Who am I?

To one person, I am a medical professional. To another, I am a writer. Someone listening to me speak encounters the public speaker; someone working alongside me across cultures encounters another aspect of my life. I am a father, a friend, a customer, and a member of a faith community. These descriptions belong to the same person, although nobody meeting me in one of these settings necessarily sees everything the others see.

Even this list is too simple. I may be different with one child from how I am with another. With one customer, I might be funny; with another, serious. The role remains the same, but the encounter changes. The person in front of me matters.

This is where the question of persona becomes interesting. If I describe myself only by my roles, I miss the particular relationships through which I live them. If I describe every change in manner as a separate self, I may create distinctions that explain very little. We need a way to acknowledge the variety without losing sight of the person whose conduct connects these encounters.

The central question of this book is how we can express different facets of ourselves while remaining accountable for what we do. It begins with something ordinary: the adjustment of voice, attention, humor, authority, or disclosure when we meet another person. It follows these adjustments into questions about privacy, self-knowledge, the person we hope to become, and the influence other people exert over that development.