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consciously examining your past and present life and by taking the time to dig out those golden nuggets—the ones that have substance and weight—from which to build meaningful and memorable stories and messages about you. This chapter will help you unearth your personal and professional history, capitalize on your strengths, learn to think fast on your feet, and convey the information you want known about yourself, genuinely and effortlessly.
    On the following page you’ll find “Take 12,” a set of questions to help you begin to think about your history: where you have been, what you are doing now, what you have to offer, and what makes you memorable.
    Take a moment right now to read these twelve questions,
but before you write down your answers
, read through the rest of this chapter. If you don’t, you’ll be wasting precious time and energy because first you need to understand how you’ll be using your responses and turning them into catchy and immediately useable self-promotion sound bites (brag bites) and monologues (bragologues).
    “Take 12” Self-Evaluation
    (
Note: These questions can also be downloaded at
www.bragbetter.com )
    Don’t feel that you have to answer these in order. You can start anywhere and skip around. As you move through the questions, you’ll likely think of things you might have overlooked when answering earlier ones. In fact, you’ll probably want to go over your responses once more after you have completed the evaluation. Remember, the more time you put into this exercise, the more specific details you provide, the easier it will be to create brag bites and bragologues that will be crystal clear and interesting to those who don’t already know you well.
    1. What would you and others say are five of your personality pluses?
    2. What are the ten most interesting things you have done or that have happened to you?
    3. What do you do for a living and how did you end up doing it?
    4. What do you like/love about your current job/career?
    5. How does your job/career use your skills and talents, and what projects are you working on right now that best showcase them?
    6. What career successes are you most proud of having accomplished (from current position and past jobs)?
    7. What new skills have you learned in the last year?
    8. What obstacles have you overcome to get where you are today, both professionally and personally, and what essential lessons have you learned from some of your mistakes?
    9. What training/education have you completed and what did you gain from those experiences?
    10. What professional organizations are you associated with and in what ways—member, board, treasurer, or the like?
    11. How do you spend your time outside of work, including hobbies, interests, sports, family, and volunteer activities?
    12. In what ways are you making a difference in people’s lives?
    Just as you carry around your name, you carry around a history. Think of “Take 12” as an inventory of all you’ve done—the things you are most proud of having accomplished in your personal and professional life—not just years back, but last week as well. On a business level this might include how you landed your first job, segued from one career to another, won an important client, managed through a difficult merger, or started your business from scratch. On a personal level it might include a favorite hobby, some cause you are passionate about, a fond memory, children and loved ones, a remarkable lesson learned from a mentor, or how you climbed Mount Everest! Your combined personal and professional information acts as the foundation for your bragging campaign. It encapsulates what will most powerfully underscore your best self and what you would like other people to know about you. By answering these questions you will not only be amazed at how much you have accomplished and how interesting you are, you will also begin to see how the fragments of your life are actually interconnected pieces that