Anecdotally Speaking

Shawn touched on today’s story in last week’s episode, and now we get to hear it in full! It follows Fermat’s Last Theorem and the 358 years it took to solve it. The theorem holds a Guinness World Record for the longest-standing maths problem ever: https://buff.ly/3u57zL6

If this story sounds a bit familiar to you, it’s because we also heard it in 120 – How to love a maths problem: https://buff.ly/3slJLA2

But in that episode, we hear Mike Adams tell the story, and Shawn’s version includes some additional details. We hope you find an opportunity to use it!

Welcome to another episode of Anecdotally Speaking! This week, we’re celebrating the release of our new paper, The Science of Storytelling, which details what scientific studies show and what businesses need to know about the power of story. 

Anecdote Principal Rob Grundel, who led the authoring of the paper, joins Shawn and Mark to share one of his favourite stories from its six sections.

You can find the paper here: https://buff.ly/3NkLaAX

Or download a PDF version to read later here: https://buff.ly/36M5kTL

Our 2022 events calendar is now live on our website! Head to www.anecdote.com/events to see when we’re running public Storytelling for Leaders, Story-Powered Sales and Story-Powered Data programs this year. And if you’d like to attend a program to evaluate it for your organisation, email us at [email protected], and we’ll organise a free ticket for you.

Later this week, we’re releasing some exciting new content—an article exploring the science of storytelling! We’ll discuss this topic in our next two episodes of Anecdotally Speaking, but as the paper won’t be available until Thursday, today we’re replaying one of our favourite past episodes! 

In this episode, Mark shares a story about mindset. Shawn and Mark then share several other anecdotes that demonstrate how the expectation of an event can cause it to occur—the Pygmalion effect. Shawn mentions Rutger Bregman’s book, Humankind: A Hopeful History: https://buff.ly/3qleEVo

We’ll publish our paper on the science of storytelling on the Anecdote Blog (https://www.anecdote.com/blog/), and announce its release on LinkedIn, so follow us there: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anecdote-pty-ltd

Welcome to another episode of Anecdotally Speaking! This week, Mark shares a story that’s quite popular with the Anecdote team and gets a 9/10 from both of our hosts!

Cynden shared this story with the team after hearing it on Sarah Davidson’s Seize the Yay podcast. You can listen to Sarah’s episode with Richard Harris here: https://buff.ly/3qf8jLv

And you can find Craig Challen and Richard Harris’ book, Against All Odds, here: https://buff.ly/365lo31

We have just released our 2022 events calendar! If you’re interested in coming along to a Storytelling for Leaders, Story-Powered Sales or Story-Powered Data program, visit www.anecdote.com/events. If you’d like to evaluate a program for your organisation, email us at [email protected], and we’ll organise a free ticket for you.

Today is International Women’s Day (https://buff.ly/2l7t2x1), so we thought we would reshare one of our favourite stories from Anecdotally Speaking about an inspirational woman. That woman is Dr Alice Stewart, a renowned physician who found a correlation between pregnant women receiving x-rays and increases in childhood cancer fatalities.

Mark tells the story, having first heard it in Margaret Heffernan’s Ted Talk, Dare to Disagree, which you can watch here: https://buff.ly/2P0zTYd

For more stories about inspirational women, check out the following episodes: 

- 131 – Did you have a nice Grand Slam, darling?: https://buff.ly/3k1oFnM

- 130 – Superwoman with x-ray vision: https://buff.ly/3CrnFAg

- 128 – Collaboration and diversity is how you make progress: https://buff.ly/307Qkfw

- 071 – Never say Di finally escapes Cuba: https://buff.ly/3j2AVSb

- 065 – It’s just like riding a bike 1200km: https://buff.ly/2Z98Z85

- 037 – Fortran reveals Hidden Figures: https://buff.ly/2sUTWO7

Steve Jobs’ story about conflict, which we featured in 021 – Rolling stones to hidden gems, is mentioned: https://buff.ly/2tozNRh

Thank you for tuning in for another episode of Anecdotally Speaking! This week, Mark shares a small but impactful story.

Communicating important concepts is challenging, but this story does an easy job of illustrating the importance of good customer service. It occurred at a Reece showroom in Bendigo, Australia. (Reece is a plumbing and bathroom supplies business).

This week on Anecdotally Speaking, Shawn shares a space story that you can add to your story repertoire! He first heard this story in 2005, when attending a conference in Las Vegas. It follows the 2004 crash landing of the Genesis space capsule. 

Shawn mentions a YouTube video of the event, which you can find here: https://buff.ly/3uSifgV

This week, Shawn shares a story that occurred a few weeks ago in Howlong, a regional town in Australia. It documents our recent Ambulance shortage crisis, brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Shawn and Mark mention a past episode, 124 – When the stakes are sky high, and the story of Rick Rescorla, whose meticulous planning saved almost 3,000 people on 9/11: https://buff.ly/3nwgXnZ

We’d love to hear from you! You can reach out to us at any time at [email protected]. 

Trigger warning: If you don’t like descriptions of blood, this might not be the episode for you. We’ll be back with another episode next Tuesday!

The latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, has hit cinemas in Australia: https://buff.ly/32LdVEu

So this week, Mark shares a story—his first on Anecdotally Speaking for 2022—from the franchise! He mentions Becoming Bond, the documentary drama where he first heard this story: https://buff.ly/3rZuncY

Thank you for listening. We’ll be back next week!

Hello! This week on Anecdotally Speaking, Shawn shares a historical story that he came across reading The Status Game by Will Storr: https://buff.ly/3qTXtuY

It provides an example of using a pull strategy rather than a push strategy: pulling people into a solution rather than pushing it at them. 

Shawn also mentions his upcoming webinar with Tim Baker and Meghan Ede, Five Story Rich Conversations to Build a Performance Culture. For more information and to register, visit: https://buff.ly/33qbNCG