WEBVTT - Strengthen the story

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's tip is to strengthen your story. As you are

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<v Speaker 1>figuring out how to talk about yourself and your next moves,

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<v Speaker 1>you can choose how to spend your time to create

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<v Speaker 1>a coherent narrative. Today's topic came to mind because I've

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<v Speaker 1>been spending a lot of time looking into college admissions.

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<v Speaker 1>I have a handful of teenagers, and as everyone keeps hearing,

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<v Speaker 1>college admissions are more competitive today than ever before. Lots

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<v Speaker 1>of kids have good grades and good SAT scores, So

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<v Speaker 1>what makes you stand out?

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<v Speaker 2>Enter the narrative. College counselors advise young people to construct

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<v Speaker 2>a story about the great things they've been doing that

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<v Speaker 2>make them unique. And then, if you are doing this

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<v Speaker 2>before your senior year, you can add activities or projects

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<v Speaker 2>to the mix that make this narrative more cohesive. So,

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<v Speaker 2>for instance, if you've spend a lot of time playing

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<v Speaker 2>on your school's soccer team, but you're not getting recruited

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<v Speaker 2>for this, you could spend your summer volunteering at a

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<v Speaker 2>youth soccer camp and start a podcast devoted to high

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<v Speaker 2>school soccer. Now the admissions committee can start referring to

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<v Speaker 2>you as the recreational soccer fan, which is a more

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<v Speaker 2>interesting hook. If you have been doing a lot of

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<v Speaker 2>art in high school, maybe you choose one format to

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<v Speaker 2>make yours. Let's say it's mosaics, and stage some project

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<v Speaker 2>that makes you stand out. Perhaps you do a mosaic

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<v Speaker 2>about each zip code that sends kids to your high school,

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<v Speaker 2>and you display this project at the local library. You

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<v Speaker 2>get it now. Of course, all this can inspire some

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<v Speaker 2>eye rolling. How many seventeen year old kids actually think

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<v Speaker 2>this way? They generally don't. It's their parents or the

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<v Speaker 2>college counselors they're paying for advice who help come up

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<v Speaker 2>with all this. But be that as it may. This

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<v Speaker 2>is a useful life skill because it turns out that

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<v Speaker 2>people are going to be seeking stories that make sense

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<v Speaker 2>for your entire life. Being able to identify a narrative

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<v Speaker 2>and then strengthen it can make it seem like whatever

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<v Speaker 2>you'd like to be your next step seems like the

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<v Speaker 2>natural next step. So, for instance, if you're changing careers

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<v Speaker 2>from accounting to teaching, that is awesome. Your math skills

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<v Speaker 2>will be in demand. But as you are applying to

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<v Speaker 2>teacher certificate programs. People are going to want to know

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<v Speaker 2>why you are doing this. If you've taught a night

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<v Speaker 2>class in financial literacy at your church or at a

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<v Speaker 2>local community center, you can note that you enjoyed that

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<v Speaker 2>experience and decided that teaching was what you wanted to

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<v Speaker 2>do from now on. That story makes a lot more sense.

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<v Speaker 2>People running for office need to do this too. You

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<v Speaker 2>often hear that someone has a great story. Some of

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<v Speaker 2>this you can't control, like your family background, but ambitious

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<v Speaker 2>would be politicians think about their early jobs and volunteering

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<v Speaker 2>gigs with this in mind. It generally doesn't work to

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<v Speaker 2>just say, well, you know, I worked in this congressman's

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<v Speaker 2>office and figured I could do it too. You need

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<v Speaker 2>a story about growing up in the town and seeing

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<v Speaker 2>your family's business struggle to do X because of a

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<v Speaker 2>certain policy, and you spent why time working on it,

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<v Speaker 2>and now you're running for office to change it. That

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<v Speaker 2>story makes sense. Every time I write a book, people

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<v Speaker 2>ask me why I wrote the book, and again they

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<v Speaker 2>want an origin story. Some of my competition will come

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<v Speaker 2>up with a story of their hitting rock bottom and

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<v Speaker 2>life craziness, and then into time management or productivity to

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<v Speaker 2>pull themselves up from the muck. I will freely report

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<v Speaker 2>that my life is not that interesting. But for every

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<v Speaker 2>book I do dutifully construct some moment or situation where

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<v Speaker 2>the book idea came to me, even if that was

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<v Speaker 2>the culmination of a year of thinking about it. In

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<v Speaker 2>any case, think about how you'd like to tell your story.

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<v Speaker 2>Why are you doing the job you are doing. What

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<v Speaker 2>would you like to be doing in the future. What

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<v Speaker 2>could you do to strengthen the story so that this

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<v Speaker 2>next step makes sense. You can think about projects you

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<v Speaker 2>could do, volunteering, gigs, you could take on, conferences you

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<v Speaker 2>could attend, articles you could publish, and so on that

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<v Speaker 2>would make this seem like a coherent narrative On some level.

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<v Speaker 2>All of this is a little silly. Life doesn't really

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<v Speaker 2>work like this in a perfect story, but the human

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<v Speaker 2>brain likes stories best to deal with this reality. In

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<v Speaker 2>the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's

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<v Speaker 2>to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening

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<v Speaker 2>to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,

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<v Speaker 2>you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

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<v Speaker 2>Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts

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