By Conor Neill, an EO Spain-Barcelona member and teacher at IESE Business School

How do you respond when a person says “Tell me about yourself?”

It might be called confidence; it might be called belief. Do you let others see the best version of you, or do they see a dull, low-intensity, passionless version of yourself?

Why do we find it difficult to sell ourselves? I spent the first three years of my entrepreneurial career selling insurance over the telephone in the Spanish language. I picked up the phone 20 times each day and worked through my script. Three years of this taught me two things: the Spanish language, and zero fear of a “No”.

I got to practice hundreds of times how I present myself. I got pretty instant feedback, whether my way of presenting myself engaged the other person into a conversation, or got a quick hang up on the telephone.  Time and time again I learned that “Hello, I’m Conor” was not a great start to somebody who doesn’t know Conor.

At an Entrepreneurs’ Organization retreat last month, the facilitator asked everybody to introduce themselves following a specific structure…