How to stick in people’s minds

Image by Marcos Chin

tl;dr – you can do a purpose statement exercise to clarify your WHY and then hit people over the head with it when you share about what you do. 

I was working with a coaching client on how to tell her career story. I told her that one approach to answering the “tell me about yourself” question that you get in interviews is to center your answer around a theme. 

Instead of giving the chronological play-by-play that sounds like “Well, I started with my first job, and then I got this other job, and then I moved, and then I transitioned and got the next job…” you try to make a lasting impression in people’s minds by telling them really clearly what you want them to remember. 

Do you remember having to write ‘topic sentences’ in high school English class? It’s kind of like that. 

Topic sentence: I am a really good at solving complex problems.

Supporting evidence: In my last three roles, I helped untangle ambiguous, wicked problems by….

People’s ability to listen and retain information is. . . limited. So we need to help other people out by handing them the most powerful and central piece of information about what you want them to remember.

My client shared that she hadn’t known how else to tell her career story aside from the chronological way.  I assured her that it was totally normal for that to be the case because no one teaches us how to interview in school. We are left to figure it out on our own.

But how do you tell your story in this memorable way if you don't know your themes? 

It was time to help her clarify what main themes were at the core of not just her career but her ‘work’ in the larger sense of the word.  

What did she think she was here to do? What were the guiding values and purpose that connected all the individual dots?

I asked her to do a purpose statement exercise and the next time we met we digested it together. She brightened when reading me her end result and said that she thought everyone should do this exercise. What a gift it would be if everyone knew more about what was driving their life’s course.

Unsurprisingly, I agreed!

So here is a purpose statement exercise for you in the event that you want to take some time to connect (or re-connect) with your personal WHY. It’s comprised of a series of visualizations and the end output is a draft of a statement that ideally resonates in your chest when you say it out loud. 

I picked up this exercise from the Co-Active Training Institute during my certification process.