HOW A PODCASTER TAUGHT ME TO BE A BETTER BLOGGER

This article originally appeared in IEEE-USA InSight. It is reprinted here with permission from IEEE-USA. Copyright 2019 IEEE.

When I sat down to talk about podcasts with Sydcast host, Sydney Finkelstein, I had a general outline for what the interview would entail. I was hoping to cover my standard questions, get some tips for my readers, and maybe a tidbit or two that I hadn’t expected. It was going to be a straightforward piece. But, oh, when will I learn? Instead, he took me on a roller coaster that had me rediscovering why I started writing in the first place.

I See You

The interview was going as planned. We went through my standard stuff — how compensation can be more than financial and, even when money is involved, how little it can sometimes be. It was all familiar territory… and at the very end he threw me a curve ball. He told me about an interview he once did with a father. This father had lost his 17-year-old daughter and spoke about that loss, the aftermath, and isolation. He wasn’t asking for special treatment. He knew people had lives outside of his pain, but it almost seemed like his pain had made him invisible to others. The primary thing that this man wanted was for people to say, “I see you.”

The Aftermath

So, Sydney told me about how this interview strengthened his values as an interviewer. He always strove to listen without an agenda. He wanted to curiously delve into engaging topics with an interviewee. He had already experienced firsthand how an interview could be ruined if one or both parties came in with an agenda. What if, instead of an agenda, he came in really trying to see the person. What if, instead of curiosity about just the topics, he wanted to also understand the person behind the ideas — not to label them or put them in a box as we so often do for the sake of simplicity. It was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions created from a simple phrase. As he spoke it became clear that this interview had clearly been special to him. His tone and energy caught me and took me on the journey with him.

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