Peggy Klaus Read Free Page A

chatter to plant seeds for future opportunities. Chapter 8 provides examples of using your personal history to give your company credibility or to obtain funding when you’ve decided to brave it on your own.
    “But … bragging is egocentric, disgusting, obnoxious, self-aggrandizing, and just plain wrong.”
    Okay, so tell me how you really feel! This definition sounds very black and white, with no room for a middle ground. Listen to someone brag artfully, and I think you may just change your mind. In fact, I know you will.
    Before you hit the bragging trail, dump everything you ever learned in Presentation 101! Chapter 9 teaches you my trademark “brag nags”—key communication techniques that make for more dynamic bragging in any situation and with every audience. You’ll learn how to take the emotional temperature of the listener, how to be authentic at all times, and why you need to act like your best self, even on rainy days.
    Chapter 10 wraps it all up with a humorous author’s confession and, before I send you on your way, my Twelve Tooting Tips.
    Once you learn to apply the techniques that have transformed my clients over the years, you’ll see bragging in an entirely new light and discover a way to sell yourself hat doesn’t set you back, but actually sets you free.
    Happy bragging!
    Peggy Klaus
    Berkeley, California
    October 2002
    Bragging Dictionary
    Brag: To talk about your best self (interests, ideas, and accomplishments) with pride and passion in a conversational manner intended to excite admiration, interest, and wonder, without pretense or overstatement—in other words, without being obnoxious.
    Brag bites: Snippets of impressive information about one’s best self, expressed in a brief, quotable manner. They function as memory insurance so that people will remember something compelling about you. They can be dropped into conversations as single gems or woven together to create longer bragologues.
    Bragologues: Ranging from a thirty-second elevator pitch to a three-minute monologue, information about one’s self that is conveyed in a conversational, storylike fashion that’s memorable and elicits interest, excitement, and/or admiration.
    Brag bag: A collection of all the information about one’s best self that can be easily accessed: accomplishments, passions, and interests—the colorful details that describe who one is personally and professionally.
    Brag bomb: A complete failure in tooting one’s own horn, typically a result of misreading one’s audience, bad timing, and/or a lack of preparation.
    Brag nags: Friendly advice on how to deliver your bragging with style.
    Bragging “buts”: All the excuses and issues that are cited as reasons for not bragging.

CHAPTER 1
    Bragging Myths We Live and Die By
    It ain’t bragging if you done it.
    —D IZZY D EAN
    Myth #1: A JOB WELL DONE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
    It’s not my father’s workplace anymore, or even the one many of your mothers may have entered in the 1970s or ’80s. The days of job security in exchange for loyalty and hard work are long gone. For most, this isn’t news. Yet many of us fail to recognize the value of self-promotion in maneuvering today’s volatile and unpredictable workplace. Given the constant changes—mergers, management shifts, downsizing—you simply must let people in the organization know who you are and what you are accomplishing. Otherwise you’ll be passed over for promotions, in succession planning, or when the company is determining the best performers during layoffs.
    Even if you’re an ace at keeping your boss up to speed, remember, he or she might be gone tomorrow. You need to cover all your bases and stand out in the eyes of your boss’ boss and that boss’ boss and all the bosses right up to the big boss. “Your mission is made even more challenging when you consider what the Information Age has wrought: people who are overwhelmed by the daily onslaught of e-mails, voice mails, faxes, phone calls, and