It’s a really valuable thing to have a lot of stories you can practice and hold in reserve, so you don’t have to worry about whether you’ll run out of things to say when you’re talking to people.

A great exercise that Tynan has is to make an alphabetical list of your stories — one for the letter A (“Alask motorcycle trip”), one for the letter B (“Bob your high school track coach”), all the way to Z.

It’s a good way to force yourself to think of 26 stories — you do have them! — but it’s also a good way to recall them when you need them.

If you can’t think of 26 stories, keep at it. Here are some prompts to help you think of them:

  • What are some of the scariest moments of your life?
  • What were some of the most joyful moments?
  • What were some of the biggest surprises?
  • What are you most proud of? When did you try hard and succeed?
  • When did you try hard and fail, but learn something?
  • What cool stories can you tell about your friends and family that make them look good?
  • What’s most important to you? Can you think of a story about those things?
  • What’s the most daring thing you’ve done? The most funny? The most embarrassing?
  • When did you lose something really important to you?