Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks

Imagine your favorite sports team winning the division 36 times, and the national championship 6 times. Then, the coach writies a book to tell everyone else how he did it. You could use it to be a pro coach yourself, or a legendary little league coach. What you did with that info would be all up to you. “Storyworthy” by Matthew Dicks accomplishes just that. He has won The Moth MonthlySlam 36 times and the GrandSlam 6. More than anyone else who has competed. Then he wrote a book for people who enjoy telling stories whether they compete or not. The pro coach, to the little league coach.

In the book, Matthew tells how he got into telling live stories, and what he has learned while competing, teaching, and now hosting a podcast. While there are off the rail stories about being arrested as well as nearly dying, Matthew has a way of connecting with others on simple stories about his kids or watching sports. I particularly found helpful his practice of “Homework for Life”. Using this daily routine for the last 4 months, I have found stories worth sharing and meaningful memories I probably would not have thought of.

This book is easy to read; a very conversational tone with examples of stories and explanation of concepts. If you are a person looking to improve what you currently do for storytelling, this book should work well for you. If you are a person that is looking to use stories to teach or express ideals, this book is also for you. I happen to be trying to accomplish both of these, so it’s a win-win for me.

Feel free to check out the book or more about Matthew Dicks and his shows, podcast, and workshops at this site below. Also, there is a link to his TED talk about homework for life:

http://www.matthewdicks.com/

Homework for Life | Matthew Dicks | TEDxBerkshires

Video web content titled: Homework for Life | Matthew Dicks | TEDxBerkshires

Published by Nick Baskerville

After years of being an instructor in the military and the and the fire service, I realized I needed to improve my delivery. My students needed me to improve delivery. But how do I improve my delivery? Simple. I finally took a member of Toastmasters up on the invitation to come to a meeting. It wasn't long until I joined. Along the way of improving my skills at delivering a message, I came to understand that of all the ways to get a point across, telling stories is the best way to get it done. Around this time, another friend from Toastmasters told me about The Moth monthly story telling shows. What better way to test out my theories on storytelling. It's in my travels there to the shows that I found more and more shows, and classes, and events centered around storytelling. Despite how many people know about the storytelling world, not many people know about the storytelling world. So now, I'm out to tell the world about storytelling.

One thought on “Book Review: Storyworthy”

  1. Pingback: Podcast Post: Speak Up – Story Telling On Purpose

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