A book I read recently about making a good pitch, saying it right the first time, pointed out that the hardest question a person usually gets during an interview is the one inevitable open-ended question seemingly too simple to prepare for:  tell me about yourself.

The author suggests we prepare well for this question, practice a short, rich answer tailored to advancing the subject at hand.  If it’s a job interview the answer should convince the interviewer that everything in your life has led up to this perfect-for-me job.   If promoting a book, it is the short, crisp background story that will make the reader know why you wrote it and make them want to rush out and get the book.

Yesterday a woman at a nonprofit I hope to work with asked the famous, and obvious, open-ended question: how did you come to this?  Tell me about yourself.

What I said, without a script:

I’ve always drawn and I play music.  I was a teacher years ago.  I practiced law for a while, until, when my mother got gravely ill, I decided I should do something I really love, which is when I began developing this program.  It took me about a year to work out how to do animation in a way that kids could do everything, I invented the animation stand and perfected the program.   We’ve been working with public school kids for about a year and a half.

This answer led to the question of what kind of law I practiced, how contentious the NYC Housing Court is and the woman’s “at least you represented tenants.”  Followed by my self-deprecating remark that landlords’ lawyers wear better suits than tenants’ lawyers and some other off topic banter that advanced nothing, other than the idea that I may be a dilettante, and/or someone having a midlife crisis, and that, naturally, as a lawyer, I had incorporated as a nonprofit.

Clear lesson learned:  work on the short, punchy script for next time that advances why someone should care about what I so deeply care about.   It needs to include how much I enjoy creative play, visual, musical and otherwise; how long it’s bothered me that public school kids don’t get much chance to show their creativity and competence in this age of metrics and teaching to the test.  That creativity is not a luxury, it’s a huge part of learning and a vital part of life.  That being listened to is a rare gift easily given, and sorely needed by children in particular.  Work in how much I love to draw, and play guitar, and collaborate, and how every time I work with children in the animation workshop, the buzzing intersection of so many creative avenues, I feel energized and delighted by their creativity. 

And, note to myself, don’t ever again mention to strangers that instead of a smartphone with GPS I have my dead mother’s once state of the art Motorola Razr.  Why would anyone but a nattering madman mention such a detail?  Note how much better in every way this answer is:  “Do you have a smartphone?”  Answer: “No.”