Archive for April 2023

Just a few more days to register for my upcoming humor workshop! Join me on Sunday, April 16, from 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST for a strategy-packed, instantly applicable, exceptionally specific workshop on humor. Become a funnier friend. Make yourself more attractive on a first date. Make the room, auditorium, or theater erupt with…

Letting loose is an act of such beauty and courage. Also such joy and intelligence. Elysha shared this with me last week, and I’ve scrolled through it several times since. It’s served as a useful, welcomed, and much-needed reminder of… “…a world of possibility, one in which adulthood could be fun, with surprise waiting around…

I was listening to Ira Glass of This American Life discussing the concept of a Plan B for an episode of the same name. In a room of one hundred people, he asked the audience to raise their hands if they were still on the path to their Plan A: The one thing that wanted…

On most early mornings, long before the sun rises, I sit at the dining room table and write. Sitting on the chair beside me are my two cats, Tobi and Pluto. I can’t tell you how much joy this brings me. These two little guys could be sitting anywhere in the house – couches, beds,…

I am often asked how a person can overcome stage fright. How do you beat back the overwhelming fear of standing in front of an audience in order to tell a story, deliver a keynote, outline an investor pitch, offer a wedding toast, speak to a class, and the like? First, and perhaps most important,…

Fifteen years ago, I wrote about the Oxford English Dictionary’s latest additions to their tome on this blog. I thought it would be amusing to review the list and my reactions to those new words more than 5,000 days later. New words added in 2008 that I am still using today: catastrophizing matchy-matchy frenemy soft…

I am often asked how a person can overcome stage fright. How do you beat back the overwhelming fear of standing in front of an audience in order to tell a story, deliver a keynote, outline an investor pitch, offer a wedding toast, speak to a class, and the like? First, and perhaps most important,…

Ted Gioia, on his Substack The Honest Broker, lists his “8 best techniques for evaluating character.” It’s a good list. My only strong disagreement is with his first one: 1. Forget what they say—instead, look at who they marry. He writes: A person’s choice of a spouse—or, if they aren’t married, their closest lifelong partner—is…

Women can now swim topless in swimming pools in Berlin, Germany.  News outlets around the world widely reported on this development in one city in Germany, probably because a story about topless women was likely to yield lots and lots of clicks. Admittedly, it’s a good and important reform. It’s utterly ridiculous and stupidly Puritanical…

A new review of Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life caught my eye because of the choice of adjectives used to describe me. Written by Derek Hughes, it reads: _______________________________________ Matthew Dicks is odd, intense, and brilliant. I’m not sure I’d want to live or work with him. Yet…