The Strange Habit of Good Storytellers

For the longest time, I’ve always thought that storytelling begins at the desk.

A blank page.

A blinking cursor.

A cup of tea that turns cold while I search my head for “the right idea”.

But after spending enough time in the storytelling realm, I’ve noticed something… strange.

Good storytellers don’t start telling stories when they write.

They start long before that.

They start when walking home in the afternoon heat.

When waiting for their coffee.

When standing in line at the grocery store with a basket full of fruits and home cleaners.

They start storytelling when doing the most boring things in life.

Because the strange habit of good storytellers is:

They observe.

They try to notice something that everyone else misses.

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Let’s go through a scenario.

A storyteller is inside a supermarket.

Nothing special is happening.

Just white lights and white noise from the refrigerators.

A woman stands in front of the body wash shelf.

She stares at it longer than necessary.

And the storyteller would notice the way she sighs before grabbing the cheapest one.

That moment might become a sentence one day.

‘She stood in front of the body wash shelf like someone choosing between self love and paying rent.’

Most people would call that moment mundane.

A storyteller calls it material.

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So, good storytellers are collectors.

Not of big achievements.

Of small, human details.

The way someone rereads their own text message three times before sending it.

The way a yoga student secretly checks whether everyone else can hold the pose longer.

The way a business owner refreshes their inbox ten times after sending a proposal.

These moments are small.

Almost invisible.

But they carry something powerful:

Recognition.

When someone reads that detail later, they think,

“Wait… I do that too.”

And suddenly the story feels personal.

And when a story feels personal, it becomes good.

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This is why storytelling cannot begin at the laptop.

Because by the time someone sits down to write, the real work should already be done.

The noticing. The collecting. The insane curiosity about ordinary life.

Writing is simply the act of arranging what you’ve already gathered.

But the real storytelling happens earlier.

While you are living.

This is also why good storytellers rarely panic about “running out of ideas.”

Because they know that life produces endless story materials.

Most just fail to see it.

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So, if you want to strengthen your storytelling, you don’t always need to write more.

You need to notice more.

Notice how a fitness coach eating cake after teaching a discipline class.

How a branding expert struggling to write their own bio.

How a meditation teacher checking Instagram notifications every five minutes.

These moments are not embarrassing.

They are human.

And human is where stories live.

Because sometimes, what makes you a good storyteller isn’t always how good you tell your story.

It’s noticing what was worth telling in the first place.

If you want to learn who to observe, where to observe, and what to observe, so you can tell better stories in your marketing, then our Storytelling Marketing Course is for you.

You’ll learn the complete framework on how to sell authentically by telling your story.

Including how to cultivate a beautiful habit of observing tiny stories in everyday lives.

If this pique your interest, click here.

And we’ll be inside, welcoming you on your journey to cultivate a way of marketing that not only works, but feel beautiful to you.