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What Is Stop Asking Questions About?
- Stop Asking Questions is about how to learn anything from anyone through high-impact interviewing. Having interviewed over 2,000 people on his podcast, Mixergy, Andrew Warner shares how to lead deeper, more meaningful conversations with people you admire.
Stop Asking Questions Summary
- 1. “What’s a Win for You?”
- 2. Join the Resistance
- 3. Look for Shoved Facts
- 4. Reciprocation
- 5. The Promotion Stopper
- 6. Share Your Why
- 7. “Because?”
- 8. The Dramatic Lowball
- 9. Share a Higher Purpose
- 10. Stop Asking Questions
- 11. Put the Words in Someone Else’s Mouth
- 12. Pre-Ask the Shocking
- 13. “A Time When You …”
- 14. Stop Asking “Most” Questions
- 15. Use Double-Barreled Questions
- 16. Use Icon Stories
- 17. “Sorry to Interrupt …”
- 18. Avoid Train Crashed
- 19. Home Run Questions
- 20. The Talking Release
Stop Asking Questions Summary
1. “What’s a Win for You?”
Before recording his interview with Timothy Sykes, Andrew asked his guest, “What’s a win for you?” He found that asking someone about their goals reassured them that he cared about their needs and that he’d work with them to reach those goals.
Asking, “What’s a win for you?” is why Andrew now starts most of his calls with a variation of the question, such as:
- What’s your #1 goal for this interview?
- What would make your team happy to hear us talk about?
- Why did you agree to do this interview?
- How can I make this interview as useful for you as it will be for my listeners?
2. Join the Resistance
Couples therapists sometimes encounter resistance when pushing their male patients to open up. But instead of pushing back against a patient’s resistance, the therapist can join the resistance. “It seems like everything is going well,” they might say. Or, “It’s nice for me to get to talk to someone who has an easy life, who has it good.”
If you’re trying to get someone to open up and be vulnerable and tell you about their challenges, don’t push back against their resistance if they put up roadblocks—congratulate them. For instance, if they say, “I never fail,” comment, “It’s amazing to talk to someone who always gets everything right.”
Be honest, and people will eventually open up.
3. Look for Shoved Facts
When someone pushes a big topic out of context, be aware that they might be expressing a yearning to talk about it—especially during an interview. Andrew calls Freudian slips “Shoved facts.”
Look for them, but approach with caution.
4. Reciprocation
Having interviewed over 2,000 people, Andrew has learned to include a revealing sentence or two about himself every once in a while before going back to giving others a chance to talk.
He will also add a line or two about himself when asking guests to talk openly about themselves. But he doesn’t don’t do it to take attention off them. Rather, he does it to make them feel safe enough to talk openly.
5. The Promotion Stopper
Andrew has found that it’s best to clarify the agenda with guests before they start recording by using a promotion stopper. To get their buy-in, he phrases his promotion stopper as a question, for example:
“Of course, I’ll mention your new project in my intro, but since my audience isn’t emotionally connected to it yet, do you mind if we build your credibility first by talking about the big company you sold?”
6. Share Your Why
Give people a heartfelt reason to help you during the interview by sharing your Why. To do that, tell your guests what you want. Then, tell them why you want what you want.
7. “Because?”
Asking “because” acknowledges that you heard what was said before and shows that you care about it such that you want to understand the reason behind what was said.
8. The Dramatic Lowball
As an interviewer, Andrew has noticed that people are taught from an early age not to brag and thereby put off talking about their achievements. Your job as an interviewer is to encourage your guest to talk about themselves as much as possible. Using a dramatic lowball will help you do that.
Andrew once lowballed a cofounder by asking if she was doing at least a million in revenue, to which she replied, “We’re doing 20 or 30 times that!” People feel the need to correct the record even if they’re modest.
9. Share a Higher Purpose
In life and business, we often find ourselves needing to persuade and motivate other people. To help get others on board with your goals, tell others about your goal or higher purpose that others can buy into and support.
10. Stop Asking Questions
Lead your guests through better conversations by making requests. For instance, instead of asking, “How did you get your first customer?” ask, “Tell me how you got your first customer.”
11. Put the Words in Someone Else’s Mouth
Phrase criticism through other people’s words, for example:
- What do you say to someone who’s listening to us and thinking …?
- What would you say to someone who thought …?
- I imagine someone listening to us thinking … What would you say to that?
Putting the words in someone else’s mouth eliminates the “me versus you” feeling that comes with asking tough questions. Moreover, it turns the interviewer into a partner who’s working with the guest to understand.
12. Pre-Ask the Shocking
If you have challenging questions to ask a guest, Andrew recommends pre-asking them before the interview. In his experience, most guests are willing, if not eager, to use interviews as a place to share their side of tough issues.
Here’s how Andrew explains pre-asking the shock:
When I pre-ask the shocking questions before an interview, guests don’t ask me to back off. Because I tell them ahead of time, they trust me more. And by explaining to them why I want to bring up the question, they understand and encourage me to do it.
13. “A Time When You …”
Instead of asking for advice through stories, “Could you tell me a story about that?” Andrew uses phrases like the following:
- “Tell me about a time when you did that.”
- “Do you have an example of that?”
- “Tell me about the day you signed the agreement to sell your company.”
- “Take me to the moment you quit. What did you say?”
Seek specific and interesting stories in your interviews, and pay attention when interviewees make general statements about their lives. If they do, follow them up with a request for specific examples.
Here are a few more examples:
- If they say, “I like to celebrate my wins and failures,” say, “Tell me about a time you celebrated a failure.”
- If they say, “Remembering my past successes helps me get past my current challenges,” ask, “What’s a past success that you think about often?”
- If they tell you, “I still turn to my mom for help,” ask, “What’s a problem you turned to your mom for help with as an adult?”
Remember, key insights do nothing for your audience if no one remembers them.
14. Stop Asking “Most” Questions
Many interviewers ask “most” questions like, “What book had the most influence on you?” or “What’s the worst thing that happened to you?” The problem with this approach is that it forces the interviewee to do too much mental work for too little payoff.
Andrew doesn’t want to count on people making that leap. Instead, he rephrases all “most” questions in a way that gives guests options. Instead of asking, “Who’s the most important person you hired?” he asks, “Who’s an important person you hired?”
Avoid putting interviewees on the spot by asking “most” questions. Instead, give them the opportunity to explore your question and answer it with the depth it deserves.
15. Use Double-Barreled Questions
Double-barreled questions are questions that address two different issues. When reporters ask double-barreled questions, their subjects answer the easy part and ignore the part they don’t like.
For example, ask a politician in a tight race, “Should people burn the American flag, and would you put them in jail for doing it?” and they might launch into why burning the flag is wrong and completely ignore the thornier issue of punishing people who do it.
Unlike reporters, Andrew gives his interviewees an out from answering a question if it makes them uncomfortable. For example, if he’s wondering whether someone got a divorce, he won’t ask, “Did you get a divorce?” Instead, he might ask, “Do you feel comfortable saying if you divorced your husband?”
16. Use Icon Stories
When interviewing his guests, Andrew uses what he calls icon stories to destigmatize certain topics. To do that, he draws comparisons to his guests’ heroes.
To create an atmosphere where your interviewees can reveal the hidden parts of themselves, show them how their idols did it by keeping keep examples handy, such as quotes or stories that illustrate the topics dearest to them.
17. “Sorry to Interrupt …”
A “sorry to interrupt” moment is when you interrupt a guest and share why you’re interrupting. People won’t think you’re rude—they’ll think you’re considerate. If you’re interrupting for a meaningful reason, your guest will appreciate it.
In Andrew’s words,
Saying, “sorry to interrupt, but you’re boring me,” is extremely rude and will lose you a friend or colleague. On the other hand, “sorry to interrupt, but I really want to make sure I understand what you’re saying” is flattering and will win you a fan for life.
18. Avoid Train Crashes
If you’re ever stuck, find your own “in case of emergency” questions. Here are some examples:
- “Listening to you, I can see you work hard. I have to pause and ask: what’s your motivation?”
- “Before we continue, I want to check in: how is this interview going for you?”
- “I hate to switch gears, but with so little time together, I have to ask you about…”
- “I’m sorry. I’m so new at this that I was overly worried about my notes and missed what you said.”
Making mistakes while interviewing is okay, says Andrew, but what matters is that you recover and keep going.
19. Home Run Questions
The peak-end rule is a cognitive bias that affects how we recall events. Humans tend to remember two aspects of an experience more than anything else: the peak (i.e., most intense) and the end.
Andrew’s goal is always to give his guests a home run question they can knock out of the park and leave the interview confident about how they performed in the interview.
20. The Talking Release
Andrew once interviewed a founder, who later asked Andrew not to publish the interview. Rather than explain to the founder he did well, Andrew listened and asked, “Why?”
After venting, the founder told Andrew to publish the interview if he wanted to but feared his filler words would make him sound like he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Andrew published the interview, knowing filler words are what make his interviews sound authentic, and to the surprise of the founder, Andrew’s audience loved the interview.
Remember, people don’t want to be helped. People want to be heard.
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