First of all, your name is the same as my sister’s. Nice!

I certainly understand the fear of rejection - I’ve had to deal with that most of my life. The following quote sits onto of my desk to serve as a reminders of sorts:

“Face any situation fearlessly once you make a decision and there is no situation to face, it falls away of its own weight.”

In other words, just do it, like Nike says. I tell my life coaching clients to step up to the plate, feel the fear and just do it. The worst that can happen is some people won’t like it but then why should that matter? Yes, we want approval - we all do. But the key is to approve yourself - only you can raise your own self esteem and give yourself approval. Once you get there, you’ll be more willing to step outside the box and give it a shot.

With each succeeding step you take, the braver you become. You will never stop feeling butterflies - believe it or not, every time I step up on the stage I get them (even after speaking hundreds of times in the past). That’s normal. That’s adrenaline or “nervous excitement,” I call it.

You can do it - I can see that in you already, based on your description of what you do. You are POWERFUL.

excellent and thought-provoking post. I’m in a bit of a place…trying to change my life, overcome self-doubt/self-sabotaging behaviors and stumbled here by chance.

I have a bit of an interesting situation, having many jobs, none of them bringing in much income yet.

First and foremost, I am a wife to a beautiful and inspiring creative genius. He is a user interface developer and a performing musician.

Next, I am mom to two wonderful sons, ages 5 yrs. and 18 mos. I work at home, so I am with them a lot, to the extent that I don’t have any time for meditation/visualization work.

I also blog. I manage my husband’s music career, booking shows and trying to generate publicity. I am a freelance writer. And I work a part-time job as a marketing director for a real estate agency.

Sadly for many years, I failed to value being a SAHM; when folks asked me what I do, I would say “Oh, I’m just a mom. But I used to be Director of Marketing for a high-tech firm.” I am ashamed I ever felt that way.

So, I’m in a bit of a quandry what I should tell people.

Also, I haven’t done the exercise; just read about it a few minutes ago. However, the thought terrifies me because I’m scared of what I would do with any negative feedback. I know my negative qualities or what I would say, but I’m having trouble fixing them, although I want to.

Dawns last blog post..William Tell

It’s fun, isn’t it? I love it when people ask me what I do because while I keep my response pretty much the same, I do vary it a little bit to see what kind of a response I’d get.

Thanks for stopping in!

“I love that question ^_^ because what I do is to wake up people and ask if what they do align with their life purpose.”

Akemi - Yes to Me’s last blog post..Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs

I’m glad you stopped by - welcome to the AU community! Let’s see - you do have a very interesting situation. I’ve dealt with ignorant people too and what I found to be helpful is that it’s best to ‘educate’ them in the least threatening manner.

Here are some questions for you to think about, which I hope will lead to your one liner:

1. You say you do research - what are you researching for? What are you testing when working with mice? Your answer could be the clue to the one liner. For instance, is it to eradicate luekemia or study the brain or what?

2. A globe trotter has a nice ring to it. Something like world traveler?

We’ll start with those for now and see where it leads. Once again, welcome!

I used to say I’m studying Biotechnology which either shuts ppl up cause ther intimitated, or they ask exactly what that means which is hard when they’ve never read a biology text book and the only thing the know about dna is that we all have it and it’s inherited.

with the where r u from question i usually go with shock value and say singapore as a white female with an americanized acent in australia at the moment the common response is but ur not chinese and do you speak the local language to which I have to reply yes cause it’s english. I have alos conciderd saying Im a globe trotter, global villager or alien. but that would require a bigger ego

As you can probably tell by now i struggle with ignorant ppl and need a one liner that’ll keep em intrested with out asking the stupid repetative questions

finally my curent job title is boring Research assistant but further description requires telling ppl i do experiments with mice which doesn’t usually go down well. any i way any ideas would be apreicated

Thanks SO MUCH for stumbling this article. I truly appreciate it.

Now that you’ve gotten on my radar with such an interesting name for your blog (which I plan to check out because curiously enough, I do hold some degree of fascination with deep sea creatures, especially if I can see them via colorful photos and/or videos). So you bet I will be checking your site out.

Meanwhile, I’d love to know what your 5 second introduction would be if asked what you do for a living.

Thanks again for stumbling me. I always appreciate that.

Deep Sea Monsters’s last blog post..Colorful Sea Star

Makes sense how you wade deeper into the “what do you do for a living” conversation. You’re a master at it.

Well, you sound like a very interesting, industrious kind of person. I’m surprised your name isn’t linked to a website for people to find out more about your line of work.

It’s my humble opinion that the Adversity University community would at least be curious (as I am) who you are, where you’re located and maybe see some of the work you’ve done. You’ve at least aroused curiousity in me!

Maybe next time you comment, you should put in your URL in the URL box so that we can visit you. If you’d rather not for whatever reason, no sweat. No pressure, no nothing, but I simply had to ask!

Indeed, I use the “I bring order to chaos” line first, and then go deeper with something like “I implement management solutions that save companies time and money,
and keep them safe from legal liability”. Sometimes I like to add “And I make the impossible, possible” to the first line. Works wonders if I’m trying to reel in a big corporate fish.

I always try and describe what I do adding more and more detail as I go along, rather than giving them my job title. I want “I’m a management consultant” to be the very last thing I say when telling people what I do, not the very first.

As for design, I used to do interior design, but when every client started asking me to do Feng Shui I got a tad bored with it. I’ve done all kinds of design. Urban decoration, textiles, web design, product design, retail packaging. You name it, I’ve probably done it.