Who You Are Is Under Construction
For most of my career I truly felt that what I did for a living and who I was were interchangeable titles. It was an easy thing to believe. My work was enormous and consuming and it reached into every corner of my life, so the line between the job and the person never seemed worth drawing. My title couldn't hold everything I actually did, but that's not a particularly unique grievance, nobody's really can. A title is a label for output, and a person is not their output, even when the output is impressive, even when it's beloved, even when it's the family business. I no longer believe the two are interchangeable, and I've come to think many of us over-indexed on work identity so long ago we've forgotten we did it, and that there is so much more to who we are beyond the job description.
If you're just joining this series, the short version: reputations form in the moments with no script, the dinner seat, the hallway, the ten minutes after the meeting ends, the cocktail party the first night of the conference. Last week was for the people who know exactly who they are and just need better words. This week is for the season when the words can't be settled yet, because you're in transition, stepping into a new phase, or carrying enough hyphens that no single answer feels honest. I know this reader best. I'm her.
When I stepped out of management, my honest answer for a stretch was that I was in transition, exploring lost time with friends, learning piano, training for a half-marathon, improving my culinary skills, a fellowship program, choosing how I spend my time and who I spend it with. I've written here before that it felt like the most authentic answer I'd ever given, and it was, because these are the elements that make up who I am. It took me a while to get there, though. There was a lot of fumbling and stumbling through what I used to do, what I do now, and where I want to be going, delivered at two times vocal speed so the person I was speaking with didn't walk away in confusion. What I understand now is that uncertainty is an honest and relatable place to be, and not a permanent address. At some point, "I'm still figuring it out" stopped being brave and started being a place to hide, and nobody announces that moment. You catch it yourself, usually by noticing your uncertainty has stopped producing discoveries and started producing the same conversation on a loop.
So how do you leave an impression when you can't lean on a title to introduce you? The answer I've landed on, after years of getting it wrong in public, is that you lead with energy, because people meet your spirit long before they process your words. I watched this as a producer for decades. When a live performer doesn't bring the energy, the whole show falls flat. An audience knows what a show is going to be within moments of the lights going down, before a single storyline lands, and a dinner companion is no different.
Touring taught me the rest. In our business, opening night isn't a once-a-year event. We have one every single week, same show, new city, new audience. Nobody walks out and wings it, and nobody delivers the identical night in every market either. You rehearsed a few versions and pulled the right one out of your back pocket depending on who was in the house. Your introduction works the same way. Mine changes depending on the day, the room, and honestly, what I'm after that night, and that used to feel like evidence I hadn't figured myself out. Now I know better. A couple of lines, rehearsed and ready, chosen for the audience in front of you. The people who insist on one frozen answer for every room are performing consistency, not living it.
What shouldn't change is what comes after the line: the pause, and then the invitation. I wrote last week about how the pause pulls a question out of the other person. In a transition it does something even more important. It stops you from over-explaining a story that's still being written, and it turns the moment into an exchange instead of a defense. Whatever you say when they lean in, the real message is an invitation to get to know you, the person, not the output. You're not presenting a finished product, you are opening a door. You can leave a memorable impression by replacing your former title with newly acquired skills, a lively, quirky, but relatable anecdote, or something exciting you're working towards. If your face lights up and your body gets animated, it's likely going to be contagious to the person you're engaging with. Then get curious about them, because somewhere in their answer is the common ground, and finding it is what turns an introduction into a conversation.
The other thing I'd offer, and this one changed everything for me, is to walk in knowing what you want. In any interaction, there is something you're hoping leaves the room with them. Maybe it's a door opened, a recommendation, an introduction, an invitation back, even a date. Name it to yourself before you arrive. What do you want this person to walk away remembering, and saying about you in the next room they're in? That question sounds calculating until you notice what it actually does: it focuses you, it calms the flailing, and it's answerable every single day, even in the deepest fog of a transition. Who you are might be under construction, what you want from the interaction never has to be.
When I do this work with clients now, that's where we start, nowhere near the words. We audit values, objectives, and truths. What you actually stand for, what you actually want from the rooms you're in, and what is actually true about you that you keep editing out for sounding unprofessional. The words come last and arrive almost easily once the answers underneath stop moving. I was my own first client.
Before your next dinner, event, or sideline conversation, choose one thing: what you want the person across from you to remember. Let your energy carry the opening, and pull the line that fits the room. Then pause, and treat whatever follows as an invitation rather than an audition.
The performers I recruited took a leap toward a life they couldn't fully see, and I always admired them for it. It took me embarrassingly long to notice I was standing at the edge of the same choice. The hardest act to sell turned out to be the one who had spent her whole life just offstage.
From Your Biggest Champion,
Nicole
