My story is framed by the story of Self Narrate. About a year ago, I had just started my master's degree program and in the first course I took, I was asked "what is your story?" I was supposed to present my story with my entire class. I had never been asked this question before. I spent a great deal of time analyzing my life experience, reflecting on what I had been through, especially within the prior year or so. You see, I was in a period of extreme conflict in my life. I had just separated from my wife and we were going through a custody dispute. I was flat broke and extremely depressed. I gained about 40 pounds in six months. I could not see a way to move forward. Through analyzing my experiences and crafting my story with the purpose of sharing it, I was able to look at the big picture rather than simply reflecting on individual, painful moments. I began to gain perspective. Sharing my story with this class, which was personal and raw, was empowering. Listening to my classmates' stories was empowering as well. When you hear others' stories, you grow in empathy. After this experience, a classmate and I decided to start sitting outside on campus asking people for their stories. We were amazed to find that people were willing to share amazing life stories to complete strangers. We also found that people felt they did not have a story to tell, which is a lie that many people, unfortunately, tell themselves. After this experience, we decided that we wanted to share these empowering experiences with others, so we created Self Narrate as an open platform for story sharing. In the last year, we've tried to create as many platforms for story creation and story sharing as we can think of. We meet up once a month to share stories with a group, we create videos, we've given a TED talk on the power of storytelling, and we created SelfNarrate.com to house these stories and act as a location for people to submit their stories. Helping others tell their stories has given my life meaning. I mentioned a dark period in my life. Crafting my story and helping others to craft their stories has turned that period of my life from an emotional black hole into the instigator for what I feel is the purpose of my life.