Matthew Dicks
Storyteller & Author, Storyworthy. On 4 shows, 4 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
authorentertainerother@MatthewDicks ↗LinkedIn ↗matthewdicks.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Matthew Dicks is a multi-time Moth GrandSLAM champion and bestselling author of books including Storyworthy and Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. A longtime educator, he coaches business leaders and trains corporate teams on narrative structure and public speaking.
4shows
4appearances
126statements
4resolved
2supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
12said about them ↓ Everything Matthew Dicks said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Dicks: Stories work best when kept in the immediate moment
“I would say that most of the time, maintaining stories within the moment is probably the better way to go, but that one is, that one operates a little differently.”
Dicks: Beginning a story with expository background is a mistake
“That's how most people start the story, which is, I need to teach you a whole bunch of stuff so that the story will make sense. That's the worst way to begin a story, because no one has ever sat down and said, boy, I hope he teaches me a lot of stuff before he…”
Dicks: Most storytelling mistakes happen at the beginning and the end
“So I would say most of the mistakes are made in the beginnings of stories where they fail to Engage the audience. And at the ends of stories where they fail to actually say anything.”
Dicks: Story beginnings must be in direct contrast to their endings
“Well, they're almost always in perfect contrast to each other. They have to be opposite of some way. If you want change over time, for the end of my story, you know, I've learned a thing. At the beginning of the story, I must not have that thing learned.”
Matthew Dicks: Opening scenes in almost all movies predict their endings
“All of the openings of movies are almost all of them will predict the end of the movie for sure.”
Dicks: Memorable stories sustain a relatable emotional core throughout the narrative
“The more relatable that ending moment is, the more deep the more resonant it is through the movie, as opposed to what happens in a lot of movies, which is, it just sort of lands at the end, because they know they have to wrap it up at the end. Some movies carr…”
Dicks: Stories With Unresolved Endings Resonate Longer Than Neatly Resolved Ones
“When a story is not complete, when there are still unanswered questions at the end of a story, when the audience can sort of play it out a little bit on their own, those stories tend to hang with an audience much more. So we want our stories to not be wrapped …”
Dicks: Storytellers can only omit details that hinder narrative flow
“I think the extent of lying in a story amounts to, I'm allowed to take things out of stories that are inconvenient for the story. Not inconvenient for me, but because they make the story not run as well.”
Matthew Dicks: Inactive characters should be cut from stories to preserve attention
“Like, you're just stealing bandwidth from the audience, mentioning that Martin was also in the car. Like, if you don't do anything, you're out of the car. You're irrelevant to me at that point because you're irrelevant to the audience.”
Matthew Dicks: Storytellers must highlight their own foolish mistakes, not hide them
“If I did something stupid over the course of the story, I'm not going to remove the stupid thing I did in an effort to make myself look better. In fact, I will enhance the stupid thing I did, because I know that's what audiences really want. You know, that vul…”
Matthew Dicks: 'But' Is the Most Powerful Word in Storytelling
“I always tell people the but is the most powerful word in all of storytelling.”
Matthew Dicks: Describing What Something Is Not Creates Narrative Energy
“What something is not is more powerful than what it is.”
Matthew Dicks: Small micro-moments are more powerful stories than extreme events
“If we start to recognize that our lives are filled with stories, that they're everywhere, that we don't need enormous moments in order to carry the day, and instead small moments are actually some of the most powerful moments we can ever share.”
Matthew Dicks: Suspense is the strategic exclusion and inclusion of information
“It's simply
The strategic exclusion of information alongside the strategic inclusion of information.
That's what suspense is.
It's, I'm going to tell you some of it, but not all of it.”
Dicks: Multi-decade stories work best framed within a short present-day timeline
“Nobody wants to hear a forty-year story. A forty-year story sucks, right? So what we do is we turn the forty-year story into a week-long story, which is, my son is getting ready to go to camp And I don't want him to make the same mistake I made, so I'm gonna t…”
Matthew Dicks: Secondhand stories lack the power and vulnerability of personal narratives
“People want to hear the story of the person sitting across from them. They want to know that you're the one speaking because that requires vulnerability. If I tell you a story and it's not about me, the only vulnerability required is public speaking.”
Dicks: Keynote speeches must communicate only one core message
“For someone who says, can you help me with my keynote?
We start at the end, just like a story.
What are you trying to say?
And when they say, I'm trying to say three things, I say, well, you can't.
You gotta say one thing.”
Dicks: Isolate punchlines into single-sentence paragraphs for dramatic impact
“They lose the punch in the previous paragraph of, you know, the eight sentences and the punch is the last one.
And I say, take the punch out and make it its own paragraph.
It looks weird in the eyes of an editor because it is associated with the paragraph befo…”
Dicks: Aim for a six-to-one positive-to-corrective feedback ratio on writing
“In teaching, we try to achieve a six to one ratio, six positive comments for every corrective comment that we're going to offer, and try to make that your home, too.”
Dicks: 95% of a Story Sets Up the Final 5% Transformation
“The purpose of a story is essentially to land a singular moment of change or transformation. So that means 95% of a story Is designed to make the five percent at the end make the most sense to your audience.”
Dicks: What a Storyteller Omits Is More Important Than What They Say
“As a storyteller, what you don't say is more important than what you do say.”
Dicks: Audiences Believe in People With Ideas Over Standalone Ideas
“Because people believe in people with ideas more than they believe in ideas. They want the person behind the idea to be a person and not just a resume.”
Dicks: Anchoring Pitches in Everyday Objects Creates Free Brand Recall
“So when you tell stories, especially stories about things that exist in the world, you create these personal totems that Can stand for your company. They don't cost you any money. You're not buying a billboard. You're not buying airtime.”
Dicks: Explaining technical mechanics upfront destroys effective product storytelling
“The goal of a story isn't to, like, teach us everything, right? When Steve Jobs said an iPod is a thousand songs in your pocket, he didn't say a thousand songs in your pocket. Now let me open it up and explain to you exactly how it works, because that would ha…”
The other half of the tape: Matthew Dicks's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 11 times in 5 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Jonathan Becker 4Lane Shackleton 3Shane Parrish 2Ted Seides 1Lenny Rachitsky 1
Statements about Matthew Dicks, by other people (1)
Shackleton: Great stories are built around a five-second moment of transformation
“The nugget of a great story is like five seconds of transformation. So if you just orient like everything else around that, like moment of trans, you know, transformation, then you end up usually telling a reasonably good story.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Lenny's Podcast 8
the Knowledge Project 2
Capital Allocators 1
2025 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Matthew's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Storyteller & Author, Storyworthy | 1 | 48 | 67% 2/3 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Storyteller & Author, Storyworthy | 1 | 38 | — | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Storyteller & Author, Storyworthy | 1 | 29 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Capital Allocators → |
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | Storyteller & Author, Storyworthy | 1 | 11 | — | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |