July 16, 2025
Hey there! In this blog, you’ll learn three and a half exercises to become a better storyteller than 92% of people. They actually take less than 10 minutes a day, but if you stick to them, it will completely change the way you speak.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked my subscribers, “What’s the number one blocker that stops you from telling more stories?” And the largest group said, “I don’t know what stories I can tell.” And honestly, I get it. A lot of people think that their life just isn’t interesting enough. They think that they need to have those life-changing moments, like how they climbed Mount Everest or how they survived that plane crash.
But here’s the thing—you don’t need those. In fact, those stories are often not that relatable. The better way is to share those small but relatable moments. And the good news is, you already have hundreds of those moments—moments that could become amazing stories if you know how to spot them.
And the best way to spot them is an exercise called Homework for Life by Matthew Dicks. Here’s how it works: at the end of each day, ask yourself, If I had to tell a story from today, what would it be? What’s that one moment that touched my heart?
That could be anything—a tiny win, a weird encounter, a kind gesture, a funny conversation, or really anything that made you feel something. Then just note down the date in one column, and in the other one, that story-worthy moment. That’s just one sentence about that moment.
That’s it. You can then save that moment really anywhere—like Excel, Google Docs, Evernote, Notion, a journal—it doesn’t matter. Just keep them all in one central place.
But then, once you’ve captured that moment, what do you actually do with them? That’s when you go into the next exercise.
Once you’ve spotted that moment, here’s what you do next: improvise a short story about it. Don’t write it down, don’t overthink it. Just start talking about it.
Let me show you what that could look like. Today, my story-worthy moment was getting annoyed while cleaning up the horse poop at home.
Now here’s what my improvised story could look like:
For the past two weeks, I’ve been staying at my mom’s farm in Germany. Now, she’s traveling right now, and so she asked me to take care of the animals—which I have no qualification for, by the way.
So this morning, I walked into the stables. And when I got there, I see this mess—horse poop just everywhere. And I’m thinking, seriously? Like how is this possible? I cleaned that up yesterday, and now it’s just everywhere again.
Angrily, I start cleaning it up. And with each shovel, I’m getting more and more mad. But while I’m lifting the poo into the cart, something hit me.
Wait—I’m not doing this to clean up the stable. I’m doing this for my mom. I’m doing this because I love her.
And with that, it actually started to feel okay. I didn’t feel angry about it anymore.
That’s when I realized—when you know how your task is helping someone, it actually becomes more meaningful, and also more easy.
Now, is that the most polished story that I’ve ever told? No, obviously not. But that’s not the point.
When you improvise, it’s not about getting every word right. It’s about training your brain to think in stories, to speak naturally without overpreparing, to get comfortable with the messiness.
That said, if you want to follow a simple structure to guide your stories, here’s one that I use all the time: Context, Adversity, Resolution, or C.A.R.
What does it stand for?
Context – When and where does it take place? Who’s the character?
Adversity – What’s the problem you’re facing?
Resolution – How do you overcome that adversity, and what’s the result at the end?
That’s it. Just don’t overcomplicate it.
All right. Now that you’ve spotted a moment and you’ve improvised the story based on that moment, what’s next?
When you’re just starting out, you might not know exactly what a great story looks like. You might improvise and think, Was that good? Could it be better? I don’t know. I have no idea.
That’s where AI can be incredibly helpful.
So the third exercise is to refine your story using AI, and here’s how you can do that.
First, record your improvised story using an AI tool like ChatGPT or Gemini. All of them usually have a voice feature on their desktop or mobile app. So you can just start recording while you improvise that story.
Once your story is in the tool, you can use a prompt like this:
“Hey, below you can find my story. Can you refine it to make it slightly more interesting?”
But don’t worry—the prompt is a little bit more complex. I actually shared a more detailed prompt in the free resource section of one of my videos here to guide you.
What you’ll see is that within a few seconds, you’ll get a much more polished version of your story.
But here’s now the most important part: don’t just read it—study it. Ask yourself:
What did AI change?
Is there a sentence or a detail that actually stands out?
Does it make the story much better?
Or is there something that you’d say differently to make it feel more like it’s your story?
This is about understanding your options—how can that same story just be told in a slightly different way?
Sometimes I’ll read the AI version and I think, Oh wow, this is freaking amazing. I’ve never thought of that.
Other times I look at the options and I’m thinking like, Yeah, this tweak doesn’t really sound like me.
But either way, you’re learning what works and what doesn’t. And over time, you’ll build an instinct for what great storytelling looks like.
Now let’s move to the last exercis
You might be wondering, why on earth three and a half and not just four? Well, fair question. It’s more something you do every other day or maybe even just once a week, but it’s absolutely essential.
In fact, this exercise might be the most important exercise of all of them.
So here it is: capture your stories in a story bank.
A story bank is this central place where you can capture, organize, and tag your stories.
You don’t need to add every single moment to your story bank, but just the ones that actually stand out—the ones that feel more emotional, more surprising, more something.
So what should you include in the story bank?
Here’s what I track in my story bank:
A short title
The point of the story
The theme (like creativity, resilience, leadership)
A quick summary (that usually includes a few bullets)
A simple rating of how much I like the story or how strong it is
You can save those stories anywhere that’s easy and where it doesn’t cause too much friction—again, Google Docs, Notion, Excel, Evernote. Maybe even old school, like a physical journal.
I personally use Notion because it allows me to tag, filter, and then actually search for my stories super fast.
To make it easy for you, I’ll include my Notion template in the description below. Go check it out.
Your story bank will become this library—this archive, like this gold mine of stories. And here’s the cool part: if you just capture one great story each week, you’ll have 52 solid stories by the end of the year—stories that you can use for the rest of your life to build trust, to stand out, and to inspire others.
Hey, today we talked about those daily exercises you can use to become this magnetic storyteller. But here’s the thing—practicing daily is one part of it. The other part is actually knowing what really matters in storytelling.
So if you want to learn more on how to tell powerful and unforgettable stories, check out this article where I share an approach to help you kickstart your storytelling journey.
Enjoy.
P.S. Want to become a stronger communicator?
Here are two ways I can support you:
👉 Want to tell more engaging stories? Join our next Storytelling Workshop.
👉 Want to speak with confidence and clarity? Check out our Communication Skills Training.
Both are fun, practical, and designed to help you grow fast.
Are you ready to transform your storytelling skills?
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