I Played Go-Fish in the Closet While Hiding from a Tornado

The screeching tone of the alert sounded like something straight out of a horror movie.

We all got it at the same exact time. We all checked our phones at the same exact time. And we were all confused at the same exact time.

Very confused.

That’s when the rain turned into a torrential downpour. The wind started howling at the windows. The lights flickered. The thunder roared so loud it felt like God was screaming at us from above.

“Get to the closet…now!”

What the hell was happening? I was supposed to be on a nice, relaxing vacation with my family.

Sure, I expected some rain (we were in the south, after all).

But what I didn’t expect was to be playing go-fish with my siblings and cousins, in a tight cramped closet in the guest room…

While we were hiding from a tornado that touched down just a few short miles from where we were.

Now this is going to make for a great story someday, I thought to myself.

Thankfully, we were all okay. Nothing terrible happened and we were only in hiding for about 15 minutes (you better believe we snapped the most chaotic-looking BeReal while we were in there, though).

But the instant I left that closet, I wrote that story down to save for a rainy day (a bit of a pun intended lol).

And that, my friend, is what I’ve been doing every single day for the past month.

Why?

Because whenever I feel like I’ve run out of content ideas, I just take a look back at that story bank, choose one, and boom… I have a new, fun idea I can tie into any piece of content I put out into the world.

And today, I want to share that same strategy with you so you too can have an endless bank of ideas and never run out of things to create.

Here’s what you’ll learn today:

• Creating a story bank so you never run out of ideas

• Why it works so well

• How you can use it

Let’s dive right into this one!

Creating a Story Bank So You Never Run Out of Ideas 📖

A story bank is exactly what it sounds like:

It’s a place where you keep all your short stories and events that occur each day.

The stories don’t have to be much (they don’t have to be super exciting or a plot for the next great mystery novel).

But what they do have to be is notable.

The truth is, we often think our lives are boring or repetitive. And sometimes it can definitely feel that way.

I know I’ve felt like that before.

Which is exactly why I challenged myself to find something, anything, from each day in the month of June that I can learn from.

A moment that made me smile. Something that made me think differently about my life. A bizarre and inexplainable occurrence (hiding from a tornado and playing go-fish in a bedroom closet definitely takes the cake).

The point is, creating content can be hard – especially when it feels like you have nothing to write about.

But if you’re a fellow creator like myself, keeping a story bank is one of the best ways to never run out of inspiration for your content.

Why It Works So Well 🤔 

Look, I didn’t come up with this strategy. In fact, it’s something many other creators swear by.

Why?

Plain and simple: It works.

And it works well.

Because we’ve all been there. Staring at a blank page, mind empty, at a loss for what to share with your audience.

But when you keep a story bank? Man oh man, those days are in the past.

You have an endless list of ideas to look back at whenever you’re feeling stuck.

It’s hard to run out of content ideas when you have a bank of all your life’s stories. When you can easily access and look back at them anytime for endless inspiration.

You can take one story or idea and go in a certain direction with it. You can take another story or idea and go in a completely different direction with it.

Blogs, tweets, TikTok videos, LinkedIn posts… you name it.

It works so well because you don’t have to go chasing or searching for ideas to write about.

You already have them.

How to Use It 📝 

Now, this one’s pretty easy.

Open the Notes app on your phone (or your favorite place to store ideas).

Then create a table. On the left side, add today’s date and a short one or two sentence moment that was memorable. It can be big or small, doesn’t matter.

Then on the right side of the table, add a one or two sentence lesson that you took away from the story.

Here’s an example from that fateful night:

Do this every day and pretty soon you’ll have an entire week’s, month’s and year’s worth of stories to look back at for inspiration.

Now whenever it’s time to create a piece of content, just pick a story, include it in your content (just like I did at the beginning of this email), and share the lesson with your audience.

Bada bing bada boom.

You now have an unlimited source of inspiration for creating great content.

That’s all for this week.

Cheers,

Connor “there’s inspiration all around you” Flynn

This Week’s Hits 🤙🏼

I recently quit my 9-5 job to go all in on my freelance business. I don’t know why, but I was terrified to post this thread earlier this week breaking down exactly how I did it. Check it out below to learn about my experience so far:

The best storytellers use the same process every time. My friend Jay broke down the formula to telling great stories (he also mentions a story bank). Check it out below:

I’m nearly finished with James Patterson’s mystery thriller The Coast to Coast Murders. Highly recommend. Seriously, the guy is a genius when it comes to writing and storytelling. Check it out here.

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