Episode 42: Edutainment: How to combine knowledge, wit and interaction in your presentations with Dave Jackson
In this episode, I chat to 2018 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, Dave Jackson. He’s been podcasting since April 2005, and has been the host of nearly a dozen different podcasts over the last decade.Most people chat to Dave about creating or improving their podcast but I wanted to focus on the fact that he’s been a technical trainer for over 20 years. I also like how he says in his bio that this means that he not only understands technology, but he can explain it in a plain English “geek-speak free” environment.We explore why it’s important to get out of your comfort zone, how Dave has brought his experience playing on bands on stages into the way he presents, what he does to make his presentations more engaging, how he handles his nerves before he presents, and why he is so damn funny.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How having water-cooler type conversations lead him down a new career path
Why it’s important to attend conferences and meet your target market
How he mixes education and entertainment to help make learning stick
How he prepares to speak at conferences
Why it’s important to challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone
Why it’s important to tailor your content and use analogies that fit your audience
About our guest: Dave Jackson
Dave is not only an award-winning podcaster, but he’s a podcasting consultant, teacher, and the founder of the School of Podcasting. A corporate trainer for more than 20+ years, Dave has a Bachelor's Degree in Education and was one of the early early early adopters of podcasting. Starting back in the primordial mist of 2005, Dave began the School of Podcasting, a podcast to teach other people how to podcast.Dave’s show has been described by many as the most entertaining and unique of all the “Podcast About Podcasting” offerings out there. Dave is a master at “edutainment” and has been using analogies to quickly help people understand the nuances of podcasting for over a decade. He has that rare ability to explain complicated concepts and processes in an easy to comprehend way.
Resources mentioned on this show
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Episode transcript
Episode 13: A facilitator is an entertainer (even if you think it’s all about the content) with Greg Mitchell
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
In this episode, you’ll learn
Why it’s important to snap your participants out of their constant way of thinking
The lowest common denominator for engagement (hint: It’s our favourite topic)
Some incredible, simple activities you can throw-in to a workshop to create variety
What to do when you have a spare 30mins left at the end of your workshop
What he perceives the error of focus is for first time facilitators and how you can direct your energy to create more engagement
Why you need to keep your participants moving (literally!).
Like this show? Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally!
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
About our guest
Greg Mitchell has been engaged with the world of education since he was four years old. Since them, he has been a student, a parent, a teacher, a writer, a cartoonist, an assistance principal, a university lecturer and a consultant. He has worked for both the Catholic and Government education systems and is currently enjoying being self-employed, having finally found a boss that he really likes.
Greg suffers from enthusiasm, a condition which helps him deal happily with issues such as Stress Management, Positive Intelligence, Multiple Intelligences, Boys’ in Education, Conflict Resolution, Resilience, Values Education and Building Collaborative Communities.
Resources
Episode transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript for Episode 13 with Greg Mitchell.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Matthew Dicks (Episode 8)
Storytelling works! (Because no one's ever asked to see a Powerpoint presentation twice)
Leanne: I’d like to introduce today’s guest. He fills his days as a school teacher, storyteller, speaking coach, blogger, podcaster, a wedding DJ, minister-life coach, and a rock opera author. His upcoming book, Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling, is his first non-fiction title. His other novels have been translated into 25 languages worldwide. Plus, he's a 35-time Moth StorySLAM champion and 5-time GrandSLAM champion. Welcome to the show, Matthew Dicks.
Matthew Dicks: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Leanne: It's great to have you here. I'm like, look, what a crazy and full repertoire of things that you do. You must get that comment a lot.
Matthew Dicks: I do. My wife is not a huge fan of that list.
[laughter]
Leanne: I hopped into YouTube last night to watch some of your videos. The first one was the Moth story about you as a pole vaulter in high school. I know there's--
Matthew Dicks: That was the first story I ever told.
Leanne: I can't believe that was your first one. You looked so seasoned. My husband and I were laughing out loud, watching that.
Matthew Dicks: Thank you.
Leanne: Well done. Switched over to your TEDx talk about making decisions based on what your hundred-year-old self would say, and I got to say there were a few teary moments watching that. I think your video hit home for me.
Matthew Dicks: I'm so glad. Thank you.
Leanne: I shared it on Facebook straight away. I've got to ask, how did you become so good at telling stories?
Matthew Dicks: I used to say that I was just fortunate that I found this thing that I was able to do, and then my wife told me, "You're an idiot. It wasn't because of that." What it turns out to be is that I've been sort of prepping for storytelling for a very long time through a bunch of things. The DJ-ing was great because for 20 years, I learned to speak extemporaneously in front of large groups of people. I was comfortable in front of a crowd the first time I took the stage, and that helped a lot.
I'm a novelist, so I'm accustomed to sort of the shape that stories should take. I never really understood that that would play a role until I started working with people on their stories, and I realized how people just don't really have that fundamental understanding all the time.
I've been blogging since 2006. I've discovered through the process of blogging that the more I reveal about myself, the more vulnerable I'm willing to be, the more I'm willing to tell on myself about the terrible things I may do on a daily basis, the more attention I would get from my audience. I think those things sort of combined that night at The Moth when I decided to tell my first story, the idea that I was comfortable in front of people and I understood that they wanted me to be honest and as vulnerable as possible.
Leanne: What was the first vulnerable thing that you did reveal to people? Was it that story, the part that you're this mediocre athlete at high school? Was that an embarrassing thing to share with the world?
Matthew Dicks: I guess the part of that story that I'm really trying to express that I think people feel but never say is the moment where you occasionally root against your teammates because you want to be perceived as the best person on the team. That's something that I think a lot of people feel but would rarely speak aloud. That was what I was trying to go for that night when I was telling that story.
Leanne: Back to storytelling. I know this from my experiences. There's [sic] some people that I've-- I've talked to some friends, and they're just natural at storytelling. They break into telling at something that happened in their holiday. It's really funny, and it seems effortless. There's also, on the other end of the spectrum, some people that can tell you a story, and with the first two sentences, you're switching off. Do you think it's something that's natural, or is it something, a skill, that you can learn, and is it an easy or difficult skill to appreciate?
Matthew Dicks: Well, I teach it a lot, so I have to believe that it can be learned. I've been teaching it now for about five years. I have taken people who are truly terrible at telling a story, got them on a stage in a very short period of time, and had them perform really brilliantly, so I do believe that can be taught. I do believe it can be learned. I think a lot of is just the ability to listen to stories. I think the people who are natural storytellers, the ones that don't need to work with me, they're just good listeners. They've picked up this craft along the way that they're not even aware that they picked up. Others just need some help understanding how a story works, really what is a story, and what isn't a story because that's often half the battle.
Leanne: How do you define what a story is, then?
Matthew Dicks: I always say that a story is not a series of events. Someone may come to you and say, "Let me tell you about my vacation." No one's really ever wanted to hear the next sentence of that story because what they're really saying is "I'd like to run through the itinerary of my vacation with you so I can relive it again. I'll insert good meals along the way." That's not something that's going to move us.
For a story to really be a story, it needs to be something in your life that happened that caused some kind of change in you. I usually say are transformation or a realization. "I was this person, but now I'm this person." It can be a negative transformation. It could be, "I used to be a decent human being, and now I'm not." Something as simple as, "I used to think my mom was an idiot, and now I understand that everything my mom has ever told me was absolutely true. I really can't believe it." There has to be that arc, that journey from "I was one thing" to "Now, I'm another," which people tend not to understand. They tend to tell stories which are just series of things that happened to them, but in the end, they're fundamentally the same person. Those stories aren't memorable, and oftentimes, they're not very good to listen to.
Leanne: Is there a secret structure to telling these stories where you talk about the shift in behaviour or your thoughts around something?
Matthew Dicks: There's a lot to it. I say there's a lot of secrets, but the big secret I often tell people is that every story is about a five-second moment in our lives. It's really that moment of realization or transformation. I call it a five-second moment because I really believe it takes place over about the course of five seconds where you suddenly, for whatever reason, shift into a new person or shift into a new understanding.
Once I'm able to find one of those moments, the moment in the story we were talking about, the moment I realized I'm rooting against my teammate because I'm a selfish jerk who wants to be perceived as better than everybody else-- As soon as I find that moment, I know that's always going to be the end of my story because it's going to be the most important thing I say. If people would just do that, if they would just ask themselves what moment of realization or transformation can I talk about and make that the end of my story, they're going to be better off than most storytellers already.
Leanne: Why do you think it is important for people to share information using stories?
Matthew Dicks: I think it's the best way to share information. It's the most captivating way. I often say that I'm a fundamentally unlikable person who tells a good story, and I manage to get through life on that tree. I'm a horrible golfer. I am really the worst golfer of any golfer I've ever played with. Yet, I'm asked to play constantly, almost daily. The people who play golf with me know that when I hit the ball into the trees and we go looking for it, I'm going to entertain them on the way.
That ability to grab attention, and through a story, you can just get people to do a lot of things that they might not normally do or convince people to think a certain way that they might not normally think. I often say no one has ever asked to see a PowerPoint presentation a second time or say, "Wow, that graph was so amazing. I'd love to see it again." We'll watch the same movie that we have watched ten times, an 11th time if it randomly comes on the television one night because we love stories so much more than anything else.
Leanne: So true. In the work environment, you'd recommend instead of dolling up the PowerPoint/presentation with the corporate template, would you just recommend launching into a story about how your new idea will shift the organization, and would you make it personal? How do you start even mapping out what that story would look like when it comes to, say, in business?
Matthew Dicks: I always start with a story. I have to do presentations as a teacher, and I'm often doing presentations now with corporations and non-profits for storytelling. My first goal is to tell a story that's going to relate to the goal of the day, but also going to reveal something about me. I don't want to be a presenter that's forgettable because most presenters are. You'll go to a conference, and you'll hear some information, but you won't remember the person three days later, which means you haven't made a meaningful connection. If I can share something that is vulnerable, or amusing, or even embarrassing, I've now established myself as someone who is memorable, or entertaining, or someone who you just want to know a little bit more about. I'll always start with that. Eventually, I may work into a PowerPoint, or into a graph, or into that more traditional presentation style, but I always want to start with a story. I always want to connect with my audience so that they will believe the things that I am saying.
Leanne: That's very authentic as well. Like you said, it does create that personal connection. It's so different to what everyone else is doing because most people, I guess, they expect to go into a board meeting, for example, switch on the computer and fire it up, and that's the way it goes. I guess, by using that story, you're automatically hooking them in.
Matthew Dicks: Yes. If you watch any of my TED talks, actually, I always open with a story. The story is going to inform what I want to talk about after the story, but I want that story to be something that causes people to feel connected to me and relate to the content I want to present. I'll often end the TED talk with either another story or I will finish off that first story. We begin with story we end with story. People feel entertained and fall. They feel moved and connected with me and then the content that I sandwiched in the middle, manages to get in there, sort of sneaky. They don't even notice it's happening.
Leanne: Yes, you're right. Because when I put on your second video last night, my husband was like, "Let's play something else." But then, I think in the first minute, you've hooked him in and he was there watching it for 15 minutes which was awesome. [crosstalk] Thank you. [laughs] I'd love to hear about the level of detail that you go in. Sometimes when you're describing an event, you really describe it quite evocatively and outline like the greasy tiled floor that you were lying on at McDonald's. I guess, in my experience hearing stories, some people give too much details, some people not enough. Where's the fine line in providing detail?
Matthew Dicks: I always think it's not how much, but where it should be and where it shouldn't be. There are moments, like the moments you've spoken about when I'm in a robbery in the back of a restaurant and there's a gun to my head. I want you to be on the floor with me and I want you to feel the grease in the barrel of the gun. I want you to see and smell everything because it's such a unique situation and it's the most important moment in that story. I want you there with me.
Quite often, I will tell people don't include any details. If I'm telling a story about-- I'm working on a story right now about my grandmother and I open with her in the garden. I will just say the word garden because it's irrelevant what type of garden it is. If I just say garden, you just automatically fill in a garden of your choice. You end up doing a lot of work for me, without me wasting any words, without even knowing it.
If I say the word garden to you, you automatically choose the season, you automatically choose the weather on that day, you choose what is in that garden, and as long as it's not pertinent to the story, those details, I want you to do the work for me. It will also create a landscape that you are more familiar with. So that, when you put my grandmother in your garden, you feel like you're a little bit at home because it's a sense of like, "I understand what that garden is." Even if the garden she happens to be in is full of corn and carrots and you put her in a flower garden, that's fine. I love the fact that you've created the garden that you are most comfortable with.
It's all a matter of choosing which moments need to be described and which moments can be let go. I think people either describe everything or they don't describe anything and they don't find that moment where, "No, slow it down here and give us the detail that we need because now we've hit a critical moment." Or a moment that people really can't visualize without words.
Leanne: Let's talk about storytelling and facilitation and particularly, in workshops. Sometimes, I definitely think it's a useful tool to explain whatever you're trying to get through to your audience. With your stories, do you actually have a bucket of stories that you have which you can lean on and go, "This one's a great one to use when I want to explain leadership. This one is about integrity." Do you have an Excel spreadsheet or how do you store that information? [chuckles]
Matthew Dicks: I do have an Excel spreadsheet. It's fairly insane. It's a crazy spreadsheet. It has a dozen of tabs and it really is insane. What happens is, if you build up enough stories, that's what I encourage people to do is keep telling stories and keep crafting them, eventually, when I am asked to speak on a topic, it is never relevant what that topic is because I will always have a story for it.
I had to do a talk in a human trafficking conference one time. They asked me to close out the conference with an inspirational story related to human trafficking. The conference organizer called me a couple of days before and she said, "Have you researched human trafficking?" I said, "Absolutely not. They've just spent three days hearing about human trafficking. I'm going to tell you a story and then relate it to the importance of battling human trafficking." She was very worried about how that talk was going to go.
I told a personal story about my life and how I failed to act quickly when I could have helped the student. I related that back to the importance of when it comes to things like human trafficking, we can't allow politicians to say that, "Change takes place over time and big ships are slow to turn because these are human lives at stake and not making widgets." It really went well and it was completely different from anything else said in the conference. I'm just able to do that with every topic now because I have 150 stories that I've told on stages over the years and I can apply any one of them to any topic whatsoever.
The trick is to be a storyteller with a large amount of content and then the topics are irrelevant because you can always match what you have to what they need.
Leanne: Do you collect those stories in real time, like you just, "Wow, that's interesting.", and you get out your phone and go into Evernote? Or, is it something at the end of the day? What's your process?
Matthew Dicks: I actually have a TED talk called Homework for Life that you can go and get a lot of detail on it. What I do essentially is at the end of every day, I sit down with my spreadsheet and I ask myself, "What is the most story-worthy moment of my day?" If I had to tell a story about something that happened today, even if that moment is fairly benign and irrelevant, I still write it down. I put it down in just a few sentences in a spreadsheet. I don't make it so on a risk that I won't continue to do it day after day.
My goal was to get maybe a story every couple of months to add to my lists of stories. But what happened over time is really remarkable. I've developed this lense for storytelling. Such that, I can see stories where other people don't. My wife says, "Matt can turn anything into a story." And that's not really true. My friend tells me, "Matt can pick up a rock and make it into a story, The Process of the Rock." That's not true either. What I try to explain to them is, I just see stories where you don't because I've developed this lense overtime by continually asking myself this question. I've discovered that the smallest moments in our lives make the best stories.
Even though I've died twice and been brought back by CPR. You know about my robbery. I've been homeless for a period in my life and arrested and tried for a crime I didn't commit. All of those things aren't my best stories. Really, my best stories are tiny little moments that I experience and then I see because of this process that I've been engaged in for the last three or four years.
Leanne: Do you think those little stories are good because they're probably more relatable? Because I haven't had two near death experiences-
Matthew Dicks: [laughs]
Leanne: Do you think that's why they are so good, those little ones?
Matthew Dicks: Exactly, yes. Exactly. When I tell my near death experiences and I've told those stories, you can see them on the internet, I always have to find the tiny, little moment in the big story, so that I can connect with my audience.
When I was 17, I was in a car accident. I went through the windshield, died on the side of the road, but the fact that I die on the side of the road and get brought back to life is almost irrelevant to the story. It's not the point of the story. The point of the story happens later on in the emergency room when my parents fail to show up. They go to check on the car before they come to check on me when they hear I'm in a stable condition. But my friends show up. My 16, and 17 and 18-year-old friends show up in the emergency room, unexpectedly. They fill in for my family and really become my family until I meet my wife.
That is something people can connect to you. You can't connect to me going through a windshield, but you can connect to the idea that parents sometimes let us down. Or, that friends sometimes pick us up, when we feel alone at points in our lives when we really shouldn't feel alone. You find the little moments in the big ones, but the easiest stories to tell are just, start with the little ones, then you don't have to play with them.
Leanne: It's a pretty powerful skill you have, in terms of the way that you can transition emotion. Last night, I was saying within five minutes, we were laughing and we watched the second video and it was like, "Whoa."
[laughter]
How do you feel that having that kind of responsibility?
Matthew Dicks: It's a trick of storytelling, really. My favorite story and the ones my wife likes the best are the ones that are, laugh, laugh, laugh, cry. I get you laughing at the beginning of the story and not realizing the horror that is to come. I always say it's better to make people laugh before they cry because it hurts more that way. [laughs] Part of storytelling is the manipulation of emotion because the ultimate goal is, I want you to feel the same way I felt, or as close to it as possible. So, if I'm surprised in my real life, I want my audience to experience that similar surprise as I tell the story.
I'm constantly asking myself, "How do I want my audience to feel at this moment?" So, if my story is very heavy at the end, I want to balance it with humor at the beginning if I can. It's just that manipulation of emotion that a storyteller inevitably does, in a way that it's [unintelligible 00:18:44], but it really is the satisfying way that people want to hear stories.
Leanne: Cool. Let's talk about your transition. You're doing a lot of keynotes, speaking, presenting and then you're running workshops, do you think there's similar skill-set that you brought over. I know you're a teacher as well, so you've got that as a background. Obviously, teaching has really helped you, having the storytelling as well. How have you used those skills, in terms of getting engagement in workshops?
Matthew Dicks: I teach fifth grade. I teach ten-year-olds and I've been teaching for 20 years. I often say they're the worst audience in the world. I've really learned that you have to engage your audience. I so often, I am in workshops in professional development or listening to speeches, and I'm astounded that the speaker doesn't attempt to do something entertaining or different. I think so often we assume that adults are willingly engaged in what we are about to present. Like your husband, actually.
When I do my TED Talk, I don't assume that the person who is even chosen to listen to it, wants to listen to it. So, I'm always thinking about, when I'm beginning a workshop, when I'm beginning a keynote, I assume that no one wants to listen to anything I have to say. The first thing I have to do is hook them. I have to find a way to get them to care about me and care about what I'm saying, and I just see so many people assume the opposite that everyone wants to hear them, so they have to make no effort to be entertaining and engaging in the beginning. Kevin Smith, the comedian wrote a book, wrote a biography and then he says that speakers have an obligation to be entertaining regardless of their topic every time they take the stage, and I believe that and I believe you have to be entertaining initially and not assume that people want to hear anything you have to say.
Leanne: That's amazing and how do we create a movement, I completely agree with you as well, but it just seems like, we're being overwhelmed with people that do operate off that assumption. How do we change this? I know you're starting out by writing a book about it, you created these videos, we really need to start just the revolution somehow.
Matthew Dicks: Part of it is just rejecting what people are doing you know, if you're not entertaining I just reject your content I reject what you have to say, part of it is giving feedback as well, it's so often and when I'm in a professional development situation, and I've asked to give feedback at the end of it. I believe that there's this desire to be kind to the person who took the stage because they were brave enough to take the stage and so people avoid being honest with a speaker or a presenter about what they've actually done they just think, "Well, they were kind enough to come here, we have to be nice enough to say something nice".
And I think be honest in our feedback and if they don't ask for feedback, they don't solicit it, we have to be willing to send an email the next day saying, "Hey here's a couple things you should think about", until these people understand that we are not engaged in their material, they will just continue to do what they're doing.
Leanne: Yes, you're right, no one's really brave enough to tell them, a little bit scared. That's really good advice I think we'll link to your videos, that could even be away, so providing feedback to someone, "Hey, nice attempt yesterday, maybe you should watch this video and get some tips".
Matthew Dicks: Yes, I had a politician recently, a guy I know pretty well he's trying to get a program cut in our school system and it was a program that may be needed to be cut, they were trying to save some money and he said he did a year's worth of data collection presented a beautiful PowerPoint with lots of charts, lots of evidence that showed we should cut this program and move the money somewhere else. Then he said one mother stood up and described how the program saved her son's life and he said, "I always lose to the anecdote."
I told him you took a knife to a gunfight, you thought that a PowerPoint was going to change the hearts and minds of people when a mother with a child is gonna change the hearts and minds of people. So I'm working with politicians now, telling them you have to tell a story like nobody cares about your facts and figures that you have to be a personality who is engaging and who tells a story. I think starting to understand that to a great degree.
Leanne: Yes, I think so too. So in terms of your workshops, they're engaging, interactive and then the participant walks out and leaves the workshop, what is the best way to embed learning, do you think? Following a workshop when someone leaves that environment and just goes back, back to their day to day, how do you make sure that something has changed?
Matthew Dicks: Well, hopefully, they can buy my book and that will help a little now, but what are the things I do is I call it homework for life, the idea that you're going to look for stories every day. I say for life because I really do mean that that if you're going to start doing this, you'll do it for the rest of your life. I believe that when I teach my goal is to take a large and complex process like storytelling and break it down into the smallest possible parts. So that even if you spend eight hours in a workshop with me and you pick up just five small things that you can begin doing immediately, that are easy to implement and can be repeated over and over again, you'll begin doing that and you'll notice the changes in yourself as a storyteller. Then you're going to be more likely to maybe come watch one of my videos, or come to one of my advanced workshops to learn even more or to pick up my book now and read more about it.
I think that so often it when I'm in a workshop nobody is looking to sort of break things down into tiny concrete parts and maybe because I'm elementary school teacher for 20 years, that's what I understand about curriculum. So I really do try to teach in the smallest possible terms and I scale it so that the first things I say are always going to be the most important. As we get through the day I'm going to become more and more nuanced and the things that I'm teaching are going to be less important, although still important. So that when I have them at their maximum attention and maximum energy I'm teaching the most important things and truly things that are going to be so simple that they can go home and start doing immediately.
So don't teach big things, just like in storytelling we're looking for five second moments to tell a story, I'm looking for tiny bits that kit that people can use.
Leanne: Yes, great so let's talk about your book. It's coming out in June, I've already pre-ordered my version off Amazon. So you've written novels this is your first non-fiction book, what made you decide to pick up the pen and write something and share this experience with the world?
Matthew Dicks: Well, I did workshops for about four years and over the course of those workshops actually started grudgingly, people kept asking me to do it and I said no, and eventually I agreed to do one and done that's what I said and I fell in love with the teaching of storytelling. But over the course of that time, I really began to refine what I was doing so if you had taken a workshop with me in year one versus now, it would be entirely different. As I began to develop that curriculum in a way that people responded too positively and I saw them implementing really effectively, I realized that I can't reach everybody by having them come and join me on a Saturday for eight hours.
I started to get quite a bit of demand from around the world really from people who would either say, "Can you please fly out to LA and teach a workshop or do you have some material you can provide for us, a book and things like that". So my goal was to take the workshop that I teach really this weekend-long workshop that I teach in various places and turn that into a book. So if you can't join me for a weekend, if you can't make it to where I am and I can't make it to where you are, you'll have this to get you launched into storytelling.
It's not going to be the same, it's not going to be as interactive, you're not going to laugh, you know I try to make people laugh throughout all of my workshops. There are funny moments in the book but my goal is if you can't make it to me you can start with this and then maybe we can talk later on.
Leanne: How does the book work? Is it sort of like a sequence of you start with lesson one and then you build up over the course of it or is it just different tips and tricks you can start pretty much anywhere?
Matthew Dicks: No, I've designed it like my workshops so the beginning chapters are going to be more important than the later chapters, big fundamental, the big fundamental building blocks are in the first few chapters. I've also embedded lots of stories so that they can serve as models for what you're learning and I've crafted in a bit of memoir as well so that you can sort of watch my journey on storytelling as well.
I love Stephen King's book on writing. I think it's brilliant for writers and I love it because I learn a little bit about the writer's life in the process so my goal was to write that version for storytelling. It's going to be instructive but you're also going to go on my storytelling journey with me and you're going to meet some of the great storytellers that I've met along the way and learn some of their craft tips as well.
I'm hoping that even if you're not terribly interested in storytelling the book is going to be entertaining enough that you'll read it so even storytelling for dating has become really popular for me now. It's always guys who can't get a second date so they come to my workshops. So it's not just the idea that presenters or performers are going to be using this book, but really almost anyone can benefit from storytelling and I'm hoping the book is entertaining enough that it holds their attention and that they'll get through it.
Leanne: Yes, cool, just good opening that front cover and making the effort. Storytelling for dating, what's that workshop about? I have to ask.
Matthew Dicks: It's my regular workshop although I have a couple set up where it would be exclusively dating and we'd have like a meal and things. But essentially it's the idea that on your first date, it's your opportunity to communicate to people with whoever you're with. And so often, people don't know what to say they say the wrong thing all the time, they don't tell a good story or they're not willing to be vulnerable in front of someone. They brag, they just awful people on the first day, oftentimes they're the worst version of themselves because they're not being themselves.
So I teach them that tell the story about the embarrassing moment you had this week and tell it well. Someone once asked my wife, someone said, "Why did you first fall in love with Matt?" and I was so happy I was there because I sort of wanted to know what that answer was. I figured it would like, "Look at him, you know obviously I fell", but she said, "It's never been what I looked like". She told me about a night when we were still just friends and we were teaching together, and we went to a restaurant while we were waiting for a school talent show.
And it was the first time we ever really sat down together and had dinner and she asked me questions and if you ask me a question I'm always gonna tell you a story and she said,"That was the night I fell in love with him even though it took us another six months to get together". She said, "Listening to him tell stories was the moment I fell in love because I wanted to hear more, and I loved listening to what he had to say". So storytelling got me the best wife ever and I really believe it can at least get you the second date, I can't guarantee anything after that, now you're on your own. But if you can really speak well and represent yourself well on a first date, I think you can get a second date fairly easily.
Leanne: Yes, I think so, that's the beautiful story that your wife told as well.
Matthew Dicks: Yes, I know I just, I was mad at her actually when she told it because I was into like year three or four of workshops at that point, and I said, "You never told me that, that fits my personal narrative so well like I can brand that and she said, "I’m not really in the business of making sure your personal narrative is up to par."
Leanne: Just to watch out what she says around you sometimes a bit.
Matthew Dicks: Yes. I have to run things by her sometimes when the story involves her.
Leanne: Yes, I bet. Mathew, where can people find you and find your book?
Matthew Dicks: You can find me at Mathewdicks.com and you can find my book everywhere. It's on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, your local independent books store will have it. You can pre-order it or get it there when it comes out in June. There will be an audiobook, I’m actually going to be narrating the audio book. It will be my first time doing that. All of my novels are in audio but then they've been narrated by other people so that will be a first for me.
Leanne: Wonderful. I've heard that process is pretty interesting. It’s pretty intense, isn’t it?
Matthew Dicks: No, I haven’t done it yet but I have been told this is going to take at least three days, which sounds terrible to sit in a little booth for eight hours a day for three days reading words that I wrote a long time ago.
Leanne: We can’t wait to hear it. Mathew, it'd be great to have you down to sometime I’m sure after the release of this book. Maybe there'll be some opportunities there, but I just loved-- I can’t believe everything that you've done, but just watching all your videos and hearing from you as well today is just so exciting. I think this is really relevant to all our listeners and they will be championing this episode. I think it’s really a good one.
Matthew Dicks: I’m so glad, thanks so much.
Episode 5: How to use humour to deliver x-factor presentations (and laughs) with Andrew Tarvin
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from Humor Engineer, Andrew Tarvin on how he crafts and embeds comedy into his presentations and work life. Andrew provides simple, actionable tips on how to do this; and why it's important to brings laughter into the workplace.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from Humor Engineer, Andrew Tarvin on how he crafts and embeds comedy into his presentations and work life. Andrew provides simple, actionable tips on how to do this; and why it's important to brings laughter into the workplace.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Simple hacks you can use to add humour in your workplace
Why using humour consistently can change behaviours (people start to perceive meetings differently and creates engagement in the long-term)
How to start introducing humour by trying one or two things with your emails
How Andrew developed and rehearsed his TEDx speech
Why he suggests first time facilitators should take improv classes
About our guest
Andrew Tarvin is the world’s first Humor Engineer, teaching people how to get better results while having more fun. He has worked with thousands of people at 200+ organizations, including P&G, GE, and Microsoft. Combining his background as a project manager at Procter & Gamble with his experience as an international comedian, Andrew’s program are engaging, entertaining, and most important, effective. He is a best-selling author, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and TEDx, and has delivered programs in 50 states, 18 countries, and 3 continents. He loves the color orange and is obsessed with chocolate.