371. Stories Sell with Matthew Dicks

The Daily Helping

Have you ever noticed how some people are great storytellers and some aren’t? Matthew Dicks joins the show today to explain how storytelling is a skill anyone can learn and improve upon. He also shares his newest book with us, “Stories Sell: Storyworthy Strategies to Grow Your Business and Brand.”

Matthew is an international best-selling novelist, comic book writer, and humor columnist. He is a 61-time Moth StorySLAM winner and acts as a consultant for major businesses to help them tell their stories.

He shares the secret sauce with us: Figure out what the story is, pick an excellent beginning, focus on actions and thoughts, and know when to stop talking. Above all, lean into the listener’s imagination.

And yes, he tells us some good stories during the episode. Don’t miss it!

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

I think the most important thing is that people see stories as big sort of momentous occasions in their lives. They watch movies and they see plane crashes and people jumping from building to building and bank robberies and epic romances. And I think what they fail to see is that tiny moments like the one I just described to you, where your son says something to you and it just reframes your thinking, I actually think those are the most important stories to tell. I'm a person who has died twice and been brought back to life via CPR both times. And those are not my favorite stories to tell. I would much rather tell you the story about Charlie reminding me that ice cream on a shirt is called childhood. Because I think those are the stories that relate to people the most, they're the stories people understand the most. And they're the ones that if we don't pay attention to and hold onto, it's like sand through our fingers. They just, they disappear forever. And then suddenly our son is 27 years old and we don't know where the time went. But if we recognize those moments, we hold onto them and we tell those stories, like the one I just told you, then they become permanent markers in the life of me and my son, Charlie. And suddenly it's not sand through my fingers anymore, but it's something I get to share with other human beings and remember myself. So be paying attention to the tiniest of moments because they can have the biggest meaning.

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Read “Stories Sell: Storyworthy Strategies to Grow Your Business and Brand” by Matthew Dix
• Listen to Episode 269. Making Someday Today with Matthew Dicks

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