The first question in an interview is vital. With the first question you set the tone of the interview, generate rapport and trust, and continue the process of creating a container of intimacy for the interview. So you don't want to screw it up!

In this episode, I talk about some different ways to start the interview strong...and some ways not to start the interview!

Hopefully this will spark your own creativity of how to start your interviews just a little better and make all the questions and answers that come afterwards that much better too!

When you go into an interview, you're the leader. You're setting the direction and guiding the interviewee through the experience. If you're not in the lead, they won't know where to go, and subconsciously they're going to shut down and not give you the answers that you're looking for.

In this interview, I talk about my own experience embracing leadership as an interviewer. I also talk about 5 lessons that I've learned about how to lead the interview and take control, guiding the interviewee through the interview and making the interview a safe, comfortable experience in which they feel safe to open up.

Do you ever take a few minutes before to direct and orient your interviewees related to the coming interview? If not, you should. Likely they're uncertain and unconfident, and giving them this little bit of direction can go a long way to making them feel safe, comfortable, and relaxed enough to give you a good performance once you start.

In this episode, I cover, first, why it's important to do some pre-direction and, second, several subjects you can direct them on (these are subjects I've found through doing many interviews that interviewees are oftentimes unconfident or ignorant about).

I know it's a little presumptuous of me to compare myself with Tim Ferris, but I know one thing we do have in common.

We both focus heavily on the pre-interview.

In this episode, I talk about why doing pre-interview research and preparation is essential to getting a good interview. I also talk about my own pre-interview history and style, plus I talk about what Tim Ferris does (which, by the way, is far more extreme than I do myself!).

There's quite a bit of crossover between what works well in an interview and what works well in a casual conversation over coffee. A lot of techniques to create safety and intimacy can readily apply to both, and personally I use them in both areas quite often.

In this episode, I talk about three such techniques that can easily be translated from the interview to the coffee shop. With these three tips, on top of becoming a better interviewer, you might also be able to become a better husband, wife, friend, or parent too!

We are the product of deeply-seated beliefs, feelings, and assumptions that we believe about ourselves, others, and the universe.  And whether we acknowledge it or not, we bring these assumptions into how we conduct ourselves in our interviews.

In this episode, I explore 3 conscious assumptions I try to bring into the interviews that I do. 

1) That people are foundationally good

2) That people all have the same foundational desires and impulses

3) That people deep down want to be honest and sincere with me

What about yours? What assumptions do you try to bring into your interviews? Are your subconscious assumptions and your conscious ones congruent? How can you make your subconscious assumptions in congruence with the ones you want to hold?

This episode is a little heady, so feel free to skip if you're more interested in how-tos and step-by-steps!

How do you handle difficult emotions, both inside yourself as well as when an interviewee experiences them during an interview? When someone gets angry, sad, hopeless, or inordinately elated during an interview, sometimes it can be difficult to know what to "do" or how to deal with the power of the emotions they're expressing!

In this episode, I explore one of the psychological foundations of my interviewing style: how there is no such thing as a "negative" or "bad" emotion, only difficult ones. I also talk about how as interviewers (and as human beings!) the best thing that we often can do is not to fix or repress emotions but instead to hold them if they're our own, and to create a space where they are held and affirmed for those who we interview.

Interviewers are humans too. And sometimes something happens which makes you, the interviewer, get very self-conscious during the interview. When this happens, it becomes very difficult to be present with your interviewee, hold the container, and ask the right questions!

In this interview, I tell a story about one such interview where this happened to me during an interview with two managing partners of a massive company! I explore why it happened, what I did poorly, what I did well, what I did to salvage what I could of the rest of the interview, and what I learned from the experience!

If there was one internal shift I would have interviewers make it would be this:

Respect the ask and give of what's being exchanged between you and the interviewer.

This ability is huge to our ability to create a safe, comfortable, and intimate space where an interviewer feels open to giving you their true feelings, thoughts, and experiences.

And in this episode, I go in depth what this looks like for us interviewers and how we can practically respect what's being given back to us by those we interview.

Two days ago I interviewed a couple who host children in need through a local social services agency I'm creating videos for. The wife was highly introverted, and there was at least once during the interview that it careened in a dangerously dull direction because of a misplaced question I had asked. These are both common struggles for interviewers!

And so, in this episode I give at least one solution to each of these questions:

I used both of the techniques I talk about in this interview, and the interview ended up turning out extremely well!