Can I ask, “what do you do?”  

Now that’s a really common question, right?  

So what do you do?  

Now, typically, we answer with a bit of a one-liner.  

So “I’m a coach, trainer, speaker.” 

Or “I’m an accountant.” 

Or “I’m a lawyer”, whatever it might be.  

And often, to the other person, what you do is not nearly as exciting as you think it is.  

So I was listening to a number of podcasts and YouTube videos just recently, and in particular, to a guy called Dr. Christian Busch, and what he was talking about, he’s just written this book called The Serendipity Mindset,  which is the art and science of creating good luck.  

And what he says is, instead of just answering with the actual things that you do, which is quite helpful, depending on the context you’re in, but adding a couple of extra hooks. 

So a couple of extra bits of juice or gold, that the person on the other end might be able to latch onto.  

Because if I just say, “I’m a speaker, trainer’ coach”, and that’s got nothing to do with you not even in your realm, or you didn’t even know what that is, then it’s not gonna be that enticing for the conversation to go elsewhere.  

And it doesn’t create a very close connection between the two of us. 

Yet, how about if instead, you asked me what I do, and I said, “I’m a speaker, trainer, coach, I’m in the middle of writing a book called Valuable, and I also play baseball in my spare time.”  

So they are three things I do, and even in a work context, my book is a nonfiction book, right.  

So I’ve been practicing this, and I was out at a party just on Saturday night, and someone said, “what do you do?”  

And I said, “I’m a speaker, trainer, coach, I’m in the middle of writing a book called Valuable, and I played baseball.” 

The immediate thing this girl who was asking me the question said, was, “oh, my goodness, tell me about the book, what’s valuable, what does that mean?”  

And we then spent quite a bit of time talking about, you know, what I’m researching, what I’m writing, and about how that plays out in life, and she’s shared some stories, I shared some stories.  

So by creating those extra hooks, it allows someone to find something in there, hopefully, that we can connect on and then further the conversation around. 

Because just saying, you’re a financial adviser or just saying, you’re a project manager doesn’t always, like I said, create the level of connection to then take it further and you know, see what could happen.  

It may be a friendship, it may be a work relationship, who knows?  

But how can you put some hooks into the answer around “what do you do?” to make it easier for others to connect?  

Because after all, You are Valuable!