"Tell Me About Yourself"—A Framework For Telling Your Story Well
Walking past the room, you would have heard nothing, but all I heard was screaming.
To be clear, the room was quite literally silent, and the voice screaming was entirely in my head. But that doesn't make it any less real.
I was about to appear as a guest on a podcast for the very first time, and I was having, let's say, second thoughts—at full volume, courtesy of my internal narrator.
I will NEVER forget that conference room. An oblong gray table ran down the middle, seating 12 or 14 or 94 people. Tough to say. I didn't have time to count before recording. That didn't stop me from pacing around the table to find the ideal seat. The blinds were faux-chestnut slabs, which the previous person in the room had zipped down all the way. Smart move. Better to hide the disaster about to unfold.
A couple weeks prior, a marketing podcast host had pitched me on joining her for an interview, and I swear to you, dear reader, I don't know how my fingers managed to press the right keys (Y... E... S) because narrator was screaming, NO WAY! What will we say, what have we even done in our career, what do WE know that OTHERS could possibly—oh man, you hit send?!
Fast forward two weeks, and I carefully selected the right chair in that conference room. It only took 12 attempts. Or 14 or 94. Tough to say, as my spirit was trying desperately to exit my body.
I started fidgeting, waiting for the exact right time to call in.
Adjust the chair. Adjust the mic. Adjust my laptop. Adjust my hair. Wait it's audio. Adjust my shirt.
"Jay!" I remember the host saying, "this will be super informal and fun!"
Sure. For one of us.
"So, first question..." she said. Oh no, oh jeez, oh boy, here it comes, oh man, something hard, something strategic, something requiring me to very smart and accomplished indeed. What if she asks about the industry? I read about sports and Marvel, not marketing! What if she asks about our results! I've barely been here two months! Wait, am I allowed to share our results publicly? Hold on... maybe I can fake a cold! Yeah, okay, okay, nobody wants a guest hacking up a lung...
"So, first question: tell me about yourself!"
Oh. Wait. That's easy. You ready, Public Voice Jay?
Hello?
PVJ?
Time to answer.
Wait, why are you sweating?
* * *
"Tell me about yourself." If I know anything about humans, it's that THIS little prompt will arrive the moment anyone meets anyone in a corporate setting, especially one focused on some kind of transaction: get a job, create some content, network at an event. That little phrase and many similar-sounding questions ("What do you do?") cause us to break out in cold sweats more often than the innocent little phrases might suggest at first.
I think the reason is simple. We've got no plan. We've got no structure. We've had no practice. So we wobble like a baby deer just standing up for the first time.
Two kinds of people like telling their own stories: egomaniacs and storytellers. Or storytellers with big egos. (I used to joke with my Mom: I don’t have a big ego, I just like how awesome I am.)
But when you're a storyteller, you're effective (not just egotistical). You know how to talk about yourself in a way that actually matters to others. It's not just interesting. It's somehow insightful. Beyond their reactions to what you've done or where you've lived or what you've seen—beyond the trivia of your life story—you're able to share your own backstory in a way that actually teaches others something useful. Without putting yourself on a pedestal. You're not the star. You're the guide. Because as a storyteller, you understand something most don't:
Your story isn't about you. Your story is about your message.
Most of us when prompted to talk about ourselves, after we stop freezing up and start talking, sound bored, apologetic, or eager to get this part over with already, ugh. Or maybe we up-speak at the end, like we're reading a recipe for bundt cake. "Add 3 years of sales for a B2B tech company, sprinkled with existential dread that you weren't being creative in your job at all, followed by 2 years of startup marketing..."
(I mean, THAT would be better than most people's backstories when spoken on podcasts or written on their websites.)
But the reason "tell me about yourself" is so hard for so many of us is because of a very specific problem it presents, which is similar to other types of questions we get.
Consider this list of questions to illustrate. Try to answer each in your mind, or even out loud. Don't just sense or feel what you'd say. What, precisely, would you say?
Where do you live?
What was your first full-time job?
What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
What advice would you give your younger self?
Why should I buy from you instead of your competitors?
Tell me about yourself.
Each question got harder to answer, right? That's because the possibilities of what you could say grew and answers became increasingly subjective.
"Where do you live?" was the easiest. There's ONE possibility, and it's not subjective at all. There's just one possible thing you could say, and it's also the right answer.
"What was your first full-time job?" was also really easy. There's ONE possibility, and it's also not subjective. It WAS your first job (though if you were asked this in view of a group, you might feel stress you didn't feel when telling us your hometown, because sharing your first job might cause others to judge you based on whether they know or like the company or job function, which is why anyone who used to be in law but pivoted always jokes they're a "recovering lawyer").
Still, that second question was pretty easy to answer, as was your favorite flavor of ice cream. You might debate between a few possibilities, and of course the answer is subjective, but it's pretty low-stakes and relatively straightforward to answer, if not fun.
But giving advice to your younger self?
Telling us why we'd buy from you and not competitors?
That starts to present LOTS of possibilities, and the answer is ENTIRELY subjective. The first is easier than the second (fictional versus real), but now we're drawing on many possibilities and sharing answers which are entirely subjective, which others might be quick to debate with you too.
Then we arrive to that dreaded but ubiquitous prompt.
Tell me about yourself.
Infinite ways to talk about yourself, infinite moments you've lived or things you like or stuff you could choose to reveal or hide, all to try and help others make sense of you and therefore evaluate your worth, instantly.
Yikes.
The list got harder because the possibilities increased and the answers became more and more subjective. More possibilities means more ways to be "wrong," and we don't want to be wrong. We like being right. More subjective means more ways to be judged, and we don't like being judged. We like being accepted.
So the simplest and perhaps most common of stories we must tell (our backstory) feels impossibly difficult and scary. "How'd you get here? What do you do? What's your story? Tell me about yourself."
Gulp!
* * *
Unlike Baby Deer Jay, the guy writing to you right now LOVES getting that prompt. It has nothing to do with my ego (because I don't have one, I swear, I just appreciate the awesomeness inside of which I get to exist each day, alright Mom? Can you just— Can you not— Can I just— Okay?)
I love telling my story for a very simple reason: I understand the beats to hit each time. I know the structure, and it's one built to resonate with others. Because my story isn't about me. It's about the thing I'm here to say to you.
When faced with infinite possibilities, what we need most is framework. Framework turns possibilities into systems. Framework turns ideas into action. Framework is knowledge applied, aka wisdom.
We all have plenty of knowledge about our own backstories and bios. What we usually lack is the wisdom to know what to say, how to say it, and in what order. What we lack is framework.
When asked or when writing about yourself, you're straddling three objectives:
Help others place you (no lingering or distracting questions as you keep speaking)
Build credibility (fancy logos and job titles are just a couple common ways to do that—but there are so many more)
Say something that matters to others (and of course, to you as the bringer of those gifts)
To do that, I use a simple framework: MBAs.
Mission, Background, Anecdote, Summary.
It’s easy enough to remember. When asked for one's backstory, someone who has a business degree might then say, "Then in 2017, I got an MBA from Impress-U." Your backstory is where you'd talk about a literal MBA. Very well then. Talk about your MBAs.
Your mission helps frame everything first, so that what follows is colored by that message. Your mission is what they care about, instantly. You are interesting, you are valuable, you're there as a servant. That's clear the moment you start to "tell me about yourself."
Your background thus carries new weight and feels more compelling, because they see it through a specific lens. And yes, some of this is to answer questions they'll have in their heads which will preclude them from focusing on the rest of what you say later. You'll start teaching, and they'll be going, "Wait, hold on, where are you from? What do you do for work now? How did you get here?" Sometimes, to sit comfortably with others in your house, you can't avoid the housekeeping that came before.
Next, somewhere in your background is the chance to share a short anecdote that illuminates whatever you’re trying to teach in that moment or across your entire platform. This is why it matters that we develop signature stories, including some about ourselves. Then, in that moment or to that audience or for that project or given that context, you can say something to the effect of, "And this is when I first realized the power of..." your message, the podcast's theme, the question that the host asked, the topic driving the bootcamp you're selling—or whatever you are using your backstory to support.
And finally, end with a quick summary instead of doing what so many do instead: kill momentum. Most of us, when telling our backstories, abruptly drop the audience off a cliff. (“And yeah! That’s me! That brings us to today!”)
Here's how I might use my framework.
I wish I could go back and hand this to fresh-faced little Jay to help mop up the cold sweats on that first podcast. But here's how I'd use MBAs if interviewed today:
You can really understand everything I do through one simple premise: I want to help business leaders and communicators prioritize resonance over reach as the best way to grow a business, an audience, a cause. I want others to make things that matter more, because when you matter more, you can hustle and hype less.
And I was fascinated by this idea in school as a sports journalist wannabe and saw it firsthand writing tons of blog posts online before blogging was even that well known. I used Blogger, gosh, remember that tool? My first real job out of college was in sales at Google, and I remember the hiring manager talked more about my blogs (which like 12 other students read), than they did my actual resume. I didn't LOVE sales, but Google showed me the need for creativity and storytelling in the business world, not just sports, so I pivoted to content marketing, first at a tiny startup, then I was head of content at HubSpot and VP of content at seed-stage VC firm. But since 2016, I’ve written books, traveled the world giving speeches, developed or hosted podcasts and docuseries for companies like Salesforce, Wistia, and Mailchimp, and I spend most of my time today consulting and coaching individuals on clarifying their message and crafting stronger speeches and stories. I really want to equip people who already have substance and expertise with the communication power of the world’s best thought leaders, because what my clients KNOW really matters, but what they say and how they say it determines whether anyone cares.
And I think to do that, we have to shift our focus from chasing reach to understanding how to resonate with people, in other words, how to say things that ensure others actually care, because that's what determines everything else. That's why I'm all about resonance over reach.
That takes me exactly two minutes to say, if my timer and my attempt to read it today is accurate. And I don't say it that way every time. And there were only three bullets in the list, not four (MBAs), because the anecdote is tucked in the middle of my background, as it usually is. And I don't always mention my sports blogging as my anecdote, since I have lots of little anecdotes I've developed through this newsletter and by writing everywhere online over the years, meaning I can pull out a relevant story to illustrate something from various points in my career, based on different audiences I speak to, or places I appear, or things I want to teach. Regardless, the bones are there, and I hit each beat: M-B-A-s.
Now it's your turn:
Try writing your version. Recognize that the more you try this out loud, the more internalized it becomes. And the more you put your attempt in front of an actual audience, the more confident you get. For now, make a mess, then do it better the next time. Keep the framework in mind each time, then over time, it'll fade from view and you'll just ... respond.
We all face a choice every time we show up publicly: we can talk about ourselves, or we can talk about the thing we're there to say. Turns out "I'm awesome" isn't actually your message or mine (even if we love how awesome we are...).
No, consider your actual message to others. What's your premise, your assertion, your perspective-made-memorable? Lead with that. THEN your background, with an anecdote to illuminate something insightful, delivered in a personal way. Stick the landing with a summary they'll remember.
Every story you tell should carry your message to market—yes, even your own backstory.
You don't need bigger logos or fancier job titles. You don't need eye-popping metrics or more dramatic moments. To share your backstory in a way that matters to others, you just need a better structure.
"Tell me about yourself."
You have the knowledge. Now, you have the wisdom too. You have the framework. The next time you write about yourself or the next time you're asked, apply your knowledge using your wisdom. Tell your story using this framework, and let me know how it goes!
Go on. Tell your story. They won't think you have an ego. They'll just love how awesome you are.