Jamie Foxx – the Oscar-winning actor, shared an interesting anecdote about his rise to fame and the impact on his stand-up routine. Once he got the big dough in the mid-90s, he started testing out experiences from his new rich life. He bombed. The audience couldn’t relate to the complaining about Range Rover Sports Car and its lack of mileage.
This is a fundamental human lesson – unless you suffer or enjoy an outcome or an outcome like what a protagonist is experiencing, you are unlikely to care about the hero. This is especially true while applying to a college application – graduate, post-graduate, or any program where an essay is mandatory. The reviewer, regardless of their socioeconomic background, must connect with the roadblocks and setbacks that you cite in the essay.
Age: A big mental block to recognizing the struggle is age. We don’t vividly remember the angst of our teenage years. The memory fades away, or we block them out as we age. New interesting milestones erase the old traumatic memories. The reviewer in their late 20s or early 30s and some in their 40s had enough heartbreaks to care about teenage struggles or struggles in their early 20s. But all of them recognize the emotion of rejection, loneliness, worthlessness, and a feeling of being lost. Your narrative should convey them in as few words as possible. Don’t paint an elaborate picture but use enough vivid imagery to evoke these negative emotions. Once the reviewer feels the emotion, memories of trauma will be brought to their active memory. They will connect with you.
Blessed but..
It is extremely tough for a politician with millions in assets and the power to legislate to connect with the average person making less than $40,000. But consistently, they evoke strong emotion among the voters – some wearing the attire that they wear, kissing their baby, shaking hands, trying the local cuisines, repeating the biases and prejudices of the voters, and some even using slight variation in accents and connotation to subconsciously convey that “I am just like you.” If the voters are multilingual, you will definitely see the politician embarrassingly try out the local slang or customary greeting.
I remember a client – a wealthy person trying to create a narrative on the biggest challenge he faced in his life for a college application. The first draft read like a storyline from the Crawley family in Downton abbey. No way the reviewer, who is likely coming from a middle-income or upper-middle-income family, is going to connect with the struggles of a wealthy person.
I began exploring other aspects of his life where he struggled. Apart from the legacy of his father’s business, he struggled with his sexuality. His father didn’t accept who he was. There was a drift that pushed him to work on his own in a completely different industry. He started from the ground up, managing complex schedules and logistics of a small production.
Anyone who reads his story will connect with the universal desire to break away from the shadows of a parent and be one’s own person.
Anyone will connect with the discrimination he faced while revealing his sexual orientation to conservative parents.
If you are blessed, find struggles that are universal.
If you need help with brainstorming narratives, editing or reviewing admission essays, reach out to me, Atul Jose, through LinkedIn