I’m reading a book for your teen

Me: For the last few months I’ve been reading a book. 

Critic: Months to read a book!? What is it, Les Miserables? 

Me: No. 

Critic: Then what’s taking so long?

Well, it’s a book about storytelling and there are so many actionable tools in the book that I had to try them all out. And I’m blown away. It has changed the way I tell stories and it has changed the way I identify stories in my own life. It gives you tools and shows you how to use them and I’m recommending it even before I’ve finished it. 

The book is Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks (not an affiliate link).

Let me tell you one way the book has changed me. For the past few years I’ve felt like my memories are like sand, I’m trying to catch them with a fishing net. I journal, but I do so without direction. I’ll write about whatever. What happened or where I am or the weather or sometimes insights I’ve had (those are my favorites, but there aren’t a lot).

Now, I take 2-5 minutes near the end of every day and write one thing from that day that I could possibly tell a story about. Something that changed me and caused me to think or be different. A realization. A determination to do better. I’ve done it every day for three and a half months. Some entries are better than others. I write them very raw without polish. I capture the memory/idea with basic details. Enough detail to jog my memory. Enough detail that I could tell a story about the entry if forced to. Some entries are lame. Others are great. 

The point is not for every entry to be worthy of a novel or full length feature film. It's to create the habit of capturing experiences. And it's to help me recognize that I have more storyworthy moments in my life than I thought. And in three months I have 10-15 potential stories and 20 anecdotes. For me, that's a lot. All from living life and reflecting. I don’t have to make anything up. I just have to observe and be more self-aware. I love it.

What do I do after I write the daily entries? Well it’d be pointless if I wrote them and left them to rot. So, once a week I review them. For me that’s usually Sunday after church. As I review them I also look for themes or patterns. I found that as I do a daily capture and weekly review I start to remember more. Things from months or years before. So I capture those too. I add them to my spreadsheet. I give them an estimated date and add an identifier like “MEMORY” so I know it’s from before I started this habit.

I call this daily process Filling My Storywell. Matthew Dicks calls it Stories For Life. Call it what you will, it’s a game changer.

What does it look like. It’s two columns. A date column and a description column. At the top of the worksheet I have a prompt. It says, “If I had to tell a 5-minute story about something interesting that happened to me today, what would it be about? Did I learn to trust others? Listen to my gut? Accept failure? Find inner peace? Believe in myself? Uncover a strength I never knew I possessed?" The prompt Matthew Dicks uses is “My family has been kidnapped and I can't have them back until I stand on a stage and tell a story about something that happened today. What would I tell?”

Here are some unpolished entries in my personal Storywell. Judge me as you like.

8/4/2024 - Eating lunch. Found glitter in my sandwich. If you're a girl dad and don't have glitter coming out of every nook and cranny of your body, you're doing something wrong as a parent.

8/23/2024 - I was laying in my sleeping bag camping in the woods with my family, when a serial killer walked into camp. (realization that I've lost my trust in others. I feel ashamed that I've lost that)

8/28/2024 - bedtime. I normally just go to sleep. but I watched my wife rub lotion on our baby and listened to her jabber. I saw the care and joy that my wife had as she got her ready for bed. great mother. glad I stayed awake for it.

9/7/2024 - Breakfast with nephew. talked about storytelling. then got to be his story coach and help him find his story from for his transformation from lazy to active. telling Him about stories for life and he told me thank you This was awesome because I answered a question he didn't even know he had.

10/9/2024 - so distracted by my thoughts I walked up and extra flight of stairs at work so I missed my floor and had to walk back down.

So, are experiences in your life going to waste? Are they happening but you’re not gleaning anything from them? Well, now you know one thing you can do to fix that.

NOTE: While I recommend checking out the book Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks there are some vulgarities in the stories he shares. Be aware and don’t read if you’re not comfortable.