When people come to our storytelling training, they often say they don’t have any stories to tell. Of course, we know they do. They just need help spotting them. But everyone would have more stories at their fingertips if they simply took a moment to notice their own experiences.

I was in Malaysia last week, and Bharat Avalani (in my photo), our business partner there, took me on a drive to Melaka, a small World Heritage listed city known for its colonial past, street art, and lively riverfront.

I had plenty of experiences that day, but without paying attention, I probably would have remembered only one or two when telling the story later.

So I did something simple, something I encourage you to do too. On the drive home, I opened Notes on my phone and wrote down everything I could remember from the day. Here’s the unedited list:

• Cendol. Pronounced “chen do” ice desert – palm sugar
• The Chinese burn effigies of what they want in the afterlife.
• Taiwan is also improving its organ donation system using the same idea.
• Portuguese church. The Dutch destroyed everything Portuguese.
• Francis Xavier spent 9 months dead in Maleka. He couldn’t be moved because of the poor weather. Laid to rest in Goa.
• Halal side of the river.
• Husky cafe. 16 dogs to pat.
• Vegetarian Laksa
• Met Geeta, Raju, Pooja and Amit
• Maria manages the Rosa hotel. Great host.
• John was our guide, an ex-school principal.
• Visited a Sikh temple. Ate food, washed dishes.
• The Seiko clock tower.

As you can see, there are no full stories in the list. It’s just enough to spark a memory, and from there I can decide which moments are worth shaping into stories.

This noticing activity is something I do a lot, especially when I have a special day out. It keeps those experiences alive and gives me a steady stream of stories to draw from later.

One story came from Bharat. He told me about a campaign in Taiwan that tackled the cultural belief that the body must stay whole after death, which had made organ donation difficult. The solution drew on a long tradition of burning paper offerings for the afterlife. A creative team designed paper replicas of human organs that people could burn in temples, symbolically keeping their bodies intact while allowing them to donate their real organs.

The campaign worked. Organ donation registrations rose by almost 28 percent during the exhibition period, and social media discussion about organ donation jumped by more than 400 percent. Transplants in Taiwan have increased by about 30 percent compared with a decade ago. It is a clever way to honour tradition while saving lives and a reminder that small creative shifts can unlock big change.

There’s another bonus to this habit of noticing. We appreciate our experiences more once we tell a story about them. Sheenagh and I were celebrating our 37th wedding anniversary this week, reminiscing about the meals we’ve shared over the years. The only ones we could recall were the ones with a story behind them.

One of our memorable meals came when we had just moved to Melbourne (20+ years ago). Our anniversary always falls near Melbourne Cup day. So without making a reservation I took Sheenagh down to the Southbank Promenade, and do you think we could find a table? Not a chance. We ended up having dinner in a food hall at the casino. Fancy!

What you can recall shapes how you think, feel, and see yourself.

And noticing makes for a richer, more interesting you.

As Daniel Kahneman said, “We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences.”