You probably know what an elevator talk is. It’s the sort of snappy two-paragraph description of who you are, what you do, and where you’ll be in five years. You can whip it out like a display of neon signs. There you are, lit up like the main drag on Broadway. You have dazzled them with all you can achieve between the first and second floors.
But you see, not all of us are like that. Me, for instance. I’m a cultural anthropologist. No, I don’t do fossils. No, I haven’t done any digs in Eygpt. So by the time I get past that, we are on the fourth floor, and you are getting off; so much for the elevator talk.
After many experiences with this, I was relieved when I slipped into marine carver mode. There I stood at the boat show, with a large carvings display. All I needed to do was assure them that I had carved all of those by hand. There was no elevator talk to give the first impression I wanted them to have. It didn’t matter that I stood in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with wood shaving in my hair.
It’s just simple show and tell…like in second grade. Ahhh, nostalgia!
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