Some people think their lives have no stories. I disagree! No one else has lived our life exactly as we have. Like our fingerprints, our stories are one-of-a-kind and deserve to be told. They inspire others, teach lessons, and contribute to our family legacies.

We can share stories informally through conversations, emails, or letters. In group settings, I love asking people to share something others might not know about them. That’s when we discover who went skydiving, worked at Disneyland, or came from a family of 15 children. I share that I won as a contestant on The Price is Right in 1975 or was a background actor in the 2009 Star Trek movie. While these sound glamorous, I have a lifetime of ordinary details that collectively tell my unique story. And so do you!

How do we share our stories? With today’s technology, we don’t need to be great filmmakers or writers. Simple video cameras, digital cameras, webcams, poems, vignettes, essays—even scribbled notes—all work.

I took a writing class to help tell my story about living at the mobile home park in Crystal Cove State Park before we had to leave in 2006. Filtering every assignment through that theme created an engaging storytelling style that was a joy to write and, hopefully, to read.

The key is believing our stories are worth telling. You’ve heard my opinion—and I’m here to cheer you on and say: please tell your stories!