If you dont have stories to tell...

When I tell people, “If you dont have stories to tell, then you dont have stories to tell ",I’m not trying to be clever, I’m being literal.

I say this often in my strategic storytelling workshops.

Here’s what I mean: Everyone has stories to tell. Simply being alive is proof of that. But if you don’t recognise your own experiences, the moments, conversations, challenges, and small wins, as stories worth telling, they’ll never be available to you.

It’s not that the stories don’t exist. It’s that you’re not collecting them. Stories don’t just land on your lap, fully formed and ready to share.You have to find them, name them, and shape them with purpose.

And then comes that lightbulb moment when you realise your everyday experiences, no matter how small, are actually story gold.

So where do you start?

Be curious. Notice the stories you keep telling.

Harvest them. Write down a title or a line that helps you remember.

Practice them. Share, tweak, repeat.

I keep a list called Stories Colin Tells. Sometimes I forget a few, until I read the title and the memory floods back, ready to serve a moment, illustrate a point, or open a connection.

You don’t need hundreds of stories. A handful of your best ones can become your storytelling superpower.

One of mine is called “The Dolphin Audience." It’s a fun reminder to always shape your story for your listeners, because that’s how you make them care.

Another one of my favourite is called My Yellow Bus Moment. It's a near-death story that helped shift my perspective and mood from gloomy to 'thank God im alive!' in an instant.

The best part is that you already know these stories: they happend to you! They already have had an emotional imprint on your nervous system, and because you can feel them, your audience will feel them too.

But you first need to recognie your life as a an overflowing well of unpolished story gems. Because if you don’t have stories to tell, you don’t have stories to tell.

I share more about this in my keynote, The Heart of the Story is the Art of the Story.

DM me if you’d like to bring it to your team or event.

#moveyourthinking #storytelling