"Make your life a story worth telling." - Adam Braun

Today I wanted to share an inspirational quote from one of my absolute favorite books, “The Promise of a Pencil” by Adam Braun. In this book, Adam details how he took a small observation he had while traveling and turned it into the international education non-profit Pencils of Promise. One of his final pieces of advice in the book is today’s quote “Make your life a story worth telling.” 

Basically, when you look back at the way you spend your time, do you feel like you did anything meaningful, significant, noteworthy, or interesting? Did you make progress serving notable causes? Did you create something extraordinary? And did you leave people and things better along the way? There is so much to do these days, and so much being asked of you, so using this lens helps you to filter out the junk and focus on the things that matter for you and others.  

If you think about it, what makes up a good story? It’s the challenges you overcame, the risks you took, and the experiences you cherish. It’s the way that you moved forward during high-stakes moments to make progress on something that is meaningful. I call it Do It For The Story, I gave a TedX Talk about it, but this quote carries a similar sentiment. In order to live you need to put yourself in moments where you feel alive, and win or lose, when you make it through you’ll have more of a story to tell. “Make your life a story worth telling.”