The Elevator Pitch Is Broken. And That’s a Good Thing.
“Hey Arnold, tell us a joke.”
“I don’t know any jokes.”
Early in his career, Arnold Schwarzenegger tells a story about being caught flat-footed at a celebrity party. Someone asked him to perform on the spot, and he had nothing ready. No clever line. No rehearsed moment. No quick save.
Lucille Ball stepped in and rescued him.
The story is usually told as a lesson about preparedness. Always be ready. Always have something to say. Always have an elevator pitch locked and loaded.
Salespeople love this idea. Consultants are taught to memorize it. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to perfect it.
But the older I get, and the more rooms I’ve been in, the more convinced I am that the elevator pitch is broken.
Nobody buys anything in an elevator.
More importantly, nobody enjoys being pitched.
The elevator pitch assumes that speed creates persuasion. That if you compress your life’s work into thirty seconds, clarity will magically appear. In reality, speed often creates the opposite effect. It triggers resistance. It signals agenda. It turns a human moment into a transaction.
What actually moves people is something far older and far more human.
A story.
People don’t buy products, services, or credentials in compressed bursts of information. They buy into understanding. They lean forward when they recognize themselves in what they’re hearing. They engage when something feels true before it feels impressive.
Think about the conversations that have stayed with you over the years. The ones that changed how you saw yourself or your work. They weren’t fast. They weren’t slick. They didn’t feel like pitches.
They felt like someone explaining why something mattered.
That’s why the most effective professionals I know don’t sound rehearsed when you ask them what they do. They sound grounded. They speak from the middle of the work, not the surface of it.
They don’t rush to sell. They invite you into a problem worth solving.
So instead of asking, “How do I explain what I do in thirty seconds?” a better question might be, “How do I help someone understand why this work exists?”
When you lead with story, curiosity replaces pressure. Dialogue replaces performance. The conversation continues long after the elevator doors open.
This shift didn’t happen overnight for me.
For years, I did what many people do. I led with credentials. Big companies. Big logos. Sales and marketing work for organizations people recognize. It worked, to a point.
But over time, I noticed a pattern.
Inside those organizations, and alongside ambitious leaders and students, the same quiet frustration kept showing up. The talent was there. The intelligence was there. The intention was there.
The execution wasn’t.
People weren’t failing because they lacked motivation. They were failing because they lacked a system. A way to translate insight into action. A way to move from knowing better to doing better.
That realization changed how I thought about my work.
It wasn’t about inspiration. It wasn’t about hype. It wasn’t about telling people to believe harder.
It was about building something practical. Something repeatable. Something that could survive outside the room where I was speaking.
That insight became Pick Yourself For Success.
Not as a slogan. Not as a brand exercise. But as a framework. An operating system designed to help individuals and institutions turn potential into disciplined action.
Today, my work looks different than it did years ago.
I partner with universities, nonprofits, and leadership programs to deliver talks, workshops, and sustained engagement models that go beyond one-off inspiration. The focus is on helping people step out of their heads and into measurable progress.
The goal isn’t applause. It’s follow-through.
When someone asks me what I do now, I don’t rush to compress it into a pitch. I explain the problem I’m trying to solve. I talk about the gap between talent and execution. I talk about systems instead of slogans.
And I watch what happens.
The right people lean in.
If you believe talent is common but follow-through is rare, then we’re already having the same conversation.
And that conversation doesn’t need an elevator.
