They couldn't play tic-tac-toe because of bandwidth.

Yes, this is absolutely the worst game of tic-tac-toe every played. The fact that this all happens in front of thousands of people is even more embarrassing. 

But it's also an outstanding demonstration on the nature of bandwidth. 

Every human being has a certain amount of bandwidth available to them at one time. Some people can simply process input in greater quantities than others. 

The amount of input that you process at any one time is the measure of your bandwidth. 

Bandwidth is also context dependent. When I started playing golf, for example, all of my bandwidth was used on striking the ball with the head of the club. It needed to be in order to make contact. As I became a more experienced (but still terrible) golfer, I was able to use less and less bandwidth to hit the ball and began to incorporate other elements of the game into my thinking. Grip. Posture. Wind. Elevation. Contours of the course. 

The more experience a person has with a task, the better the chance of processing more input. 

I see this in new teachers all the time. While they are focused on delivering their lesson, they often fail to notice student behaviors that are as clear as day to me (and will hopefully one day will be to them). Once they become more confident and proficient in delivering content to students, more of their bandwidth will be freed up for other processes. 

As a storyteller, I am often changing and manipulating aspects of my story onstage. I can punch up the humor in a story if an audience is responding well or circle back on a part of the story that seemed to require more attention. I oftentimes find new and better endings to stories while performing. A memory will suddenly occur to me. A new collection of sentences will enter my mind. A divergent path to the conclusion will reveal itself to me in the process of telling the story and I'll manage to execute some verbal gymnastics in order to get there.

Twice in my life Elysha has accused me of holding back a great ending to a story in order to surprise her onstage. But neither time was it true. I simply realized onstage that there was a better, smarter place to end.     

But for my storytelling students, I would never advise this course of action. I tell them to take the stage with a plan and stick to it. I have the benefit of greater bandwidth onstage.

• I'm never nervous.
• I've performed hundreds of times in front of audiences of all sizes and in theaters, bars, libraries, auditoriums, bookstores, churches, and synagogues of all sizes and types.  
• I've crafted and told more than 120 stories in my seven year storytelling career. I have a familiarity and facility with stories that my students do not. 

I have a large amount of bandwidth available to me onstage. 

The two women in the video surely understand how to play tic-tac-toe better than they demonstrated that night. But their bandwidth was restricted by the other conditions of the game.

• Shoot baskets in order to put down an X or an O.
• Run.
• Play on a board hundreds of times larger than your typical board. 
• Perform in front of thousands of people. 

They were processing so much new information that a task as simple as tic-tac-toe became challenging for them.

Bandwidth must be considered by teachers at all times. It's why students might be able to complete all the required operations of a long division problem (division, multiplication, and  subtraction) and might even be able to explain the process of ling division to you, but when it comes time to actually complete a problem, they fall apart. 

It's bandwidth. Independently, these operations are not taxing on the student's mind, but put them all together in a complex system and simple errors quickly emerge.

This is why we must practice. We practice so that our minds can gain facility with a process such that bandwidth is no longer an issue. For some students blessed with greater bandwidth, this might mean far fewer practice problems. For students with reduced bandwidth, it might mean many more. 

The best birthday gift for a teacher might surprise you

Here's one of the beauties of being a teacher.

Last night I had the opportunity to perform at the Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston as a part of The Moth's GrandSLAM championship.

It was the 20th GrandSLAM in my storytelling career, and on my birthday no less. 

The Cutler Majestic is a spectacular theater that seats 1,200 people, and last night the theater was packed. I was telling stories alongside some of my favorite storytellers from the Boston area and some new storytellers who were spectacular. One particular woman told the story of raising a baby pig that sent my spirits soaring and broke my damn heart. 

It was perfection. A story that I will remember forever.

The host of the evening was the brilliant Bethany Van Delft, who I am always thrilled and honor to share the stage, and the producers of the show were also some of my favorites.

I even adore the sound guy. 

I had many friends in the audience. Folks from Connecticut and locals from my days of living in Massachusetts. Storytellers from the area who I am so proud to now call my friends. Elysha Dicks was sitting beside me. It was a grand night.

I told a story about my love for the New England Patriots, and my choice of the Patriots over a woman. It's a story I love to tell. It always brings me such joy to tell stories from that period of my life just after high school, when I was living with my best friend, struggling to survive. Those were such great days. 

At the end of the night, I was declared the winner of the GrandSLAM. It was my fifth GrandSLAM victory. As several audience members pointed out, I've got as many wins now as Tom Brady. It was sweet. 

A perfect birthday.  

Here was my very first thought when I awoke this morning:

"Linda was so good."

Linda Storms, a woman who first heard me on The Moth Radio Hour years ago then started coming to my storytelling workshops and performing for Speak Up, was also competing in the GrandSLAM last night. She told the last story of the night, and she did so brilliantly. She was vulnerable and eloquent and funny. Her story was perfectly crafted and so honestly told. She could not have been better. She was fantastic. 

That is what I thought first when I awoke today. I thought of Linda, my friend and student, shining on that beautiful stage like the star that she is.

This is the beauty of teaching. You have the opportunity to experience so much joy in the success of those who you have taught, and oftentimes that joy in a student's success can be more important and meaningful than your own. You sit in quiet rooms and teach the skills and strategies to help someone realize their dream, and when you're really lucky, you get to sit back and watch that dream realized right before your eyes. 

Watching Linda on that stage last night was the perfect end to a perfect birthday for me.   

Moth StorySLAM: Clara Wants a Sister

This summer I took about 30 young ladies from Miss Porter's School to a Moth StorySLAM in Somerville, MA as part of a weeklong program on writing and storytelling. 

It was kind of a magical night for these young ladies, who came from all over the country and the world to attend this program. As fate would have it, eight of the ten storytellers were women. The host of the show, the brilliant Bethany Van Delft, as well as the producer, Gina James, were also women. 

Such a great opportunity to show these young ladies how women can take and own the stage. 

I told a story that night about the birth of our son, Charlie and the problems that his sister, Clara, posed during the process. 

Five sausages and a good story

The New England Patriots defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in the AFC championship game at Gillette Stadium. It was the eighth AFC championship game that I have attended in my lifetime.

Patriot fans have indeed been blessed over the last 16 years. 

Prior to the game, about ten of us gathered in the parking lot across the street from the stadium for our traditional tailgate. My friend, Tony, does this cooking. My friend and seat mate, Shep, brings tables, grill, and a TV. 

I hand over money and thank them for taking care of me.

After the game, the group gathered back in the parking lot for a post-game tailgate. Since we remained in the stadium to watch the championship festivities on the field, we knew it would be at least an hour before we could exit the parking lot, so burgers, dogs, and the first half of the Eagles-Vikings game was on tap. 

That is, until we realized that one of our friends decided to skip the post-game festivities, flee to the parking lot, and escape the traffic. This would have been fine except he took all the food with him, knowing full well that a post-game tailgate was planned.

Needless to say the eight remaining souls were not pleased to discover that all we had to eat were five sausages and a little cornbread. 

Not exactly a meal for eight people who had just spent five hours standing in the stadium, cheering on their team.

After speaking about our departed friend in the most vile of terms and declaring him dead to us now and forever, we decided to take the one item we had in abundance - alcohol - and attempt to barter for meat from our fellow tailgaters.  Before long we had traded hard liquor, beer, and space around our TV for a little bit of chicken, two pieces of steak, a small army of pigs in a blanket, potato chips, and more. A couple people came over with cooked food and brownies, offering us some of their food out of pity for our miserable condition. Our huddle mass of eight grew to as many as fourteen at one point, and I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with some fellow Patriots faithful.

Don't get me wrong. Burgers and hot dogs would have been fantastic, and they should've been there, damn it. You don't leave early with the food when you know that a large group of hungry football fans are expecting to eat. 

Leaving with the food was not cool. It will not be forgotten. 

But the result - bartering for food, the chance to meet new people, and the collective, creative resentment for a single individual - was kind of great. A otherwise ordinary post-game tailgate turned into something memorable and meaningful under the sodium lights of that dirt parking lot.

There's a phrase that my friend, Catherine, uses about storytelling:

"You have a good time, or you have a good story."

In this case, we were lucky. We got both. 

When cowards hide behind digital walls and hurl grenades...

Someone did something rotten to me a few weeks ago.

A person who I have never met but who performs in the same New York storytelling community as me, who knows many of the same storytellers that I do, and who was connected to me via Facebook, decided to block me.

I didn’t notice. Though I post to Facebook regularly, I don’t routinely scroll my feed. Even if I did, I have more than 1,300 Facebook friends and 1.400 fans. It’s unlikely I would’ve noticed the departure of someone who I had never actually met.

Once I was blocked and unable to see any of her content, she wrote a scathing post about me. 

Already disenchanted with me (thus the block), this person had seen my post on an NYC storytelling group promoting my monthly author newsletter (which includes storytelling tips), and this had apparently sent her over the edge. She took to Facebook, calling me, among other things, obnoxious, egotistical, self-important, average, and “Mr. Full of Himself.”

She didn’t name me directly but included enough biographical info to make it perfectly clear it was me. “Produces his own show.” “Published author.” Multiple Moth StorySLAM winner. Other details very specific to me.  

There was no doubt over who she was writing about.

It was a cruel and scathing post that painted me as a self-absorbed, opportunistic narcissist who treats the storytellers in my shows with contempt. She called for someone in the community to “sit me down” and inform me that I’m “not all that.”

“He needs to STOP,” she wrote.   

There were also factual inaccuracies in the post. Some of her accusations were simply untrue. She was criticizing circumstances that she did not fully understand.

All of this was upsetting, but I’m a grown man. I can accept criticism, as unfounded and unhinged as it may be. After a decade of publishing novels, magazine columns, podcasts, and a blog, in addition to performing on stage hundreds of times around the world and writing and producing my own musicals, I’ve received my share of criticism. I can accept that. I’ve grown a very thick skin.

But there’s one important difference here.

Because this person blocked me on Facebook before posting her diatribe, I could not see (and would never see) this otherwise public post that was fully visible to my colleagues, friends, competitors, and business partners in the storytelling community. Rather than addressing me directly or posting something on the public network that I could also see, she attacked me behind my back. 

It was an act of cowardice. She called for someone in the community to "sit me down" and make me stop while conveniently and cowardly hiding behind her Facebook wall. 

Had multiple friends in the community not sent me screenshots of her post and cut-and-pasted the text of the post into emails to me, and had she not mistakenly remained Facebook friends with Elysha (whoopsie!), I would have never seen this scathing, libelous attack.

This is one of the insidious parts of social media that doesn’t receive enough attention. As an elementary school teacher for 20 years, I have witnessed firsthand the rise of cyber bullying and know all too well how terrible it can be. It’s devastating to see ugliness, hate, and lies published on a network for the world to see.

But this is different. It hurts to hear that someone despises you and is publicly critical of your craft, but to know that everyone who is important to you professionally can read and respond to the accusations but you cannot is downright insidious and terrifying. To think that this person could continue to attack me again and again, behind my back, in such a cowardly, despicable manner, without me knowing or having any recourse, is scary as hell. To know that your community is reading such hateful comments while you are unable to respond is both enraging and unsettling.  

Elysha didn’t sleep well for days after seeing this post. She couldn’t understand how someone who I have never met could be so angry to attack me online in such a nefarious way.

I can’t either. I can’t begin to imagine her motives or what she hoped to gain from this bit of nastiness.

In response, I wrote to the woman, asking to speak on the phone. I promised to be open-minded and polite. I offered to let bygones by bygones in hopes of finding a middle ground of understanding. And I meant it. I'm nothing if not forgiving. 

Not surprising, she refused. Instead, she sent another screed, calling me among other things a liar. She also widening her target package to include Elysha, who she referred to as a “ditz and a flake.”

It’s an email filled with anger and cruelty and stupidity, and I am so pleased to be in possession of it if I decide to take action someday or (even better) simply post our exchange of emails online for entertainment purposes.

It makes for a fun read. Perhaps a holiday gift to my readers. 

But at least the attack was directed at me this time instead of behind my back. At least I knew what was being said about me. At least I had an opportunity to respond. Defend myself. Challenge her blatant inaccuracies with stubborn little facts.     

Human beings have undoubtedly been speaking behind the back of other human beings since the beginning of time. This is nothing new. It’s awful but unavoidable. But with the ability to block people on platforms like Facebook, we can now speak poorly, cruelly, damagingly, and libelously about another person without their knowledge and reach an audience of thousands with a single click. We can malign a person within their own online community without them ever seeing the insult. We can besmirch their reputation. Levy false allegations. Damage their means of making a living.

All without the victim ever knowing.   

This level of behind the back cowardice is new, and it is terrifying.

The good news about my situation is that the community came to my defense. They did the right thing. They alerted me to the post and offered to respond on my behalf. Elysha was then able to find the post and take screenshots as well. 

It’s important that we all do this.

Public criticism, as harsh and even unfair as it may be, is something that I’m willing to accept. As an author, storyteller, podcaster, playwright, and blogger, I accept my position as a public figure. Criticism is part of the deal. Those who create understand this reality. 

But insidious, behind-the-back criticism that allows critics to block their victims while taking advantage of a network effect that allows them reach large online communities must be rejected and repulsed every time. You have a right to know if someone is criticizing you, fairly or unfairly, on a platform like Facebook. You have a right to know if someone is writing scathing, libelous content about you that can be read and shared by the masses.

When we see these things happen, we must stand up and say no. We can’t accept this level of cowardice and cruelty.

I’m grateful that my community rose to my defense, but then again, I wasn’t surprised. Storytellers are good people.

Most of them, at least.

How I delivered an inspirational talk at a human trafficking conference (while knowing nothing about human trafficking)

I was speaking to some of my former storytelling students - children of Holocaust survivors who had gone through a workshop series with me  that culminated in a storytelling performance.

One of them told me, "Now I see stories everywhere. Everything is a story."

While I don't agree that everything is a story, I knew exactly what she meant. Our lives are filled with storyworthy moments. More than you would ever imagine. Those who mine their lives for these moments and develop them into a treasure-trove of stories constantly add depth and breadth to our lives and their own. 

We are the ones who remember our lives best. We remember our lives through story. 

But possessing so many stories has an added value. When you have a lot of stories, you have the potential to inspire, amuse, entertain, or change minds, regardless of circumstances. No matter the context or need, you'll always have something to say. 

A couple years ago, I was in Indiana, speaking and performing at a variety of events at college campuses in and around Purdue University. I spoke about storytelling, writing, and personal productivity, and I produced and hosted a story slam for students.

A large conference on human trafficking was also underway on campus. I was asked if I'd be willing to close the conference with a speech to the attendees. 

I agreed.

Two weeks before the speech, one of the organizers called and asked about my expertise in human trafficking.

"I have none," I said,

I'll never forget what he said:

"I guess that's what Google is for?" he said nervously. "Right?"

Wrong. 

It turns out that when you have a treasure-trove of stories, you can speak to almost any audience regardless of the topic, purpose, or need. 

Besides, after three days of speeches, breakout groups, and seminars on the topic of human trafficking, did his audience really want one more speech on human trafficking from a guy who had to conduct a Google search on the subject?

Instead, I told a funny story about how I helped a shy student emerge from her shell after years of withdrawal, and in doing so, I came to realize that although I had "saved" this one girl, there were many other shy, silent children who I had not, primarily because I had stopped trying. I had given up on them. I had presumed that someone else would come along and fix their problem. 

Once the story was finished, I explained that when engaged in important work like teaching or seeking to end human trafficking - people work - we can never give up. We can never quit. We cannot assume that someone else will solve the problems.

More importantly, we can't afford to act slowly. We are not making widgets or selling keepsakes. The quality of a human being's life is in our hands. The very last thing we can do is allow bureaucrats, politicians, and ineffective administrators tell us that meaningful change takes time. Institutional transition can't happen overnight. We can't allow ineffective leaders to tell us that large ships don't change their direction overnight. 

This might be fine if you're selling real estate, building furniture, or coding an app, but when you're dealing with the lives of human beings, these passive, placating statements cannot be allowed to stand. 

As a teacher, I cannot be slow to action when a child's future is at stake. I cannot stop trying to save a child simply because every tool in my belt has failed.

Like me, the people who work to end human trafficking cannot afford to move slowly. Cannot waste a moment of time. The people of the world who choose to make a career out of saving lives must be the fastest, hardest, most dedicated people possible. They must be red tape destroyers. Bureaucratic assassin. Fast moving missiles of good.

I knew nothing about human trafficking except that it was too important to not work like hell to bring it to an end. Happily, I had a story that applied similarly and was filled with stakes, humor, and heart. 

It went over very well. The organizer called me the following week to tell me that it was the only time all week that anyone laughed and that my message was heard loud and clear by conference attendees:

We are human saving warriors. We must move at lightning speed. We cannot allow anyone to stand in our way or even slow us down. Human lives are at stake.   

If you are a person with a treasure trove of stories, you can speak anywhere about just about anything. It's hard for me to imagine someone calling tomorrow and asking me to speak on a topic that I couldn't find an entertaining, enlightening story and associated message that would work.    

Want to become a person full of stories? I recommend Homework for Life:

Things that make me cry

Speaking to a producer at a show in Boston last night, she asked me why I'm willing to share so much about my life on stage and in writing. 

There are lots of answers to this question, but amongst them is my belief that vulnerability is a very good thing, both for me and for the people who listen and read my stories. 

Vulnerability is a sign of strength. It's a willingness to open your heart and share your life with others, as odd or embarrassing or private as those parts of your life may be. For the listener or reader, it's an opportunity to connect to another human being in a deep and meaningful way. It's a chance to feel a little more normal.

We all walk through our lives at times, wondering if we are the only ones feeling the way we do. Plagued by embarrassment. Stewing in our shame. Feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. Believing that we are alone in our failure, fear, and weakness.

When someone is willing to be vulnerable and open up that which often remains hidden, we are all better for it. I know I am better and happier and more joyous about my own self when hearing others tell their stories.  

"Is there anything you won't share?" the producer asked.

"I won't share parts of my life that might embarrass another person at the same time," I said. "I respect the privacy of my friends, my wife, and my colleagues. But otherwise, no. I don't think so."

  So here was her challenge: 

"Tomorrow, on your blog, write about things that make you sad. Things people might not know about you or be surprised to hear." 

That request was made just seven hours ago, so I didn't have much time to think, but here are three to come to mind.    

1. I cannot think about my children and my mother (who died before meeting them) simultaneously without crying.
2. I am fiercely proud of my independent, boot-straps, self-made-man existence, but it also hurts so much to think that there was a time when no one wanted to help me and no one believed in me.
3. I can speak to people about my post traumatic stress disorder without becoming emotional, but I cannot can't listen to a story about the cause of someone else's PTSD without crying. 

When I say crying, I don't mean that I become a blubbery mess when these things arise. I might choke back tears. Find myself unable to speak. That kind of thing.

I reserve the blubbery mess for things like the death of a pet, the end of Field of Dreams, the election of Barack Obama, the cracking of my wisdom tooth, existential thoughts involving my children, and New York Yankees World Series victories. 

Dan Kennedy is right. Reach out to people whose work means the world to you.

Dan Kennedy, writer, storyteller, and Moth host, tweeted earlier this week:

 (@DanKennedy_NYC) Gonna get better at sending notes to people whose work means the world to me. Feels fanboy, but beats waiting to send an RIP tweet.

I like this advice a lot. 

I receive emails, tweets, and Facebook messages almost daily from readers around the globe who have liked my books and/or have questions about my stories. Every time I receive one of these messages, my heart skips a beat and I find myself more excited than ever about writing.

It occurs to me:

Despite all of this generosity from my readers, I've never followed their example and done the same.

In short, I'm a jerk. 

Dan says that reaching out to people whose work I love feels a little fanboy, and perhaps that's why I've hesitated from doing so in the past.

That, and I really am a jerk.

But as a daily recipient of these messages from readers - this morning from a teenage girl in Newberg, Oregon - I can assure Dan and everyone else that it doesn't feel fanboy at all from the recipient's perspective. 

It's a joy. A blessing. A spark that often arrives at the moment I needed it most. 

Next month I begin deciding upon my goals for 2018, and I think this will be one of them. I will write to at least one person per month whose work I admire every month in 2018. 

It's a good goal. 

As a warm-up for 2018, I'll mention that Dan Kennedy - dispenser of this excellent advice - is someone who I admire a great deal.

I first heard Dan's voice back in 2008 when Elysha and I listened to his memoir Rock On: A Power Ballad together in the car. We loved that book. I listened to it again a few years later on my own.

I heard Dan's voice again in 2010 on The Moth's podcast. Each week he delivered new stories to my ears.

In July of 2011, I met Dan for the first time when I took the stage at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and told my first story for The Moth. By then he was an icon in my mind. I couldn't believe I was standing beside him. Dan hosted my first Moth GrandSLAM a few months later (I lost to Erin Barker, someone else who I admire deeply and will probably write to in 2018), and then slowly, over the years, I've gotten to know him better and better as I attended and performed in more and more Moth events. 

Eventually we performed together on The Moth's Mainstage. I listened to him tell stories for the first time about the death of his therapist and his ill-advised trip to find an enormous snake, and I was blown away. Those stories are still trapped inside my heart. 

Dan is a brilliant performer. An incredibly gifted storytelling host. A talented storyteller. 

But it's Dan's most recent novel, American Spirit, that I love most. I listened to that book on the way back from Maine last year, and I have never laughed so much by myself. There are certain books that are so exquisite that you remember exactly where you were while reading or listening to them, and American Spirit is one of those books for me.

I will never forget that too-bright sun, that impossibly blue sky, the blessedly open road, and Dan's voice, making the miles melt away.

It's a hilarious, poignant, brilliant book. You should read it. 

Thank you, Dan, for sharing the book and your voice with the world.

I hope this doesn't feel too fanboy.  

How can you possibly have so many stories?

It's a question I get a lot. Whether it's stories that I'm sharing on the golf course or at the dinner table or on the stage, I always have a new story to tell.

A small part of this is the unusual life that I've led, filled with chaos, bad luck, and at times, disaster. My friend and the Artistic Director of The Moth Catherine Burns has said to me, "You either have a good time or you have a good story."

A much larger part of it is the system that I use to find stories in my life called Homework for Life. People who use my system with fidelity and rigor find themselves awash in stories about their lives. It works.

But having many stories to tell also has a lot to do with the understanding that a story is not always a series of fantastic events or shocking developments. You need not move mountains to have a great story to tell. A story can be small. Infinitesimal, really, if it speaks to something about your heart, reflects your experience as a human being, or offers some fundamental truth about who you are.

That's why I love Bill Bernat's story "Oreo Relapse," which was featured on The Moth Radio Hour last week. Bill's entire story - more than five minutes long - takes place in a grocery aisle as he tries to decide if he will purchase a bag of Oreo cookies and thus fall off his dietary wagon.

That's it. If I were to summarize the story, I would say, "Man battles his inner cookie demons as he tries to decide if he should purchase a bag of Oreos."

And yet the story is filled with humor and heart. It speaks to something universal in all of us:

The power of temptation. The fragility of will power. Our constant inner battle of right vs. wrong. The shame of not having full control over our desires.

Bernat's story is brilliant in its simplicity. Very little happens in the story, yet when he is finished, I feel like I have been offered an honest, unflinching look at the man's soul. I feel connected to the man. I love the guy.

I don't know Bill Bernat, but I bet he has lots and lots of stories to tell.

"Nothing interesting ever happens to me."
"My life is boring."
"Nothing too terrible has ever happened to me."

Refrains I hear all the time to would-be storytellers who worry that unless you've died on the side of the road or been arrested for a crime you didn't commit or lived on the streets, you won't have any good stories to tell.

Not even close to true.

If you are willing to speak honestly, embrace vulnerability, think introspectively, and share a part of you that most would not normally share, you will have more stories than you could ever imagine.

Do your Homework for Life.

Listen to Bill Bernat's story.

Become the person who always has a new story to tell.

On a day of tragedy, a little hope.

Yesterday was a tough day. I awoke to the tragic news from Las Vegas and wondered when this violence is ever going to end. 

Of course, America averages more than one mass shooting every single day. Las Vegas was especially horrific in terms of its body count, but by definition (a shooting in which four or more people are injured or killed), mass shootings are commonplace in our country. 

Daily occurrences. 

With that in mind, it's hard to be hopeful.

Thankfully, I found a great deal of hope yesterday in the company of young people. 

I started my morning with my two favorite people in the world. They crept down the stairs in the early morning light and sat beside me for breakfast. They colored pictures of rainbows and pink flowers, read books about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, played with the cats, and watched videos about how rubber is made.

Mostly, they talked endlessly and giggled incessantly.

Then I headed to school, where my 21 other favorite people awaited. We read books, solved math problems, told stories, and wrote about the truth behind Old McDonald's farm.

But even within the walls of our school, violence does not always escape us. Yesterday my students loaned $25 through our class's micro-loan account to a farmer in El Salvador after they learned that El Salvador is the murder capital of the world. Feeling empathy for someone living in such dire circumstances, their decision over which entrepreneur to lend to became an simple one.

It's easy to find hope in the optimism, passion, joy, and energy of young people.

Then I headed north, to The Berkshire School, where I spent the evening with high school students. I told them stories. I taught them how to tell their own stories and the importance of doing so. We laughed and even cried a little. We talked about authenticity, vulnerability, and connection. 

One young lady shared stories of the way her brother has come to her defense time and time again. A young man thanked me for making him feel a little less alone in this world. Another student asked me how she might find the courage to share a story of her bisexuality with her peers.  

These were engaged, intellectually curious, excited kids who wanted to learn something new and make the world a better place. 

I drove away filled with hope. 

On those especially hard days in America, when sadness fills our hearts and hope is hard to find, I recommend that you try to spend your day in the company of young people.

Spend time with your children or grandchildren.
Volunteer in a classroom.
Give a parent or parents a night out by offering to babysit their children.

Find a way to spend time in the presence of children or young adults. In no way will the tragedy of the day be mitigated by these young people, but your heart will feel better and the future will seem a little brighter.

On a day like yesterday, that is a great thing. Perhaps even a miracle.   

Share your failures with the world

One of the more surprising reasons that people take my storytelling workshops is for dating.  

Men (so far it's only been men) realize that what they say on a first date does not yield them a second date. Something is going wrong. So they arrive to my workshop hoping to improve their ability to engage, entertain, and amuse.

This makes sense. When Elysha was asked by someone how she first fell in love with me, she surprisingly didn't say my rugged good looks or muscular physique. She told the person that it was my stories.

As friends and colleagues, Elysha and I went to dinner one night while waiting for a school talent show to begin, and over the course of the meal, she discovered that when you ask me a question, I often respond with a story. By the end of that night, she had learned that I was different from anyone she had ever met, and that I could tell a good story.  

I managed to marry the perfect woman thanks to storytelling, and this was long before I ever took a stage and started performing. 

So when people look to storytelling to help them find love, I understand. It makes sense. 

What I've learned in talking to these people is that most don't realize is that stories of your failures are almost always better than stories of your successes. So many of the men who come to my workshops believe that the best way to impress a woman is by demonstrating strength and self confidence by projecting an image of high achievement and success.

"I'm an amazing person, and I did an amazing thing, and it turned out amazing."

Not a good story, but an excellent way to identify a douchebag. 

So many people are repulsed by the idea of talking about a moment of embarrassment or failure. Rather than telling stories of disappointment or ruination, they talk about their recent business successes. They name-drop their Ivy League credentials. They find a way to mention their recent sculling victory or the trellis in the backyard that they built with their own two hands.  

All lovely things and worthy of mention at some point, but unless you flunked out of your Ivy League school or recently capsized your boat, these are not the ways to connect to another human being. Your Yale law degree or your sculling trophy will not endear yourself to anyone. These are not the things that make a person laugh and wonder.

They also fail to project strength and self confidence. In fact, they do the opposite. Listing your greatest hits is an excellent way to demonstrate uncertainty, fear, and low self esteem. 

Think about the President. He is constantly engaged in self congratulation. Does anyone really believe that Trump is a supremely confident man? Would a person with a shred of inner fortitude insist on lying about the size of his inauguration crowd or his Electoral victory? Would a person who believed in himself stage a moment wherein each of his Cabinet members publicly praised him while the TV cameras were rolling? Would a confident person tweet about his net worth or retweet the praise of random Americans? 

What people don't realize is that sharing your mistakes, your blunders, your failures, and your moments of embarrassment is the best way of demonstrating supreme confidence. Telling a person about the time you spectacularly failed to achieve a goal is far more interesting and relatable than sharing your latest business deal.  

You know who understands this? Elon Musk, founder and majority owner of SpaceX. 

SpaceX, a company whose sole mission is to commercialize space flight, recently published a video of their spectacular string of failures while attempting to land an orbital rocket booster. A company that hopes to send human beings to Mars and needs other companies to trust them with their multi-million dollar satellites produced a video showing the many ways that their rocket boosters exploded during reentry and landing.

Were they worried that this video might undermine confidence in their ability launch hardware and people into space in the future?

Of course not.

On the contrary, their willingness to share their failures demonstrates the confidence they have in their future.    

Want to connect with another human being in a deep and meaningful way?

Tell them a story.

Want to project strength and confidence?

Tell a story about your own orbital rocket booster disasters. Talk about the time you went up in flames. 

TEDx Pomfret: It's Not the Curriculum

Last year I spoke at a TEDx conference in Pomfret, CT on the subject of education. Specifically, I spoke about what is important and what is not when it comes to teaching children and young adults.  

I have yet to watch the video. I'm highly self critical of my own performances and will need some time to watch closely, take notes, tear myself down, and nitpick every single mistake, as tiny as it may be.

But friends and colleagues have watched and approve, and the video has been used in a few school districts as part of professional development, so here it is.

I hope it's not terrible.

A possible (though not advised) replacement for heart medication

I spent a week at Kripalu Institute for Yoga and Health last week, teaching storytelling to a dozen remarkable people. 

On Tuesday night I performed my one-man show, and on Thursday evening, ten of the storytellers from class took the stage and performed.

It was an extraordinary night.

One of my storytellers had not spoken to a group of people in more than 15 years after suffering a terrible embarrassment in high school. Just standing in front of 50 people was an enormous accomplishment for her. I felt so honored to give her the space and support to help her conquer this enormous fear.

Then she proceeded to make the audience roar with laughter with a hilarious and moving story about her childhood. It turns out that she's a storyteller. 

Several of the storytellers stood before this audience of strangers and told stories about parts of their lives that they had never shared before. Hard parts. Haunting parts. The parts that require more bravery to tell than most people can muster.

There was laughter and tears. Gasps and guffaws. Hilarity and heartbreak. There were lines that I will never forget. "Golden sentences" one of my storytellers dubbed, and she was right. It was 90 minutes of beauty nestled in the quiet mountains of the Berkshires. It was dark outside, but each storyteller shone bright that night. 

After the show, a man approached me. He reached into his pocket, removed a small container, and held it out for me to see. He explained that he suffered from a heart condition, and this was his nitroglycerin. The medication he needed if his heart started "acting up."

"But I feel like I should throw this away," he said. "My heart doesn't need medication. It needs what you did on Tuesday night and these people did tonight. I've listened to all these stories, and my heart hasn't felt this good in twenty years. This is what people need. This is what I need."  

I suggested that he keep the nitroglycerin close in the event a storyteller is not available when his heart started "acting up" again, and he agreed. 

But he was right.

Stories are good for the heart and good for the soul.

Seven and counting...

One of our Speak Up storytelling shows earlier in the year featured four former storytelling workshop students who have gone on to tell stories at Moth StorySLAMs in New York, Boston, and Burlington, VT. 

 In fact, two of them competed in the same StorySLAM in December of last year in New York, unbeknownst to them.

I don't have the actual count of former workshop students who have gone on to perform for The Moth, but the number easily exceeds two dozen. 

Even more thrilling, six of my former workshop students have gone on to win Moth StorySLAMs. If I include a rabbi from a recent retreat where I taught, the number is now seven. 

One of them has even won a GrandSLAM.

The fact that almost all of these people live in Connecticut makes this number even more surprising. Moth StorySLAMs are held on week nights, meaning these folks committed significant time and resources in order to travel to Boston or New York on a work night to compete in a Moth StorySLAM and arrive back home well after midnight. 

I've also had many of my friends - more than a dozen - go to The Moth and tell stories. Friends who have seen me brave the New York or Boston stage and then followed in my footsteps.

One of my former fifth grade students has gone to The Moth with me and told a story. 

Many, many more friends and workshop students have also told stories on Speak Up stages. 

All of this thrills me. I like to think back to that July evening in 2011 when I stepped into the Nuyorican's Poets Cafe in New York City to tell my first (and what I thought would be my last) story for The Moth. It was a hinge upon which my life has turned forever. It was a moment that ultimately enriched my life and Elysha's life in ways we could never have predicted. It has introduced us to so many remarkable people. Made us so many new friends. Brought me to stages around the country and the world. Launched a business that has us producing shows throughout the state and beyond and has me teaching storytelling to individuals, schools, universities, corporations, and more.

It's been a surprising and remarkable journey. 

But when I think about the multitude of ways that my life changed on that July night in 2011, I often think first about all the other people who I have brought to the stage to share their stories, open their hearts, speak their truths, and kick some Moth ass.

Watching so many people follow in my footsteps into storytelling has been one of the most rewarding parts of all. 

The Moth: The Robbery

In March of last year, I told this story at the Brooklyn Academy of Music about an armed robbery that I experienced in 1993. It was the hardest story I've ever told but also one of the most important for me. 

Post traumatic stress disorder is a serious problem for many of our veterans returning from war and many other Americans in general.I was fortunate enough to get the help I needed but many do not. If you know someone who is struggling, please let them know that therapy works.   

My three greatest acts of storytelling cruelty

I like to think that I have been a supportive and positive force on the thousands of storytellers who I have performed alongside over the years, but I've also had moments when my judgment and disposition was less than ideal.

My three most despicable moments as a storyteller:

1. On Thursday night at Infinity Hall, as our first storyteller was being introduced by Elysha, I sat beside her behind the curtain and demanded that she start her first novel. "Write a sentence a day," I said. "And then make it a page a day. Write a page a day, and after a year, you'll have a novel."

"You're alway berating me for not accomplishing enough," she said. "It's never enough for you."

I started lecturing her on the importance of goal setting when I heard Elysha reaching the end of her introduction, and I realized that this woman is about to take the biggest stage in her life, and I spent the last minute before her performance hassling her. 

As she rose, I tried to tell her how impressed I am with everything that she does. Teacher. Storyteller. Mother. I don't think she heard a word as she stepped into the light. 

She performed brilliantly. Truly. She was vulnerable and hilarious and heartbreaking. She was beautiful.

But it wasn't any thanks to me.

2. During soundcheck at a Moth GrandSLAM in New York a couple years ago, a woman who was performing in the championship for the first time stepped away from the microphone, walked to the edge of the stage, sighed deeply, and said to me, "That was scary. This place is huge. And there isn't even anyone in the audience yet."

"Yeah," I said. "The real scary part is knowing that when it comes time to perform, you'll be standing out there on your own. Practically on an island. No one in the world able to help you. You're entirely alone, depending on yourself to survive, while hundreds of people stare into your soul."

At that point, I had competed in 18 GrandSLAMs and won four of them, so these championships were old hat for me. I was speaking the truth - unintentionally - but it was not a truth this woman needed to hear. I realized what I had done as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I gasped, apologized profusely, and assured her that she would be fine.

She also performed brilliantly. But no thanks to me.

3. At my most recent GrandSLAM championship earlier this year, I reached into the bag and drew the number 1, indicating that I would be telling my story first. This is a terrible position to tell a story. Very hard - if not impossible - to win. I've competed in 54 Moth StorySLAMs in the past six years, winning 29 of them, but only one of those wins came from first position. 

It's an unlucky draw. And it's a number I draw quite often. 

After drawing my number, I tossed it aside, stepped off the stage, and pouted like a little baby. I complained and groaned and huffed and puffed. I stalked the theater, muttering under my breath and acting like a petulant jerk.

After a few minutes, Elysha stepped over to me and whispered, "This is you're 20th GrandSLAM, Matt. For most of these people, it's their first. Maybe you could stop acting like a baby and just get ready to tell your story."

It's always good to have a spouse willing to speak the truth to you.  

Those storytellers didn't need to see someone like me pouting and whining. So many of them had already expressed their admiration and respect for me and my reputation as a storyteller and competitor.

How did I repay their kindness?

I acted like an ass. 

They all performed brilliantly that night, no thanks to me.

In fact, the winner of that GrandSLAM also performed on the Infinity Hall stage on Thursday night for us, and she was brilliant once again.

No thanks to me.

I don't teach mindfulness. Don't ever accuse me of teaching mindfulness. Here's why.

When I teach storytelling, and especially when I teach about finding stories in your life, I'm often told by students that what I'm really teaching is mindfulness.

When I hear that word, I want to toss the person right out of my workshop. I push back immediately, rejecting any application of that word to what I do.

The last thing I want is for someone to accuse me of teaching mindfulness, for two reasons:

1. I believe in simplicity. Easily defined, simple-to-apply strategies that offer immediate results. I break the art and craft of storytelling down into small parts and then teach those small parts in such a way that my students can begin using them almost immediately. Mindfulness is not an easy-to-define, simple-to-apply strategy. It does not produce instantaneous results. It's a large, amorphous umbrella that means different things to different people. It's a philosophy of change, and I don't like philosophy in these circumstances. Philosophy is too big. Too easily misunderstood or disregarded. Too difficult to quantify results. 
   
   I like small. Simple. Bite sized learning that I can model and teach easily and can be reproduced in my students flawlessly.
    
2. Labeling my instruction as mindfulness (or "a form of mindfulness") is dangerous to my business. Say "mindfulness" and about half the people take a step forward, intrigued about what you have to say, but the other half head for the hills, and for good reason. While I don't discount the value and potential benefits of mindfulness, too many people have turned this philosophy into something unpalatable and bizarre to enormous swaths of people.

Mindfulness is kooky. Weird. Mumbo-jumbo. Touchy-feely.  

Don't believe me?

The New York Times published a piece last week on the mindful cleaning of the bathroom. 

"With the practice of mindful cleaning, you can transform this once boring activity into a nourishing and enjoyable moment to yourself."

This is not a joke. Here is what Matt Valentine, who runs Buddhaimonia.com, has to say about mindful bathroom cleaning:

“Once you’ve selected your cleaning tool, take a moment to notice it with your various senses. Feel the soft texture of the sponge or hardness of the mop grip.

As you begin to clean, remind yourself that you’re cleaning to clean. You’re not chasing a result, a “clean bathroom.” Give your full presence to the act of cleaning.

Start by noticing the body. Notice as you raise your arms, move your hands, bend or step. Notice your breath as your chest rises up and down.

Now place your focus on the repetitive motion of wiping with the sponge or mopping the floor. Maintain your focus on each circular, left-to-right or up-and-down motion.

You can choose to match the cleaning motion of your hands with the rhythm of your breath. As you breathe in, wipe twice. As you breathe out, wipe three times. This helps further sync your attention with the physical activity of cleaning.

If we can be mindful while cleaning the bathroom, we can be mindful during any moment throughout our daily lives.”

— Matt Valentine

I don't want any part of this. While I hope that Valentine's suggestions help people in their pursuit of mindfulness in all aspects of their lives, I find advice like this kooky. Bizarre. Ridiculous. A waste of time. 

I don't want anyone to think that what I teach has anything to do with what Matt Valentine teaches.

No thank you.

I don't teach mindfulness. I teach storytelling. Public speaking. Along the way, you may learn something about yourself. You may begin to see yourself and your life in an entirely new light. You may start to see connections between moments in your life that you never knew existed. You may come to understand your past in a way you never imagined. 

But all of this will come easily defined, simple-to-apply strategies that offer immediate results.

Famous people who I've met thanks to storytelling

Louis CK: I said hello to him at The Moth Ball, an annual fundraiser for The Moth. He was the guest of honor that night.

He nodded in my general direction. 

David Blaine: I met David Blaine at The Moth Ball. I told a two minute version of my GrandSLAM winning story, which Blaine later asked me to tell again so he could record it with his phone. Then he did a mind numbing trick for me that convinced me and the New Yorker reporter who was standing beside me that he has made a deal with the devil.

Then he told me that he might want to speak to me in the future and said, "I'll give you my business card."

"Okay," I said.

"You already have it," he said. "Left breast pocket."

Low and behold, it was there, a playing card with his contact information hidden within the details of the card. 

Dr. Ruth Westheimer: I met Dr. Ruth backstage at a TED conference in the Berkshires where we were both speaking. I said hello. She asked me how my sex life was. When I said "Fine," she told me that fine is a sad description of a sex life and offered me five tips for improving it.

Steve Burns (The Blues Clues guy): Steve has hosted two of the Moth Mainstages in which I have performed. We spent time backstage chatting before both shows. In all honesty, I never watched Blues Clues, so my friends and my children have always been more excited about me meeting Steve than I have been.

Samantha Bee: Samantha Bee and I performed in a Slate Live Show at The Bell House together and spent time backstage chatting. Her new show on TBS was starting soon, so we spoke at length about what she envisioned for the project. 

There is also a group of decidedly less famous people who I have met thanks to storytelling who I was at least as excited about meeting as anyone in the above list. They include

• Author and Moth host Dan Kennedy, who has become a friend
• NPR and This American Life's Zoe Chase, who I've appeared with on several occasions
• NPR's Adam Davidson, who I met at a Slate Live show
• Moth host, author, and comedian Ophira Eisenberg, who has become a friend
• Slate's Mike Pesca, who has become a friend
• The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, who has hosted two of the Moth Mainstages in which I have performed

It is only snow and nothing more.

As I write this, it is snowing outside. Meteorologists are referring to the storm as a blizzard. Much of Connecticut is shut down (though I just returned from a successful trip to Dunkin' Donuts) and apparently the grocery store shelves are empty, but here's the thing:

Tomorrow, less than 24 hours from now, the storm will have ended. The sun will shine high in the sky. The roads will be clear. And though we may have a foot or two of snow on the ground, we have certainly seen this much snow before in New England and will see this much snow again.

Probably more. 

I despise the ongoing, never-ending, relentless conversations about the snow, the impending snow, the snowfall projections, and the incessant complaining about the snow. One of my primary goals in the teaching of storytelling is to make the world a more interesting place. If people know how to tell great stories and know the right stories to share, then the world becomes a more entertaining, connected, and meaningful place to live.

I believe this with all my heart. 

Conversations about the weather are the antithesis of this of an entertaining, connected, meaningful world. They are the death of good conversation. They are the enemy of the interesting.

My humble suggestion: Avoid these conversations at all costs. Change the subject. Do not engage. Walk away if necessary.

You will be the happier, and the more interesting, for it.

Stories are so damn important.

Few things have felt truer to me than this quote from the late Alan Rickman:

I cannot tell you how many times a person has told me at the end of one of our shows that they feel like they have been renewed by an evening of storytelling. Their heart has been filled. Their mind has been put at ease, at least for a couple hours, and perhaps longer. 

Storytelling is magic. It is medicine for the mind. Food for the soul.

I've been telling stories all over the country and the world since 2011, and here is one of the strangest things that has happened to me in the course of my travels:

Twice I have stepped off the stage after telling a story at The Moth in which I expressed great vulnerability and been approached by a woman who needed to tell me about her recent miscarriage. In both cases, the woman had yet to tell anyone in her life about her loss but had somehow decided in that moment that I was the right person to tell.

When I told Elysha about this craziness (the second incident happened just recently), she said that it wasn't crazy at all. There is unknowable amounts of emotion wrapped up in the tragedy of a miscarriage. Grief, guilt, shame, despair, and unspeakable loss. Women oftentimes have great difficulty talking about a miscarriage, even to people who they know and love most.

In both of these instances, Elysha explained, these women likely saw me as a person willing to open my heart and share something sacred about my past. I shared a story about my life in a way few people are willing to do so openly. In the eyes of these two women, I became the perfect person to unburden themselves of their secret. Someone who they could trust. Someone who possessed an open heart. But also someone who they would never see again. In that way, I was safe. They could speak their truth and then leave it behind. 

Admittedly, I was surprised and confused when these women revealed their secret to me, but each encounter ended with a hug and many tears. And perhaps a bit of relief from something that these women were carrying alone before they met me.

Rickman was right. We need to tell stories about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

Now more than ever.