Expressions used in Everyday Spoken English in Social and Professional contexts
Sometimes in English, we refer to our different personalities or roles in life as ‘hats’, for example: If you are a person who is a teacher, a parent and also someone who likes extreme sports you might be about to walk into a room where your children are arguing and say to your friend ‘time to put my parent hat on now’. Likewise, you might be in a situation where you are considering approaches or opinions from different points of views “If I put my teacher hat on, this doesn’t seem like a sensible idea, but as someone who loves extreme sports I say we go for it!” Someone who ‘wears more than one hat’ therefore, is a person who has a number of different distinct roles or responsibilities that they move to and from at different times depending on what is required of them. This is a useful expression in both social and professional contexts.