Take a Verbal Selfie

Use the oldest storytelling hack: 5W1H

Jan 08, 2025

You connected with last week's post about storytelling as self-determination. Yay! Thanks for all the notes.

While the process of self-discovery that puts you in full control can be long, a verbal selfie is all you need to project an image of “I-know-who-and-what-I-am” confidence.

Research shows we naturally gravitate towards people who exude self-assurance, assuming they must have something figured out.

Have fun with this; make it feel like performance art as you build the picture you want people to see.

The hack

In journalism school, you learn that your mission, should you accept it, has two objectives: truth-telling and staying relevant. As a tool to gather information, they give you the 5W1H framework (who, what, when, where, why, and how). From the beginning, they train you to present what you’ve discovered clearly and concisely.

The framework serves as a verbal selfie creator. Think of the questions as all the parts of a camera pointed at you: lenses, aperture, shutter, and sensors. The best-quality images that can emerge from this exercise are authentic, without "filters" that make you look better than you are. Don't overthink it. It's just a snapshot of a moment. It's okay if it's superficial. You can change it as often as you like.

Let's practice on me, in two steps:

First, I will answer the 5W1H. Like a camera click, this captures me today, in this instant.
Second, I will synthesize my answers into fewer than 50 words

Step #1 — The Q&A

Who? (The agent)

I'm Flavia. I'm a mother, wife, grandmother, sister, friend, and master of the art of getting people to row in the same direction. I am an optimist. I have a dog I love, Kai, always sitting next to me.

What? (The action)

I am building a platform to encourage people to stop working at soul-sucking jobs and design a work life they can fall in love with. It's called Quitting Corp. It's not really for quitters, but for starters.

When? (The time)

It's 2025, the beginning of "Peak 65 Zone," the largest surge of Americans ever to reach retirement age. We can "expect" to live another three full decades—oh, how much we can do!

Where? (The place)

Physically, I am in the most beautiful city in the world, San Francisco. But not for much longer. Figuratively, I am at the starting line.

Why? (The purpose or motive)

For me, there are three reasons.

I do my best work when I love what I do.
I do not want to grow older to no purpose.
I want to write.

How? (The manner)

By creating a movement of like-minded people who can support each other as we reimagine our second, third, and fourth lives—however many lives it takes to get where we are "just fine."

Step #2: My Verbal Selfie

Reducing it to 50 words or less leaves me with the following: On a mission to help others design work lives they love; hopeless optimist; great at getting people to row in the same direction; love what I am doing, and that’s when I do my best work.

And just like that, a new, perfect for LinkedIn selfie.

[K]Now You: Where you do the work

The type of introspection we discussed in last week’s post about self-determination is important for helping you understand what you want. The work I suggest you do today is designed to help you shape how others see you.

In step #1, use short answers and project confidence without overstepping into arrogance. In step #2, pull out your essential self, in 50 words or less.

Something new: I created a Google form with the framework. Use it if you feel comfortable sharing your “verbal selfie” with me. I plan to use more forms going forward as we build the QC into a real community.

Fun fact: According to Wikipedia, the 5W1H framework is rooted in antiquity, and Aristotle used a similar model for analysis problems. In 1902, Rudyard Kipling built the concept into a poem:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I know);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.