Don’t Try to Tell It All: How to Choose the Right Topic for Your First Chapter

You sit down to tell your story. The interviewer asks, “Where would you like to begin?”
And suddenly, the floodgates open.

“My childhood.”
“My career.”
“Family life.”

These starting points are natural. They make sense. We all think of our lives in big, sweeping categories. Childhood. Marriage. Work. Family. Retirement.

But here’s the problem: those buckets are too big. They cover decades. And when you try to fit decades into one chapter, what happens? You end up racing through—skimming the surface, touching a little bit here, a little bit there. The result reads more like a rushed résumé than a story your family will savor.

Why Broad Topics Don’t Work

Think of it this way. If you try to write a chapter called My Childhood, you’re attempting to capture everything from your earliest memory until the day you left home. That might be 18 years of life crammed into just 1,000 words. Inevitably, details get lost. Instead of vivid stories—your first crush, the disastrous camping trip, the summer you swam until your skin wrinkled—you’ll end up with something flat and hurried.

The same goes for My Career. Imagine trying to capture forty years of work in a single chapter. You’d have to leapfrog from job to job, leaving behind the colorful stories—the boss who gave you your big break, the day you nearly quit, the unlikely coworker who became a lifelong friend.

And Family Life? That’s everyone you’ve ever loved, every argument, every dinner table, every holiday—boiled down into a few pages. It becomes vague. General. Forgettable.

Your story deserves better.

The Secret: Get Specific

The way to bring your life to life isn’t to go broad—it’s to go narrow. Pick a season, a place, or a turning point. Go deep instead of wide.

Instead of My Childhood, try:

• “The summer my parents let me roam the neighborhood on my bike.”

• “Fifth grade, when I discovered the piano and drove my family crazy practicing.”

• “Moving from the city to the country when I was nine.”

Instead of My Career, try:

• “The first year out of college—what I thought I knew versus what I learned.”

• “The five years I spent building a business out of my garage.”

• “The one month I almost gave it all up.”

Instead of Family Life, try:

• “Christmases at Grandma’s house, with her stubborn rules and famous pies.”

• “The year my brother and I stopped fighting and started becoming friends.”

• “Our move to California—how it changed the rhythm of our family forever.”

See the difference? Suddenly, you’re not telling a résumé. You’re telling a story. Characters come alive. Places take shape. The details sparkle.

Why Narrowing Down Works

A good chapter doesn’t need to cover everything. It needs to capture something real. When you buy your first chapter, we always include a short call to help you choose your topic and set you up for success.

When you choose a chapter like The summer I worked at the diner, you can paint it vividly. The grease that clung to your clothes. The sound of plates clattering. The sharp-eyed manager who never let you slack. By the end of that chapter, your family feels like they were there with you—sweating over the grill, pocketing tips, laughing with the regulars.

That single patch tells them more about who you are than a broad overview ever could.

The Magic Question

So how do you find the right focus? Ask yourself this:

“If I had to pick one season, place, or turning point, what stands out most?”

It might be the year you lived abroad. The summer you met your spouse. The weeks after your first child was born. Or maybe it’s not a time at all, but a theme that naturally narrows itself—the cars I loved and lost, or the kitchens where I learned to cook.

Whatever it is, lean into it. Don’t be afraid to go small. Because when you do, the story gets bigger in all the ways that matter.

How Living Legend Helps

Your grandkids won’t remember the categories. They’ll remember the bike rides, the pie crusts, the grease-stained aprons. They’ll remember you.

And here’s the beauty of starting small: you don’t have to capture everything at once. With Living Legend, each chapter stands on its own. You can begin with that one diner summer, that one holiday season, how you met your spouse.

And then, when you’re ready, you add another. And another. Over time, you’ll see your life take shape as a series of chapters—each vivid, each true, each one a story your family will cherish.

Let’s get started.

Buy your first chapter today. One hour of conversation. One polished story. A legacy your family will hold forever.

When you purchase your first chapter, we always include a short call to help you choose your topic and set you up for success.