– Interviewing (from friends and family to leaders or celebrities). Do a Talkshow with your family. Do birthday or anniversary interviews. Interview colleagues, bosses, teachers, local celebrities, or personalities. Get that quirky friend or acquaintance to open up and explain how they think. Ask that cashier how they maintain that sunny look on life even when customers complain. Find out how your friend turns a seemingly boring job into a work of art and wonder.
– Themes. Do you have a particular interest in horses, cats, books, Legos, sports trivia, film stars, astronomy, marathon running, filmmaking, acting, politics, fashion for ten-year-olds, creative writing, mystery novels, ballet, 1950s rock, 1990’s sitcoms, wealth accumulation, time management, climate change, servant leadership…. Whatever the theme of your interest, you can find experts or others with the same interest to interview. Molly’s Pony Ride Adventure Talkshow – why not?
– Lecturing. Tired of sitting and listening? A Talkshow interview will give an expert or author an alternative or complementary way to present his or her information in a form that more easily will capture an audience. Lectures can be fine, but complemented by insightful questions will give even more food for thought.
– Learning. Want to learn something new, from how to fix a plumbing problem to how to learn about a new culture to how to take better photos? Invite an expert to your Talkshow and ask them to show you – and then share it with others who want to learn. (Remember, it’s called Talk and Show, almost like your kindergarten ”Show and Tell”).
– Clarifying. Use, for example, a 15-30-minute Talkshow to get the ball rolling at a conference, course, or board meeting. Ask insightful questions about purpose, goals, values, or procedures. Imagine how you can liven up your staff meetings with a Talkshow format to start things off. It’s a way to get more people involved and engaged.
– Analyzing. See someone do good work, give excellent service, solve a problem, make an excellent presentation, change someone’s opinion or make a challenging task look easy? Well, invite them to your Talkshow and learn how they do it.
– Hunting. Finding other people’s talents, strengths, and values and giving another person a boost as they find their next step – what could be more rewarding? Remember, you are in this for the people you talk to, not just yourself. Help others grow, learn, think, make decisions and find their next step. They will appreciate the boost as you encourage and puff them onward.
– Authority. A major advantage of having your own show is that it gives you authority and makes it easier to connect to new people or well-known people as a host of a show. Surely, ”Would you like to be a guest on my Talkshow?” beats ”Can we meet up so I can talk to you?”
There are many options:
– Become a better conversationalist. The skills you learn in this course can be applied in almost any situation or conversation. Become better at listening, questioning, supporting, and encouraging.
– Start a video blog, YouTube channel, Zoom show on a theme that interests you and where you think you can get an audience.
– Start a Podcast, get your own show on a web radio program or maybe be a part of a radio show. These days with your mobile phone, you can do interviews with anyone anywhere and audio is, naturally, a little less complicated than video.
– Do interviews like a journalist would do to meet certain people and get information.
– Do a pilot for television. There are so many channels and production companies out there looking for content. Pick a nisch and work a form that would fit the channel you wish to reach.
Watch the film with Natalie Nielsen
Natalie Nielsen is an educator and coach, Ph.D. The subtitles in this interview give a good overview of the process of these strength-based interviews. I look for keywords and try to explain the process Natalie (and others) use to reach their goals, complete their projects or make decisions. In the first example with Sabrina I asked you to try to summarize and analyze this approach. Here the subtitles help explain.
The video below is also a very good example of this type of interview based on strengths and strategies. Watch the video with Magnus Rittby, professor of physics at Texas Christian University. Again, try to analyze what I am trying to do. The subtitles explain a lot.
