“I make things” is a better identity than any job title, because no one can lay you off from it.

A job title is granted by someone else and can be taken back, which means building your sense of yourself on it puts that sense in another party’s hands. A description of what you do, rather than where you do it, survives changes of employer, industry and luck. It rests on an activity you control.

Answer the next question about your work with what you actually make. Notice how it changes the conversation, and notice how much steadier the ground feels when nobody can revoke it.