Narrator: On July 12, 2011, Matthew Dicks stood terrified in the back of a crowded, sweltering café in Manhattan. He was at his first Moth StorySLAM, a live storytelling competition, and he had promised his friends he would put his name in the bag to tell a story. But every part of him wanted to run. He was a self-described coward, not a performer. When his name was the last one called, he tried to hide, but his wife, Elysha, pushed him toward the stage. He walked up, told a simple story about learning to pole-vault in high school, and to his astonishment, he won. That single night launched a career that would see him become a 34-time Moth StorySLAM champion and a five-time GrandSLAM champion.

How does a person go from being terrified of the stage to becoming one of the most decorated storytellers in the country? The answer lies in a set of principles and techniques that Dicks argues can transform anyone into a compelling storyteller. In his book, Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling, he demystifies the craft, revealing that the most powerful narratives aren't about grand adventures, but about the small, meaningful moments that define our lives.

Narrator: Many people believe they don't have any stories to tell because their lives aren't filled with dramatic, life-altering events. Dicks argues this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a story compelling. The most resonant stories often spring from tiny, everyday moments that reveal a deeper human truth. To find these moments, he prescribes a simple, daily practice he calls "Homework for Life." At the end of each day, one must simply ask: What was the single most storyworthy moment of my day? It doesn't have to be dramatic. It just has to be a moment that stands out.

Dicks illustrates this with a story from his own life. For weeks, his toddler, Charlie, had been throwing food on the floor at dinner. One night, after Charlie threw his peas, Dicks’s wife, Elysha, told him the pediatrician’s advice: when Charlie throws food, they have to take it all away. Then she added, "I know that’s going to be hard for you." Dicks was confused until she explained, "I know that when you were a little boy, you didn’t always have enough food to eat." In that moment, Dicks was stunned. He had never told his wife about his childhood hunger. She had pieced it together from his behaviors, like how he always overpacked their daughter's lunchbox. This small, domestic moment—a conversation about a food-throwing toddler—unlocked a profound story about love, vulnerability, and being truly seen by another person. By practicing "Homework for Life," we train ourselves to see the significance in these small moments, creating a vast reservoir of stories we never knew we had.

Narrator: According to Dicks, every great story, from a Hollywood blockbuster to a tale told at the dinner table, is about a five-second moment. This is a moment of realization or transformation, when a character's understanding of themselves or the world fundamentally changes. The entire purpose of the story is to build a narrative that brings that five-second moment into the clearest possible focus for the audience.

He argues that Jurassic Park isn't a movie about dinosaurs; it's a story about paleontologist Alan Grant, a man who dislikes children, learning to love them. The dinosaurs are simply the vehicle that forces this transformation. The five-second moment occurs when Grant is perched in a tree with the children, Tim and Lex. After comforting them, he looks at them with newfound affection and lets the velociraptor claw he once used to terrify a child fall to the ground. In that instant, he changes. Similarly, Dicks’s story about a near-fatal car accident isn't about the crash itself. Its five-second moment is when, lying alone in the emergency room, the doors swing open and he sees the waiting room filled with his friends from McDonald's. In that instant, he realizes that his friends are his true family. The most dramatic events in a story are often just the backdrop for a much smaller, more profound human realization.

Narrator: Once a storyteller identifies the five-second moment of transformation, the structure of the story becomes clear. The ending of the story is this moment of change. The beginning, therefore, must be its opposite. This creates a clear and satisfying narrative arc for the audience. A story about finding faith must begin with a moment of faithlessness. A story about discovering courage must begin with an act of cowardice.

In his "Charity Thief" story, Dicks’s five-second moment is the realization that he, a young man stranded and broke, knows nothing about true loneliness compared to the grieving widower he has just deceived. The ending is about empathy and a new perspective on suffering. Therefore, the story must begin with the opposite: Dicks feeling utterly and completely alone, stranded on a highway with no one to call for help. He feels his loneliness is the most profound in the world. By establishing this starting point, his final realization becomes a powerful transformation, moving him from self-pity to genuine empathy. This structure—moving from one state of being to its opposite—is the fundamental architecture of a compelling story.

Narrator: A story can have a clear arc, but without stakes and surprise, it will fall flat. Stakes are the reason the audience cares; they are the promise of what the storyteller stands to win or lose. Dicks introduces "The Elephant" as the primary way to establish stakes. This is a clear, early statement of the story's central problem or goal. In Die Hard, the elephant isn't just the terrorists; it's John McClane's attempt to save his marriage. This emotional stake is what grounds the action.

Surprise, Dicks argues, is the engine of all emotion in storytelling. To make an audience laugh, cry, or gasp, you must surprise them. One of the most effective ways to do this is to "plant a bomb"—to hide a critical piece of information in plain sight early in the story, only to have it "detonate" later. He tells a story about giving away his pet rabbits to his girlfriend's Portuguese father. He casually mentions this as one of many things he did to get in the father's good graces. The audience laughs, thinking it's a minor detail. The surprise detonates at Thanksgiving dinner, when the father proudly reveals that the delicious stew they are all eating was made from the pet rabbit. By camouflaging the rabbit's fate in a list of other details, Dicks ensures the final reveal is a complete shock, creating a powerful and memorable reaction.

Narrator: Some of the hardest stories to tell are the "big" ones—tales of plane crashes, natural disasters, or near-death experiences. The events are so singular and overwhelming that it's difficult for an audience to relate. The key, Dicks explains, is to find the small, universal, and comprehensible moments within the larger story. The big event is just the vehicle; the real story is found in the small human details.

Dicks’s story of his own near-fatal car accident, "This Is Going to Suck," is not about the physics of the collision or his medical injuries. While those details are present, the heart of the story is about the small, relatable moments: the joy of buying the perfect Christmas presents for his friends just before the crash, the feeling of being utterly alone in the emergency room, and the transformative moment of seeing his friends fill the waiting room to support him. The audience may not have been in a head-on collision, but they understand friendship, loneliness, and the feeling of being cared for. By focusing on these small, human moments, a big, unrelatable story becomes a universal one about finding family in the most unexpected of places.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Storyworthy is that storytelling is not an innate gift but a learnable skill that fundamentally changes how we experience our own lives. The techniques Matthew Dicks offers are not just for performers; they are tools for living a more observant, connected, and meaningful life. By actively looking for the stories around us, we begin to pay closer attention, to find significance in the mundane, and to appreciate the fleeting moments that we would otherwise forget.

Ultimately, the book challenges us to see our lives as a collection of stories waiting to be told. So, what was the most storyworthy moment of your day? It may seem small, even insignificant. But Dicks’s work suggests that within that small moment lies a potential transformation, a connection, and a story that is truly worthy of being shared.