This week, I Zoomed with the head of marketing at an insurance company in New York. At one point, he talked about crafting brand stories and how hard it was for his team to do it. I asked if they could switch from crafting stories to finding them. “Huh! Hmmm, good idea,” he said.

Finding stories is my default mode for business storytelling. In any organisation, there are more stories than you will ever need to launch a product, embed a strategy, or entice a customer—you just have to find them.

Bill Murray once said, “You have to hear stories and you have to live stories. You have to have a bunch of experiences and be able to say, ‘Here’s something that happened to me yesterday.’ And if you can make people laugh by telling them what happened to you, then you are telling the story well.”

Bill offers us a guide to finding stories: “You have to hear stories and you have to live stories.”

Let’s set aside how to hear stories for now and focus on living stories—having story-worthy experiences.

First, these experiences can be small. I opened with a small experience. Even minor events can carry significant meaning when shared in the right context.

But let’s say we want to increase the chances of having story-worthy experiences. What would you do?

I’m off to Portugal next week to walk the Camino. Here’s my plan for gathering more stories, with some examples from my and my family’s travels.

Say yes, even if it’s something I wouldn’t normally do. I remember being in Kuala Lumpur when a taxi pulled up beside me. The driver said, “Do you want to see some fire walking?” I said yes, and now I have a fun story to tell.

Do the harder thing rather than the easy thing. Great bonds form when you achieve something difficult together, and those moments are often full of stories. I remember climbing Pigeon House Mountain with Kathryn and Brent in the early ’80s. We climbed the chain ladder at the top and returned in the dark, without food and with our kids in backpacks. The bond was sealed. Kathryn is walking with us in Portugal 40 years later. Sadly, Brent died of cancer in his 30s. He’s sorely missed.

Embrace the unplanned and the chaotic. Things go wrong. As Douglas Adams advised, Don’t Panic. Instead, start noticing. Whatever happens will make a great story. Mitch, my daughter’s boyfriend, was in Italy last month. They tried to pick up their hire car but didn’t have an international driver’s licence. So Mitch went to the hire place next door, where their only available car was a new Maserati. Oh well, they had to spend four days driving up the coast of Italy in the Trident.

Meet new people and ask story-eliciting questions. We love camping with our friends Wendy and Michael. Wendy enjoys talking to new people, and within the time it takes to say, “Pull up a chair,” she has a great conversation going. Wendy is curious about the world and loves people from all walks of life. You might ask, “What is a story-eliciting question?” Well, it’s any question that encourages people to recount an experience. Some favourites include: “So what happened?” or “When did you meet/get into that/do it last?” or “What’s an example?”

You might think, “Well, that’s all fine for a holiday. But how does this work in a business setting?”

The same advice applies.

Say yes to new assignments, jump on new projects, and volunteer for opportunities.
Don’t avoid tough jobs. Do them with others, and together, you’ll create stories and strong bonds.

Things won’t go to plan. Revel in it while you problem-solve your way through.
And be curious—hear people’s stories. You’ll learn so much more about them and the world.

As these stories happen, get into the habit of jotting them down while they’re fresh in your mind. Stories are slippery things. Without a system, they only resurface when triggered by a situation.

Finding stories is the start of your storytelling superpower. Take Bill Murray’s advice: “Be able to say, ‘Here’s something that happened to me yesterday.’ And if you can make people laugh [or evoke any emotion] by telling them what happened, then you are telling the story well.”