Elevator-pitch exercises induce felt self-estrangement in students

Evidence

One, an exile from the business school, shared that one of his first assignments had been to develop a thirty-second elevator pitch for himself. As he distilled himself down to his most marketable qualities, he told his classmates, “I felt my soul leave my body.” They all seemed to know how he felt—these were the early days of pandemic Zoom classes, and they filled their little boxes with heart emojis. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 181

Categorization

• CANDY: The ‘soul leave my body’ line over a 30-second pitch is vivid, shareable, and darkly funny.