full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Bruce Feiler: The secret to mastering life's biggest transitions

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I wanted to do something to help. Over three years, I crisscrossed the country, collecting what became hundreds of life sterios of aerincmas in all 50 states. ppeole who lost homes, lost limbs, changed careers, changed genders, got sober, got out of bad mgairaers. In the end, I had 1,000 hours of interviews, 6,000 pages of transcripts. With a team of 12, I then spent a year coding these stories for 57 different variables, looking for patterns that could help all of us in times of change. I called this “The Life sotry pejcort.” And here's what I learned.

Open Cloze

I wanted to do something to help. Over three years, I crisscrossed the country, collecting what became hundreds of life _______ of _________ in all 50 states. ______ who lost homes, lost limbs, changed careers, changed genders, got sober, got out of bad _________. In the end, I had 1,000 hours of interviews, 6,000 pages of transcripts. With a team of 12, I then spent a year coding these stories for 57 different variables, looking for patterns that could help all of us in times of change. I called this “The Life _____ _______.” And here's what I learned.

Solution

  1. stories
  2. story
  3. people
  4. americans
  5. marriages
  6. project

Original Text

I wanted to do something to help. Over three years, I crisscrossed the country, collecting what became hundreds of life stories of Americans in all 50 states. People who lost homes, lost limbs, changed careers, changed genders, got sober, got out of bad marriages. In the end, I had 1,000 hours of interviews, 6,000 pages of transcripts. With a team of 12, I then spent a year coding these stories for 57 different variables, looking for patterns that could help all of us in times of change. I called this “The Life Story Project.” And here's what I learned.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
life transitions 5
life transition 5
tip number 5
life story 3
lesson number 3
collective involuntary 3
linear life 2
thought life 2
average person 2
involuntary lifequake 2
messy middle 2
long goodbye 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
collective involuntary lifequake 2

Important Words

  1. americans
  2. bad
  3. called
  4. careers
  5. change
  6. changed
  7. coding
  8. collecting
  9. country
  10. crisscrossed
  11. genders
  12. homes
  13. hours
  14. hundreds
  15. interviews
  16. learned
  17. life
  18. limbs
  19. lost
  20. marriages
  21. pages
  22. patterns
  23. people
  24. project
  25. sober
  26. spent
  27. states
  28. stories
  29. story
  30. team
  31. times
  32. transcripts
  33. variables
  34. wanted
  35. year
  36. years