Hey everybody, welcome to story time, a monthly live that I do with people in
0:07
the storyworthy community and hopefully you. If you're not in a storyw worthy community yet, maybe by the end of the day you will. My name is Matthew Dixs. I
0:14
am a storyteller. I'm a teacher. I'm an author. I'm a business consultant. I'm a bunch of things. But today I'm here to
0:20
teach you a little bit about storytelling. Uh, story time is an opportunity for people to watch me craft
0:26
a brand new story live sort of right here. So, it's not going to be perfect,
0:31
but I'm going to take a look at my homework for life. I'm going to find a story for you and show you some of the strategies that I use to craft those
0:37
stories. Uh, then we're going to do some Q&A. So, if you have questions for me about the story I tell or really anything related to storytelling, and
0:44
honestly, anything not related to storytelling is pretty great, too. I love answering questions. So, there'll be a Q&A session where you can put
0:51
questions in the YouTube chat. Use use the letter Q with a colon so that we can
0:57
find those questions easily. And then I'll be answering those questions live for you as well. We'll meet some people
1:03
who work with me in the storytelling universe, folks who are involved in my partner in crime. So, we'll meet those
1:08
folks as well. Uh, at the end of this session, we're going to give away a free gift for you. So stick around and uh
1:15
you'll get something uh in addition to the wisdom and the genius that you're about to experience today. Uh and then
1:23
later on uh we'll have an afterparty. So if you want to join me and chat with me about some questions and things like
1:29
that, that would be great, too. All right. So we have a lot of things to do. We have about 45 minutes to get it done.
1:34
I'm going to try my best to tell you a excellent story today. Uh so in a moment I'm going to take a look at my homework
1:40
for life. If you're not familiar with Storyworthy and you're not familiar with me, Homework for Life is actually the
1:45
most important thing that I teach. I teach it uh to 10-year-old students in my classroom and I teach it to adults of
1:51
all ages. Homework for Life is my attempt to hold on to every day and to
1:58
recapture days that I was too foolish to hold on to many years ago. Essentially
2:03
what I do is at the end of every day or truly in the midst of every day now when
2:08
a moment strikes me meaning something happens that I think is worth holding on to that can be my son daughter or wife
2:16
say or do something that I find interesting. It could be one of my students or friends say something or
2:22
show me something or you know reveal themselves to be something I didn't realize before. It could simply be a
2:28
thought that pops up into my head that I've never had before. That's a legitimate homework for life moment.
2:34
Essentially, I'm looking for moments that happen during my day, that make me excited about my day, depressed about my
2:42
day, worried about my day, frightened about my day, ecstatic about my day. I'm looking for moments that mean something
2:48
to me, and I'm going to hold on to them. The problem in life is that we allow our days to disappear. So, if I asked you
2:55
what you were doing last Thursday or two weeks ago, you probably can't tell me anything about that day. it's already
3:01
lost to you. Homework for life says every day that's worth living is worth
3:07
remembering. So, let's hold on to it a little bit. I don't write the whole story down. I think that would be a
3:12
chore. I love writing. I've published novels and non-fiction. I publish a blog. Writing is fantastic for me, but
3:18
not for everybody. So, it's a simple task. I have an app, Homework for Life, that makes it really easy. I currently
3:25
still use my spreadsheet because I've been using it for the last 15 years. So, in a moment, we're going to take a look at my spreadsheet for the last 72 hours.
3:32
And what I'm going to do is find a moment that might be worth telling a story about. Typically, within a 72-hour
3:38
period, I can find a story. Not necessarily a story that I will take to the stage someday or take to a corporate
3:44
location, but it might be a story that I'll tell my friends on the golf course, my wife over dinner, my children when
3:49
we're sitting on the couch. Typically, within 72 hours, I can find something. Let's hope I can. So, we're going to
3:55
take a look at my homework for life right now. When you take a look at it, you'll see that there's a spreadsheet here and you can see that there are some
4:02
blacked out items in my homework for life. Uh the blacked out items are actual moments, but they're moments that
4:08
sort of contain some uh some information that I don't want you to see either because it's private or quite honestly
4:15
in these situations. It all involves people whose names don't deserve to be published on the internet. So, if you
4:22
can see, these are my last three days of homework for life. And I have to find a
4:28
moment. Now, I could have prepared ahead of time, but why would I go do that? So, I have to find a moment that's worth
4:34
telling a story about. So, if I look at the first day, oh, there's a moment here at golf that
4:40
would be funny to tell my friend.
4:45
[sighs] Gentle parenting is amusing. I go to the movies with my daughter. Oh,
4:51
I got it. I can tell a story about this. Yeah, I think I'll tell this one. So, if
4:59
you look at my homework for life, um the item just at the bottom of October 18th,
5:06
I wrote at the climax of the film, we watching a movie in the movie theater, amazing car chase with Hills, just a
5:13
great moment. Claraara scoots over to my seat to cuddle with me and I say, "What
5:18
are you doing? I should have invited it, but the timing is weird. But how often will this
5:24
happen?" Yeah, that's a that's actually a moment that'll land on the stage someday, I suspect. All right, so I
5:30
don't want to give away too much, but we're seeing a movie called One Battle After Another, I think is the name of
5:35
that movie. Uh, and you heard what I said. Clara scoots over to my seat and
5:40
starts cuddling with me at a weird moment sort of at the climax of the film and I
5:46
and I tell her to get away from me. And upon reflection, I think that was probably a bad decision. So, I'm going
5:52
to tell that story right now. Uh, I'm thinking about where I want to end the story. That's always where I begin is
5:58
with the ending. What am I trying to say to you? I know what I'm trying to say to you already. It's already in the homework for life. How often will these
6:04
moments happen for me again? And then I have to ask myself, what's the opposite of that? That's going to be the beginning of my story. And now I have
6:10
that in place. I'm going to try to choose an excellent place to begin that creates a little bit of wonder. Uh, it's
6:18
tricky and hard. I will try as best as I can. I'm going to try to use a lot of
6:24
butts in this story. You should butt your way through all your stories. Talk to you forever about that. All right. I'm going to give it a try. All right.
6:30
It's not going to be the best version of my story, but it's going to be a story, and I hope you like it. So, here we go.
6:36
Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.
6:42
I'm sitting in one of those really amazing movie theater seats. It's
6:49
reclining. It has cup holders. It's pretty fantastic. It's nothing like the
6:54
seats that I sat in when I was a child. And sitting beside me to my left is my daughter Claraara who was 16 years old.
7:01
She's brought me to this movie. The movie is one battle after another. It
7:06
was a movie I had no idea what it was when I came into the movie theater. It's my new way of seeing movies, which is
7:13
Clara picks a movie and I purposefully avoid knowing anything about it. And so when I land in the seat, I legitimately
7:18
don't know if I'm in the midst of a romantic comedy, a thriller, a horror, or anything. The fact that Clara is
7:24
choosing the movies that I'm going to see and going to the movie theater with me is kind of astounding because until
7:31
about 3 years ago, Clara couldn't watch a movie. My daughter has autism. It's sort of that brand of autism that you
7:37
wouldn't really know she has it unless you spend some time with her, but it does affect her life. And when she was a kid, it prevented her from seeing any
7:43
movie because every movie was too stressful for her. We were in The Good Dinosaur and she had to flee the movie
7:50
because The Good Dinosaur was too stressful for her. She actually managed to watch Frozen the first time, but when
7:55
we went back for the singalong version, for some reason, the snow monster was too much for her the second time, so she
8:01
had to leave the theater. The very first movie we ever took her to was Winnie the Pooh. And we didn't get through the
8:06
Winnie the Pooh trailers before she was crying and we had to leave. But I think the clearest vision of what my daughter
8:12
used to be was when she was about seven, we were watching a Curious George cartoon on the television. And at one
8:19
point, the birthday cake was teetering on the edge of the table. The cartoon
8:24
birthday cake was teetering on the edge of the cartoon table with the monkey sitting next to it. and she had to flee
8:31
the room because it was too much for her. And I had to chase her out of the room and hold her in my arms and assure
8:36
her that the cartoon cake in the cartoon room with the cartoon monkey would be fine. She had to she had so much fear
8:45
and anxiety. I had to hold her close to get her through that. So sitting here in this movie theater watching this movie,
8:52
which is definitely an adult movie filled with lots of stuff that she never could have watched 3 years ago was
8:58
crazy. But three years ago, she came to me and she said, "Dad, I want to see the movie Poltergeist." And I said to her,
9:03
"You've seen a movie in your life and most adults can't see that movie. What are you talking about?" And basically,
9:08
if she had said it properly, she should have said, "Dad, my autism has caused my brain to flip and I am now obsessed with
9:14
movies and I can handle any movie you ever show me." And weirdly, it was true. We watched Poltergeist and she loved the
9:20
movie and she began watching horror movies and now we go to movies together. And so we sit side by side in movies
9:26
that I have a hard time watching at times because they're so horrific and she loves every bit of it. She knows the
9:33
names of directors and cinematographers. She watches movies from the 1920s. She watches she watches art house movies
9:40
from France that are subtitled. She is a serious cophile. And so I am sitting
9:46
here watching this movie which I thought was going to be terrible because it didn't have a good title. And it turns
9:51
out once again she was right and I was wrong. It's the end of the movie and it's pretty fantastic. And there's one
9:56
of the most amazing car chase scenes I have ever seen on film in my life. The cars are sort of coming up and down
10:02
these hills. It's a terrible man chasing a 16-year-old girl. I have no idea how
10:07
she's going to escape. And we're in the kind of movie where she might die. We're in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie where
10:13
anything could happen and this story might not end well. And I am in the grips of this moment when I feel
10:19
something that I do not expect. It is my daughter. She has sort of like come over
10:24
her arm rest and come over my armrest and she's almost like trying to get into my seat and I turn to her and I say
10:32
like, "What's wrong?" Because this is definitely not the movie where she should be frightened. There were definitely moments before this where she
10:37
should have been wanting to cuddle with me and she had no interest whatsoever. I said, "What are you doing?" And she
10:43
said, "I just wanted to cuddle with you, daddy." She whispers that in the most intense car chase I've ever seen in my life. And so I say something to her that
10:50
does not surprise me then but surprises me now. I say, "Clara, get away. Like
10:56
this is an important moment in the movie. Go sit where you belong." And I sort of shove her aside.
11:02
My 16-year-old daughter in the midst of a movie, in the midst of a crowd, sort
11:07
of climbed over her armrest and mine to try to cuddle with her father. and I
11:14
shoved her away, which at the moment felt totally appropriate. It was a weird thing to climb over and cuddle with me.
11:22
But the moment Clara steps out of the car and begins walking towards the front
11:28
door of her house and I see her with some clarity as the young woman she is
11:33
quickly becoming. I say to myself out loud in my car, "How many times do I
11:41
have left? How many more times is she going to try to cuddle with her father?
11:48
How soon will it be before I have to say, "Come cuddle with your father, honey. He needs a hug." Sitting in my
11:56
car behind the wheel, I realize how foolish and stupid I was, and how I need
12:02
to tell Clara that I appreciate what she did, how stupid I was, and how I would
12:08
love to cuddle her. I have yet to do that because that moment happened less than 48 hours ago. And I know that with
12:14
kids, the words you say matter, but your choice of moment matters even more. And
12:20
I know that because I'm thinking about how in the midst of an incredible car chase, something inside my daughter's
12:26
heart said, "I want to cuddle with my daddy right now." Not because of what was on the screen, but because of what
12:31
was inside her heart. So, I will choose an equally beautiful moment to tell her how stupid I was and ask her if she'd
12:38
willing to have a makeup cuddle with me at this time. And my hope is that she
12:43
says yes. Thank you. [sighs] All right, that wasn't bad. I will reflect a little
12:50
bit on that story and then we will open this up for questions and answers or at least questions. I don't know if I have
12:56
answers for you. Hopefully, I will. But let me just do a quick little reflection on that story. So, I like to start by
13:01
talking about things I liked about the story, and you should, too. Uh, we are far too too hard on ourselves all the
13:08
time. And so, uh, I'm always kind to myself, so I think about the things that I really liked about that story. I had
13:14
actually forgotten until I was telling the story about the moment in the car when I watched her walk into the house.
13:19
I had completely forgotten about that moment, but as I was telling the story and I was trying to find a place to end, I went, "Oh, right. I watched her walk
13:26
into the house, but I stayed in the car for a minute." So, I found that in the telling of the story, which I like a
13:32
lot. I like stories that end in simplicity. I like stories that end sort of alone behind the wheel of a car
13:38
because I think we have a lot of profound moments alone behind the wheel of a car and lying in bed at night and
13:45
standing in a drive-thru line. Like, I think the moments that we have that have great meaning often happen in the most
13:51
benign location. So, I like that a lot. I like that ending. I kind of like the idea of me hoping to say yes. I don't
13:57
like stories ending in a lovely little bow. I don't want to to end the story with a hug. I want to end with the
14:03
desire for a hug. I think that's a better ending. When we end stories like that, it keeps the audience wondering
14:08
about what happened next. And if they're wondering about what happened next, the story stays alive inside them. I have so
14:14
many examples that I could just go off on, but I'm not going to. But there's lots of examples of me keeping the story alive in people's minds by not
14:20
completely ending it. And then I get flooded with emails and text messages and WhatsApp messages with people
14:26
wondering what happened next. And I think that's a great way to end a story. That's the perfect way to end a story. So I like all that a lot. I was trying
14:33
in the beginning of the story to sort of create the image of a girl who really
14:40
couldn't genuinely see movies or even watch TV shows for most of her life. And then her brain flipped one day. I
14:46
actually asked her, I said, "Why did you just start liking movies one day when you didn't the day before?" And she
14:52
said, "Say hello to autism, Dad." And that's sort of it like her brain just
14:58
decided that the thing she cared about before, which was mythology, obsession on mythology. One day she came
15:04
to me and she said, "Dad, I know everything about Tahesian mythology." And I said, "I never want to know anything about Tahesian mythology,
15:10
honey." uh it flipped and it went from mythology to movies and it's been movies ever since. And literally the first movie she
15:17
ever watched to completion other than Frozen, which she managed to get through the first time, was Poltergeist, a movie
15:24
which legitimately most adults can't watch without being terrified. But somehow her brain flipped and she didn't care anymore. She recognized these
15:30
movies as being artificial representations of stories that are not happening in real life. And so she's
15:36
become the most enormous cinnaphile I've ever met in my life, the most knowledgeable person about movies I've ever met in my life and such a broad
15:44
understanding of it. So I was trying to create that at the beginning of the story. I was trying to hug her at the
15:50
beginning of the story because she was afraid of of Curious George. I love that Curious George moment. It's going to be
15:56
in the story for sure. Maybe I only need the Curious George moment. Uh, but I was trying to show how I loved hugging my
16:03
daughter when she was frightened as a small child. And today, as a 16-year-old, she's frightened a lot less, but when she wants to cuddle with
16:10
me, like I used to love cuddling with her as a child. I should like it just as much. I should embrace the cuddle in the
16:15
way I did as a when she was little, and I didn't on that day. It really was though legitimately a weird time to
16:20
cuddle. Honestly, it was like the weirdest time ever to cuddle, which I want to make that point clear. I want to make it clear that like it's
16:27
legitimately weird but appropriate. So, I think I got to clean up the beginning. It felt a little hairy, meaning it felt
16:33
a little bloated. I think I could say it a little quicker. And I think I can create a little more
16:38
suspense in the middle of the story. Um, a little more suspense about what I'm
16:45
going to do. I think I can raise the stakes a little by putting everyone around me. It was weirdly a full, not a weirdly, it was a great movie. It was a
16:51
full theater. I expected to be empty, but it was full. So, like as she cuddled with me, the people behind us could see
16:56
her like lifting her adult-sized body over to me. The people to our left and right could I think I can do some of
17:02
that, too. It wasn't bad, though. It wasn't great. It was like a B minus version of the
17:07
story. It was very bloated. I need to tighten it up quite a bit. Uh, and aim
17:15
better at that moment in the car. It's hard to aim at a moment if you don't know about the moment until you find the moment in the middle of the story. I was
17:21
aiming for a moment in the seat of the movie theater and I realized as I was telling it, it can't end here. It's got
17:26
to end somewhere else. And then I remembered. So, [snorts] all right. That's kind of how it works for me. So,
17:32
just so if you're looking to craft stories in your everyday life the way I just did, a couple things you can be
17:37
thinking about. First, tell that story beat by beat. Meaning, take you step by take yourself step by step through the
17:43
story. Don't get ahead. Don't get behind. Just stay within the moment as best as you possibly can. Start with the
17:49
ending. You have to know what you're going to say before you start talking. I knew what I was trying to say. I was a father who rejected his daughter's
17:56
cuddle and now he he um resents it. Not resents it. Now he um now he's sad about
18:04
it. Yeah. Now he's sad about it. That's what I was trying to say. I knew what I was trying trying to say all along, so I was able to aim at it. Start at the end.
18:11
Ask yourself an interesting place to begin. Start as close to the end as possible. I started during the car
18:16
chase. I started with 5 minutes left in the movie. I could have started at the beginning of the movie, but that would be terrible. I started as close to the
18:23
end as possible. I was seconds away from her jumping over the armrest to cuddle with me. That's where I started. That's
18:30
where you should start, too. As close to the end as possible. Not my advice, but Kurt Vonagget's advice that I have
18:35
adopted and own. All right? So, do those things and then find a moment that means something to you. You know, that moment
18:42
really meant something to me and I'm going to hold on to it forever. Even if I regret that moment, I'm going to hold on to it forever. All right. I hope that
18:47
was helpful. If you have suggestions about my story, questions about my story or questions about anything at all, uh, drop it in the chat right now. Use Q
18:55
with a colon so that we can find those questions right away. I'm going to introduce you now to my partner in crime
19:01
and my friend Lionel who he's going to actually watch the chat for me and he's going to be telling us what the questions are. But why don't we meet
19:07
Lionel first? Lionel, are you here? I hope to introduce yourself to everyone who is on the on the call.
19:15
I am here. Hello everybody. Nice to meet you. Hi, Matt. That was a great story. I
19:20
really enjoyed it. I don't have any kids. Still touched my heart. Loved it. Thank you. It was a B minus. I'm already
19:27
sort of redoing it in my head a little, but thank you. But you know what? Honestly, Lionel, a B minus story is great for dinner, for the golf course,
19:33
for your friends. Like I would, it needs to be better crafted for a stage. But uh what I always tell people is if you're
19:39
telling a B minus story, almost everyone who's not thinking about stories are telling Dminus stories. So a B minus
19:45
story in the world is pretty extraordinary. I loved it. Don't be afraid of the B minus. Thank
19:51
you. So just to do a quick introduction. Hello everybody. I'm Lo Kalis. Matt and I are partners. We've co-created this
19:58
beautiful universe of storytelling training for you. And we don't have enough time today for my origin story.
20:04
Actually Matt and I did a 30inut interview where he pulls out my origin story and we're going to share it with you in the next few weeks. And uh you
20:11
guys will get to see it. kind of starts um well, I'll share something with you now. It sort of starts with a box and
20:17
we'll tell you a little bit more about it inside our free academy. And what we're going to do now is we're going to get questions from everybody. I'm going
20:24
to post them up on the screen. I'm going to read them out for you. So, if you do have a question, like we said, post Q colon and then your question and I can
20:30
find them quicker and we'll get a chance uh to ask Matt the question you've been looking to ask. Now, normally we do this
20:36
face to face. So, you're going to want to join us in the VIP afterparty where everybody will get if you have a a
20:42
webcam, you'll get to ask Mac questions directly. Um, we normally do this a little bit more intimately, but today we
20:47
have chat. So, let's do that. And without further ado, let's bring Wait, Lionel. Yeah,
20:52
I have a question for you first. Just tell them who's on that box. Who's on the box you just showed?
20:58
Oh, the box. Oh, okay. The box. Who's on the box? Tell them. At least that that would be me. That would be me.
21:04
You might notice my red beard. my uh my hair is a little bit covered, but uh that would be me and you'll learn a
21:10
little bit more about that inside the academy. So, without further ado, let's find our first question here. We have a
21:17
a question from Lucy and she wants to know, can you explain starting at the
21:24
end? What does it mean starting at the end, Matt? Sure. So I guess Lucy, it doesn't mean
21:30
we start telling the story at the end, but what I what I mean is storytellers are people who just think a little bit
21:38
before they open their mouths. That really is the difference. Storytelling is nothing more than decision-m. Doesn't
21:43
matter what facility you have, what the English language, what your vocabulary is, what your understanding of anything
21:48
is. It's just simple decision- making. And in order to make a good decision,
21:53
you have to sort of know what you're aiming at. My son Charlie today built me
21:58
an outdoor heater. One of those like you sit around it and you can toast marshmallows and it has propane, right?
22:05
Charlie had a picture of what it was supposed to look like when he was finished. If I had just handed Charlie
22:11
all the parts and a stepbystep instruction without him looking ahead to
22:17
see what the result was supposed to be, that would have been incredibly difficult for him to put this thing together. Stories are not unlike this
22:23
meaning we have to know what the ending is so that we can make good decisions in
22:29
getting there. So when I start say start with the end what I do is the first thing I say to myself is what's the
22:35
point of the story? What's the thing I'm trying to say? What is the change that has occurred to me that I am trying to
22:42
make my audience understand? In the story I just told you, I changed from a
22:47
father who doesn't want his 16-year-old daughter cuddling with him in the midst of a movie to a father who regrets not
22:54
allowing his daughter to cuddle with him in the midst of a movie. Right? So, I'm trying to tell you I feel regret for
23:01
pushing her away because I recognize these times are probably becoming fewer and farther between. So, what a mistake
23:08
I made. So, Lucy, it simply means before you start telling your story, ask yourself, where am I trying to get to?
23:14
What am I trying to say? What is my moment of transformation? What is the thing that happened that makes me want
23:19
to speak this truth to other people? And put that in your mind. Then find an
23:25
appropriate beginning and work your way to the end. Otherwise, you end up meandering. And meandering stories often
23:30
don't end up anywhere or sometimes miraculously someone finds an ending, but by then they've said so many
23:36
irrelevant parts that it's sort of purposeless. So, that's what I mean. I hope that answers the question.
23:41
That's great, Matt. Our next question here is from Michelle. And Michelle wants to know. How do you remember all
23:47
the detail from the short homework for life prompt? Oh, that's a good question, Michelle. Can you do entries that are are from
23:53
like a long time ago? Uh, is it because it's just fresh, the 72 hours? Tell us a
23:58
little bit more about that. Yeah, actually, Lionel, if you could put my homework for life up again, that would be really helpful to me so I can
24:05
show Michelle what I do. So Michelle, if you look at my homework for life, you'll
24:10
see that we're looking at the last three days of my homework for life, I think.
24:15
Right? Is that what we're looking at now, Lionel? I can't actually see it anymore. Yep. We're looking at your screen. It's zoomed in a little bit.
24:20
Okay. Oh, it's zoomed in a little. So, let's If we look at my last three days, right? If you see on the bottom, it says
24:27
daily sheet 87. Daily sheet 86. So, I do about a 100 entries. You can say see I'm
24:33
at 107 entries right now, which means I'm ready to start a new sheet. So what this means is after this 107 entries,
24:41
I'm going to skip and create a new sheet that will contain another 100 entries. And what I do, Michelle, is I get about
24:47
a 100 entries away and then I go back and review. So probably in about I average about seven moments per day
24:54
these days. So, like probably in about 3 weeks, I'm going to find myself coming
24:59
back to this sheet and I'm going to be reviewing everything. And 3 weeks is a good amount of time to figure out, am I
25:06
going to remember this moment or do I need to add detail to it? So, a lot of times I will come back to an old sheet,
25:12
something that happened about 3 weeks ago or a month ago, and I'll be rereading it and I'll be like, "Oo, that one's getting a little flimsy in my
25:18
mind." I might add some more details. I might even add another line underneath it and say, "Added details." and I'll
25:25
include some more things. I'll also sometimes love a moment so much I'll actually write about it. I I post a blog
25:31
every single day of my life for the last 20 years. And so a lot of times I'll go, "Oh, I want to remember every single
25:38
thing about this day." And so I'll actually write a full blog post. You could think of it as I'm going to write a full diary entry about some of these
25:44
so I don't lose them. You know, the day after our wedding, my wife and I got married 19 years ago. The day after the
25:50
wedding, I spent four hours writing every single thing I could remember about the wedding. And now we remember
25:57
our wedding with a specificity that no one else can remember 20 years later. My in-laws can't even remember if there was
26:03
dancing at their wedding. And I can remember almost every minute of the wedding because I took the time to write it down. So sometimes when a moment is
26:10
important, I'll actually write it all down. But that is probably about 3% of
26:15
the time. Most of the time what I've written down is suitable and I can hold on to it. But I do do that little pass,
26:21
that review after three or four weeks just to make sure that nothing needs to be added for me to get back to the
26:26
moment. One of the important things to remember though, Michelle, is I'm only grabbing moments that really mean something to me. So if it doesn't mean
26:34
something to me, it's unlikely I'm going to remember. And some of the moments like I won't need to remember the
26:40
specificity in order to enjoy it. I'm looking at the moment that says I don't leave the theater to pee, which is
26:46
remarkable. The movie was 3 hours long. I kept telling my daughter, I need a pee bucket cuz a three-hour movie is a
26:51
stupid movie. I kept yelling at her about it. I have to pee all the time. I have to pee right now. Honestly, I
26:57
really can pee all the time. Somehow, I made it through that movie without even needing to pee. Now, in 5 years, I won't
27:04
need to really remember even what the movie was, but I will find it amusing that there once was a movie where I
27:09
didn't have to pee through. Uh, so I might not remember the specificity, but I'll be happy I have the moment and I'll
27:14
be I'll probably be thinking, right, Claire took me to a long movie. I can't remember what the movie was, but I
27:21
remember enough about it to remember I didn't pee during that movie and that was kind of crazy. So that's how I sort
27:26
of remember these moments with a little more specificity. I hope that helps.
27:34
Awesome, Matt. All right, we're going to bring up another question here. This question is from Nasier.
27:41
How do you find a place to start the story where there isn't anything
27:46
opposite of, and in quotes, how often will this happen again? End quote.
27:54
So, I would say almost all the time there's an opposite. And if there isn't,
28:00
you're probably telling an anecdote, right? I think that sometimes what happens is
28:06
we're either telling an anecdote not recognizing it for the story it could be or we're just telling an anecdote. Let
28:13
me give you an example. Last night I played a game called 321 with my kids actually two nights ago. Uh we were at a
28:18
dinner and we were waiting for our food. It's a game we play in storyworthy. It's a really great game. It's about finding stories in your everyday life. But we
28:24
were playing this game at the table and my son Charlie told me this amazing story about being at the beach with my
28:30
wife and his former preschool teacher collecting dead crabs and then he is
28:36
told by my wife, "You can't take the dead crabs home. Don't be an idiot." He was about eight at the time. So he
28:41
stuffs his pockets with dead crabs and sneaks them home and puts them in his bedroom. And then about 5 days later, he
28:48
noticed his bedroom is smelling and he can't figure out why at first. And then it occurs to him, "Oh, it's the dead crabs." So, he has to sneak the dead
28:55
crabs out of the house and into the trash can before me or my wife find out. I had no idea about this until the other
29:00
night when he told me about it. He had kept that a secret from us forever. And he told it really well, much better than what I just did. And it amounted to an
29:08
anecdote because it's just a thing that happened to him. There was no opposite at the beginning, right? But with kids
29:15
and a lot of times with adults, they sort of stay in the shallow end of the pool instead of going deep. So, I said,
29:21
"Charlie, that's a great anecdote. can we try to turn it into a story? And he said, "Well, how would I turn it into a story?" And I proposed to him. I said,
29:27
"Was this an example of you discovering that mom is correct more often than you
29:33
think?" And he said, "No, it's an example of me how I tend not to believe
29:38
people and I have to learn it for myself." And I went, "Aha, that's a story. That's a moment, right? That is a
29:44
real moment of transformation." My son discovers through the dead crab incident that listen, I'm just going to be
29:49
plagued in my life with having to like prove things for myself. I tend not to believe people when they say things. And
29:55
now that he knows the ending, he can find the opposite of that. I said, "What's the opposite of you discovering
30:01
you have to sort of learn things for yourself?" And he said, "Well, I remember I used to hope that adults were
30:07
right and now I don't trust them anymore and I have to find it out for myself." So, he sort of found the beginning and the end in the opposition. The problem
30:14
was he just told the anecdote and didn't really question or probe himself for the meaning of the moment. That's very
30:19
common for teenagers and little kids and younger people. Less common for adults, but also common for adults. So, what I
30:26
would say is that if you don't feel like there's an opposite of the final moment
30:31
to begin with, you're probably just needing to probe that story a little more clearly and find what that story
30:37
really means. Once you figure out what that story means and how it changed you in some way, you just have to find the place where you were not changed. and
30:43
that tends to be the beginning. Or you're telling a fantastic anecdote, which I often say is cotton candy, which
30:49
is delicious, but forgettable. Meaning, you can entertain the hell out of people with an anecdote, but you can't really
30:54
change hearts and minds with them. Doesn't mean they're bad. They're lovely. I love a good anecdote, but uh
30:59
sometimes an anecdote is all it is. I hope that helps. I should get Charlie down here. He told that story so
31:05
brilliantly, you can't even believe it. He started with location and action. He told it in the present tense. He started in a place of wonder. I could not
31:12
believe how well he told that story. Let's bring him on next time, Matt. We're actually going to introduce uh a
31:18
member of our team now. And uh so we're excited to do that. So let's let's bring
31:23
Heather on. Matt, you want to introduce Heather for a second? And then we'll get Heather to introduce herself. Sure. Heather's tricky to introduce me
31:30
because I've known her for a while and I don't know how I first met her, but Heather lives about a 100 miles from me in New Hampshire. I'm in Connecticut.
31:37
She is the only storyteller who's done four of our SpeakUp storytelling live shows in a row. I didn't know that. My
31:44
wife informed me of that at our last show. She's a fantastic storyteller. Uh
31:50
she is taking up a role with um storyw worthy as a mentor. So she's going to be
31:55
helping people uh tell better stories. I am very very particular about who I
32:02
trust in terms of working with people on storytelling. I have many many many
32:07
people want they want to do this job where let me help people tell stories
32:12
and quite honestly I'm just a monster who doesn't trust anybody maybe I'm like Charlie right I have someone has to
32:18
prove to me that they know what the hell they're doing repeatedly and over time and Heather is one of the few people who
32:23
has proven to me repeatedly over time that not only can she tell a great story but the feedback that she offers people
32:29
is excellent and then she took it the third step which was Matt can you help me improve my feed feedback by watching
32:36
my feedback and giving me feedback on my feedback. So in other words, unlike many people who sort of want to take the
32:42
short road to success, Heather is taking the long arduous but meaningful road to
32:48
becoming uh what she wants to be. And so for that reason, I trust her to be a mentor here at Storyworthy. I don't know
32:54
how I did. Heather, was that okay in terms of an introduction for you? Yeah, I feel good about myself right
33:00
now. Thank you. [laughter] So Okay, great. Uh, I'm obsessed with
33:05
storytelling because of Matt. So, anyone that knows me, it's all I talk about now. My name is Heather Daly. I've been
33:11
working with Matt for a while and telling stories with him on stage at the Moth in his event in Connecticut, Speak
33:17
Up. But it's only recently that I realized my storytelling journey started years ago when I owned my own
33:23
restaurant. One day, I was standing at the cash register at my restaurant helping customers pay their check during
33:29
this crazy lunch rush. Tables are full. There's a line out the door when a man with a beard down to his belly uh walks
33:37
up to me and says, "You should be fired. My wi my meal was delicious, but what you're doing is illegal. You cannot
33:44
refuse to take my cash." Now, I haven't had a day off in years, so his threat to fire me actually sounds amazing. My
33:51
finally my chance to take a nap. But this man is referring to a bold decision I made in my business to only accept
33:58
credit cards, which was actually unheard of in 2012. And occasionally it upset bearded people, but it also got them
34:05
talking. So customers shared stories about our delicious homemade pies and chips, but also our unique approach to
34:12
business. And this was the first time I realized people don't just buy products, they actually buy stories. I spent 10
34:19
years covered in flower running that restaurant. And since then, I've owned several other businesses. I've been a
34:25
professional organizer and move manager helping people declutter their lives. And I'm a mindfulness coach. I teach
34:31
things like breathing and meditation to storytellers because fear of sta uh
34:36
public speaking like often beats out the fear of death. And now I'm a business consultant and coach helping
34:43
entrepreneurs stand out with storytelling. And I've been a part of Matt's storyworthy community for a long
34:48
time. I love it. As you know, he's a walking encyclopedia of storytelling. and the VIP community is priceless
34:54
because you can actually learn all everything you need to know about storytelling in the courses and then you
34:59
get access to him. So, thank you for letting me be a part of this. Matt,
35:07
thanks Heather. That was great. Uh I love what you said that people don't buy products, they buy stories. I tell
35:12
people that all the time. That's so true. Uh I like to mention I don't think my wife likes me when I say this, but
35:18
this is true. She once told someone, "I'm a fundamentally unlikable person who tells a good story and she loves
35:23
me." Right? So that is the idea of I managed to land the best spouse on the planet by telling great stories despite
35:30
the fact that I'm fundamentally unlikable. [laughter]
35:36
All right, guys. We're going to take a few more questions and then we're going to wrap up and we're going to invite you
35:42
to a VIP afterparty. So Matt, I'm going to give us the next question here. We have a question from Thomas. And Thomas
35:50
wants to know, oh, one sec here. Let me bring it up again. We lost it there. How
35:55
do you find the bravery to tell stories to others? I find that I can't find the courage because I'm not used to being
36:00
vulnerable and open about my feelings, if that makes sense. Great question. Yeah, I think Thomas, what happens to
36:07
people is they falsely predict what will happen when they are vulnerable. Uh I
36:15
think that what you discover when you're willing to tell a vulnerable story is that no one sort of judges you in the
36:20
way you might be predicting they will judge you. Instead they deeply appreciate you. Uh I am always trying to
36:26
tell stories about my stupidity and failure and misguided decision-making.
36:33
Actually the story I told today was not a not a positive story about my
36:38
behavior. I turned my daughter away in a moment when she wanted to cuddle with me. And I think in telling that story,
36:46
what happens is people feel a little bit better about themselves and about the world. Maybe they've done something
36:52
similar or maybe they're just feeling like everyone around them looks better than they do. They probably spend more
36:58
time more time on Instagram than they should, right? And so I come along and people like me and we share our
37:04
ugliness. Uh we share the moments that are not so great. But truly what happens
37:10
is that people appreciate what you have done. We say that we tell stories from
37:16
our scars rather than our wounds. Meaning we don't want our stories to sound like they're therapy, you know,
37:21
which I've seen. And then people will not be as comfortable with your story if they feel like you're just processing
37:26
and using us as your therapist. But as long as you can tell that story with some craft and some distance from it and
37:32
you're okay with it, you don't you don't get reduced to snot bubbles, right? and weeping. If none of that happens and
37:38
you're just being vulnerable, you should do it every time. I have told stories about pretending to be a charity worker
37:46
and stealing money from people in order to put gas in my car. Now, admittedly, if I did that yesterday, I probably
37:52
wouldn't be telling the story. I did it when I was 19. So, you get to say whatever you did when you were 19. You get to be dumb 30 years ago, and nobody
37:59
cares about that except they like to hear the story. So, you know, I don't think it takes any courage for me. Also,
38:05
this is really important to know. It does take courage for sure. A woman once in a workshop told me I'm the bravest
38:10
person she'd ever met cuz I'm willing to say anything. And I corrected her and said, "I'm not because I'm never
38:15
afraid." But that's just me, like the horrendous human being that I am who lacks fear over things like this. But
38:22
for most people, you are absolutely correct. Vulnerability requires courage. But that's why people appreciate it. We
38:28
have to do the hard thing. I wrote in a novel once, the right thing is often
38:34
times the hard thing. And so doing the hard thing is always the right thing and people will appreciate for you. But you
38:40
got to make that first initial dive, Thomas. I'd say do it in a low stakes environment. Don't do it in front of
38:45
5,000 people. Don't do it in front of your boss. You know, don't do it in front of the person you're hoping to
38:50
marry someday. But do it, you know, while you're hanging out with a couple buddies and see how it goes. I promise
38:56
it's going to go great. Awesome stuff, Matt. Uh, we're almost
39:01
out of time here, so bias, Lionel. Yes. Right. Okay. [laughter]
39:07
So, why don't we wrap this up um and invite everybody first? Uh, let's let them know about uh our new free academy.
39:16
Right. So, if you're interested um if you're not a member of our story worthy universe, I have a free academy. It's
39:21
hours and hours of free storytelling training uh that you can go to simply by going to storyworthy.com creating an
39:28
account and you'll have access to lots of materials that'll get you started. You know, I certainly have courses and
39:33
things that we will talk about in the afterparty that are available for you and a VIP program which gives you access to everything. But start with the free
39:39
academy. Like I offer lots and lots of free instruction because I value storytelling and I think it's I think
39:46
it's worth doing for everyone. So, uh, so go to the free academy, create an account, and start learning on your own.
39:52
For being here today, you're going to get a free gift. If you go to the chat, we're going to have a link there for you. Uh, I talked about finding stories
39:58
in your everyday life today. And the free gift is a tool that I offer people that helps them find storytelling or
40:04
stories in their everyday life. So, you can go to the chat and claim that free gift. And then you can join us in the
40:09
afterparty where there will also be a link in the chat. And that's going to be a Zoom session. It's sort of the more traditional version of story time that I
40:16
run where we actually get to look at each other's faces and talk and pretend like we're in the same room, even though
40:22
we're often thousands of miles apart, but it is a little it is a little more sort of intimate than what this is,
40:29
which is I don't get to see any of you. I just stare at Lionel's face and uh some Heather's face, but I don't get to
40:34
see you. But if you join us for the afterparty, we'll um we'll chat it up. I'll answer more questions. We'll show
40:40
you what else we have in our story worthy community. and we'd love to have you join us there. Lionel, am I
40:45
forgetting anything that I'm supposed to say? Nope, not at all. Uh, you guys can check in the chat for the links for the free
40:52
academy, the free gift that we are offering you guys for today. And you're going to want to come check out this VIP afterparty. Check out the Zoom link
40:58
inside the chat and we'll see you inside there.
41:03
All right, thanks everybody. Really nice seeing you. Take care. Have a great day. Go find some stories. See you inside.