I’m sure your About page is impressive. I’m willing to bet it’s entirely forgettable.
It will tell me everything you’ve done and almost nothing about who you are.
What gets left out is often the one thing that transforms a list into a human being.
Recently, I worked with an incredible woman. Multiple degrees. Senior leadership roles. Nationally recognized expertise.
It was all there, but I couldn’t remember a thing about her after reading it.
Almost as an aside, she mentioned that for nearly ten years, she had been a competitive falconer — someone who trained and flew birds of prey at a serious, competitive level.
Now, you’re talking.
Now, I understand her in an entirely different way. The patience. The observation. The discipline. The ability to understand rather than control.
That detail didn’t distract from her expertise. It gave her expertise texture. It transformed her into a full-blown multi-dimensional human.
I’m reminded of this every day. Early in my career, I was a national television producer and won an Emmy Award.
Decades later, it’s still the thing people remember and the first thing they ask about.
That’s why it leads on my own About page.
It tells people something fundamental about how I came to this work. The Emmy is simply the most visible marker of a career built around storytelling, audience engagement, positioning, and public narrative — the same through line that connects every chapter that followed.
The mistake people make is assuming that anything personal somehow weakens their professional credibility.
It doesn’t. Quite the opposite.
Talking about yourself creates context. It explains motivations, reveals perspective, and gives me something real to connect with.
The goal is not to tell your life story, and it certainly isn’t to overshare. The goal is to let people see you in three dimensions.
I’ll forget where you earned your master’s degree.
But I won’t forget the architect who restores antique sailboats, the attorney who spent a decade as a jazz musician, the nonprofit executive who raises alpacas, and the technology consultant who once worked as a park ranger in Alaska.
Credentials establish credibility. Narrative creates distinction.
