The Wisdom We Carry in Our Stories: How lived experience becomes legacy through memoir

NOTE: This blog post originates from a recent keynote given to prospective students at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at University of South Florida-St. Pete. I’m honored to be one of the OLLI instructors, teaching memoir and writing. Learn more about OLLI-USF-St. Pete here.

What an honor it is to reflect on something I believe deeply: that every one of us carries wisdom, whether we’ve named it or not.

For many years, I stepped onto political stages alongside my husband in my role as a political spouse. Our answer of yes to the simple suggestion, “Why don’t you run for City Council?” set us on a 22-year journey into public life. To say we dove in headfirst is an understatement. We learned how to run not one, but eight political campaigns, sustain a marriage, raise well-rounded kids who often saw their dad on television or in the newspaper, and survive regular criticism, threats, and even protests in front of our house.

As the woman beside the man and behind the scenes, I learned how to craft my own identity apart from my politician husband, which often felt like a perpetual project of dispelling the myth of what a political spouse should be.

Throughout it all, I came to understand something simple and profound: we are the authors of our own stories. The moments we chalk up to “just life,” or minimize as “something everyone encounters,” become the touchpoints that define us. They live in the dash between our birth and our death—the place where the important stuff happens.

From the time we’re born until we leave this earth, we are recipients of wisdom. It starts at home when we learn the rules of our environment and that touching a hot stove really will burn your hand. We absorb it in school through math, science, history, and language. Throughout our lives, wisdom continues to gather—in the new boss who shows us the ropes, in romantic relationships that end, and even in small talk in line at the grocery store.

But there’s another kind of wisdom I want to focus on. Not the kind found in textbooks or earned with a degree, but the kind gained simply by having lived.

Wisdom isn’t just proof that information was ingested, processed, and executed. It’s what is extracted from living, feeling, surviving, reflecting, and understanding. Every one of us carries it.

If you pause for a moment and think of a time in your life that quietly changed you—not the headline moment, not the one that made the Christmas newsletter, but the quiet one—you’ll begin to see what I mean. Maybe it was a conversation you didn’t know would stay with you. A choice that felt small at the time but altered your direction. A season that reshaped how you see the world.

That moment is not just a memory. It’s wisdom. Often, wisdom arrives disguised as an ordinary day.

Think about the times someone else’s story has helped you through something. A book you read. A friend who shared honestly about what they went through and how they made it to the other side. At the time, you may have simply listened. But later—when you needed it—you remembered. Their story steadied you.

That’s the power of story.

Stories don’t just entertain us. They guide us, and they remind us we’re not alone. Most of the stories that change us aren’t dramatic. They’re honest recollections of wisdom that travels from one heart to another without sounding like advice.

Each of us is a living library. Inside are chapters on love and loss, marriage and divorce, parenting and caregiving, starting over, failing and trying again, believing, doubting, and believing again. No one else has lived your exact life through your exact eyes with your exact heart. That means your wisdom isn’t generic. It’s custom-built.

Wisdom, in its simplest form, is experience plus reflection. Experience alone is just something that happened. Reflection is what turns it into something learned. Story is what turns that learning into something shareable.

Perhaps you cared for an aging parent. The experience was the caregiving. The reflection might be realizing what love looks like when you show up, even when it’s hard. The story might be about one night you stayed at your mother’s bedside, holding her hand. Told honestly, that story carries wisdom—about presence, strength, and devotion.

You’re not merely transmitting advice. You’re sharing what you know now because of what you endured.

So much wisdom lives quietly inside ordinary lives:

👉 A woman who stayed in a marriage too long and learned what commitment really costs—and gives.
👉 A man who changed careers and discovered that reinvention is possible at any age.
👉 A parent who made mistakes and learned that repair matters more than perfection.
👉 A caregiver who realized that strength doesn’t always look strong.
👉 A person who lost faith—and found a deeper one.

None of that shows up on a résumé. But all of it belongs in a story. One of the most common things I hear is: “My life wasn’t dramatic.” “Nothing extraordinary happened.” “I’m not a writer.”

Memoir isn’t about what happened. It’s about what it meant. You don’t need to have survived a tragedy to have wisdom. You need honesty cultivated from reflection. Our ordinary lives hold extraordinary meaning when we take the time to listen to them.

Frank McCourt showed us this in Angela’s Ashes. He didn’t write about wealth or prestige. He wrote about poverty, hunger, and hardship—and yet his memoir is filled with humor and tenderness. He transformed suffering into connection through storytelling.

Tara Westover’s Educated offers another example. Her story isn’t ultimately about schooling; it’s about identity, belonging, and the tension between love and self-preservation. She didn’t preach. She told the truth of her experience. That truth carries wisdom.

Elie Wiesel, in Night, bore witness so the world would remember. His memoir reminds us that telling our stories is not indulgence—it’s responsibility. Bearing witness is an act of wisdom and legacy.

Memoir is not your entire life story. It isn’t a résumé or a chronology. It’s a story of change. It answers three questions: Who was I? What happened? Who did I become? And perhaps most importantly - why did it matter?

The world today is overflowing with noise, yet starving for wisdom. We long for roadmaps through complicated seasons. Each of us has lived through cultural shifts, technological revolutions, social change, personal reinventions, losses that reshaped us, and joys that grounded us. We’ve seen patterns. We’ve learned what lasts—and what doesn’t.

That perspective is an asset.

Legacy is not what you leave behind. It’s what you pass forward. Not your belongings, but your stories. It’s the way someone says, “I read that and felt understood.” “I heard that and felt less alone.” “I learned that and chose differently.”

Someone, somewhere, is living the chapter you already survived. Your story could be their flashlight.

If you’re ever tempted to write but feel overwhelmed, don’t start with your whole life. Start with one moment that still carries emotional heat. One conversation. One choice. One realization.

Anne Lamott tells the story of her father advising her brother to take a writing assignment “bird by bird”—one small piece at a time. That’s memoir. You don’t write it all at once. You write one honest moment. One truth at a time.

If you’re not sure where to begin, try this:

✅ A time I surprised myself.
✅ A belief I no longer hold.
✅ A moment that changed how I see the world.

You don’t have to write for publication. You don’t have to write for applause. Write one page. Not for an audience. For presence. Because the act of writing is also the act of honoring your life. And when you honor your life, you share your wisdom with others. You are not too late. You are not behind. You are right on time.

Your life has been speaking for decades. Storytelling is simply how you let it be heard. And your story is not behind you. It’s waiting for you.

If you’d like to have support s your write your story, join my free Facebook Group, Memoir Magic for Aspiring Authors. Inside, you’ll find a community of writers and aspiring authors who all have similar goals - to share their truths through memoir. If this post resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with a friend!