Storyworthy

by Matthew Dicks

  Learn to use the microphone.

  Learn to use a microphone from someone who uses a microphone professionally. I could discuss proper microphone use here, but there are many kinds of microphones, and it’s the kind of thing learned best while doing it.

  Most people use microphones poorly. Don’t be that person. The audio engineer at The Moth once complimented me on my microphone use. “You can cut right through the laughter when you want,” he said. “That’s so great.”

  It is. When I can cut through laughter or applause and return to my story, I control the pacing of the performance. I dictate how the story will be told.

  I learned how to use a microphone effectively by working as a wedding DJ for two decades. Just try to guide a bride through a bouquet toss while music plays, single girls scream, and photographers call out for the ideal pose.

  You learn quickly about how to cut through the noise with your voice.

  You think you know how to use a microphone, but you probably don’t. Find an expert and practice.

  That said, here are three universal tips that apply to almost all microphone situations:

  1.The microphone is not a magical device. Many people believe that once they are speaking into a microphone, they can speak as softly as they want. It’s not true. Even when you’re speaking into a microphone, you should be trying to speak to the back of the room. Think of the microphone as the guarantee that your voice will reach the back of the room, but you must do the work first. You must push your voice through the device.

  2.If you’re speaking into a microphone set on a stand, be sure that the microphone is perfectly adjusted before you speak. Don’t rush this process. Every second that it takes you to adjust the microphone will feel like ten minutes, but to the audience, it will feel like less than a second. Take your time. There is nothing worse for you or the audience to be thinking about a poorly set microphone as you speak.

  3.If given the option to use a microphone, do so regardless of how booming your voice may be. In speaking to hundreds of audiences, I have learned that hearing impairment is far more prevalent than most people realize, and quite often hearing-impaired people have no desire to announce their impairment to the world. I simply assume that there is a hearing-impaired person in every audience, so if asked if I want to use a microphone, I always say yes.

  STORY BREAK

  The Solitude of the Storyteller

  I’m standing onstage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Storytellers are taking turns sound-checking for tonight’s Moth GrandSLAM.

  One of the storytellers finishes her mic check and moves to the rear of the stage beside me. “Wow,” she says. “This place is huge. That was scary. Intimidating.” It’s her first GrandSLAM. It’s my sixteenth.

  “Yeah,” I say. “And the thing about storytelling is that it’s not like theater. You’re on your own out there. No one can help you. You stand alone in your truth and hope that you don’t freeze or fail. The whole thing rests on your shoulders.”

  By the time I’m done speaking, the storyteller’s jaw has dropped open. She looks terrified.

  “Oh my God,” I say, realizing what I have just done. “It’s not like that at all. Everyone performs brilliantly here. You have nothing to worry about. I’m an idiot.”

  Only the last sentence is true.

  Fortunately, the storyteller does well.

  I win my fourth GrandSLAM that night, but I’ll always wonder if that storyteller thought I was messing with her head.

  I wasn’t. I really am an idiot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Why Did You Read This Book? To Become a Superhero!

  In his memoir Tough Shit, filmmaker Kevin Smith writes that anytime a person is speaking to a group of people, in any context, the speaker has a duty and an obligation to be entertaining.

  I couldn’t agree more. It’s the purpose of this book. Or at least one of them.

  Whether you are speaking to friends on barstools or students in a classroom or customers in a conference room or grandchildren at Thanksgiving or an audience of thousands in a theater, you must be entertaining.

  I have attended thousands of meetings, training sessions, conferences over my lifetime where the person delivering the content made no effort to engage the audience in an entertaining and memorable way.

  I will never understand this. Not only do you have an obligation to be entertaining, you have an opportunity to be entertaining. You have the chance to set yourself apart from the ever-present drone of the masses. You have the opportunity to make people smile. Laugh. Engage. Learn. Feel better about the time spent.

  This is what I call the Spider-Man Principle of Meetings and Presentations (though Voltaire admittedly said it first): “With great power comes great responsibility.”

  I like to think about storytelling in terms of superheroes, because I believe that a person who can speak in an entertaining and engaging way to a group of people possesses a superpower that is sorely lacking in the world today. As people’s gazes continue to fall to their screens and communication is truncated into bite-size text messages, the human beings who can still hold the attention of an audience and teach and speak in an entertaining way possess enormous power.

  In 2015, I spent some time in Brazil consulting with an engineering firm. The CEO of the company told me that he would rather hire poorly trained engineers who can speak to potential clients, meet with government agencies, and pitch projects to large groups of people than highly skilled engineers who lack these communication skills.

  Why? “I can teach a bad engineer to be a good engineer. But I have no idea how to turn a person who can’t write or speak well into someone who can. I’m not sure if it’s even possible.”

  It’s possible; unfortunately, it takes longer than the afternoon I was spending with this man. But think about that: bad engineers who can speak well will be hired over good engineers who cannot. That is a superpower.

  Or think about it this way: If you are conducting a one-hour meeting at your company, you have effectively stolen one hour from every person in the room. If there are twenty people in the room, your presentation is now the equivalent of a twenty-hour investment.

  It is therefore your responsibility to ensure that you do not waste the hour by reading from PowerPoint slides, providing information that could have been delivered via email, lecturing, pontificating, pandering, or otherwise boring your audience. You must entertain, engage, and inform. Every single time.

  But I also believe that there is a second, equally important reason to be entertaining:

  When you are entertaining, people learn better. You convey information more effectively. You will become a better teacher, presenter, coach, salesperson, trainer, CEO, professor, parent, and dinner companion.

  Yes, dinner companion. If you are on a first date, your goal should be to share information about yourself in an entertaining fashion.

  This is who I am.

  This is what I believe.

  This is what I want.

  This is what I dream.

  How about you?

  A first date is an interview of sorts. If you can make the person laugh, share a little vulnerability, and tell a good story in the process, your chances for second and third dates increase exponentially.

  My wife married a neckless stump with legs for arms. It wasn’t because of the way I looked.

  And yes, it will make you a better parent too. When I can teach my son and daughter a lesson using an entertaining story from my past, not only is that lesson more effective and enduring, it’s often requested again and again. Rather than nagging my children about something that I feel is critical to their development, I find them demanding that I teach them the lesson over and over again. That is a superpower.

  When a student-teacher presents me with a lesson that he or she would like to teach to my class, my first question is always this: “What’s the hook? What is the reason for my students to listen and pay attention
to you?”

  Far too often, inexperienced (and ineffective) teachers believe that if they design a lesson using all of methods and strategies that they have learned in college, their students will sit quietly, attend fully, and absorb the content.

  For about half to two-thirds of an average class of students, this will probably be the case. But for the rest, effective lesson design is never enough. These are the students who slip through the cracks in many classrooms. They are the kids who have ability and potential but lack the necessary skills to learn. They are the children who are not predisposed to quiet, thoughtful attentiveness. They are the kids who can barely sit still. The ones with one foot still on the baseball diamond and one finger still on the video-game controller. They are the students who do not believe in themselves or their capacity for a bright future. They are kids who come to school hungry and tired and still reeling from the chaos and violence of an evening at home.

  These are the students who need a reason to listen.

  I believe that it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide a reason to learn. A meaningful, entertaining, engaging, thrilling, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants reason to keep their eyes and ears and minds open.

  This is why every lesson requires a hook. A hook is not a statement like “This material will be on Friday’s test” or “This is something you’ll use for the rest of your life.” A hook is an attempt to be entertaining, engaging, thought-provoking, surprising, challenging, daring, and even shocking. This can be done in dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of ways.

  A teacher can be funny. Surprising. Animated. Confused. Even purposefully depressed. A teacher can offer students uncommon levels of choice or challenge them with a meaningful, winner-take-all competition. A lesson can include something students have never seen before or (even better) something they have seen a thousand times before, but now in an entirely new context. The lesson can include cooperative learning in groups that the children will actually enjoy. Students can be made the center of the lesson. Students can be invited to teach the lesson. Lessons can be broken up into smaller, rapidly changing segments to hold student interest.

  This is just a smidgen of the strategies that teachers can use, and most if not all of them can also be used by a person running a meeting, conducting a workshop, or otherwise stealing an hour from people in order to convey content.

  Most importantly, a teacher can use storytelling. Not only is storytelling an entertaining way to engage and entertain students, but it opens your heart to your students. It demonstrates your humanity, your authenticity, and your vulnerability. It’s a way to establish trust and faith with your students. It connects you to them.

  When your students love you, they will learn, even if they despise the subject.

  This is how I approach teaching every day. I believe with all my heart that I am stealing seven hours of childhood from each of my students on a daily basis. I am paid to be a thief. I rob my students of hour upon hour of the most precious and fleeting time of their lives. Therefore I have a duty to make this time as meaningful, productive, memorable, and yes, entertaining as possible.

  I do this through storytelling.

  I do the same thing when delivering a TED Talk. Speaking at a conference. Sharing a story at Passover dinner. Telling my kids a story while driving the car. Sharing a memory on the golf course. I entertain and engage and inform through storytelling. I open my heart and allow my audience to step inside.

  Here is something crazy. Perhaps the craziest thing that has ever happened to me through storytelling:

  Four times I have stepped off the stage at a storytelling show and been approached by a woman who wanted to share the story of her miscarriage with me.

  Four times.

  In all four instances, the woman’s miscarriage was a secret. She had told no one that she was pregnant, and no one knew that she had miscarried. She told me first.

  I was speechless the first time this happened. I called Elysha immediately after the show to tell her.

  Elysha’s response was surprising. “Of course she wanted to tell you,” she said. “You stood on that stage and talked about one of your most difficult moments in your life with complete honesty. Your story made you safe to talk to. And she never needs to see you again. She could unburden herself of this secret to someone she knew she could trust, and she doesn’t have to see you at work or home the next day.” It made sense.

  It’s why I tell the story of my homelessness to my students, and an hour later a girl tells me about living in a car with her mom over the summer.

  It’s why I tell the story of spending a day in jail, and the next day a boy tells me that his father is in prison.

  It’s why my friend Jeff accidentally told me the sex of both of his children prior to their birth. I told him a story on the golf course, and finding a safe and vulnerable space, he filled it with a secret he was carrying. Accidentally. Twice.

  Back in 2011, Elysha suffered a miscarriage, and I watched her navigate the complex landscape of emotions surrounding this loss. Grief. Shame. Anger. Blame. Miscarriages are not often spoken about openly in our culture, so women find themselves dealing with this tragic loss quietly.

  Of course it makes sense that these women shared their stories with me. Elysha had me to talk to when she miscarried, and I had Elysha, but not everyone is so fortunate. Not everyone is blessed with close, trusting friendships, understanding family members, or loving partners.

  These women didn’t tell me about their miscarriages because of who I am. They told me about their miscarriages because I told them a story. A story filled with heart and humor. A story that expressed authenticity, vulnerability, and truth.

  This should be our goal.

  The world is filled with uninteresting people. I meet them every day. I suspect that in most cases, there is an interesting person lurking beneath their unfortunately uninteresting veneer.

  These are people who answer, “How was your day?” with an itinerary of the day instead of sharing a meaningful moment. They are folks who tell us about their vacations by offering an adjective-laden time line of the week. They are the people who make meetings feel endless, dinners feel monotonous, and conferences feel disappointing.

  These are the people who are afraid to talk about embarrassing moments or epic failures. They lack authenticity. Listen poorly. Fear vulnerability. Lack the skills and strategy to craft and tell a good story. They are not the superheroes of our world.

  Storytellers have a superpower. They can make people feel good and whole and right. They can inspire and inform. They can make people see the world in a new way. They can make people feel better about themselves.

  I may not be able to stop a bullet, but I make a woman feel better about a tragic loss. I can convince a reluctant teen to learn. I can make an audience laugh and cry in the span of a single story. I can make my children beg for more. I can make an eight-hour training session feel like two hours. I can convince a woman of absolute grace and beauty to marry me.

  Me.

  Fuck Superman. I’ll take storytelling any day.

  I offer this superpower to you. This book is the instruction manual. All you need now is to practice. Begin collecting stories and telling stories.

  Become the storyteller I know you can be.

  Acknowledgments

  I would not be standing on stages or telling stories, nor would I be teaching storytelling around the world or writing this book, if not for The Moth. This remarkable organization, founded by George Dawes Green, has provided me with the platform, the support, the guidance, and the community that have made all this possible. George’s brilliant vision has changed my life and the lives of many storytellers. I am forever indebted to this remarkable group of people, who love stories at least as much as I do.

  Special thanks as well to:

  Elysha Dicks, my wife, who bought my first ticket to The Moth and launched this unbelievable, unexpected, joyous journey into storytelling. She has supported
me every step of the way, and later, when it came time to launch Speak Up, she joined me side by side on the journey. There is no better partner for stories or for life. I tell my stories first for her and then for everyone else.

  Catherine Burns, artistic director of The Moth, who made me feel like a storyteller of value and merit. She gave me confidence, support, and love when I needed it most. Our long conversations about the nature of storytelling have helped guide many of the lessons in this book.

  George Dawes Green, who built the stage where I began this journey and has been kind enough to offer support, expertise, and encouragement. One of my first thoughts when I am crafting a story is, “Will George like this?”

  Jenifer Hixon, senior producer of The Moth, who has helped to find and shape so many of my stories. Her words of wisdom are woven throughout this book.

  Dan Kennedy, whose voice I first heard while listening to his book Rock On: An Office Power Ballad. Years later, I would listen to him host The Moth Podcast and dream of the day when I might tell a story as well as he does. He remains an inspiration to me, and I am proud to call him my friend.

  Throughout the writing of this book, I had many readers who followed along chapter by chapter, and to each one of these people, I cannot express the appreciation that I feel for all of your support. I’ve always been an instant-gratification type of guy, and writing can be anything but this. Knowing that you were out there, ready to read the next chapter just hours after it was finished, made all the difference for me.

  A few people of note:

  C. Flanagan-Flynn, reader, storyteller, writer, and editor extraordinaire. A writer’s dream is to find an editor and friend who simultaneously adores your work while spotting all the glaring holes in it. C has been that person for me throughout this project.

  Matthew Shepard, the reader who seems to share my brain (and name). I could always depend upon Shep to notice an amusing play on words or a vague and nearly indiscernible reference that other readers might miss. Many a time I would write a sentence, smile, and think, “No one else will notice this, but Shep will love it.” Rarely was I wrong. His comments, critique, and suggestions shaped the book into what it has become. The world will be a more interesting place when Shep picks up a pen and begins writing himself.