that is, if we haven't forgotten them altogether. We lose track of what brought us to where we are today and how to leverage what we've got to take us where we want to go.

Despite this tendency toward amnesia, we have been accomplishing things all our lives: Since taking our first breath, we haven't stopped. We each have a history of hundreds, if not thousands, of successes that make us memorable. So how do you make certain that everyone else knows what's so good about you? You start by consciously examining your past and present life and by taking the time to dig out those golden nuggets-the ones that have substance and weight-from which to build meaningful and memorable stories and messages about you. This chapter will help you unearth your personal and professional history, capitalize on your strengths, learn to think fast on your feet, and convey the information you want known about yourself, genuinely and effortlessly.

On the following page you'll find "Take 12," a set of questions to help you begin to think about your history: where you have been, what you are doing now, what you have to offer, and what makes you memorable.

Take a moment right now to read these twelve questions, but before you write down your answers, read through the rest of this chapter. If you don't, you'll be wasting precious time and energy because first you need to understand how you'll be using your responses and turning them into catchy and immediately useable self-promotion sound bites (brag bites) and monologues (bragologues).

Don't feel that you have to answer these in order. You can start anywhere and skip around. As you move through the questions, you'll likely think of things you might have overlooked when answering earlier ones. In fact, you'll probably want to go over your responses once more after you have completed the evaluation. Remember, the more time you put into this exercise, the more specific details you provide, the easier it will be to create brag bites and bragologues that will be crystal clear and interesting to those who don't already know you well.

1. What would you and others say are five of your personality pluses?

2. What are the ten most interesting things you have done or that have happened to you?

3. What do you do for a living and how did you end up doing it?

4. What do you like/love about your current job/career?

5. How does your job/career use your skills and talents, and what projects are you working on right now that best showcase them?

6. What career successes are you most proud of having accomplished (from current position and past jobs)?

7. What new skills have you learned in the last year?

8. What obstacles have you overcome to get where you are today, both professionally and personally, and what essential lessons have you learned from some of your mistakes?

9. What training/education have you completed and what did you gain from those experiences?

10. What professional organizations are you associated with and in what ways-member, board, treasurer, or the like?

11. How do you spend your time outside of work, including hobbies, interests, sports, family, and volunteer activities?

12. In what ways are you making a difference in people's lives?

Just as you earn' around your name, you carry around a history. Think of "Take 12" as an inventory of all you've done-the things you are most proud of having accomplished in your personal and professional life-not just years back, but last week as well. On a business level this might include how you landed your first job, segued from one career to another, won an important client, managed through a difficult merger, or started your business from scratch. On a personal level it might include a favorite hobby, some cause you are passionate about, a fond memory, children and loved ones, a remarkable lesson learned from a mentor, or how you climbed Mount Everest! Your combined personal and professional information acts as the foundation for your bragging campaign. It encapsulates what will most powerfully underscore your best self and what you would like other people to know about you.