The Art of Manliness - How to Tell Better Stories

00:00:00.000 Brett here. We're taking a break from a new episode for Christmas. We'll be back next week

00:00:03.880 with a new episode. In the meantime, we're going to rebroadcast podcast number 462,

00:00:08.020 How to Tell Better Stories with Matthew Dix. It's an A1 fan favorite, one of our most popular

00:00:11.840 episodes ever. In it, professional storyteller Matthew Dix gives us practical advice on how

00:00:15.920 to craft and tell better stories, which can come in handy in a lot of situations. You're

00:00:19.240 making a sales pitch, job interview, you're on a date, or just hanging out talking with

00:00:22.480 your friends. Hope you enjoy it. We'll see you next week, and I hope you have a very

00:00:26.200 Merry Christmas.

00:00:30.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Humans

00:00:46.120 are storytelling and story-listening creatures. We use stories to teach, persuade, and to

00:00:51.200 make sense of the complexities of existence. So being able to craft and deliver good stories

00:00:55.300 is thus a real advantage in all areas of life, giving you a foot up when doing job interviews,

00:00:58.820 going on dates, interacting with friends, and making a sales pitch. Fortunately, good

00:01:02.720 storytelling is a skill that can be learned by anyone. Here to teach us the art of storytelling

00:01:06.580 is Matthew Dix, a writer, five-time Moth Grand Slam storytelling winner, and the author of

00:01:10.780 the new book, Storyworthy, Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling.

00:01:16.060 Today on the show, Matthew walks us through the nuts and bolts of how to craft a compelling

00:01:19.260 story. We begin our conversation discussing ways to generate story ideas, why good stories

00:01:23.420 don't have to be about big moments, and why he recommends a practice called Homework

00:01:27.040 for Life. Matthew then tells us what we can learn from movies about making a story so

00:01:31.040 engaging that people are waiting to hear what you say next. We also discuss the don'ts

00:01:34.860 of storytelling, including how to never begin a story. And we end our conversation with a

00:01:38.380 five-minute story from Matthew that showcases all the principles we discussed during the

00:01:42.040 show. This show is literally packed with actionable advice, so take notes. After it's over, check

00:01:46.460 out our show notes at aom.is slash storyworthy. And Matthew joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:52.040 Matthew Dix, welcome to the show.

00:02:05.520 Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

00:02:07.300 So you've got a new book out, Storyworthy. It's all about how to tell good stories. And

00:02:11.900 you are, I would say you're a professional storyteller. You're an ace storyteller. How did

00:02:16.600 that happen? How did you become a professional storyteller?

00:02:19.400 It was honestly an accident that it ever happened. The Moth, the large storytelling organization

00:02:26.100 who I owe all my success really to, they put out a podcast back in maybe 2009. And my friends

00:02:34.540 started listening to it and they directed me to it. And we all sort of loved it. We're all

00:02:40.580 writers or bookish people. And we just loved listening to people tell stories on stages,

00:02:44.960 true stories from their lives. And my friends told me that I've had the worst life of anyone

00:02:50.780 they know, so that I should go to New York and tell a story for the Moth, which is not

00:02:55.240 true. I know people who have had far more difficult lives than myself. But I've had one of those

00:03:00.320 unusual lives with a lot of odd circumstances. So I told them yes, without any intention of ever

00:03:06.960 doing it, I was terrified. I had no desire to stand in front of 200 New York hipsters with

00:03:13.720 man buns and side eye and frighten the hell out of me while I'm telling a story. But they 0.98

00:03:18.640 didn't let up. And eventually, my friends sort of shamed me into going to New York to tell a story.

00:03:24.680 And I told them it would be one and I'd never do it again. And it turned out,

00:03:28.840 I took that stage that night and I loved it. And I've been doing it ever since.

00:03:32.480 Well, I think telling a story, it's one of those skills that a lot of people wish they had. I wish

00:03:39.860 I was a good storyteller. And this book was really helpful because it shed light on what I do bad

00:03:46.100 with storytelling. So let's start with this. What makes a story even story worthy in the first place?

00:03:52.860 Yeah, I think that a lot of times people think that stories are stuff that happened to me told

00:03:58.220 in chronological order. And that's just never really a story. That's not compelling in any way.

00:04:04.240 You know, I argue that a story is about a singular moment in your life. I call them five second moments

00:04:09.740 because I really do believe that they happen over the course of about five seconds. They're either

00:04:14.760 moments of transformation or realization. So that you've either, I was once one person and now I'm

00:04:21.380 another person. Or I once thought something, but now I think a new thing. Those are the things that

00:04:26.700 people really want to hear about. They don't want to hear about, you know, the food you ate last

00:04:31.260 night or the vacation you went on or what you did over your weekend. Unless over the course of those

00:04:36.800 events, something really happened that changed you in some fundamental way. Then you have a story.

00:04:41.980 Then you have something people are going to want to hear and connect to emotionally.

00:04:45.380 Gotcha. So those chronological stories, you call those drinking stories, right?

00:04:49.860 Well, I think a good story can be told chronologically and there's nothing wrong with it. But yeah,

00:04:54.400 I think the drinking stories or the romps, those are stories where I did something crazy. I didn't

00:05:01.240 really fundamentally change in any way, but, you know, some crazy stuff happened. And they're fine

00:05:06.400 to tell, but they're not the kind of stories that sort of sink into our hearts and minds and stay

00:05:11.740 with us once the storyteller is gone. You know, they're just fun drinking stories or stories you

00:05:17.220 tell your spouse when you get home at night, that kind of thing.

00:05:19.980 Gotcha. One thing, you made a good distinction between stories and antidotes.

00:05:23.180 I often think I feel like after reading the book, I feel like I was telling a lot of anecdotes,

00:05:27.600 but not really stories. What do you think the difference is?

00:05:30.000 Well, an anecdote, I mean, first, it's going to be a lot shorter. That's just a simple thing. But

00:05:34.640 I think anecdotes are really just those moments in our lives when something unusual or something

00:05:40.540 unique or something special happens to us. But at the end of that moment, we're still fundamentally

00:05:46.880 the same human being. So, you know, an anecdote, sort of like I climbed a tree and I fell out of it

00:05:52.280 and I broke my leg. You'd tell your friends that story. But if the breaking of the leg doesn't

00:05:57.420 fundamentally change you in any way, then it's just an anecdote. Then it's just something you

00:06:02.800 tell your friends to let them know, sort of update your status in life. I am now a person with a broken

00:06:07.820 leg. But it's not the kind of thing that they're going to want to tell other people about.

00:06:11.640 You know, they're not going to want to run to their friends and say,

00:06:13.580 you're not going to believe this amazing thing that someone just told me.

00:06:17.240 So a story there, there has to be a change of some sort. Now, does this, does this change have

00:06:22.660 to be big, like a life and death thing? Or can the change happen that those five second moments,

00:06:27.720 can they be like really small thing? Yeah. Small is great. I prefer the small ones,

00:06:32.720 to be honest with you. You know, I've, I've died twice in my life and been brought back to life

00:06:37.680 through CPR. And I've been arrested and tried for a crime I didn't commit. And I was homeless for a

00:06:43.060 period in my life. And that's the tip of the iceberg of like the big stories that I have in

00:06:46.960 my life. But those are the stories I don't want to tell so much because people can't connect to

00:06:52.560 those big moments. You know, if I tell you the story of, of dying, I don't meet very many people

00:06:57.780 who can relate to that in any fundamental way. It's just not going to happen for them.

00:07:02.220 And so I like the little moments. I like the moments where some tiny little thing happens

00:07:08.100 and you suddenly understand yourself a little better than you did before. Those are my favorite

00:07:12.480 ones. Okay. So let's talk about where do you get these ideas for your stories? I think a lot of

00:07:16.060 people, they like look at their lives. Okay. Where, where are those moments that I had those changes

00:07:20.560 where I thought one way, but then I thought something differently. Cause I think a lot of people,

00:07:25.080 they're not very, we really don't pay attention to that stuff very well. So how do you, how do you

00:07:29.400 start paying attention and start coming up with those moments in your life where there was a change in

00:07:33.020 yourself that could be the fodder for a story? Right. So there's a, there's a bunch of ways I

00:07:38.180 do it, but the primary way I do it is something called homework for life, which is an assignment

00:07:42.920 I gave to myself about five years ago. I'm an elementary school teacher when I'm not doing

00:07:48.100 the other things that I do. And so it made sense to just sort of give myself a homework assignment.

00:07:53.540 And it's very simple. All I do is at the end of every day, before I go to bed, I sit down and I ask

00:07:59.400 myself, what was the thing that made this day different than any other? Sort of what is the most

00:08:05.400 story worthy moment from my day? Even if that moment isn't truly story worthy, even if it's sort of

00:08:11.420 benign, if it's something I wouldn't even tell my wife about, whatever it is, I find the moment and I

00:08:16.880 write it down. I don't write the whole thing down because I just don't think anyone would ever really

00:08:20.920 do that over the course of time. I use a spreadsheet. And so I've got two columns in my spreadsheet.

00:08:26.720 I've got the date on one side, and then I stretch that second column all the way across the screen.

00:08:31.880 And in there, I write what my story is. So I can really write only two or three sentences

00:08:37.100 a day about that moment. And my goal was to find maybe one story a month that I could keep getting

00:08:43.900 on stages and telling to people. And what happened over the course of time in doing this was something

00:08:48.700 really remarkable. I discovered that my life was full of stories. I have more stories to tell than I

00:08:53.380 I have time to live at this point. And I think that's true for everyone. In fact, I know it is

00:08:58.040 because now thousands of people all over the world do homework for life and they report back to me

00:09:01.920 constantly that it's changing their lives. We just have these moments where we have a beautiful or a

00:09:07.900 terrible or a memorable interaction with another person, or we see something and it suddenly changes

00:09:13.460 our mind in some way. The problem is we just take these moments and we throw them away like trash.

00:09:18.100 We just ignore them instead of collecting them and seeing them for what they are. And so those

00:09:24.080 moments, I see them all the time. And so it is rare in a week that I don't find two or three moments

00:09:29.840 that I could craft into an effective story that people want to hear. But it's just that process of

00:09:34.300 asking yourself every day, what is the moment from this day that is the most story worthy? And

00:09:39.480 eventually you'll just discover by honing that lens that there's more moments in your life than you

00:09:44.600 could ever begin to imagine. Yeah. I thought one of the interesting insights you found that you talk

00:09:49.300 about in the book that, okay, people do this to get ideas for stories, but what your students find

00:09:55.340 because you teach how to tell stories is that it's actually improved their lives. Like their life has

00:10:00.420 slowed down. It seems more meaningful whenever they can see this collection of moments or stories

00:10:06.140 in this spreadsheet. Yeah. I hear that all the time. I did homework for life as a Ted talk one time

00:10:11.960 and people will watch that even if they're not interested in storytelling. And it's so true.

00:10:17.060 Even if you don't plan on ever taking a stage to tell a story, even if you're not planning on telling

00:10:21.720 a story at a cocktail party, once you start seeing that your days are filled with moments of significance,

00:10:28.440 time slows down and you never lose a day anymore. You know, so often you can go to someone and say,

00:10:34.380 what did you do last Thursday? And unless they refer to their calendar or they really think hard,

00:10:39.900 that day is forever lost to them. But if you're doing homework for life, you're marking every day

00:10:45.520 with at least one moment that made that day different. I did a workshop a few years ago for

00:10:50.860 my school district, actually, a bunch of principals. And about three months after the workshop, one of

00:10:55.820 the principals came up to me and he said, do you know why homework for life works so well? You know,

00:11:00.420 when I was thinking, yeah, I do. I spent a whole day explaining it to you. But I humored him and said,

00:11:05.560 no, tell me why. And he said, since the workshop, he had missed three days. And he said, I feel like

00:11:11.680 I've lost those three days forever. I can't remember a single thing from those days. And he said,

00:11:16.520 I'm never going to miss another day again, because I understand the value of capturing every day and

00:11:21.440 how it's already made me feel like my life has more meaning and that time moves by slower than I

00:11:26.560 thought. I love that. And I mean, just that idea that it can make my life more meaningful, like,

00:11:32.480 got me. I started like, I'm going to do this. This is a really cool concept. It's so easy.

00:11:37.220 So besides the homework for life, what are some other things you use to help generate some ideas

00:11:41.680 that are pretty easy? One of my favorite things is something that I actually got from

00:11:46.120 the director of The Moth. She told me that when she's working with people who can't find stories

00:11:50.940 or are having a hard time finding stories in their lives, she does this, which is first, last,

00:11:56.000 best, worst, which is the idea that oftentimes the first time, the last time, the best time,

00:12:02.340 or the worst time we ever did something, those are often excellent story-worthy moments.

00:12:07.160 So, you know, in workshops, I use things like your first kiss, your last kiss, your best kiss,

00:12:12.420 your worst kiss. And you can do it with almost anything. There are some topics that are much

00:12:17.180 easier than others. You know, if you use pets and cars and vacations and things like that,

00:12:23.080 those are all going to work great. But truly, there's not a single thing in the world that I

00:12:27.240 can't play first, last, best, worst with that I can't probably find something to talk about.

00:12:32.680 And oftentimes it's a story. So that's a game I used to play with my wife, if I'm being honest.

00:12:37.120 And then she got sick of hearing from me. You know, when you live with a storyteller, eventually

00:12:41.160 you don't want the storyteller to talk anymore. And so she won't play it with me, but I'll play it

00:12:46.440 with my students. I play it in workshops. And honestly, sadly, I play it with myself all the time.

00:12:50.740 And I just find, I find something in the room and say, first, last, best, worst, and go. And I,

00:12:55.300 I, I always find a story. Yeah. I can see how that would generate stories like first kiss. Like

00:12:59.900 there's definitely a change there. You go into that thinking one thing, but then after it happens,

00:13:04.280 you're probably like, well, that wasn't what I thought it was or something like, so I can see

00:13:08.120 how that would, that would be a great fodder for story. All right. So you got ideas with these,

00:13:12.760 you can generate ideas with these, these games or these tools, but ideas aren't stories. So what's the

00:13:17.580 first step in crafting those ideas into a story? I always tell people to start with the end of

00:13:23.620 their story first. They sort of need to know where they're going or what they're aiming at.

00:13:28.060 They need to know what that five second moment is. What is that moment of transformation or

00:13:33.080 realization? If you don't have it, crafting the story is sort of like, you know, walking in a dark

00:13:38.480 room, not really knowing what to do, not knowing what direction you're supposed to be aiming at.

00:13:43.040 I always say that storytelling is nothing more than the process of making good

00:13:47.240 choices. Cause I think most people, when they tell a story, they just say the next thing that

00:13:52.820 pops into their head. And that's why their stories are oftentimes terrible. Frankly, there's just a

00:13:58.860 lot of terrible storytelling in the world because people just don't really make choices. They don't

00:14:02.880 even think that a story is comprised of choices. It's just sort of the first thing I think of is the

00:14:08.740 first thing I'm going to say. And so if I start at the end and I ask myself, what is the purpose of

00:14:13.900 the story? What is the moment of transformation and realization? Then from there, I can begin

00:14:19.600 at the start of my story by making choices that will eventually lead me to the end in the best

00:14:25.920 possible way. Cause we tell the, we tell the truth as storytellers, but we don't tell the whole truth.

00:14:31.020 We leave things out of stories all the time that don't help the story in any way or confuse the story

00:14:36.880 or just slow the story down in a way that it doesn't need to be. So I always say, start with the end.

00:14:41.600 You have to know what you're aiming at before you start moving forward and crafting the thing.

00:14:46.100 All right. So the end is that five second moment of change. That's kind of what you're leading up

00:14:50.120 to, right? Yes, exactly. Okay. So how do you, how do you keep the story compelling? Right? So

00:14:55.980 well, let's talk about, okay, so you know what the ending is. How do you start a story? Or here's a

00:14:59.840 better question. How should you never begin a story? Well, both of those questions are good. I would

00:15:04.540 say that I start the story by asking myself, what is the opposite of the ending of the story?

00:15:10.900 So whatever my moment of realization or transformation is, let's say I have suddenly

00:15:15.620 discovered that my mother was right all along. I should not marry that girl, right? If that's the 1.00

00:15:20.760 end of my story, the realization that my mother is smarter than I ever thought she was, the beginning

00:15:25.000 of my story, if I really want to show change is I don't think my mother is very smart. I think my

00:15:30.820 mother is giving me bad advice. And so over time, I will discover that my mother is actually the smart

00:15:36.200 one in our relationship. So I just, I find that opposite. It's not always a clear opposite. Sometimes

00:15:41.200 it's an approximation of what the opposite is. It's a cousin of what the opposite would be. But I have

00:15:46.920 to find that because if I don't have the opposite to start with, I can't really show change. And then

00:15:52.160 once I'm, once I've figured out that spot that I want to start my story in, the thing I always want

00:15:57.740 to do is I want to start the story right away. So often when people start stories, they instead

00:16:02.780 start with lists. So, you know, if the story is about my grandmother, they will start with a list

00:16:07.800 of all the characteristics of a grandmother, which is not compelling in any way whatsoever.

00:16:12.460 It's just a list about my grandmother. So I always say, start the story, get things moving.

00:16:18.200 And then after things are moving, then start revealing some of the things that we need to

00:16:22.940 know before we get to the end. Stories are just like movies, like the stories that we tell

00:16:27.420 out loud. We're just creating movies in the minds of our audience and pay attention to the way movies

00:16:33.080 are constructed. Oftentimes movies begin with action. Things are moving right away. Someone

00:16:38.740 is chasing another person or someone is walking down a street or, you know, Star Wars classically

00:16:44.640 begins with a big spaceship shooting at a small spaceship. You know, it doesn't begin with someone

00:16:49.860 saying Darth Vader is a bad guy and Princess Leia is a good guy. And in a minute, we're going

00:16:55.600 to see this space battle take place. No, we're in the middle of the battle. And then we learn about

00:17:00.640 the characters. That's how stories should be. You want to grab people by starting it right away.

00:17:05.520 One thing, when you talk about how you should never start a story, one tip, and I've broken

00:17:09.680 this rule all the time, is saying like, I've got the crazy, you never say, I got the craziest story

00:17:13.720 or like, I've got the funniest story. Yes, that's terrible because you set such an unrealistic

00:17:18.360 expectation for yourself. You know, you hear it all the time though. People say,

00:17:23.440 you're not going to believe this. I've never heard really anything that I don't believe,

00:17:28.840 you know, after that statement. It's always something that is going to be less than what

00:17:33.320 you've proclaimed it to be. So don't start off with any expectations.

00:17:37.500 Gotcha. So, but start with the action, start right away with the action. Start from one opposite

00:17:41.660 of your ending. And yeah, I love the insight you gave there about movies. Like you said,

00:17:46.240 start paying attention to movies because movies do this. You gave the example of Jurassic Park,

00:17:50.300 of the paleontology guy. Like in the beginning, he hated kids. And at the end, like he liked kids

00:17:56.400 like that. I was like, oh my gosh, that's so obvious. Now I get this. So now you've ruined movies

00:18:01.380 for me because I've been looking for that. Well, it's true. My wife doesn't allow me to speak during

00:18:05.100 movies anymore. But you know, even that, that's Spielberg and he's brilliant because he knows that

00:18:10.880 if I called you up and I said, hey, do you want to watch a movie about a man who doesn't really 0.57

00:18:15.160 love children? So he can't fundamentally be with the woman he loves, but over the course of time,

00:18:19.900 he's going to learn to love children and therefore his relationship will be stable.

00:18:23.600 You would never go to that movie with me. So Spielberg takes a true and real story that will

00:18:29.680 sort of touch our hearts and he surrounds it with dinosaurs. Those are what I call the stakes of the

00:18:34.260 story. The reason that we want to hear sentence by sentence by sentence, the thing that we're worried

00:18:38.480 about and concerned about and wondering about. So Spielberg understands, I have to give you a real

00:18:43.840 story, you know, the story of a man learning to love children, but I can't give it to you

00:18:48.920 without something to hang that story on. And for him, it's dinosaurs and it works so beautifully.

00:18:54.200 And so many of his movies operate on that level. There's a real story happening. And then there's

00:18:59.540 the thing that brings you into the movie theater in the first place.

00:19:03.140 Well, so you mentioned that idea of stakes. That's what keeps people engaged with the story. So you have

00:19:06.780 your beginning, which is the opposite of how you're going to end. You have your ending. And then the

00:19:11.200 stakes in the middle can be things that just like, you think things are going to go a certain

00:19:14.760 direction, but then they just fall flat. I mean, it just keeps people on edge, right?

00:19:18.840 Exactly. I'm always asking myself, is my audience wondering about something right now? And if they're

00:19:24.720 not wondering, if they're not worried or concerned or in suspense, that means I'm losing them. And so

00:19:31.520 whenever I think that my audience has stopped wondering about something, I have to find a way to

00:19:37.060 create that drama, that suspense. There's lots of tricks that I talk about in the book

00:19:41.940 to just sort of punch up moments, to make the same moment just more appealing and more filled

00:19:48.100 with wonder than how it might normally be presented.

00:19:51.120 Gotcha. And so one of the tactics that I liked was like the backpack, where you have all, you pack a

00:19:55.620 metaphorical backpack full of things that you could possibly use to solve the problem.

00:19:59.840 And you start unpacking them in the story, but none of them work.

00:20:03.320 Right, exactly.

00:20:03.960 You want to keep seeing like, what's the next thing that's not going to work?

00:20:07.520 Right. All the Ocean Eleven's movies, they're all just backpacks, which is we're going to tell you

00:20:12.880 how we're going to rob the casino, and then we're going to go rob the casino, but it's not going to

00:20:17.280 work in the way we planned. But if we don't know what the original plan was, then we can't experience

00:20:22.940 the fear and the frustration and the agony of our characters when the plan starts to go wrong.

00:20:28.860 So anytime in a movie, when sort of a group of people regroup after a disaster,

00:20:33.960 and make a plan, really what's happening is the writers are putting a backpack on the audience.

00:20:38.500 We're letting the audience know what the characters' hopes and dreams are. So now you

00:20:42.840 carry those hopes and dreams as well. And as those things start to go wrong, you feel something akin

00:20:48.800 to what the people in the movie are feeling. And that's just the best kind of storytelling is when

00:20:53.480 your audience's feelings match your feelings from the moment you're describing.

00:20:58.080 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:21:02.280 And now back to the show. Now, there's a lot more high-level things that people can do to really

00:21:06.920 make stories engaging, but just the things we've talked about now, like knowing your ending, that

00:21:10.920 five-second moment of change, beginning with the opposite, and then adding stakes in the story,

00:21:16.040 like that can make your stories better than 90% of the stories out there, right?

00:21:21.620 Yes. I fully believe that if you choose a good beginning and a good ending, and it's actually

00:21:26.540 a moment of realization or transformation, and you think even just a little bit about making sure

00:21:32.780 that your audience continues to be interested in what you're saying, you're better than 95% of the

00:21:37.580 storytellers in the world. I really believe that because most people just never consider any of

00:21:42.660 these things before they start telling a story. And if you practice it in the way that I have,

00:21:47.300 now it's just automatic for me. So if I'm going to play golf with my buddies, I don't get up early

00:21:52.500 and plan my stories for the golf course. When someone says, what happened yesterday? I automatically

00:21:58.180 land on a moment of realization or transformation. And I automatically think about what the opposite of

00:22:03.740 it is. And that's where I start my story. It's become a process that is just totally normal for me

00:22:08.940 because I've practiced it so much. How long should a story be? Does it just depend on the situation

00:22:14.240 you find yourself in? Yeah, it does. I mean, ideally, a story of five to six minutes is

00:22:21.020 fantastic. And that's the length that the moth uses in their slams. But sometimes I have a story

00:22:27.480 that is two minutes long because it's only worth two minutes. It's not something meaningful and huge.

00:22:33.420 And then there are stories like there's a guy named Ron who told a story in our show recently.

00:22:37.340 We produced a show here in Connecticut. And his story was about in the 1980s,

00:22:41.540 he had to go to Russia to help refuseniks who were starving because the Soviet Union wouldn't

00:22:47.060 allow them to have jobs, but wouldn't allow them to leave the country. And so he had to buy VHS tapes

00:22:52.280 and give them to the refuseniks because that was what was valuable in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

00:22:58.440 So that story was like 14 minutes long because it needed to be because I didn't know anything about

00:23:03.720 the Soviet Union in the 1980s without Ron giving me a lot of background. So a lot of it depends on what

00:23:09.860 you're saying, whether your story requires more time or not. But I always say the shorter story

00:23:15.460 wins. People who can speak concisely will always be preferred over someone who is long-winded.

00:23:21.340 So you refer to this a little bit earlier, but the idea of embellishing stories, should a good

00:23:27.600 storyteller embellish or lie? Some people want to call that for the sake of a good story.

00:23:35.160 I always say that I have never in my life added something to a story that was not already in the

00:23:41.600 story. What I do instead is I remove things from stories all the time, people especially. People

00:23:47.420 come out all the time if they don't actually play a role in the story. And by removing things that are

00:23:53.040 unnecessary, they allow the things that still exist in the story to shine. I just think that so often

00:23:59.240 people feel like they have to say everything. And really, we only have to say the things that get

00:24:05.160 us to that five-second moment. So embellishment for me is the removal of material that my audience

00:24:11.860 doesn't want to hear and doesn't serve my story very well. Or it might be sort of the compression

00:24:16.680 of time. So a story that takes place on a Saturday and a Sunday for me, I might jam into one day, just a

00:24:23.520 Saturday. Because it's easier for an audience to understand a story that takes place on one day

00:24:28.720 versus two. And they don't need to know that like I went to bed and then I woke up the next morning

00:24:33.340 and things continued. So that's the kind of embellishment that I believe in.

00:24:37.240 Yeah. I mean, if you think of a movie, movies don't do that. Sometimes you don't even... Days

00:24:41.560 could pass and you have no clue because they just cut to the three days later and you don't know it's

00:24:46.280 three days later, but it is three days later.

00:24:47.260 Right. Exactly.

00:24:48.640 So, but yeah, I guess embellishment becomes unethical when you start adding stuff that didn't happen. So if

00:24:53.020 you didn't die and you said you died, like that would be unethical.

00:24:58.000 Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to me either. I mean, I'm a novelist. I write novels for a living

00:25:02.580 and those are all completely fictional. And when I think about storytelling, stories from my life,

00:25:09.760 I always think of it as a puzzle, which is kind of why I love it. Because I'm forced to work with

00:25:15.180 the material that is in front of me. I can't make up any information. You know, I'm stuck with what

00:25:19.880 I've got. And so I love how I have to fight with that material and get it into the order that works

00:25:27.060 best for the purpose of the story. Whereas when I'm writing a novel, anything is available to me.

00:25:32.020 I'm not saying writing a novel is easy. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of challenges in

00:25:36.180 writing a novel. But the one challenge I don't have is I'm not limited by, you know, the content that is

00:25:42.060 available to me. I have an infinite content, amount of content available to me when writing a novel.

00:25:46.560 So I don't know why anyone would want to embellish a story that way. I just think it's so much fun to

00:25:50.580 fight with what you've got. You said one of the downsides, though, of embellishing your stories

00:25:55.160 or changing the stories that if someone was there with you when it happened, they can ruin it for

00:25:59.300 you because they'll be like, no, that didn't happen like that. You're like, you ruined the story.

00:26:04.180 Right. Even if you're doing what I'm doing, which is dropping people out of stories or

00:26:08.420 compressing time, that'll annoy your friends. You know, they've heard me tell stories and someone

00:26:13.320 will come up to me and say, but I was there too. You didn't even mention me. And I'll say, well,

00:26:17.080 you didn't do anything. Like if you want to be in my story, be interesting. Otherwise, you're just

00:26:21.780 a third wheel that's like not necessary in my story. So even if you're not adding things, people

00:26:27.500 don't like it when they're left out of stories either. But that's just something they have to

00:26:30.480 deal with.

00:26:31.040 You got to deal with it. So do stories need to be funny or sad? Or should you even like think about

00:26:37.020 that when you're crafting a story? Because I think a lot of people think stories need to be funny or

00:26:40.820 really poignant to be worth telling.

00:26:43.600 Right. You know, I don't think they have to be funny. I mean, I tell a lot of stories that

00:26:47.340 are not funny at all. And I also tell many stories that are very funny. I don't think that any of

00:26:53.540 those things are necessarily required. You know, ultimately, I want to be entertaining. That is the

00:26:58.900 first thing I want to do with every story I tell. And then I want to connect with people. I want to find

00:27:03.580 something that they will consider interesting or make them feel closer to me or reveal some part of

00:27:10.700 themselves that they didn't see before. And then after that, you know, if it's funny, that's great.

00:27:16.260 And humor, I think in storytelling is a strategy. You know, I do stand up as well. And when I do stand

00:27:21.800 up, I have to be funny all the time. Everything I say has to be working towards a laugh. But in

00:27:26.500 storytelling, I always use humor strategically. In fact, my funniest stories are the stories I least

00:27:33.080 like to tell because there's no emotional journey in those stories. They're just funny all the way

00:27:38.880 through. People love them. But I don't feel like people connect with me as deeply as they do in

00:27:44.640 the stories that move them in a variety of emotional ways. So you don't have to be funny.

00:27:50.120 I work with a lot of people who are tragically not funny in any way whatsoever. But they're still

00:27:54.500 great storytellers and they can be really effective.

00:27:57.380 So let's say you got the story. You start crafting these stories. You have them in your pocket. How do you

00:28:02.540 how do you get a story going? Right? Like say you're at a party or your dinner and you have a

00:28:07.740 story that's related to the topic of conversation. Like you just say, I've got a story or what do you

00:28:13.320 what do you do for that? Because like with the moth, it's like, okay, you're just there to tell

00:28:16.060 stories. But I'm talking about just storytelling in everyday life. How does that work?

00:28:20.120 I think the best thing to do is to actually be a great listener. The thing that I say to people most

00:28:25.120 is tell me a story. Or so often in life, people have stories they want to tell. But for whatever

00:28:31.580 reason, they've been convinced that no one has the time to listen to them or the inclination to

00:28:36.840 listen to them. Or worst of all, they don't think they have anything good to say. And I think they

00:28:42.100 do. So I've sort of learned to listen for those cues when someone says, oh, that happened to me

00:28:47.340 once and they trail off. That's a moment when I jump in and I say, really, tell me that story.

00:28:52.280 If you sort of get other people telling stories, if you open up a space for them and allow them to

00:28:58.940 speak for as long as they need to speak, oftentimes that will then create a space for you as well.

00:29:05.100 And suddenly you'll have a chance to tell a story too. So start by being a good listener. Start by

00:29:09.720 being someone who wants to hear stories. And then people will want to hear your stories as well.

00:29:14.700 And how do you think telling better stories can make people better parents, better teachers,

00:29:20.460 better business owners, et cetera?

00:29:21.800 Well, I mean, in a myriad of ways, really. The number of people or the variety of people who I

00:29:28.300 work with now consulting and teaching workshops, you just can't imagine the people who walk into

00:29:34.540 my workshops or who call me and ask me to work with them. If you're a business leader, I was just

00:29:38.960 working with a CEO yesterday. Being able to communicate the mission of your company and talk

00:29:45.480 about what your people are doing in an engaging and entertaining way, a way that doesn't force you to stick a

00:29:51.420 PowerPoint up on a wall every time you speak. That's a tremendous skill. And if you're a teacher

00:29:57.140 and you can tell stories throughout the school day, which is something that I do with my students all

00:30:01.500 the time, then you're an engaging person who people are going to want to listen to. You know, I work with

00:30:07.440 clergy members on their sermons so that they can be more interesting. I work with politicians who are

00:30:13.640 trying to craft stories and are really, politicians are the worst. They're the worst in terms of

00:30:18.900 storytellers. They're the ones who need the most work. But whoever you are, dating is a big thing

00:30:24.320 now. Storytelling for dating. People take my workshops because they can get a first date with

00:30:29.440 someone, but it turns out that whatever they're saying on the first date is so terrible that they

00:30:34.620 can't get the second date. And so if you can tell a good story about yourself, you know, something that

00:30:39.580 demonstrates humility and humor and self-awareness and is just engaging and entertaining, people are going to

00:30:46.700 want to spend more time with you. And so whatever you are, whoever you are, and wherever you are,

00:30:52.400 storytelling can help you. It'll make you a better human being to spend time with.

00:30:57.200 Well, Matthew, this has been a great conversation. Is there some place people can go to learn more

00:31:01.100 about your work and what you do in the book?

00:31:03.920 Well, if they go to my website, MatthewDix.com, they can learn about all the things that I'm doing

00:31:08.900 there. They can find my book wherever you get books. It's available on Amazon as well. So,

00:31:13.780 wherever you're buying your books, you can probably find it there as well.

00:31:16.660 My wife and I also produce a podcast called Speak Up Storytelling. And in that podcast,

00:31:21.540 we air one of the stories from the shows that we produce. And then we pull that story apart and tell

00:31:27.140 people what's working in the story and what could be improved. And we talk about homework for life in

00:31:32.380 every episode. I give one of my homework for life moments from the week and talk about how that could

00:31:36.580 be crafted into a story. So it's a good way to sort of take a deep dive into storytelling once a week with

00:31:41.380 us as well. Fantastic. And I don't know if you're up for this, but do you think you'd tell like a

00:31:44.880 really short story? It's okay if you're not game for it, but I'd love for people to get a sample of

00:31:49.880 a story that's sort of an example of what we've been talking about.

00:31:53.620 Sure. How long do you want it to be?

00:31:55.740 I don't know. Up to five minutes. It could be shorter than that.

00:31:58.960 Yeah. All right. I'll give you the quick version of something.

00:32:01.840 Okay.

00:32:02.180 Okay, great. All right. So I'll tell you, I'm going to choose a very small moment. This is

00:32:05.780 about the smallest moment that I can think of to illustrate the point. So I'm leaving the gym

00:32:11.240 just a few months ago, this happened. I'm leaving the gym and as I'm coming down the stairs and I'm

00:32:16.860 feeling really good about myself because I've just exercised for 45 minutes and I have not yet eaten

00:32:21.160 a cheeseburger. So it's this unique time in my life where I have done something really good for my body

00:32:26.720 and have not defiled it with fat and carbohydrates yet. I will. I'm on my way actually to a cheeseburger

00:32:32.360 on this day. But this little time in between, I feel good about myself. And I'm heading towards the

00:32:38.520 door and my keys fall out of my hand. My hands are all sweaty, so they slip out. And as they fall,

00:32:44.380 they sort of land on my foot, like half on my foot and half off. And before I can even bend over to pick

00:32:50.620 them up, this woman coming into the gym, walking in the opposite direction, bends over, picks my keys 1.00

00:32:56.740 up off my foot, puts them in my hand, and then just keeps walking. And I can't believe it. I would

00:33:04.520 never pick the keys up off someone's foot. Like I would never pick up anyone's keys, I don't think.

00:33:10.340 I have a friend who's in a wheelchair and if he dropped his keys, I honestly would do sort of the 0.86

00:33:15.020 trigonometry to determine if he can get his own damn keys or do I have to help him. And this woman has 1.00

00:33:20.700 done this for me. She picks up my keys and then she goes into that little room where she's going to 0.93

00:33:24.820 ride a stationary bike to nowhere while some authoritarian in spandex is going to shout at

00:33:30.000 her for not going nowhere fast enough. And she hasn't waited for a thank you or a gift or a parade,

00:33:36.920 all of which I would have expected had I done something so selfless. And so I'm standing there

00:33:42.240 in front of this smoothie bar with my keys in my hand and I am thinking about what a horrible person

00:33:47.340 I am and how just in the last hour, how horrible I have been. Before I got to the gym,

00:33:53.960 I went to the supermarket to get a Gatorade. And as I was walking in, the Boy Scouts were set up in

00:33:59.400 a little table by the door selling candy bars. And I hate that. I hate that they sell candy bars

00:34:03.900 because there's already candy bars in the grocery store too. So it's like putting a hat on a hat.

00:34:09.560 Why are you selling me something that I could get for cheaper inside the store?

00:34:14.540 And so when I walk up to them, I used to be able to tell them I don't have any cash on me.

00:34:19.420 I would say, oh, sorry, I only have a credit card. But now they have phones. And they say,

00:34:23.720 oh, no, we can take your credit card. No problem. And so now what I do is I pretend that I'm on a

00:34:28.860 phone call. This is what I did on this day. I put the phone to my ear and I pretend I'm talking to

00:34:33.460 my wife and that I'm in this really serious conversation. So as I walk by them, I can sort

00:34:38.200 of wave them off by pointing at the phone and letting them know this is really serious.

00:34:43.560 And then when I leave the grocery store, I actually leave from the opposite way and I walk

00:34:47.000 all the way across the parking lot. I do a full circle just to avoid these kids. And I was a Boy

00:34:52.900 Scout for all of my childhood. Boy Scouts saved my life in a million ways. And yet I'm not willing

00:34:58.260 to give these kids $1 so they might get to a summer camp someday. And then when I got to the gym,

00:35:05.280 I was walking in and I saw this woman coming sort of diagonally to me towards the door. And I realized 0.74

00:35:11.660 that I was going to get to the door about 10 seconds before she was, which was going to require

00:35:16.940 me to hold the door for her. And I hate this too. I hate when I'm ahead of people in the world and

00:35:22.580 then I have to stop and hold doors for them. It makes me crazy. And so what I did to avoid this,

00:35:28.240 I did again, some mental trigonometry. And I realized if I quicken my pace, I can get to the door

00:35:33.620 maybe 15 or 20 seconds before her, and then I won't be required to hold it anymore. And so that's what I

00:35:38.940 did. I walked faster and slipped through the door and avoided holding a door for another human being.

00:35:45.380 And then when I was done on the treadmill that day, I had to wipe the treadmill down,

00:35:49.760 which makes me crazy. I feel like I've just run for 45 minutes. I've done God's work.

00:35:55.420 I don't want to have to wipe this thing down. And honestly, according to the golden rule,

00:36:00.840 you're supposed to do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. I don't care if anyone ever wipes 1.00

00:36:06.240 the treadmill down. And so if I don't want people to wipe down the treadmill, I shouldn't do it either,

00:36:10.740 the golden rule. But I know I have to, because I know there's like people watching and there's

00:36:14.720 probably no one watching, but in my mind, everyone is always watching me. And so I wipe the treadmill

00:36:19.380 down that day, but I do a bad job of it. I do like a passive aggressive slight wipe down just to make

00:36:25.920 myself feel a little bit better about doing the thing that I don't want to do that I should do.

00:36:30.760 And then I leave and drop my keys and this angel picks them up off my shoe. And I think about what a

00:36:37.660 horrible and selfish person I am just in that last hour, all those bad things I've done. And so I leave

00:36:44.440 the gym feeling terrible about myself. And so the next day I pull into the gym and it's pouring, it's cats

00:36:51.820 and dogs. And as I'm pulling in the spot closest to the gym door, there's someone backing out of it.

00:36:59.620 And I'm so excited because I'm not going to get wet. My kids call it the best spot in the lot.

00:37:04.620 And so I stop and I wait for that car to back out so I can take the best spot in the lot.

00:37:10.260 And as I'm waiting, I see headlights behind me, another car who's pulling in, waiting for me to

00:37:15.860 move out of the way so that they can park probably like nine miles away at the back of the parking lot.

00:37:20.080 And then as I look back down, I see my keys in the ignition. And I think about the day before

00:37:27.120 with the angel who picked them up. I swear I can still see some of her like angel dust on my keys.

00:37:33.920 And so when that car clears the parking spot and it's my turn to take it, I drive by the parking

00:37:39.880 spot and I park nine miles away. And I give that spot over to whoever's behind me, probably a serial

00:37:46.400 killer. But whoever it is, they get the spot that day because I decide to be a slightly better person.

00:37:53.200 It doesn't mean I've changed my life in any way. I still hate wiping down treadmills and I still hate

00:37:58.120 holding doors and I still dodge the Boy Scouts at every chance that I get. But when I'm holding my

00:38:03.360 keys in my hand, when I'm looking at them, I want to be a slightly better person. And for me,

00:38:11.360 that's at least a good start. So that is a story of a tiny little moment that when it happened a few

00:38:17.780 months ago, as soon as it happened, I ran home and I told my wife, I have a great story because 0.99

00:38:22.840 some woman just picked my keys up off my shoe and it made me realize what a jackass I am. And she said, 1.00

00:38:28.340 okay, that's great. But it's a story that I just love to tell because it's a tiny little moment

00:38:33.360 where I'm illustrating something about myself. And when I tell that story, I won a moth slam with it.

00:38:38.880 And I thought I would, because when I tell about the things that I've done that are especially

00:38:43.100 terrible, people love those stories because everyone's sort of going through life being

00:38:47.980 terrible in some way, being selfish and not being their best self. But not often do people talk

00:38:54.300 about it. So when they hear someone talking about it, it just makes you feel a little more human,

00:38:58.360 like, oh, I'm not the only awful person. Other people are doing awful things too that they're kind

00:39:03.100 of ashamed about. I'm not really as bad as I once thought I was. And so people love those kinds

00:39:08.860 of stories. And it's a tiny, tiny little thing that happens to us all the time.

00:39:12.720 Matthew, that was great. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure.

00:39:15.480 Thank you. I really appreciate it.

00:39:17.340 My guest today was Matthew Dix. He's the author of the book Storyworthy. It's available on

00:39:20.720 amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about his work at

00:39:24.140 matthewdix.com. Also check out his podcast with his wife, Speak Up Storytelling. Find that on

00:39:29.060 iTunes or wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also check out our show notes at

00:39:32.240 aom.is slash storyworthy. We can find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:39:49.680 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:39:54.120 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. We got over 4,000

00:39:58.060 articles there. If you haven't been there, check it out. As always, thank you for your continued

00:40:01.400 support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - December 23, 2020

How to Tell Better Stories

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