THE ONES WHO DARED
THE ONES WHO DARED PODCAST Elevating stories of courage. You can listen to some of the most interesting stories of courage, powerful life lessons, and aha moments. Featuring interviews with leaders, pioneers and people who have done hard things. I hope these stories help pave the path for you to live out your courageous life.
THE ONES WHO DARED
43. Becoming a Compelling Storyteller | Matthew Dicks
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Have you ever considered the transformative power within your everyday stories? Matthew Dicks – the mastermind behind the art of storytelling, uncovers the secrets of creating compelling stories from his bestselling book called Storyworthy.
In this episode, Matthew shares what constitutes a story, how to begin and end a story, and much more.
Matthew also teaches us his 'Homework for Life' technique, a daily ritual that involves documenting the most story-worthy moment of each day. This practice uncovers the hidden depths within the seemingly inconsequential moments of life, transforming them into a wellspring of narrative potential. By engaging in this practice, storytellers can enhance their craft, preserve memories, and slow down the perceived passage of time, affirming that each day is indeed memorable.
Matthew Dicks is the internationally bestselling author of several novels, including The Other Mother, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, and Twenty-one Truths About Love, as well as the nonfiction titles Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling and Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life. He is an elementary school teacher, a storyteller, a marketing and storytelling consultant, a speaking coach, a blogger, and a wedding DJ.
Matthew is a record 56-time Moth StorySLAM champion and 9-time GrandSLAM champion whose stories have been featured on their nationally syndicated Moth Radio Hour and weekly podcasts. His stories have also appeared on PBS's Stories From the Stage.
Matthew is also the co-founder and artistic director of SpeakUp, a Hartford-based storytelling organization that produces shows throughout New England. He teaches storytelling and public speaking to individuals, corporations, universities, religious institutions, and school districts worldwide.
Link to Matthew Dicks:
https://matthewdicks.com/
-Links-
https://www.svetkapopov.com/
https://www.instagram.com/svetka_popov/
The Power of Storytelling
Speaker 1In terms of stories, what happens most often in life is people report on their lives but don't actually tell a story.
Speaker 1They just tell you stuff that happened and it can be really exciting stuff that happened, but it doesn't qualify as a story because, at least by my definition and by the definition of Hollywood and most authors and most storytellers will tell you, a story has to reflect some kind of change over time. Storytellers will tell you a story has to reflect some kind of change over time, A character, or, if you're telling a story about yourself, you have to be one version of yourself and then some stuff has to happen and in the end you're a different version of yourself. You either you're different entirely, or maybe you think differently, which is actually the more common version of a story, which is I used to think one thing and then some stuff happened. That's the majority of the story, of the stuff that happened. And on the back end, that five second moment, it's a moment of transformation. It's a moment when you suddenly change your mind and I believe these moments happen instantaneously.
Speaker 2Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast, where stories of courage are elevated. I'm your host, vekka, and every other week you'll hear interviews from inspiring people. My hope is that you will leave encouraged. I'm so glad you're here, matthew Dix. Welcome to the Once we're Dear podcast. It is an honor to be interviewing one of the world's best storytellers.
Speaker 1Oh, thank you very much. I'm not sure about that, but that's very kind of you.
Speaker 2I mean, that's what they say, that's what's on the record. You do have a pretty incredible record of winning some incredible speeches and you have an amazing book called Storyworthy, which I've highlighted, underlined, and I'm learning so much from this. I've actually went back to my manuscript and have changed some things, because there's some really good tips in there that you gave, so thank you for that.
Speaker 1Well, thank you, that's great. I'm so glad.
Speaker 2Well, I'm assuming you weren't always the world's best storyteller. So how did Matthew or Matt, become the world's best storyteller? How did you end up there?
Crafting Stories
Speaker 1Well, you know, it depends where you start the story really, which is what I always tell storytellers. But essentially the real sort of impetus to me taking stages and telling stories in the way I do today was my friends. They started hearing about the Moth, which is an international storytelling organization true stories told on stage, without notes. They were producing a podcast maybe 15 years ago they still do and my friends were listening to this podcast coming out of New York and I'm 20, I'm two hours from New York. So they said to me you know, basically you should go tell stories at the Moss. You've had a terrible life Like you'd be a great storyteller. You can tell all the terrible things that have happened to you, which is not a nice thing to say to your friend. And I have not had a terrible life, but I've had one of those you know, unusual lives you know, sort of, you know, filled with odd things that have happened to me. So I agreed because I always say yes to everything. I didn't really have a great desire at the time to, you know, go competitively tell a story while New Yorkers silently and outwardly judged me with their side eye and their man buns and their attitude. But I always sort of say yes to everything and I thought I would go to New York and tell one story and that would be the end of it. I told a story at the Moth, checked that off the list and moved on.
Speaker 1I was an author at the time and I still am. I was writing novels, so I was publishing novels and nonfiction and I thought that was the kind of storyteller I was on the page. And so I went to New York and it was a moth story slam. I went with my wife.
Speaker 1We went to the New Erechins Poets Cafe, which is this very famous location in downtown Manhattan, and I put my name in the bag. There was about 20 names in the bag in total and they only take out 10 over the course of the evening. So I put my name in there, thinking please just don't pick me, because then I can go home and tell my friends that I tried. You know, I gave it a shot. They didn't pick my name and we got through nine names that night without me being chosen. I was already sort of mentally getting to the car and driving home when my name came out 10th and I was shocked. I really couldn't believe it and at first I didn't move. I stayed seated at the table because it occurred to me that no one actually knew who.
Speaker 2I was Right. So if you don't move, it's like you know no one's going to notice.
Speaker 1Right. Eventually they would pull another name and that person would get to tell a story instead of me and I could still go home. But my wife was with me and she kicked me under the table and said that's your name. And I said I. And said that's your name. And I said I know what my name is. I don't want to tell a story here in this venue. And she said I don't care, we came all the way here. You have a story ready, get on stage and do it. And so I took the stage, hated every minute of that evening until I began speaking into the microphone. And the moment I started speaking I recognized that I had found a place that I really wanted to be, and a lot of it had to do with. My wife pointed this out to me. Much later.
Speaker 1I used to think I fell into something I was naturally good at. A little later in life, when I was 38, I suddenly found something I was good at, and my wife heard me say that once in a workshop and from the back of the room she said is that really why you think you're a good storyteller? You just happen to stumble upon a talent? And I said well, how else would you explain it? I was really good right away. And she said well, you're an elementary school teacher. You stand in front of the worst audience in the world 10 year old children and you entertain them all day long with a story. You're a wedding DJ. So for the last 20 years you've stood in front of audiences that you don't know and you've spoken extemporaneously to people who kind of don't want to hear you a lot of the time, and you've learned how to hold attention. You don't care what people think. You don't worry, you're not nervous on stage at all. I'm sure that helped, she said. And then she pointed out ever since I was 17, I've written every single day of my life without missing a day. She said, you've been writing stories. You're an English major. You studied novels. Like you don't think all of that, like she said that night, your school teaching DJ, you know expertise and writing and reading all came together and made you the person you are. And I thought, oh, that probably makes sense. Probably wasn't a talent, I probably just been crafting this, you know this occupation for a long time and just didn't recognize it. So, so that's how it sort of happened, you know.
Speaker 1I think if we really wanted to go back in time.
Speaker 1I was a kid who wasn't parented all that well and I wanted attention.
Speaker 1And so I discovered as a kid the best way to get attention was to tell stories about the stupid things I did. And so every time I did something dumb as a kid, I was sort of thrilled that I could go and tell my friends what I did. And so every time I did something dumb as a kid, I was sort of thrilled that I could go and tell my friends what I did, tell my teachers what I did, and so all fear of sharing vulnerability disappeared for me as a kid, because that's the way I garnered attention and I also found ways to be funny. Because of that I discovered oh, if I make people laugh, it's even better. So then I spent my childhood trying to get people to laugh. So you know, all of that sort of began with the departure of my father when I was seven, and a mother who struggled to be a mom in a lot of ways, and I think that was probably the origins of why I started opening my mouth as often as I do.
Speaker 2Wow, so you've been doing yeah, you've been doing homework for life before you made it officially homework for life in that sense.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, very much so. I was. I was looking for stories at a very young age. I wasn't really cataloging them in the way I do today until maybe my second year of sort of standing on stages and recognizing I might be running out of content unless I do something about it. But yeah, from a very early age. Even movies I've been obsessed with all my life.
Speaker 1When I was 10 or 12, I saw ET in the theater and I remember I was so angry about the movie. I loved it. But there's a scene that takes place in a science lab with some frogs that I thought was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. So I came home and I wrote a letter to Steven Spielberg that basically said I just saw AT and it's great, but you really fouled up one scene. That kind of screws up the movie in a lot of ways. And I said and I've noticed in most of your movies they're great, but you tend to like screw something up at some point. So if you want to send me the first cut of your movie, I'll be happy to tell you what's stupid about it and you can fix it. And I wrote that letter and I gave it to my mother and said, mail it to Steven Spielberg. And honestly this is the stupidest thing. But for 40 years I was mad at Spielberg for never responding. I thought, like, at least respond to me in some way.
Speaker 1And it wasn't until I was like 51 years old two years ago that I thought to myself it. Until I was like 51 years old two years ago that I thought to myself. It just occurred to me my mother never sent that letter because it was like 1982. There's no way in 82 that anyone can find Spielberg's address, let alone a mom who's struggling to be a mom. So she took my letter, threw it away and it never made it to Spielberg. But even at that young age I'm analyzing films and figuring out why they work and why they don't. I've been doing that all my life too, as well as reading books and doing the same thing. So I've just sort of been interested in this topic for a very, very long time.
Speaker 2Yeah, and one of the things that you say in your book Storyworthy is that you believe every story essentially is a five second moment, and you also say that Jurassic Park is really not about dinosaurs. Can you kind of dissect that and what you mean by that?
The Power of Transformative Moments
Speaker 1Both of those things, I think, are true. You know, in terms of stories, what happens most often in life is people report on their lives but don't actually tell a story right, they just tell you stuff that happened, and it can be really exciting stuff that happened, but it doesn't qualify as a story because, at least by my definition and by the definition of Hollywood and most authors and most storytellers will tell you, a story has to reflect some kind of change over time, a character, or, if you're telling a story about yourself, you have to be one version of yourself and then some stuff has to happen and in the end you're a different version of yourself. You either you're different entirely, or maybe you think differently, which is actually the more common version of a story, which is I used to think one thing and then some stuff happened. That's the majority of the story, the stuff that happened, and on the back end, that five second moment. It's a moment of transformation. It's a moment when you suddenly change your mind, and I believe these moments happen instantaneously. I think there's enormous lead up to the transformation itself, to the change, and that's the purpose of the story. The purpose of a story is essentially to bring as much context and understanding to a singular moment that we experience in our lives. So the moment I fall in love with my wife, there is a singular moment when I go wow, like this woman, you know, and I want people to understand what that feels like. And so 95% of the story is designed to bring the last 5% to the greatest understanding and comprehension of the audience as possible. So that's why I say it's a five second moment, those singular moments of change in our lives when our mind changes or we change in some significant way or, frankly, a somewhat insignificant way as well. Any change counts and actually I kind of love the small change too.
Speaker 1Uh, jurassic park is not about jurassic park, it's not about dinosaurs, at least, because it's spielberg again, and spielberg understands that every movie has to be about change over time. And so Jurassic Park is actually the story of a man who can't be with the woman he loves because she wants to have children and he does not. And that plays out almost exactly and perfectly so in the second scene of the movie where, at a dig site, the two, two characters, grant and Ellie, who are kind of romantically linked but definitely not married, are at a dig site, sort of looking at dinosaurs and some child comes over shouldn't be at the dig site. But there's a child there and you know he's trying to get Grant's attention and Grant basically terrorizes the boy. And as they walk away, ellie says like why'd you do that to that boy? And he said you know how I feel about children, they're stupid, they're smelly, there's nonsense. And he says you want to have one of those? And she says, like, not that one, but I'd like to, yes, have one. And that's it. That's what the movie's about. They can't really be together because she wants kids and he hits them.
Speaker 1And are we surprised then to find out that Grant ends up in Jurassic Park taking care of two children? Throughout the entire movie he has to spend his time with two children who he gradually falls in love with. He discovers that this boy, tim, knows a lot about dinosaurs and is kind of funny. He decides that this girl, Lex, is like an old soul who is remarkably calm under pressure. And as the movie proceeds, grant falls in love with these two kids.
Speaker 1And so the five second moment for Grant takes place in a tree where he's holding both kids in his arms the way a father would hold his children and they're going to sleep for the night. They've just fed a plant eating dinosaur and they're falling asleep. And Lex wakes up and says what if the dinosaurs come back tonight? And he says I'll stay awake. And she says all night. And he says all night long, which is exactly what a father says, which is go to sleep, I will protect you, don't worry.
Speaker 1And then he pulls them in close like a father would, and as he pulls them in close this dinosaur claw that he had in the beginning of the movie, the one he was terrorizing a child with the most precious object he sort of has, like this fossil it falls out of his hands and falls onto the forest floor because it's no longer relevant.
Speaker 1He's no longer a man who is obsessed with this thing that he once used to terrorize the children. The most important thing in his life now is no longer the claw but the children in his arms and that's the end of the movie. It's not really the end of the movie because they're trapped on an island filled with dinosaurs and we still need to kill a couple people and we have to figure out a way to get them off the island, but that's what it is, but when Spielberg makes that movie, he understands that. If the trailer said you know, watch a movie where a man learns to love children so he can be with the woman he loves, right, I'm not going to that movie. That's not a trailer.
Speaker 2Nobody is.
Speaker 1Right. But you right, I'm not going to that movie. That's not a trailer, nobody is right. But you plant that story in jurassic park and you surround it with dinosaurs. Now we're going to show up for the popcorn, the soda and the dinosaurs, but when we leave we feel good. We might not even be able to articulate why we feel good, but we understand that that was a movie where significant human emotion and transformation took place amidst tyrannosaurus rexes and velociraptors and giant electric fences and all the things that make that story exciting and worthy of many, many people coming and watching it. But we can't really have a story unless we place that human element into it.
Speaker 2Yeah, what I loved and what stood out to me personally is the five-second moment how profound it is and yet it's so simple. It's not this extraordinary thing you talk about how you had a gun pulled to your head and you had this car accident and all these crazy things that happened to you, but that's not the story. And so, essentially, by doing homework for life, everybody can extract those moments of transformation, those moments, the aha moments and moments where something shifted for them, something changed and they're no longer the same. And I'm working on a book myself and I'm working and writing a book about the people before me and this crazy story about a grandmother who was in two concentration camps by the Nazis and the Soviet. You know Stalin and Hitler and all the things, and I'm in this story as a protagonist.
Speaker 2But I kept arguing with my coach and editors that I don't have a story. My story is not nowhere near their story. And you talk in here how you help people with people who are survivors of Holocaust, crime, parents and so forth. How do you tell their story by also sharing, you know, kind of theirs? So can you kind of go into that a little bit? I'd love to hear a little more on that.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I work with an organization, for example, called Voices of Hope, which is the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and so the organization is dedicated to preserving those stories, making sure that no one forgets what happened. And when they came to me and said we'd like you to teach people children and grandchildren about what their parents and grandparents went through, I said it can't be a story about their parent or their grandparent, because that essentially amounts to history. Right, the person's probably not in the room, and even if they aren't in the room, it's not the person speaking who is telling the story. And as soon as you don't have to tell your own story, your story lacks vulnerability. It's easy to talk about other people, it's hard to talk about ourselves, right?
Navigating Trauma Through Humor
Speaker 1And so what we do is we take the storyteller, we take the child of a Holocaust survivor and we ask that child, how is your life different? Because your parent grew up and survived the Holocaust, right? And we find the elements of their lives that are different in some way, and then we take part of the survivor's story oftentimes not the whole part, not the whole story, but just a significant moment and we embed that within the storytellers, within the storyteller story. So, like a good example is, there's this woman named Dina and she is Jewish and has never watched Schindler's List, right, because she's afraid to watch it. She doesn't want to see on the screen what her father went through.
Speaker 1So the story opens with her watching television on the couch one night. Sort of one movie ends and, because she hasn't gotten to the remote control quick enough, the next movie begins and it's Schindler's List. And she suddenly has a moment. Is this the moment I'm going to finally watch Schindler's List or am I going to continue to avoid it and deal with this shame she feels as a Jewish woman, having avoided this movie for 20 years because she's afraid. And she says I'm afraid because, and then she takes us into her father's experience during the war Not the entire experience, but some of the more difficult experiences to imagine. So we learn about that and she talks about that experience. And then we come back to a woman on a couch, still trapped in shame and fear, with her finger literally hovering over the power button, trying to decide is this the moment I'm going to watch this movie or am I going to continue to move through my life with shame and fear because I can't bring myself to visually expose myself to something my father experienced at one point in his life? And that way we get to tell some of the story of her father's experience during the war, during the Holocaust.
Speaker 1But we also get to find out what she is like and because she speaks about herself there's vulnerability and a lot of times because storytellers are speaking about themselves, we can actually insert humor, which is often impossible to insert in most Holocaust stories.
Speaker 1There's no way to make it funny. But humor is a really valuable tool, especially with these stories, because you almost want people to be primed for the story, meaning we want them to show that my children are putting on in the living room which is hilarious and ridiculous, and I open with that specifically because I want people to know I'm about to take you to the darkest moment of my life, but before we go there, know that I have two children and a wife and they're all wonderful and I have a wonderful life today. I'm going to take you back to a terrible time, but I'm going to let you know it's okay to go there because I'm okay today. And so the value of doing that in a Holocaust story by letting the audience know it's going to be okay, that the person speaking is fine and that we can actually bring some humor to their lives while talking about hard things all of that is extremely valuable in stories like that.
Speaker 2And you also mentioned in your book how you know there's times that we think we have a great story because it makes people laugh, but if there's nothing, no depth to it, there's no kind of essentially a lesson to that or a hobbit that makes us think or leaves us feeling something, in the end it's really not a story.
Homework for Life
Speaker 1Right and it doesn't mean it shouldn't be told. You know I certainly have moments that are worth telling. I just have to understand context, meaning I'm not going to stand on a stage and tell you this thing, which is really just reporting on a crazy moment from my life. But if I'm playing golf with my buddies, it's as we're walking up the fairway. They're not looking for a moment of meeting, like they're half in the mind on their next shot and looking for a little entertainment. Those things are great. You know anecdotes and romps and little things that are funny, that don't actually move people and make people go like oof. You know there's moments for oof and then there's moments for just sort of amusement, and so there's nothing wrong with those stories, or you know what people refer to as stories. As long as we understand they're not really the things that make people remember you. Well, people don't remember your anecdotes as well as they remember the meaningful moments where you actually made them feel something akin to what you felt on the day that you experienced your change.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love that. Can you talk about homework for life? How did you come to that conclusion and what does that entail?
Speaker 1Well, I'm an elementary school teacher, so I tend to solve problems with homework whenever possible. So I was telling lots and lots of stories on lots of stages and realizing that I was running out of stories. You know, the list was getting a little short and I was getting nervous. The list was getting a little short and I was getting nervous. There are lots of storytellers in the world that sort of have six great stories and they roll one of them out every night. And I never wanted to be that person. I genuinely want to have a brand new story every time I take a stage, no matter what stage I'm on.
Speaker 1And so I recognized that was not going to happen with the list of stories that I had generated, just by sort of sitting down and thinking. And so I came to the understanding that I bet there's content I'm missing. That's what I thought. So I said what I'm going to start doing is looking for that content. So my decision was every night, before I go to bed, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write down the most story-worthy moment that took place this day, even if it was a day that had nothing really in it. The real sort of prompt I use is. Imagine someone kidnapped my family. Actually, I work for the FBI's hostage negotiation unit now, so it's even more relevant. Yeah, that must be a fun job.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's interesting, but the prompt I use is someone's kidnapped my family and they won't give them back to me until I take a stage and tell a story about something that happened today. And so what would I tell if I was forced to tell a story and then I write it down? Not the whole thing, because that's crazy. Those are journalers, those are special people. I like to create habit forming, simple tasks that can profoundly change our lives. So for me it was a spreadsheet and for most people it is. These days it's a date on the left-handed column and stories per year. That I thought would be fantastic.
Speaker 1What I discovered, unknowingly, was that my life was filled with stories and that I'm not a unicorn, that everyone who does it with some fidelity reports the same results. I discovered my life is filled with stories and, tragically, everyone's lives are filled with stories, but we either don't notice them because we're not looking for them. When we do notice them, we don't hold on to them and we forget them, and so we live a life where we're throwing away our memories like they're meaningless, when they should be our most treasured possessions. Homework for Life says stop doing that, and so, over time I discovered I'm just filled with them. I went from a person who was running out of stories to tell to a list that is so long I will never have time to tell every story I want to tell. You know, back in 2014, when I started doing Homework for Life, I was recording about 1.2 moments per day, so I would find 1.2 story-worthy moments per day. Today I record 7.8 moments per day.
Speaker 1My life didn't get more interesting. My lens for seeing these stories sharpened over time, which is what happens for people, and I expect it'll continue to sharpen it. You know, if you speak to me, in another decade, I will expect to be finding 15 moments per day. Maybe I'm sure there's an upper limit where there's just not that much stuff happening in your life, but there's more happening than I ever thought could be happening, you know, and so I'm capturing those moments. But when you capture those moments, you also sort of crack yourself open and memories from the past suddenly rise up and you grab those moments as well, which is really fantastic.
Speaker 1But even if you're not a storyteller, I think the most significant thing about homework for life is it changes the way you see your life, because almost every human being I know says time flies. I can't believe how quick that week, that month, that year went by, right, but the problem is it's not really flying, we're just forgetting it. So if I asked you, how many days in 2023 can you really remember? If I gave you enough time, you might remember 100 days. You might. I think that's probably the upper limit of what people will remember. So, essentially, what you do is if you can remember 100 days from 2023, you have reduced 365 days to 100 days. So, of course, time feels like it flies, because a year only takes 100 days for you, right.
Speaker 1For me, I have turned 365 days into 365 times 7.8. Time goes by incredibly slow for me. Truthfully, I feel every single day with its weight and its meaning, because I'm taking time to acknowledge it, see it and record it. So for me, time doesn't fly, that you're going to maintain memory, slow time down and acknowledge that every day has something worth remembering. All of those things are true even if you're going to go live in a cave and never speak to anyone for the rest of your life. The most important audience member for all of your stories is yourself. First and foremost, you tell stories to yourself to make sense of your life and to remember your life and to feel good about your life, and then, if you're someone like me, you tell every other person you can possibly find all the time or somewhere in between those two. But that's the beauty of homework, for life is suddenly you will live your life differently because you will be recognizing your life for what it really is.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's kind of a similar method with the gratitude journal that people who study show that if you write three to five things that you're thankful for every night or every day, you're going to start looking for things you're thankful for and, before you know it, you're you're looking for those moments that like, oh, this was a good moment, I should write that down. So it's the same concept of what was a story worthy moment today. And oh, there's this that stood out to me today. And as you're doing that now you're scanning for seven of them instead of one, and it's just you're finding those. So do you feel like doing homework? For life makes you more present in every day as well?
Speaker 1Yeah, it really does it. Like I said, it sharpens this lens. So, as before, when someone would say something to me that might mean something, it would almost like leave me. You know, and I wasn't reflecting on my life. Actually, a good example a couple of years ago. I'm playing golf with my friend, steve, and it's a hundred degrees out. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1And I carry my bag on my back because I'm an idiot and so and I've forgotten my Gatorade in the car, so I've got nothing to drink, and so we're on the sixth hole, I'm walking up a hill with him and he sees that I'm dying and he says you know, I have another Gatorade in my bag, I have an extra one, do you want it? And I said no. And as I said no, I thought to myself because I'm doing homework for life and I'm a storyteller. That's weird. Why did you not accept that Gatorade? So at the end of the round, I get in my car and Steve gets in his truck and he drives away, and I sit in my car and I say to myself why did you say no to the Gatorade? Most people just drive away, they go. That was weird. And they drive away Storytellers who are interested in themselves, sort of self-centered in a positive way, where I'm really curious about why I am who I am.
Speaker 1And in only a couple minutes, sitting in the air conditioning the blessed air conditioning of my car, I thought about it and I realized this is why, when I was a kid, I was hungry all the time. And when you're hungry as a kid, hunger becomes shame. You never want anyone to know you're hungry because it's so embarrassing. And so when you're offered food as a kid, you always reject it because you never want anyone to think you need it. You also know in your heart that you can never reciprocate. So someone offers you a sandwich, you know there's never going to be an extra sandwich for you to give to anyone.
Speaker 1So as a kid I trained myself to reject all offers of food. And it occurred to me that now I was like 48 years old and I'm still rejecting offers of food. And I quickly tracked back and realized my God, I do that all the time. There's three cupcakes on the plate. Someone says Matt, do you want the extra cupcake? I just say no, even if I want it, I am still a 10-year-old boy living inside a 48-year-old body. And that realization in the car suddenly changes the way I live my life, makes me understand my life better, you know, add some clarity to things that didn't quite make sense to me for a long time. All of that comes from that introspection, that homework for life, willingness to say why the hell do you do the things that you do, and then affording yourself the time to think about it, rather than just putting the car in, drive and moving away from the moment and never taking a moment to think about what was going on.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that became your five second moment because you reflected on the why behind what you did.
Speaker 1Exactly. And the thing about that moment which people always need to remember is when we watch a movie, five second moments tend to happen in spectacular ways because that's a movie, but most of the time our change. If someone's watching you in a significant and meaningful moment of your life, if they're watching you, they have no idea that's happening.
Speaker 1If someone was watching me sit in my car for an extra five minutes after that round the starter who I had paid at the golf course if he was like why is that guy sitting in his car, he would have seen a man sitting there staring at his steering wheel, doing nothing except thinking. And then I had this profound, unbelievable except thinking. And then I had this profound, unbelievable, deeply meaningful moment that I will never forget. But to him nothing happened, because most of the moments of our lives that are deeply significant they happen between our ears. They're all like our head right, so we're often driving or sitting in a chair or eating a meal, or we're on a phone and any outside observer. It does not look like these meal or we're on a phone and any outside observer. It does not look like these movie moments that we see on the big screen.
Speaker 2Right, there's no action, nothing's blowing up, nothing crazy is happening.
Speaker 1And people think it's not a story, then because nothing really happened, right, and I say everything happened, and it's fine to say I'm sitting behind the wheel of my car in the air conditioning when I suddenly understand why I am who I am right, that's a perfectly wonderful way to tell a story. And it's absent all the things that people think stories need in order to be successful. Right, I don't need dinosaurs in my story to make that story interesting for people. All I have to do is find a good way to make that story touch their heart and their mind.
Uncovering Forgotten Memories Through Stories
Speaker 2Yeah, I love that. And I also did one of your exercises where you write down just like what comes to mind and I had all these stories pop up. One of the things that you had the prompt was best, worst, first, last, and you had certain things. And the one with the toaster. I mean I burnt my kids, underwear and fire in a toaster, so that's a whole story. It's a story underwear and fire and a toaster, so that's a whole story.
Speaker 2It's, it's a story, but in just different things like that, or you know, trying to compete with where you know your kid tells you, mom, you know you're trying to go down the skateboard where this big hill, and you know that you don't have the skillset to go down this hill on a skateboard. But when your kid tells you that your five-year-old niece went down the hill and you're like, well, heck, if she went down the hill, why can't I go down the hill? And then you do it and you totally, you know, I mean I was all bloody and got myself really screwed up and because I thought, you know, I'm trying to be like the five-year-old or beating that. So it's like those things. Like you said, you have other those prompts surface more stories and other moments that were forgotten, and if we don't write them down, they will eventually leave our memory.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. First, last, best, worst is a great way of sort of probing your past in a purposeful way. If I asked you to tell me a story about love or tell me a story about a holiday, those stories tend to be at the tip of your tongue. Those are stories you've told before. So a game like First, last, best, worst, or another game I play, 3-2-1, essentially picks something like a toaster and says look through your life and tell me about the first toaster you've ever had, the last toaster you owned, the best and the worst toaster.
Speaker 1You may not find a story for any of them, but it's the idea that if we take sort of a laser pointer to our lives and we look through the lens of a particular object, we can often stumble upon stories that we have left behind. And once we find them and we resurface them and I put them into my homework for life, I code them as memories. Those are really valuable too. It's beautiful to be able to bring back things that you can't believe you forgot. You know it almost sort of starts to fill in that jigsaw puzzle If you've ever been like driving through a town and you take a turn and suddenly you go oh, that's how these two sections of town connect right and suddenly the map gets filled in.
Speaker 1That's what happens when we do this with our lives. Suddenly we're like that's right At 23, I was this kind of person, right and a little bit more of the map gets filled in the parts we've left behind, the parts that we sort of scratched out, where, like getting rid of some of that, we're erasing the marks and we're finding the truth in there, and I love doing that. So I play those games all the time, like more often than you could ever imagine. Again, I'm a person who is deeply interested in myself and what I would argue to be a very positive way.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I really admire that. I also admire that you're still a teacher and you're doing your dream job, because that's what you love to do.
Speaker 1You know when you can be on stage just speaking all around the world and coaching people, which you also do, but you have chosen to teach kids and make an impact in that way, and that's so admirable. Thank you. Yeah, I should not be doing it now. According to my financial people, they're like you're crazy, and I agree with them. You know, I work with Fortune 100 companies these days and you're right, I travel around the country and tell stories, but definitely the teaching job does get in the way at times to some of those opportunities that I have, but at the same time I just like the kids. That's truly.
Speaker 1The only reason I'm still a teacher is I enjoy kids and there'll be a day when I've had enough, I guess. Or there'll be a day when I see my kids' college careers approaching and I realize I need to make a larger pile of money in order to survive this college tuition disaster that is looming in my future. But I love the kids. I just love the kids. I'm also I'm 25 years into a career. I have been in the same school all 25 years. I've been in the same classroom for 21 of the 25 years, so I'm sort of entrenched like no one bothers me. You know, I kind of can do my thing. I have a boss who I like, so I've got a lot of good things going too. I live, I work, five minutes from my home, you know. So you know, I've sort of structured it in such a way that it's not as challenging as it is for some teachers, so that helps a lot too.
Crafting Stories
Speaker 2Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I want to dig into how you craft a story and in your book you kind of dissect the way to begin a story, keep pacing it forward and then how to end a good story. So can you go into that? I'd love to hear more on that.
Speaker 1Yeah, sure, well, we start a story at the end. Right, we want to start at the end because we're looking for a five-second moment of transformation or realization, right, a moment where you've changed. That's always going to be the end of your story, or pretty much the end of your story, because it's the most important thing you say. And so, after you've said the most important thing, you kind of have to stop talking. At that point, or you got to get close to stop talking just to pay attention to the way movies operate. Right, when Luke Skywalker destroys the Death Star, right, there is one brief moment where, you know, han and Luke get a medal and Chewie for some reason doesn't, and that's the end of the movie. Right, once the Death Star blows up, that's the end of the movie. Our stories are the same way. Once we have a moment of change, we're pretty much done. That's the end of your story, which is great, because most people don't end stories ever. They end because someone interrupts, or the dinner is served, or the phone rings. You know, people stop paying attention. People often don't open their mouth, understanding what they're aiming at.
Speaker 1Storytellers understand what we're aiming at. So you know if I, if my moment is. There was a moment in a car, at a golf course, when I understood why I reject food all the time because I'm still a hungry 10-year-old in a 48-year-old body. Right, that's the end of my story. Now I understand what I'm aiming at and I have the end of the story. It's going to end in the car. It's going to end in the car, with me suddenly realizing something about my life. So then, to find the beginning of my story, I have to ask myself what is the opposite of the end? And that's how we create transformation and realization over time. Right, the same thing happens in movies. The first 15 minutes of a movie will tell you how the movie is going to end, not with specificity, but you can see a character in the first 15 minutes and identify what their weakness, what their need, what their desire is, whatever it is. You can see it in the beginning of a movie and you know it will be resolved at the end of the movie. Right, in a romantic comedy, two people don't love each other at the beginning of the movie. We know at the end of the movie they're going to love each other. It doesn't mean it's not going to be a fun way to the end. You know it's. It's still going to be an enjoyable journey.
Speaker 1But we should be understanding, like, where this thing is really going. If we're paying attention, the same thing works in our stories. So we want to ask ourselves what's the opposite? So I would ask myself what's the opposite of a 10 year old boy and a 48 year old man's body suddenly realizing he's still acting like a 10 year old, right, rejecting food? It's probably the story is probably going to start somewhere where I'm 10 and I'm learning to reject food for the first time. I'm starting to understand that not having enough to eat is shameful, so I should be silent about it. So I'm going to probably start somewhere around there and then end with the release of that shame. I'm no longer ashamed. I can now accept the extra cupcake. I don't have to worry about what people are going to think about me, right?
Speaker 1Once we do that, we create what's called the frame of the story, which is the beginning and the end. It's what we're going to put the story inside of, and if you just do that, you're better than most people, because most people start stories at the most chronologically sensible location, which tends to be at the beginning of a journey, at the beginning of a vacation, at the beginning of a day, right? So if you go on vacation to Cancun and something really meaningful happens while eating dessert on the fourth day of your vacation, most people start that story by saying so, we arrived at the airport Even though we're four days away from dessert in Cancun. They just start the story in a chronologically sensible location Cancun. They just start the story in a chronologically sensible location. A storyteller says so I'm sitting at a table in Cancun when the dessert hits the table. Right, that's where I'm starting the story, because I understand, like that's the story, right. So if you have a beginning and an ending that are in opposition to each other therefore you're going to have change over time and you think a little bit about the right places to begin and end the story, you're better than most people, because most people just talk. Storytellers think before they speak.
Speaker 1I say to myself where am I aiming at? What's the opposite of that? Where's the sense of place to begin that? And then I can craft my story in between those two places and then the story gets a lot easier to tell, because if I know what I'm aiming at, I know how to make the decisions to get there. That means anything that doesn't serve, the end of my story goes away. I drop stuff on the cutting room floor very quickly if it doesn't get me from A to B, and that's hard for me because I can make things funny very easily. That's just who I am.
Speaker 1So my wife, in the beginning of my storytelling career, she'd say things to me like all right, a little bit about the toaster, what's going on there? Why are you lingering on the toaster for so long? And I'd say, well, I mean that's like four really great toaster jokes in there, isn't it? She's like, yeah, they're hilarious, they don't belong in your story. They're not getting you to the end, right? I'm a person who will just sort of linger in areas of humor to make people laugh because it feels good to make people laugh. But that's not what they're there for, right? They're there to hear a story, not for me to satisfy my own needs by making them have a spontaneous reaction to a collection of words that I've managed to assemble in some meaningful way. So just get that frame of the beginning and the end. Have those two things in opposition to each other. That's a great way to begin a story.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love that. And you also mentioned how, before you drop the five-second moment, you kind of slow the story down. You linger it a bit, but not too much, so you bring the story to a halt almost and then you drop that five-second moment on them.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's for a bunch of reasons. It really is a bunch. One is when you're getting close to the end of your story. If you're doing a good job, the audience should feel some level of suspense or be anticipating a surprise. There should be some level of expectation, and as soon as the audience sort of wants to know how the story is going to end, that's when I deprive them of the ending as long as possible.
Speaker 1It's the idea that once you have them, you want to keep them as long as you can. So I want to hold them in a state of suspense, and one of the ways I can do that is to slow down and I can start describing things that don't necessarily need to be described. I can use words to slow a story down too, just by packing in extra words to make it a longer journey to get to the end. It's also helpful because if you slow down, it's a signal to your audience that we're coming to the end, and that's really useful to an audience Like if you've ever watched a TV show, even something you enjoy, like you're loving the show. But so often, even if I'm loving something, I'll hit pause for a minute to see how much time is left, even if I'm loving it, because audiences like to know where they are in a story.
Importance of Vulnerability in Storytelling
Speaker 1They want to know, right, like in a movie, do I have 45 minutes to go? Do I have 20 minutes to go? Even if you love it, you still want that information, oddly right. And so we can verbally signal to our audiences that we're coming into the end. Don't get antsy. In other words, I am starting to slow down, I'm starting to speak quietly. This is a signal to most audiences that we're about to get somewhere important and that lets them sort of settle in and go okay, good, we're at the end, I'm ready to, I'm really ready to listen in. So it's a verbal signal to an audience that we're coming, we're coming into the finish line. So pay attention.
Speaker 1The same thing happens in movies all the time. You know, there's moments in movies where things just get slow near an end and they don't get slow motion. Now, sometimes they do, like when you know, in the Matrix, when bullets start moving slowly at the end of a movie, right, when they shoot him and the bullets are moving very slowly. Part of it is because, wow, look what we can do technologically. Right, we can show you the bullets passing through the air. But it's also great because the time it takes the bullets to reach him, that is suspense, and the longer it takes for the bullets to reach him, the more we're hanging and wondering what's going to happen and that's really useful for a storyteller.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's great. Have you done Toastmasters, or where did you practice on stages to kind of get the reps in? Because as a great speaker, you do have to get a certain amount of reps in before you can be good. I mean, the negative part of that is, if you're a really terrible storyteller and you're just repeating terrible stories, you're just training yourself how to, you know, be terrible at it.
Speaker 1But yeah, no, you're right, cause most stories, let's say 99.99% of all stories everyone tells, including me. I told to our friends and family and unless we have critical friends and family who even understand what a good story is, they often give us positive feedback. So most people receive positive feedback on bad storytelling, which perpetuates that bad storytelling. So reps are important, you're right, and the importance of reps is to tell stories to people who don't know you or love you, because that's the only way you can sort of determine whether you're good or not. So for me it was not Toastmasters. I have helped many Toastmasters people with their speeches I'm actually literally helping a person tonight but for me it was the moth.
Speaker 1I would go to New York and Boston, stand on those stages. It's a great proving ground because a moth story slam is a five-minute story which is really challenging. I always say it's easy to tell an eight minute story and it's like unfortunately disastrous probably, to tell a 10 minute story for most people who don't know what they're doing. But to push everything into five minutes is a real challenge and for me, the first probably two years of stories were only told for them all on a moth stage in five minute increments, and so it really trained me on understanding the importance of reducing things to only what needs to be said, the importance of time and an awareness of sentences that pack information into fewer words. So all of that was really helpful, and I did it all the time. And then eventually my wife and I started a storytelling organization here in Connecticut, where there wasn't any storytelling at the time and part of it was, so I could get my ass on a stage more often and tell more stories to more audiences.
Speaker 2But yeah, you got to get reps and you got to do it as much as you can how that is such an important component to storytelling and you tend to agree with Anne Lamott on if people wanted to treat you better, or how does her quote go?
Speaker 1Yeah, if people wanted you to speak better about them, they should have treated you better in the first place. Yeah, Something to that effect. Yeah, and it's true, I mean with some caveats. I always say don't destroy a relationship that means something to you for the sake of telling a story, Right, Right? So one of my storytelling friends once told me she said you're so lucky, your mom is dead. And then she quickly backtracked and said oh my gosh, you know I knew what she meant. What she meant was I have stories I'd like to talk about my mother in less than positive ways, but she is still alive and has access to the internet and understands how to find my stories on the internet. So I can't tell those stories, right, Whereas my mom has passed for a very long time and I tell wonderful stories about my mom and somewhere when she's less than wonderful.
Speaker 1But I say don't ruin a relationship. That said, if someone was terrible to you, go ahead and tell that story, and you should tell that story. I think there's nothing wrong with that. But vulnerability on top of all of it, which is to say, you want to be a storyteller who says the things that most people are unwilling to say, right, so you can't be afraid of moments of shame, embarrassment, stupidity when I make a really dumb decision or I do something very stupid. I recently came home after making a really terrible decision. I opened the door and I said, honey, I just did the dumbest thing, it's going to be the best story. I was so happy that I had done something foolish because I knew the story that would come from it.
Speaker 1And it was one of those stories that people say why would you tell people that? And I say because I'll tell them anything and almost always people feel better about me as a result. It doesn't matter almost anything. I can say that I've done. That's pretty rotten. If I say it out loud, in a crafted way, with some heart and some head and some meaning, all of that good stuff in it, people are going to be fine with it. I always say that the only stories you can really not tell in an effective way. If you've ever harmed an animal, no one's going to like that story, no matter what you do with it. Right, and no one's going to like you after that.
Speaker 1Right. If you've ever hit a woman, no one's going to be happy with you, no matter what you do. So there are some like areas you don't want to tread into. Thankfully, I've never done either one of those things, so I don't have that problem, but I've had to tell people before.
Speaker 2That's good to know, Matt.
Speaker 1Yeah, but I well, I, you know.
Speaker 1I tell a story about going to war with a cat when I was like 12 years old, a cat that was terrorizing my sister. My brother builds cardboard armor and straps it to my body and I have a cardboard sword and I go to war with this cat and I go into the room with the cat and the door gets closed and I don't tell people what happens in the room. I say a lot of stuff happens in that room and I end up clawed in every spot that isn't covered with cardboard, but the cat never bothers us again. So I don't tell you what I did, which is, in truth, I took a cardboard sword and I whacked the back of a cat who was terrorizing us as much as I could until that cat tore me to pieces, and then we essentially reached a state of detente where the cat left us alone and never bothered us again. But in general, you want to avoid some stories, but more in general, you want to be vulnerable. You want to share the things that most people are unwilling to say.
Speaker 2Yeah, but it's kind of like where do you cross the line, right, because that's what my editor keeps trying to like. You got to be more vulnerable. She's like you know, you're really, you know, more open when you speak and all these other things. But she was like in your writing you're kind of more reserved and you come off as a very different person than you are. Right.
Speaker 1I think there's a line. I don't think there's a line to cross. I think this is a big, open field to walk into. You know, I know that's easy for me to say and I acknowledge it right away, and I think people should be as vulnerable as they humanly can be. I'm also a white, straight American man with no physical disabilities or mental illness, so I recognize that I come from a place where vulnerability is probably a lot easier for me. If you are a woman, person of color, a member of the LGBTQ community, you know, if you're an immigrant who doesn't feel good about their English, if you're a person suffering from mental illness, I suspect it's probably a lot harder to be vulnerable. And me, from my privileged pedestal, it is easy to say there is no line, walk into the field.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1But having said that, I do believe it. I do believe that there is no line that people want to hear the things you have to say. I think that's the difference. People see vulnerability as requiring courage. Someone once said to me in a workshop you're the bravest person I've ever met. You say everything and I say it's not courage, though because it doesn't require any effort on my part. I'm not afraid. Therefore, it's not courageous. But for other people it requires courage because it is something they're afraid of. But I want people to know there's nothing to actually be afraid of. When you're vulnerable, people are more drawn to you than before. So you have to sort of like, do it and understand. Oh, I just said this terrible thing I did and everyone likes me more now because of it, and that's the truth. That's what happens.
Speaker 2Yeah, and because of that you also get a ton of people who tell you secrets and things they never told anybody.
Speaker 1You can't even begin to imagine the number of secrets I get told on a almost daily basis, whether it's the CEO of a Fortune 100 company who tells me secrets, because we tell stories to each other and she feels okay to tell it to me, even though I've never met her in person but only on a Zoom screen, right?
Speaker 1But crazy things that happen when I step off a stage and I go back to my seat in a theater and people just come and sit next to me and start talking to me and I'm honored and sometimes horrified by what they tell me. Right, you know it's that he was vulnerable, he shared something, so he must be okay with me sharing something. It's often people who want to unburden themselves. You know, people who have a thing they've been wanting to say for a long time and they just don't think they can say it to anyone without judgment. And then I get on stage and say this really ridiculous thing I once did, or this terrible thing, and they go well, he's not going to judge me because he's somehow contended. He somehow found a way to contend with his own issues, so perhaps he can deal with mine too.
Speaker 2That's so good. That's like Brenton A Brown has the quote where vulnerability breeds vulnerability. So that's exactly what you're creating. Well, matthew, I want to honor your time, so I'm just going to wrap up with a few last questions. We always end the podcast by asking what is the bravest thing you've ever done, and you have listed a lot in the book.
Speaker 1That's a great question what's the bravest thing I've ever done? Well, it would have to be the thing that required the most courage. Okay, the thing that I was the most afraid of? Well, I mean, I was pretty afraid to have kids, but my wife alleviated those fears. I mean, honestly, I think probably for most guys it was asking a girl on a date was probably the bravest thing I've ever had to do was asking a girl named Laura to be my girlfriend. That was probably the hardest thing for me to do. A 16-year-old boy telling a 15-year-old girl that he wanted her to be his girlfriend was terrifying. For me, that might have been the bravest thing I've ever done. No one's ever asked me that question before. I'll probably in five minutes go. Oh wait, I should have said something else.
Speaker 1Right, I once jumped off a cliff, but no, it might've been that I bet for a lot of people.
Speaker 1I all say guys, because it tends to be guys who ask girls more than girls who ask guys, but not always the case, obviously. But I think that might've been the bravest thing I did, because it's truly like a true act of vulnerability. It's a acknowledgement that I, like you are you going to reject me? And I, like I, loved that girl, like she was my high school sweetheart. We were together for years and you know, um, you know, she passed away, sadly, when she was about 40, or we'd still be friends to this day, uh, but yeah, I think that might have been the bravest thing. On the band room steps behind Blackstone-Milver Regional Junior Senior High School, I sat down with my closest friend, laura, and told her that I didn't just like her, but I liked, liked her, you liked, liked her, yeah, and I wanted her to be my girlfriend. And then, actually, probably the second most courageous thing was trying to kiss her for the first time, which took way too long, and she eventually had to kiss me.
Speaker 2So, yeah, that's probably it. There you go. What are three books that were transformative for you?
Speaker 1Oh well, made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath is the best teaching slash storytelling book that a person can read. If you're a teacher of any kind, well, in terms of conveying information uh, conveying non-fiction information, okay, especially like, if you want, if you're a teacher, or you're a business person who wants people to understand about your brand, your product, your service, those kinds of things Chip and Dan, he's made to stick is extraordinary in every way. I read Stephen King's Different Seasons when I was 12 years old. It was the first Stephen King book I read and even if you don't think you're going to like Stephen King, you should read that book.
Speaker 1That book contains the stories that were the basis of the Shawshank Redemption Stand by Me and a film called Apt Pupil, which is actually about a Nazi hiding in a suburban neighborhood.
Speaker 1It's a tremendous book. It's four novellas and it's great, and it introduced me to, I guess, to a version of storytelling that felt very real. It was a novel that felt like it was happening in my town, as opposed to everything I had read before, that which felt like it was happening somewhere else. I felt like all of these stories could be taking place on my street in one way or another, and one took place in a prison, but I still felt like I know these guys. I know place on my street in one way or another, and one took place in a prison, but I still felt like I know these guys. I know the guys that are in the prison, like that's my uncle and that's my other uncle Right, and that's my uncle's friend and that's the guy who runs a liquor store. They all felt so real to me so I loved that book. For that reason I started thinking of myself as possibly being a writer someday because of that book.
Speaker 2Wow. And you have written many novels since, so that's incredible.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it took me a long time, but yeah, but I've published novels since then and then I guess I mean there's tons of books I could choose. I guess I'll choose a book I don't usually say, but it has had a big impact on my life Nicholson Baker's the Fermata. It's a very slender novel, it doesn't take much to read but it sort of goes along with what we've been talking about. It's a story that essentially takes place. It's about a man who goes in a mall, up an escalator to a CVS and shops, buys something and goes back down the escalator. The whole novel takes place in that small space and I always think about it when people say things to me like you tell stories about nothing and you somehow make them into something.
Speaker 2Yes, how do you do it Right?
Speaker 1And that book, the Mezzanine, does that so beautifully Takes a tiny moment, expands it into a very slender novel. It's not like you know you're not reading Wuthering Heights, it's very. You can read it in a couple of gulps, essentially. But it's great in terms of it being very small, very interior, because that's what stories are. They're interior. Most of it's happening in our heads. That was a really good book to read and think about the way I tell stories and the way Nicholson Baker. Nicholson Baker, who's a great novelist. He's got really great books. You should read him. It's a good read for people who want to tell stories about nothing and make them into something.
Speaker 2Yeah, Well, you do such a great job with that.
Speaker 1And then the last question is what is the best advice that you've ever received? So it's such a hard question for me because I grew up sort of on my own in enormous ways. So I hear this question get asked all the time, on podcasts especially, and they always have the best answers. And whenever I hear the answer I go well, you had a dad. Everyone who says my dad once told me I'm always like, damn it, I didn't have a dad. Or they say like, oh, my mentor I'm like I didn't have a mentor, like I didn't have any of these people in my life.
Speaker 1But in fourth grade, a teacher whose name, sadly, I can't remember, kills me that I can't remember her name. I was having a bad day and I don't even know why I was having a bad day. I do remember being in one of those dark moods, one of those sort of frustrated, angry moods, and I wasn't doing my best work, I guess. And the teacher came over and she crouched down next to my desk and made eye contact with me, which is not something that a lot of teachers are smart enough to do, you know, to like get down on a kid's level. So she got down on me and she um, she put her hand on top of my hand, you know, just like this. And she said listen to me. A positive mental attitude is your key to success and I have no idea why that.
Speaker 1those words lodged in my mind, maybe like it was the moment I needed to hear them. I have spoken those words out loud into myself tens of thousands of times in my life, walking around just saying a positive mental attitude is your key to success. Wow, a positive mental attitude is your key to success. And I've been through some stuff Like I have a lot of reasons to not have A positive mental attitude is your key to success. And I've been through some stuff Like I have a lot of reasons to not have a positive mental attitude. You know many, many reasons that I should be like looking back on my past and being really upset. You know, arrested and tried for a crime I didn't commit, homeless, armed robbery, a father who abandoned me, a mother who couldn't take care of me. You know real tough stuff.
Speaker 1But just last night we were at dinner with my family and a friend whose birthday it was and she sat down the birthday lady, her name's Kaya and she said how was your day? And I said it was great. And my daughter said he never doesn't have a great day. Somehow, even on a Monday, he wakes up and he's somehow still having a great day. And I thought when she said that, I thought to myself it's because of the positive mental attitude is my key to success. So even on a day when I am waking up and not feeling it, I have ways that I know biologically that can make me feel better, like play some positive music instead of wallowing in self-pity.
Speaker 1Or my daughter on this morning it's Monday she said oh, I hate Mondays and I know that when you say I hate Mondays, your brain hears it and because your brain now knows that you hate today, your brain releases chemicals that reinforce that negative feeling. I tried to get my daughter to understand this, because even if I'm feeling bad, I would never, ever say it out loud, because I know my brain is listening to clues to sort of regulate my body, and so I only give my brain clues that are positive. When I'm riding my, you know, I have a bike, an inside bike I ride. My wife hears me and she thinks I'm crazy because I sit on that bike and I kill myself and I go come on, matt, you've got this. And she's like you just talked to yourself the whole damn time.
Speaker 1And I say in a very positive way, because I'm right now riding in Switzerland and it sucks, and the only way I'm going to get up this hill you know that really is just resistance on my pedals is by constantly and positively speaking about myself. So those words for some reason, a positive mental attitude is your key to success. Fourth grade. It has been with me ever since and it has been a keystone in my life.
Speaker 2That's so good. Is there anything else you'd love to leave the audience with before we wrap up?
Speaker 1Well, I think they should do homework for life. So go watch my TED talk on homework for life. Just Google the phrase homework for life, because there's more to it than what we've talked about and that'll give you a good roadmap towards finding it. If you want to learn more about storytelling, you can go to storyworthymd my initials mdcom and that's a place where there's tons of free resources for you to learn to become a better storyteller. I actually have a free academy that will actually take you through story by story, lesson by lesson, video by video, to help you do some of the things we talked about in a much more expansive way. I have courses and things that are for sale there, but you don't need to pay a dime to learn an enormous amount about storytelling, because I think the world is better with more storytelling and more good storytelling in the world. So go learn homework for life and go to StoryworthyMD and start checking out all the things I have there for you that you can begin consuming to become a better storyteller.
Speaker 2Well, matthew, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It's been such an honor to talk to you and thank you for what you're putting out in the world. I devoured your book Storyworthy, and I encourage the audience to get it. It's been actually in my Amazon list for a while, and then I was in an art the art of teaching conference in Nashville and this guy named John Tyson said you got to get this book if you're going to be on stage or if you're writing stories. I thought this is not the first time I heard that. So anyways, john, you know who that is.
Speaker 1No, but I love him now and I should mention I have another storytelling book coming out in June, so it's available for pre-order now.
Speaker 1My editor would kill me for not saying it before, but Story Cell is coming out in June, june 12th. It's a storytelling for business and professionals. So it's sort of what's happened with Storyworthy is the business community has found it and begun to use it, but it wasn't really written for. The business community has found it and begun to use it, but it wasn't really written for the business community. It was written for people who want to tell good stories in their lives. So Stories Sell is the book that will help professionals, people who want to tell stories in sales, marketing, branding. If you're a leader in a company, if you're an inspirational speaker, you know if you're doing storytelling in any kind of professional way a podcast or those kinds of things this is the book that will help you actually take storytelling and apply it to those contexts in an effective way. So people should pre-order it now in bunches and buy 12 at a time is my recommendation.
Speaker 2That's right. Buy them for your whole staff, for your corporate, your companies, all the things, and do so. Yeah, thank you so much, matt. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you and I love the work you're putting out. So keep up the good work. I'm excited, thank you, and I will definitely put that next book in my Amazon cart and hopefully won't wait for John Tyson's prompt.
Speaker 1Thank you, it's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2Thank you for listening to the Once we Dare podcast. It is an honor to share these encouraging stories with you. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to tell your friends. Leave us a reviewer rating and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts, because this helps others discover the show. You can find me on my website, SvetkaPopovcom. Thank you.