# Part 1: Christian O'Connell on the habit that means he never runs out of stories Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-work-960132/part-1-christian-o-connell-on-the-habit-that-means-he-never-runs-out-of-stories Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-work-960132/part-1-christian-o-connell-on-the-habit-that-means-he-never-runs-out-of-stories.md Podcast: [How I Work](https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-work-960132) Published: 2026-07-22T20:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://omny.fm/shows/how-i-work/hiw-christian-oconnell-pt-1-v2 Audio file: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/190bd54e-82e6-43fb-8f6a-af46001792de/4e7aea68-345d-458b-9dcf-b481003c93f1/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=71f0c47d-eac4-4e42-b713-af46001792ec Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-i-work-960132/episodes/part-1-christian-o-connell-on-the-habit-that-means-he-never-runs-out-of-stories Duration seconds: 1701 ## Resource **  Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm)  here  and order The Energy Game book  here .**   What if the stories you're most afraid to tell are the ones people most need to hear?  Christian O'Connell has spent 28 years pulling stories out of strangers on live radio. He's had two number one breakfast shows on opposite sides of the planet. And yet off-air, he still catches himself at dinner with his family thinking he hasn't said anything funny in a couple of minutes, and that inner critic starting to spiral.  In part one of our two-part conversation, I sit down with Christian to explore what he's learned from nearly three decades of live storytelling - and why most of us are telling our stories all wrong.  Whether you tell stories for a living or you just want to hold a room for 30 seconds at a dinner party, this conversation will give you a completely different way to think about why some stories land and others don't.  Christian and I discuss:  The woodshed: the note-taking habit Christian uses so he's never stuck for something to say  Why the stories you least want to tell are usually the ones that land hardest  The two levels inside every story, and why most of us only ever tell one of them  The physical test Christian uses to decide if a story is worth sharing  Why the best storytellers relive rather than retell, and what that looks like in practice  How speaking anxiety comes down to one thing, and it's not what most people think  Key quotes  "Vulnerability is the currency of great storytelling. If there's no … ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-i-work-960132/episodes/part-1-christian-o-connell-on-the-habit-that-means-he-never-runs-out-of-stories/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-i-work-960132/part-1-christian-o-connell-on-the-habit-that-means-he-never-runs-out-of-stories.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.