People are very creative now when describing themselves in the ‘About’ section of their LinkedIn profile pages. Are we really capable of describing ourselves accurately? How good are we in the task of evaluating ourselves and describing difficult aspects of us like ‘competencies’?
No, not a magician. Maybe you are in the business of making people happier. Or, perhaps, you are an experienced distractor. Ugh, that is a heavy word. You are an illusionist, OK?
I have always found it hard to keep my own “About” page, which you can find here.
I once heard from my favorite professor at the University that it was impossible for anyone to describe him or her self after a period of many years. That is because not only you forget the things you have done, felt or thought at that time, but can not make a consistent assessment about things in life over time, yourself included.
A good thermometer can be consistent over the years at measuring the temperature. We do not function the same way about how we look at things. Cognitive scientists can provide us a handful of explanations to that phenomenon and why it happens inside our brain.
If a thermometer were like us, it would have a temperature scale like: “kinda cold”, “cold”, “cold-ish“, “colder than usual” up to “hot as hell!”. That wouldn’t work to some people.
I believe the days of the pandemics have changed even more the way we look to the world and to ourselves. We were under tremendous pressure to assess things around us and confront them with our own behavior. After all, they were like “live or die” kinda of days.
To me, that same behavior is now present at the largest “About me” website in the planet: LinkedIn.
People browse around the website looking at peers and reference professionals just to look at their taglines and About descriptions.
Successful profiles serve as inspiration to people who search for the “perfect” description of what they have done or do nowadays. They pick one or two buzzwords, sometimes a complete sentence and remix them into their own profiles.
At the time I am writing this, the most commonly found piece of text is “I help companies [things you believe companies value today]“. Blame me! as I have used that punchy statement myself, I confess.
But what if you decide to change your “About” text in the day after? What if you had a second thought about your text and terminology, and about the things you have done or are doing at the moment?
Maybe you have spoken to a work colleague from the past and she told you about an event that made some lights turn on in your head. Now you are confronted with new memories you think may be worth adding to your “About” description.
What do you do then?
Would you just throw away what is described in your profile? Are all those claims about yourself not accurate anymore?
These days, I feel the need of storing those memories for extended periods of time. I need those records. In 20 years’ time I will enjoy reviewing how I used to describe myself today. Again it would help me with memory and as a way of comparison between past and present. A kind of “Rodolpho A/B analysis“.
So from now on I will accumulate all my self descriptions as a blog page. Most recent definitions first at top, older ones at the bottom on a ever scrolling page — yes, I’m optimistic about the so many times I will change my about page over the years. I may add some italics or light gray text color to differentiate things, so people won’t get confused.
I’m hoping that by doing this I will be able to remember who I was until yesterday, and who I am today — either magician or entertainer.