What is an anecdote?
An anecdote is a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.
Why should you care about anecdotes?
People love to read stories.
Stories are a great way to deliver value to your readers.
Stories that come from your personal experiences.
Be it at work or in any other walk of life.
It’s like the cherry on the cake.
If you plan to establish thought leadership or create a community;
Knowing how to write great anecdotes, shall come really handy.
How to write anecdotes?
The other day I came across a wonderful set of action pointers to write anecdotes.
As you all know, Happiness for me is to share every interesting thing I learn!
So here I am 🙂
I got the below template from one of the webinars.
The webinar was presented by Adi Suja from Growthetics.
| Action Pointers | Example 1 | Example 2 |
| Tell me about a time when you…… | Had a major life change (moving to a new city, quitting job, starting new business) | Got rid of a bad habit (alcohol, etc.) |
| Short and Quick Summary | I started a new job and it was soul crushing | I kicked a banana addiction |
| Background Info & 2-3 Sentence Elaboration | I started a new job as a Skydiving Instructor, but quickly realized that I was afraid of heights and didn’t like doing this line of work. I quit after a few days and felt a lot better. | I had a bad habit of binge-eating bananas. I would eat seven dozen bananas in a day compulsively, then felt sick afterwards. I quit though and felt amazing afterwards. |
| What was the moment of highest drama? | When I had to write out my resignation letter after only 2 hours of employment. | When I decided to throw out over $2000 worth of bananas in my garage. |
| How did it make you feel? | I felt miserable. | I felt trapped. |
| How did it make others feel? | My boss was upset at first , but we’re still friends now. | My friends said that I was transformed into a new man after I kicked the addiction. |
| What did this make you realize? | I realized that you shouldn’t work a job that you don’t enjoy. | I realized that banana addiction is real and that life was a lot better after I stopped the addiction. |
| What was the lesson learned? | Don’t work a job that you hate. | Addiction will ruin you. |
Well, as you must have guessed already.
The purpose of the above stories is just to make you laugh 🙂
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Here comes my turn to write a story based on the pointers as a learning exercise!
I am attempting to write a personal story.
Tell me about a time when you……
When I saw my son reading the Harry Potter book during his online schooling.
Short and Quick Summary
I felt shocked to see my son not paying attention in the class.
And I decided to help him keep the distractions away.
Background Info & 2-3 Sentence Elaboration
There are 80 students with one teacher in a class over a zoom video call.
The teacher cannot keep an eye on all the students, unlike real classrooms.
Besides, the engagement in class should not be driven by fear of getting caught by the teacher.
What was the moment of highest drama?
When I asked my son, “Champ, Is it right to get distracted during the class?”
He answered, “Mamma, I know it’s not right, but I can’t help it!”
How did it make you feel?
I felt so touched.
I felt that his struggle is the same as mine.
It’s the same as myself getting tempted to check a Whatsapp message or a Facebook notification during work hours.
Three ideas crossed my mind to solve this distraction problem.
- To check with fellow parents;
- If they are facing the same issue.
- And if they’ve figured out a way to fix it.
- To seek guidance from experts.
- To check myself, How do I fight distractions?
How did it make others feel?
A few other parents were also facing the same issue.
Most of them had a common suggestion.
Remove all the distractions from the device child uses for schooling.
Be it games, non-school books, kids messenger, etc.
I thought to seek help from my go-to person for any such issues.
Mr. Ajay Tyagi, Child Psychology Specialist.
Here is his words of gold:
As parents, we always declare very loudly about the study time.
Have you ever declared about …..
Fun time. Play time. Relax time. Favorite book reading time. Teasing sibling time.
Never na?
Just try and see the magic.
Even when you allow them some play time.
Check your attitute, how you say it?
“Ok you can play now”
As if you are doing your kids a favor.
Children do not pick the words.
But the music played along with it.
As far as checking myself on the distractions part is concerned.
I became more aware of myself and kept the temptations away.
I am a firm believer of practice what you preach.
What did this make you realize?
After receiving the advice.
Here is what I did –
On the following weekend.
I announced all the playtime stuff with great happiness and enthusiasm.
Gave my son more hugs than usual.
We played UNO and baked cookies together.
He read the Harry Potter book for hours.
He played his favorite game on mobile to his content.
I did not ask him to study at all for Sat-Sun.
All of us had a very happy weekend.
On Sunday night, I just reminded him not to get distracted in classes Monday onwards.
Believe it or not. It worked wonders.
It’s been 4 days.
There has not been a single distraction episode 🙂
What was the lesson learned?
Now, I shall always remember.
Kids do not pick words but the music played along with those words.
Now is the time to test the appeal of this story
First test:
Teacher’s feedback. Requesting Adi Suja from Growthetics to see if I understood the lesson well or not.
Second test:
If you read the whole story and liked it, please type a smiley in the comments at the end of this article.
Third test:
I am going to share this story on my parenting blog.
Observe, how people react to it.
And update this post with their reactions.
What’s your take?
Would you like to write an anecdote using these pointers?
Would you share this post with your content writers to write stories for your business?
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