ML173: Dean Nelson on Interviewing Like a Pro, Confronting Career Crisis and Talking to Your Heroes
Dean Nelson is the director of the journalism program at Point Loma University and the host of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea where he interviews successful writers about writing. He recently synthesised all of his insights into the book Talk To Me: How To Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone Like a Pro.
How many times are authors asked the same repetitive questions about their books? Or what about sports stars being asked how they feel after they’ve just won or lost a game?
Bad questions are everywhere and they nearly always produce useless answers that could have been found by doing a little research or applying common sense but this problem isn’t just limited to the realm of journalism or podcast hosting.
In some ways everyone is an interviewer because if you think about it, an interview is just a series of questions that leads to understanding on a given topic, and whether you’re a doctor, an investor, a teacher or a startup founder, you need to be able to ask questions that produce useful answers.
Dean is the perfect person to learn this from - he has over 40 years of experience in journalism and has written stories from all over the world, which have been published the likes of the New York Times & Boston Globe.
In this episode, we discuss:
This was a really insightful conversation that will teach you how to ask better questions and get better answers whether you interview for a living or not.
Follow Dean online
Sign up to my weekly newsletter and you'll get:
- 5x Video Lessons on the 5 key MetaLearning Principles
- 5x One-Page Cheatsheets to help you apply each principle
- The Learning Toolkit featuring my top 10 learning Apps
Enter Your Details Below for Instant Access