The Art of Manliness - #462： How to Tell Better Stories

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast humans are

00:00:19.240 storytelling and story listening creatures we use stories to teach persuade and to make sense

00:00:24.420 of the complexities of existence so being able to craft and deliver good stories thus a real

00:00:28.620 advantage in all areas of life giving you a foot up when doing job interviews going on dates interacting

00:00:32.740 with friends and making a sales pitch fortunately good storytelling is a skill that can be learned

00:00:36.980 by anyone here to teach us the art of storytelling is matthew dicks a writer five-time moth grand slam

00:00:42.080 storytelling winner and the author of the new book story worthy engage teach persuade and change your

00:00:47.120 life through the power of storytelling today on the show matthew walks us through the nuts and bolts of

00:00:51.060 how to craft a compelling story we begin our conversation discussing ways to generate story

00:00:54.840 ideas why good stories don't have to be about big moments and why he recommends a practice called

00:00:59.320 homework for life matthew then tells us what we can learn from movies about making a story so engaging

00:01:04.160 that people are waiting to hear what you say next we also discuss the don'ts of storytelling including

00:01:08.500 how to never begin a story and we end our conversation with a five-minute story from matthew

00:01:12.380 that showcases all the principles we discussed during the show this show is literally packed

00:01:16.500 with actionable advice so take notes after it's over check out our show notes at aom.is

00:01:21.240 slash story worthy and matthew joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:25.360 matthew dicks welcome to the show thank you so much thanks for having me so you got a new book

00:01:40.700 out story worthy it's all about how to tell good stories and you are i would say you're a professional

00:01:46.840 storyteller you're an ace storyteller how did that happen how did you become a professional

00:01:51.240 storyteller it was honestly an accident that ever happened the the moth the large storytelling

00:01:58.180 organization who uh who i owe all my success really to they put out a podcast back in maybe 2009

00:02:05.360 and my friends started listening to it and uh they directed me to it and we all sort of loved it you

00:02:12.340 know we're we're all writers or bookish people and we just loved listening to people tell stories on

00:02:17.220 stages you know true stories from their lives and my friends told me that i've had the worst life of

00:02:23.220 anyone they know so that i should go to new york and tell a story for the moth which you know is not

00:02:27.980 true i know people who have had far more difficult lives than myself but i've had one of those unusual

00:02:33.500 lives with a lot of you know odd circumstances so i told them yes without any intention of ever doing

00:02:39.980 it i was terrified you know i had no desire to stand in front of 200 you know new york hipsters

00:02:46.220 with man buns and side eye and frighten the hell out of me while i'm telling a story but they didn't

00:02:51.580 let up and eventually my friends sort of shamed me into going to new york to tell a story and i told

00:02:58.160 them it would be one and i'd never do it again and it turned out i took that stage that night and i loved

00:03:03.500 it and i've been doing it ever since well i think it's telling a story it's one of those skills that

00:03:09.900 a lot of people wish they had i wish i was a good storyteller and this book was really helpful because

00:03:15.780 it told it gave me shed light on what i do bad with storytelling so let's start with this like what

00:03:21.320 makes a story even story worthy in the first place yeah i think that a lot of times people think

00:03:27.800 that stories are stuff that happened to me told in chronological order and that's just

00:03:33.500 never really a story that's not compelling in any way you know i argue that a story is about a

00:03:39.140 singular moment in your life i call them five second moments because i really do believe that

00:03:43.640 they happen over the course of about five seconds they're either moments of transformation or

00:03:49.380 realization so that you've either i was once one person and now i'm another person or i once thought

00:03:56.160 something but now i think a new thing those are the things that people really want to hear about they

00:04:01.100 don't want to hear about you know the food you ate last night or the vacation you went on or what you

00:04:06.600 did over your weekend unless over the course of those events something really happened that changed

00:04:11.940 you in some fundamental way then you have a story then you have something people are going to want to

00:04:16.060 hear and connect to emotionally gotcha so those chronological stories are those like you call

00:04:20.700 those drinking stories right well i think a good story can be told chronologically and there's

00:04:26.000 nothing wrong with it but yeah i think the the drinking stories are the the romps those are

00:04:31.140 stories where i did something crazy i didn't really fundamentally change in any way but you know some

00:04:36.880 crazy stuff happened and and they're fine to tell but they're not the kind of stories that sort of sink

00:04:42.380 into our hearts and minds and stay with us once the storyteller is gone you know they're just fun

00:04:48.020 drinking stories or stories you tell your spouse when you get home at night that kind of thing

00:04:52.400 gotcha one thing uh you made a good distinction between stories and antidotes i often think i feel

00:04:57.280 like after reading the book i feel like i was telling a lot of antidotes but not really stories

00:05:01.140 what do you think the difference is well an anecdote i mean first it's going to be a lot shorter

00:05:05.200 that's just a a simple thing but i think anecdotes are really just those moments in our lives when

00:05:11.060 something unusual or something unique or something special happens to us but at the end of at the end of

00:05:18.220 that moment we're still fundamentally the same human being so you know an anecdote sort of like i

00:05:23.460 climbed a tree and i fell out of it and i broke my leg you'd tell your friends that story but if the

00:05:28.960 breaking of the leg doesn't fundamentally change you in in any way then it's just an anecdote then

00:05:34.360 it's just something you tell your friends to let them know sort of update your status in life i am

00:05:39.640 now a person with a broken leg but it's not the kind of thing that they're going to want to tell

00:05:43.120 other people about you know they're not going to want to run to their friends and say

00:05:46.320 you're not going to believe this amazing thing that someone just told me so a story there there

00:05:51.320 has to be a change of some sort now does this does this change have to be big like a life and death

00:05:57.460 thing or can the change happen that those five second moments can they be like really small

00:06:01.960 thing yeah small is great i prefer the small ones to be honest with you you know i've i've died twice

00:06:08.480 in my life and been brought back to life through cpr and i've been arrested and tried for a crime i didn't

00:06:14.260 commit and i was homeless for a period in my life and that's the tip of the iceberg of like the big

00:06:18.840 stories that i have in my life but those are the stories i don't want to tell so much because people

00:06:24.180 can't connect to those big moments you know if i tell you the story of of dying i don't meet very

00:06:30.000 many people who can relate to that in any fundamental way it's just not going to happen for them

00:06:34.280 and so i like the little moments i like the moments where some tiny little thing happens and you

00:06:41.400 suddenly understand yourself a little better than you did before those are my favorite ones

00:06:45.640 okay so let's talk about where do you get these ideas for your stories i think a lot of people

00:06:49.160 they like look at their lives okay where were those moments that i had those changes where i thought one

00:06:54.100 way but then i thought something differently because i think a lot of people they're not very

00:06:58.320 we really don't pay attention to that stuff very well so how do you how do you start paying attention

00:07:02.920 and start coming up with those moments in your life where there was a change in yourself that could be

00:07:06.580 the fodder for a story right so there's a there's a bunch of ways i do it but the primary way i do it

00:07:12.520 is something called homework for life which is an assignment i gave to myself about five years ago i'm an

00:07:19.220 elementary school teacher when i'm not doing the other things that i do and so it made sense to just

00:07:23.640 sort of give myself a homework assignment and it's very simple all i do is at the end of every day

00:07:29.040 before i go to bed i sit down and i ask myself what was the thing that made this day different than

00:07:36.160 any other sort of what is the most story worthy moment from my day even if that moment isn't

00:07:42.200 truly story worthy even if it's sort of benign if it's something i wouldn't even tell my wife about

00:07:47.000 whatever it is i find the moment and i write it down i don't write the whole thing down because i

00:07:52.160 just don't think anyone would ever really do that over the course of time i use a spreadsheet and so i've

00:07:58.200 got two columns in my spreadsheet i've got the date on one side and then i stretch that second column

00:08:03.260 all the way across the screen and in there i write what my story is so i can really write only two or

00:08:09.220 three sentences a day about that moment and my goal was to find maybe one story a month that i could

00:08:16.060 keep getting on stages and telling to people and what happened over the course of time in doing this

00:08:21.060 was something really remarkable i discovered that my life was full of stories i have more stories to

00:08:25.540 tell than i i have time to live at this point and i think that's true for everyone in fact i know it is

00:08:30.780 because now thousands of people all over the world do homework for life and they report back to me

00:08:34.660 constantly that it's changing their lives we just have these moments where we have a beautiful or a

00:08:40.640 terrible or a memorable interaction with another person or we see something and it suddenly changes

00:08:46.200 our mind in some way the problem is we just take these moments and we throw them away like trash

00:08:50.840 we just ignore them instead of collecting them and seeing them for what they are and so those moments

00:08:57.240 i see them all the time and so it is rare in a week that i don't find two or three moments that

00:09:02.760 i could craft into an effective story that people want to hear but it's just that process of asking

00:09:07.800 yourself every day what is the moment from this day that is the most story worthy and eventually

00:09:12.520 you'll just discover by honing that lens that there's more moments in your life than you could

00:09:17.480 ever begin to imagine yeah i thought one of the interesting insights you found that you talk about in the book

00:09:22.720 that okay people do this to get ideas for stories but what your students find because you teach how

00:09:29.420 to tell stories so it's actually improved their lives like their life has slowed down it seems more

00:09:34.640 meaningful whenever they can see this collection of moments or stories in this spreadsheet yeah i hear

00:09:40.960 that all the time i did homework for life as a ted talk one time and people will watch that even if

00:09:46.680 they're not interested in storytelling and it's so true even if you don't plan on ever taking a stage to

00:09:52.060 tell a story even if you're not planning on telling a story at a cocktail party once you start seeing

00:09:57.580 that your days are filled with moments of significance time slows down and you never lose a day anymore

00:10:04.080 you know so often you can go to someone and say what did you do last thursday and unless they refer to

00:10:10.500 their calendar or they really think hard that day is forever lost to them but if you're doing homework

00:10:16.260 for life you're marking every day with at least one moment that made that day different i did a

00:10:22.020 workshop a few years ago for my school district actually a bunch of principals and about three

00:10:27.300 months after the workshop one of the principals came up to me and he said do you know why homework

00:10:31.480 for life works so well you know when i was thinking yeah i do i spent a whole day explaining it to you

00:10:36.160 um but i humored him and said no tell me why and he said since the workshop he had missed three days

00:10:42.700 and he said i feel like i've lost those three days forever i can't remember a single thing from those

00:10:48.140 days and he said i'm never going to miss another day again because i understand the value of capturing

00:10:53.280 every day and how it's already made me feel like my life has more meaning and that time moves by slower

00:10:58.900 than i thought i love that and uh i mean just that idea that it can make my life more meaningful like

00:11:05.220 got me i started like i'm going to do this this is this is a really cool con because it's so easy

00:11:09.400 so besides the homework for life what are some other things you use to help generate some ideas that are

00:11:14.640 pretty easy one of my favorite things is something that i actually got from the director of the moth

00:11:20.640 she told me that when she's working with people who can't find stories or are having hard time

00:11:25.000 finding stories in their lives she does this which is first last best worst which is the idea that 1.00

00:11:31.160 oftentimes the first time the last time the best time or the worst time we ever did something

00:11:36.720 those are often excellent story worthy moments so you know in workshops i use things like your first kiss

00:11:42.680 your last kiss your best kiss your worst kiss and you can do it with almost anything there are some

00:11:49.040 topics that are much easier than others you know if you use pets and cars and vacations and things like

00:11:55.580 that those are all going to work great but truly there's not a single thing in the world that i can't

00:12:00.240 play first last best worst with that i can't probably find something to talk about and oftentimes it's a

00:12:06.360 story so that's a game i used to play with my wife if i'm being honest and then she got sick of 1.00

00:12:10.840 hearing from me you know when you live with a storyteller eventually you don't want the

00:12:15.640 storyteller to talk anymore right and so she won't play it with me but i'll play it with my students

00:12:19.800 i play it in workshops and honestly sadly i play it with myself all the time i just find i find

00:12:25.060 something in the room and say first last best worst and go and i i always find a story yeah i can see

00:12:30.640 how that would generate stories like first kiss like there's definitely a change there you go into that

00:12:34.560 thinking one thing but then after it happens you're probably like well that wasn't what i thought it was

00:12:39.820 or something like so i can see how that would that would be a great fodder for story all right so you

00:12:43.740 got ideas with these you can generate ideas with these these games or these tools but ideas aren't

00:12:49.200 stories so what's the first step in crafting those ideas into a story i always tell people to start with

00:12:55.820 the end of their story first they sort of need to know where they're going or what they're aiming at

00:13:00.720 they need to know what that five second moment is uh what is that moment of transformation or

00:13:05.820 realization if you don't have it crafting the story is sort of like you know walking in a dark

00:13:11.220 room not really knowing what to do not knowing what direction you're supposed to be aiming at

00:13:15.480 i always say that storytelling is nothing more than the process of making good choices because i think

00:13:21.600 most people when they tell a story they just say the next thing that pops into their head and that's

00:13:27.480 why their stories are oftentimes terrible frankly there's just a lot of terrible storytelling in the world

00:13:33.060 because people just don't really make choices they don't even think that a story is comprised of

00:13:38.180 choices it's just sort of the first thing i think of is the first thing i'm going to say

00:13:42.620 and so if i start at the end and i ask myself what is the purpose of this story what is the moment of

00:13:48.120 transformation and realization then from there i can begin at the start of my story by making choices

00:13:55.360 that will eventually lead me to the end in the best possible way because we tell the we tell the truth

00:14:01.680 of storytellers but we don't tell the whole truth we we leave things out of stories all the time

00:14:05.980 that don't help the story in any way or confuse the story or just slow the story down in a way that

00:14:11.580 it doesn't need to be so i always say start with the end you have to know what you're aiming at before

00:14:16.060 you start moving forward and crafting the thing all right so the end is that five second moment of

00:14:20.880 change that's kind of what you're leading up to right yes exactly okay so how do you how do you

00:14:27.560 keep the story compelling right so well let's talk about okay so you know what the ending is how do

00:14:30.960 you start a story or here's a better question how should you never begin a story well both of those

00:14:36.300 questions are good i would say that i start the story by asking myself what is the opposite of the

00:14:41.680 ending of the story so whatever my moment of realization or transformation is let's say i have

00:14:48.020 suddenly discovered that my mother was right all along i should not marry that girl right if that's the 0.98

00:14:53.500 end of my story the realization that my mother is smarter than i ever thought she was the beginning

00:14:57.740 of my story if i really want to show change is i don't think my mother is very smart i think my

00:15:03.560 mother is giving me bad advice and so over time i will discover that my mother is actually the smart

00:15:08.940 one in our relationship so i just i find that opposite it's not always a clear opposite sometimes

00:15:13.940 it's an approximation of what the opposite is it's a cousin of what the opposite would be but i have to

00:15:19.800 find that because if i don't have the opposite to start with i can't really show change and then

00:15:24.900 once i'm once i've figured out that spot that i want to start my story in the thing i always want

00:15:30.480 to do is i want to start the story right away so often when people start stories they instead start

00:15:35.860 with lists so you know if the story is about my grandmother they will start with a list of all the

00:15:41.120 characteristics of a grandmother which is not compelling in any way whatsoever it's just a list about my

00:15:46.560 grandmother so i always say start the story get things moving and then after things are moving

00:15:52.500 then start revealing some of the things that we need to know before we get to the end stories are

00:15:57.960 just like movies like the stories that we tell out loud we're just creating movies in the minds of our

00:16:03.460 audience and pay attention to the way movies are constructed oftentimes movies begin with action

00:16:09.540 things are moving right away someone is chasing another person or someone is walking down a street or

00:16:15.180 you know star wars classically begins with a big spaceship shooting at a small spaceship you know

00:16:21.460 it doesn't begin with someone saying darth vader is a bad guy and princess leia is a good guy and in a

00:16:27.860 minute we're going to see this space battle take place no we're in the middle of the battle and then

00:16:32.720 we learn about the characters that's how stories should be you want to grab people by starting it right

00:16:37.100 away one thing the one you talk about how you should never start a story one tip and i've broken this

00:16:42.620 role all the time is saying like i've got the crazy you never say i got the craziest story or like i've

00:16:47.020 got the funniest story yes that's terrible because you set such an unrealistic expectation for yourself

00:16:52.680 you know i hear you hear it all the time though people say you're not going to believe this right i've

00:16:58.480 never heard really anything that i don't believe you know after that statement there it's always

00:17:04.220 something that is going to be less than what you've proclaimed it to be so don't start off with any

00:17:08.800 expectations gotcha so but start with the act start right away with the action start from one

00:17:13.840 opposite of your ending and yeah i love the insight you gave there about movies like you sort of said

00:17:18.940 start paying attention to movies because movies do this you gave the example of jurassic park of the

00:17:24.320 paleontologist guy like in the beginning he hated kids and at the end like he liked kids like that i was

00:17:29.840 like oh my gosh that's so obvious now i get that so now now you've ruined movies for me because i've

00:17:34.840 been looking for that well it's true my wife doesn't allow me to speak during movies anymore

00:17:38.500 but you know even that that's spielberg and he's brilliant because he knows that if i called you

00:17:44.340 up and i said hey do you want to watch a movie about a man who doesn't really love children so

00:17:48.780 he can't fundamentally be with the woman he loves but over the course of time he's going to learn to

00:17:53.340 love children and therefore his relationship will be stable you would never go to that movie with me

00:17:58.280 so spielberg takes a true and real story that will sort of touch our hearts and he surrounds it with

00:18:04.760 dinosaurs those are what i call the stakes of the story the reason that we want to hear sentence by

00:18:09.400 sentence by sentence the thing that we're worried about and concerned about and wondering about

00:18:13.380 so spielberg understands i have to give you a real story you know the story of a man learning to love

00:18:19.540 children but i can't give it to you without something to to hang that story on and for him it's

00:18:25.180 dinosaurs and it works so beautifully and so many of his movies operate on that level there's a real story

00:18:30.840 happening and then there's the thing that brings you into the movie theater in the first place

00:18:35.360 well so you mentioned that idea of stakes that's what keeps people engaged with the story so you

00:18:39.360 have your beginning which is the opposite of how you're going to end you have your ending and then

00:18:43.760 the stakes in the middle can be things that just like you think things are going to go a certain

00:18:47.500 direction but then they just fall flat i mean that's it just keeps people on on edge right

00:18:51.120 exactly i'm always asking myself is my audience wondering about something right now

00:18:56.640 and if they're not wondering if they're not worried or concerned or in suspense that means

00:19:02.060 i'm losing them and so whenever i think that my audience has stopped wondering about something i have

00:19:08.800 to find a way to create that drama that suspense uh there's lots of tricks that i talk about in the

00:19:14.460 book to just sort of punch up moments to make the same moment just more appealing and more filled

00:19:20.840 with wonder than how it might normally be presented gotcha so one of the tactics that i liked was like

00:19:25.740 the backpack where you have all you you pack a metaphorical backpack full of things that you could

00:19:30.960 possibly use to solve the problem and you start unpacking them in the story but none of them work

00:19:35.160 right so right you want to you want to keep seeing like what's the next thing that's not going to work

00:19:39.640 right the all the all the ocean 11s movies they're all just backpacks which is we're going to tell you

00:19:45.620 how we're going to rob the casino and then we're going to go rob the casino but it's not going to work in

00:19:50.380 the way we planned but if we don't know what the original plan was then we can't experience the

00:19:56.020 fear and the frustration and the agony of our characters when the plan starts to go wrong so

00:20:01.700 anytime in a movie when sort of a group of people regroup after a disaster and make a plan really

00:20:08.420 what's happening is the writers are putting a backpack on the audience we're letting the audience know

00:20:12.860 what the characters hopes and dreams are so now you carry those hopes and dreams as well

00:20:17.280 and as those things start to go wrong you feel something akin to what the people in the movie

00:20:23.300 are feeling and that's just the best kind of storytelling is when your audience's feelings

00:20:28.500 match your feelings from the moment you're describing we're going to take a quick break

00:20:32.220 for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show now there's a lot more high level things

00:20:38.240 that people can do to really make stories engaging but just the things we've talked about now like

00:20:42.280 knowing you're ending that five second moment of change beginning with the opposite and then adding

00:20:47.000 stakes in the story like that can make your stories like a 90 percent better than 90 percent of the

00:20:53.020 stories out there right yes i fully believe that if you choose a good beginning and a good ending

00:20:57.740 and it's actually a moment of realization or transformation and you think even just a little

00:21:03.340 bit about making sure that your audience continues to be interested in what you're saying you're better

00:21:08.820 than 95 percent of the storytellers in the world i really believe that because most people just

00:21:13.040 never consider any of these things before they start telling a story and if you practice it in

00:21:18.940 the way that i have now it's just automatic for me so you know if i'm going to play golf with my

00:21:23.480 buddies i don't get up early and plan my stories for the golf course you know when someone says what

00:21:28.300 happened yesterday i automatically land on a moment of realization or transformation and i automatically

00:21:34.240 think about what the opposite of it is and that's where i start my story it's just it's become a

00:21:39.200 process that is just totally normal for me because i've practiced it so much how long should a story

00:21:44.120 be or does it just depend on the situation you find yourself in yeah it does i mean ideally a story

00:21:51.360 of five to six minutes is fantastic and and that's the length that the moth uses in their slams but you

00:21:58.700 know sometimes i have a story that is two minutes long because it's only worth two minutes it's not

00:22:03.420 something meaningful and huge and then there are stories like there's a guy named ron who told a story

00:22:08.620 in our show recently we produced a show here in connecticut and his story was about in the 1980s

00:22:13.920 he had to go to russia to help refuseniks who were starving because the soviet union wouldn't

00:22:19.420 allow them to have jobs but wouldn't allow them to leave the country and so he had to buy vhs tapes

00:22:24.660 and give them to the refuseniks because that was what was valuable in the soviet union in the 1980s

00:22:30.700 so that story was like 14 minutes long because it needed to be because i didn't know anything about the

00:22:36.320 soviet union in the 1980s without ron giving me a lot of background so a lot of it depends on what

00:22:42.240 you're saying whether your story requires more time or not but i always say the shorter story wins

00:22:48.320 people who can speak concisely will always be preferred over someone who is long-winded

00:22:53.240 so you refer to this a little bit earlier but the idea of embellishing stories should a good

00:22:59.960 storyteller embellish or lie we some people want to call that for the sake for for the sake of a good

00:23:07.220 story i always say that i have never in my life added something to a story that was not already in

00:23:13.820 the story what i do instead is i remove things from stories all the time people especially people

00:23:19.800 come out all the time if they don't actually play a role in the story and by removing things that are

00:23:25.420 unnecessary they allow the things that still exist in the story to shine i just think that so often

00:23:31.620 people feel like they have to say everything and really we only have to say the things that get us to

00:23:37.820 that five second moment so embellishment for me is the removal of material that my audience doesn't

00:23:44.660 want to hear and doesn't serve my story very well or it might be sort of the compression of time

00:23:49.800 so a story that takes place on a saturday and a sunday for me i might jam into one day just a

00:23:55.900 saturday because it's easier for an audience to understand a story that takes place on one day

00:24:01.080 versus two and they don't need to know that like i went to bed and then i woke up the next morning

00:24:05.720 and things continued so that's the kind of embellishment that i believe in yeah i mean if you

00:24:10.180 look think of a movie movies don't do that like sometimes you don't even like days could pass and you

00:24:14.560 have no clue because they just cut to the you know three days later and you don't know it's three days

00:24:18.940 later but it is three right exactly so but yeah i guess embellishment becomes unethical when you start

00:24:23.700 adding stuff that didn't happen so if you didn't die and you said you died like that would be

00:24:29.180 unethical yeah it doesn't make any sense to me either i mean i'm a novelist i write novels for a

00:24:34.740 living and those are all completely fictional and i when i think about storytelling stories from my life

00:24:42.100 i always think of it as a puzzle which is kind of why i love it because i'm forced to work with the

00:24:47.700 material that is in front of me i can't make up any information you know i'm stuck with what i've

00:24:52.420 got and so i love how i have to fight with that material and get it into the order that works best

00:24:59.780 for the purpose of the story whereas when i'm writing a novel anything is available to me i'm

00:25:04.460 not saying writing a novel is easy there's a lot of you know there's a lot of challenges in writing

00:25:08.780 a novel but the one challenge i don't have is i'm not limited by you know the content that is

00:25:14.420 available to me i have an infinite content amount of content available to me when writing a novel so

00:25:19.120 i don't know why anyone would want to embellish a story that way i just think it's so much fun to

00:25:22.940 fight with what you've got you said one of the downsides though of embellishing your stories or

00:25:27.680 changing the stories that if someone was there with you when it happened they can ruin it for you

00:25:31.800 because they'll be like no that didn't happen like that you're like you've ruined the story

00:25:36.080 right even even if you're doing what i'm doing which is dropping people out of stories or

00:25:40.780 compressing time that'll annoy your friends you know i they've heard me tell stories and someone

00:25:45.700 will come up to me and say but i was there too you didn't even mention me and i'll say well you

00:25:49.560 didn't do anything like if you want to be in my story be interesting otherwise you're just a third

00:25:54.520 wheel that's like not necessary in my story so even if you're not adding things people don't like it

00:26:00.460 when they're left out of stories either but that's just something they have to deal with

00:26:03.280 you got to deal with it so do stories need to be funny or sad or should you even like think

00:26:09.140 about that when you're crafting a story because i think a lot of people think stories need to be

00:26:12.420 funny or really poignant to be worth telling right i you know i don't think they have to be funny i

00:26:18.400 mean i tell a lot of stories that are not funny at all and i also tell many stories that are very

00:26:23.620 funny i don't think that any of those things are necessarily required you know ultimately i want to

00:26:29.420 i want to be entertaining that is the first thing i want to do with every story i tell

00:26:33.200 and then i want to connect with people i want to find something that they will consider interesting

00:26:38.800 or make them feel closer to me or reveal some part of themselves that they didn't see before

00:26:44.980 and then after that you know if it's funny that's great and humor i think in storytelling is a

00:26:50.500 is a strategy you know i do stand up as well and when i do stand up i have to be funny all the time

00:26:55.560 everything i say has to be working towards a laugh but in storytelling i always use humor

00:27:00.480 strategically in fact my funniest stories are the stories i least like to tell because there's no

00:27:07.740 emotional journey in those stories they're just funny all the way through people love them but i

00:27:13.560 don't feel like people connect with me as deeply as they do in the stories that move them in a variety

00:27:20.000 of emotional ways so you don't have to be funny i work with a lot of people who are tragically not

00:27:24.600 funny in any way whatsoever but they're still great storytellers and they can be really effective

00:27:28.780 so let's say you got the story you you start crafting these stories you have them in your

00:27:33.620 pocket how do you how do you get a story going right like say you're at a party or your dinner

00:27:38.760 and you have a story that's related to the topic of conversation like you just say

00:27:43.420 i've got a story or what do you what do you do for that because like with the moth it's like okay

00:27:47.700 you're just there to tell stories but i'm talking about just storytelling in everyday life how does

00:27:51.340 that work i i think the best thing to do is to actually be a great listener the thing that i say to

00:27:56.940 people most is tell me a story or so often in life people have stories they want to tell but

00:28:03.500 for whatever reason they've been convinced that no one has the time to listen to them or the

00:28:08.440 inclination to listen to them or worst of all they don't think they have anything good to say

00:28:13.340 and i think they do so i've sort of learned to listen for those cues when someone says oh that

00:28:19.020 happened to me once and they trail off that's a moment when i jump in and i say really tell me that

00:28:23.460 story if you if you sort of get other people telling stories if you open up a space for them

00:28:29.900 and allow them to speak for as long as they need to speak oftentimes that will then create a space for

00:28:35.940 your for you as well and suddenly you'll have a chance to tell a story too so start by being a good

00:28:41.260 listener start by being someone who wants to hear stories and then people will want to hear your stories

00:28:46.000 as well and how do you think telling better stories can make people better parents better teachers

00:28:52.340 better business owners etc well i mean in a myriad of ways really the number of people or the

00:28:59.140 variety of people who i work with now consulting and teaching workshops you just can't imagine the

00:29:05.840 the people who walk into my workshops or who call me and ask me to work with them you know if you're a

00:29:10.260 business leader i was just working with a ceo yesterday being able to communicate the mission of

00:29:16.000 your company and talk about what your people are doing in an engaging and entertaining way

00:29:21.900 a way that doesn't force you to stick a powerpoint up on a wall every time you speak that's a tremendous

00:29:27.380 skill and if you're a teacher and you can tell stories throughout the school day which is something

00:29:32.520 that i do with my students all the time then you're an engaging person who people are going to want to

00:29:37.980 listen to you know i work with clergy members on their sermons so that they can be more interesting

00:29:43.700 i work with politicians who are trying to craft stories and are really politicians are the worst

00:29:49.880 they're the worst in terms of storytellers they're the ones who need the most work

00:29:53.460 but whoever you are dating is a big thing now storytelling for dating people take my workshops

00:29:59.060 because they can get a first date with someone but it turns out that whatever they're saying on the

00:30:04.720 first date is so terrible that they can't get the second date and so if you can tell a good story

00:30:10.400 about yourself you know something that demonstrates humility and humor and self-awareness

00:30:16.080 and it's just engaging and entertaining people are going to want to spend more time with you

00:30:20.280 and so whatever you are whoever you are and wherever you are storytelling can help you it'll

00:30:25.940 make you a better human being to spend time with well matthew this has been a great conversation is

00:30:31.800 there someplace people can go to learn more about your work and what you do in the book well if they

00:30:36.920 go to my website matthewdicks.com they can learn about all the things that i'm doing there they can find

00:30:42.640 my book wherever you get books it's available on amazon as well so you know wherever you're buying

00:30:47.080 your books you can probably find it there as well my wife and i also produce a podcast called speak up

00:30:51.380 storytelling and in that podcast we air one of the stories from the shows that we produce and then we

00:30:57.760 pull that story apart and tell people what's working in the story and what could be improved and we talk

00:31:03.580 about homework for life in every episode i give one of my homework for life moments from the week and talk

00:31:08.200 about how that could be crafted into a story so it's a good way to sort of take a deep dive into

00:31:12.660 storytelling once a week with us as well fantastic and i don't know if you're up for this but you

00:31:16.620 need to tell like a really short story it's okay if you're not game for it but i'd love for people to

00:31:21.540 get a sample of a of a story that sort of an example of what we've been talking about sure how long do you

00:31:27.120 want it to be i don't know up to five minutes it could be shorter than that yeah all right i'll give

00:31:32.040 you i'll give you the quick version of something okay okay great all right so i'll tell you i'm going to

00:31:36.640 choose a very small moment this is about the smallest moment that i can think of to illustrate

00:31:40.960 the point so i'm leaving the gym just a few months ago this happened i'm leaving the gym and as i'm

00:31:47.240 coming down the stairs and i'm feeling really good about myself because i've just exercised for 45

00:31:52.100 minutes and i have not yet eaten a cheeseburger so it's this unique time in my life where i have

00:31:57.560 done something really good for my body and have not defiled it with you know fat and carbohydrates yet i

00:32:02.860 will i'm on my way actually to a cheeseburger on this day but this little time in between i feel

00:32:07.660 good about myself and i'm heading towards the door and my keys fall out of my hand my hands are all

00:32:13.720 sweaty so they slip out and as they fall they sort of land on my foot like half on my foot and half

00:32:19.960 off and before i can even bend over to pick them up this woman coming into the gym walking in the 1.00

00:32:26.080 opposite direction bends over picks my keys up off my foot puts them in my hand and then just keeps

00:32:32.960 walking and i can't believe it i would never pick the keys up off someone's foot like i would never

00:32:40.980 pick up anyone's keys i don't think i have a friend who's in a wheelchair and if he dropped his keys i

00:32:46.060 honestly would do sort of the trigonometry to determine if he can get his own damn keys or do i have

00:32:50.940 to help him and this woman has done this for me she picks up my keys and then she goes into that 0.86

00:32:55.620 little room where she's going to ride a stationary bike to nowhere while some authoritarian and spandex 1.00

00:33:01.500 is going to shout at her for not going nowhere fast enough and she hasn't waited for a thank you

00:33:07.060 or a gift or a parade all of which i would have expected had i done something so selfless

00:33:12.440 and so i'm standing there in front of the smoothie bar with my keys in my hand

00:33:17.140 and i am thinking about what a horrible person i am and how just in the last hour how horrible i have

00:33:24.040 been before i got to the gym i went to the supermarket to get a gatorade and as i was walking in the boy

00:33:30.980 scouts were set up in a little table by the door selling candy bars and i hate that i hate that they

00:33:35.460 sell candy bars because there's already candy bars in the grocery store too so it's like putting a hat

00:33:41.340 on a hat why are you selling me something that i could get for cheaper you know inside the store

00:33:45.840 and so when i walk up to them i used to be able to tell them i don't have any cash on me you know i

00:33:52.280 would say oh sorry i only have a credit card but now they have phones and they say oh no we can take

00:33:56.800 your credit card no problem and so now what i do is i pretend that i'm on a phone call this is what i

00:34:02.420 did on this day i put the phone to my ear and i pretend i'm talking to my wife and that i'm in this

00:34:07.300 really serious conversation so as i walk by them i can sort of wave them off by pointing at the phone and

00:34:12.940 and letting them know i'm this is really serious and then when i leave the grocery store i actually

00:34:17.600 leave from the opposite way and i walk all the way across the parking lot i do a full circle just to

00:34:22.720 avoid these kids and i was a boy scout for all of my childhood boy scouts saved my life in a million

00:34:28.960 ways and yet i'm not willing to give these kids one dollar so they might get to a summer camp someday

00:34:34.780 and then when i got to the gym i was walking in and i saw this woman coming sort of diagonal to 1.00

00:34:41.560 diagonally to me towards the door and i realized that i was going to get to the door about 10 seconds

00:34:46.860 before she was which was going to require me to hold the door for her and i hate this too i hate when 0.61

00:34:53.000 i'm ahead of people in the world and then i have to stop and hold doors for them it makes me crazy

00:34:57.520 and so what i did to avoid this i did again some mental trigonometry and i realized if i quicken

00:35:04.180 my pace i can get to the door maybe 15 or 20 seconds before her and then i won't be required

00:35:09.460 to hold it anymore and so that's what i did i walked faster and slipped through the door and

00:35:14.420 avoided holding a door for another human being and then when i was done on the treadmill that day

00:35:20.020 i had to wipe the treadmill down which makes me crazy i feel like i've just run for 45 minutes

00:35:25.620 i've done god's work like i don't want to have to wipe this thing down and honestly according to

00:35:32.360 the golden rule you're supposed to do one to others as you'd have them do one to you i don't

00:35:37.220 care if anyone ever wipes the treadmill down and so if i don't want people to wipe down the treadmill

00:35:41.600 i shouldn't do it either the golden rule but i know i have to because i know there's like people

00:35:46.200 watching and there's probably no one watching but in my mind everyone is always watching me

00:35:50.100 and so i wiped the treadmill down that day but i do a bad job of it i do like a passive

00:35:54.840 aggressive slight wipe down just to make myself feel a little bit better about doing the thing

00:36:01.020 that i don't want to do that i should do and then i leave and drop my keys and this angel picks them

00:36:08.040 up off my shoe and i think about what a horrible and selfish person i am just in that last hour all

00:36:14.040 those bad things i've done and so i leave the gym feeling terrible about myself and so the next day

00:36:21.500 i pull into the gym and it's pouring it's cats and dogs and as i'm pulling in the spot closest to

00:36:29.120 the gym door there's someone backing out of it and i'm so excited because i'm not going to get wet

00:36:33.980 my kids call it the best spot in the lot and so i stop and i wait for that car to back out so i can

00:36:40.660 take the best spot in the lot and as i'm waiting i see headlights behind me another car who's pulling in

00:36:47.000 waiting for me to move out of the way so that they can park probably like nine miles away at the back

00:36:51.740 of the parking lot and then as i look back down i see my keys in the ignition and i think about the

00:36:58.860 day before with the angel who picked them up i swear i can still see some of her like angel dust on my

00:37:04.440 keys and so when that car clears the parking spot and it's my turn to take it i drive by the parking

00:37:12.260 spot and i park nine miles away and i give that spot over to whoever's behind me probably a serial

00:37:18.780 killer but whoever it is they get the spot that day because i decide to be a slightly better person

00:37:24.820 it doesn't mean i've changed my life in any way i still hate wiping down treadmills and i still hate

00:37:30.500 holding doors and i still dodge the boy scouts at every chance that i get but when i'm holding my keys

00:37:36.160 in my hand when i'm looking at them i want to be a slightly better person and for me that's at least

00:37:44.360 a good start so that is a story of a tiny little moment that when it happened a few months ago

00:37:50.700 as soon as it happened i ran home and i told my wife i have a great story because some woman just 1.00

00:37:55.920 picked my keys up off my shoe and it made me realize what a jackass i am and she said okay that's

00:38:01.180 great but i would it's a story that i just love to tell because it's a tiny little moment where i'm 0.93

00:38:06.540 illustrating something about myself and when i tell that story you know i i want a moth slam with it

00:38:11.260 and i i thought i would because when i tell about the things that i've done that are especially terrible

00:38:16.020 people love those stories because everyone's sort of going through life being terrible in some way

00:38:21.380 being selfish and you know not being their best self but not often do people talk about it so when

00:38:27.360 they hear someone talking about it it just makes you feel a little more human like oh i'm not the

00:38:31.660 only awful person other people are doing awful things too that they're kind of ashamed about

00:38:36.220 you know i'm not really as bad as i once thought i was and so people love those kinds of stories and

00:38:41.780 it's a tiny tiny little thing that happens to us all the time matthew that was great thank you so

00:38:46.100 much your time it's been an absolute pleasure thank you i really appreciate it my essay was matthew

00:38:50.600 dix he's the author of the book story worthy it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:38:54.280 everywhere you can find out more information about his work at matthewdix.com also check out

00:38:58.600 his podcast with his wife speak up storytelling find that on itunes or wherever else you listen

00:39:02.700 to podcasts also check out our show notes at aom.is slash story worthy where you find links

00:39:07.780 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:39:09.980 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:39:26.360 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com we got over 4 000

00:39:30.420 articles there if you haven't been there check it out as always thank you for your continued support

00:39:34.120 until next time this is brett mccabe telling you to stay madly

00:39:37.080 you

The Art of Manliness - November 28, 2018

#462： How to Tell Better Stories

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript