What I'm getting at is, I think if anyone out there is in a very know-it-all place where they can't stop but give people answers and solve their problems instead of listening to their problems, get out of your own comfort zone. Get into a place where you don't know what you're talking about because there, you're just going to shut up more and give direction and advice less and it'll build a better habit for you.

And I think that if you do that, you're going to be much more open to listening to people and less to giving them advice. You're going to be much more open to not knowing and looking for understanding. And I think that I was blessed with Mixergy, my podcast of 15 years, in that I really started it after I failed.

The thing that made it into a podcast was this video that I posted where I said, "I was starting a software company and I failed. "I'm going to do interviews with people "to learn how to not fail this way again." And if I've admitted to myself in the world that I failed, that I don't know how to do entrepreneurship the way that I wanted to, the way that I thought I could, now when someone came to me, I couldn't give them advice.

I just admitted I don't know everything. I had to ask questions and learn. I had to say, "I don't know enough "and that's why I'm interviewing these people. "Let me ask them." - Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

If you're new here, I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and I'm a diehard optimizer who loves doing all the research to get you the best experience in life without an expensive price tag. To make that happen, I'm sitting down with the world's best experts every week to learn the strategies, tactics, and frameworks that shape their success.

Today, I'm talking with Andrew Warner, a serial entrepreneur who in his 20s started a successful internet business doing 30 million in sales. Later, he started Mixergy, a platform that offers interviews, courses, and mentorship to help founders learn to grow their businesses. And since 2008, he's hosted Startup Stories, a podcast where he's interviewed over 2,000 entrepreneurs from Ryan Holiday to Robert Greene.

I've listened to many episodes in my days and it's a fantastic show. But today, we're actually gonna talk about his book, "Stop Asking Questions, How to Lead High-Impact Interviews "and Learn Anything from Anyone." But don't think that because you're not a podcast host or a professional interviewer that this isn't for you.

We're gonna learn how you can be a better, more interesting conversationalist in all kinds of settings, from networking, to job interviews, to talking with friends and family. We're gonna talk about why this is a skill everyone should master and learn, what most people get wrong about how they ask questions, how to improve the kinds of questions you ask and why that's important, how to build rapport with people you've just met or don't even know anything about, and a lot more.

(upbeat music) Andrew, thanks for being here. Welcome to the show. - Thanks for having me on, Chris. - So I'm just gonna jump in. You named the book, "Stop Asking Questions," but it's really about asking better questions. Can you talk about that? How did you pick that name? - I think that we think as interviewers and conversationalists that we need to ask questions.

And what I've discovered is that asking too many questions makes you seem needy and makes you feel like you're not really part of the conversation. We should not be having question after question after question be our style. Our style should be a conversation that brings out what we're trying to learn, brings out what our audience needs to learn.

And I find that questions often counteracts that. - We talk about this in a professional setting. You and I both record a lot of podcasts, you a lot more than me, but this is a skill regular people can use also, right? How many times do parents try to get their kids to just tell them about their day, talk about a problem, and then they pelt them with questions that are really challenging for kids to answer.

Frankly, sometimes even just saying, "What'd you do today?" is challenging. But if they say, "I don't wanna go to school tomorrow," and you say, "Because?" That one word will often get them to open up. It's like these magical phrases that will work in any part of life. And if you see my interviews, you see, I will just throw in the word because, interrupt someone sometimes, and because I've done that, they will go into the depth and the reasons of what they did and why they did it.

And so that's what it's about. Sometimes it's about asking a question, sure, but often it's not asking a question. It's just a one word like transition that I've handed to them and they can't help but use to explain why. "Why don't you wanna go to school tomorrow?" Is kind of challenging.

Now they're put on the spot. They've said something and I say, "Because?" Now there's an expectation that they're, of course, gonna finish the sentence, "Because my friend doesn't like me, "because my friend has moved on to first grade "and I'm still in kindergarten." Whatever it is, it comes out naturally.

Now, the reason that I wrote this book is because I found that a lot of people were doing interviews the way they were supposed to, which is I'm gonna ask the best question. Some people would even write the questions ahead of time instead of being more present in the conversation and instead of saying, "What's the best way to get the most knowledge "out of this person who I'm talking with "and the best bonding?" And when you start with that, instead of how do I write the best questions, you end up with a deeper conversation that often involves you sharing and not asking a question, you making a statement, you directing the person even.

- My first use case I thought about this, that an average person might be preparing for an interview is in a job setting, right? I'm looking for a job, I'm going in. I know at some point someone's gonna say, "All right, what questions do you have for me?" You know, my initial advice after reading your book was, well, you should try to get to that point at the end with never having, you know, have such a good conversation that you don't even leave time for the questions.

How would you advise someone thinking about that kind of professional setting where they have time to prepare? - Okay, let me give you one. What questions do you have for me? The natural next step might be to say, how many hours do we work here, right? Now you're coming across as a needy person trying to understand, it makes you, it's hard for me to say this, but if you keep asking questions, you come across as an inferior.

Versus saying, now tell me about the hours at work here. Talk a little bit about what's expected from us in our off hours. Talk a little bit about how we connect to each other in the company instead of, so how do we connect each other? So what you're doing, and this is one example, is directing the person.

Directing gives them the confidence that you can lead them, that you could lead them through the conversation and also that you can lead at the job. And so that's a good example of me saying, shouldn't be a question. Sometimes you just need to make a statement, take control. In my book, "Stop Asking Questions," I gave the example of how Olivia and my wife and my family went on these tours of national parks.

And if we would ever have a tour guide who would walk around and go, do you wanna turn right or left? What do you like to see? Do you like to see this track or that? It's too much. You're the expert. Say, and now we're gonna turn left because when we turn left, you're gonna see what the bears have done here.

And if we turn right after that, you're gonna see what's happened because we haven't had enough water here in California. Boom, now you got somebody who knows you, who you feel confident that they could lead you. That's the way you need to be as an interviewer, as a conversationalist.

And yes, like you said, somebody is about to get a job and they're being asked, do you have any questions for me? You don't have to specifically give a question. Start directing them. - So if you're not asking as many questions, talk about how someone should prepare for kind of conversations when they have advanced notice of who they're talking about and the topic.

The best thing is to go deep. This is gonna be a little bit woo. Go deep in your heart and say, what the hell do I need to get out of this person? What do I need to get out of this conversation? Not, what does some imaginary audience member need to know and I need to get?

We don't need that imaginary audience member anymore. It's, I have a problem. What do I want to understand from this person that I can't get from anywhere else? Go deep and say, ah, that's the thing that I need. That's the thing that I need. And if it's for your audience, the only way I think to get to your audience is to have a drink with your audience members or a meal or dinner with a few of them.

One at a time, ideally, in small groups, if you can do one at a time and as often as you can, and then have them tell you their problems. Let them find ways to get it out. Have them tell you their problems and specifically the ones you can't answer.

Feel that pain of having somebody come to you as the expert interviewer, as the expert business person, as the expert whatever. And they're asking you a question, you don't have the answer. And then you say, be humble, I don't know. I'm gonna do interviews and now I'm gonna find out.

And now when you ask that question of somebody else, you're gonna have a deep need to get the answer because you couldn't answer it. Because somebody you cared about who you had a meal with or a drink with asked you a question that you can't answer. That's where it comes from.

And so the first thing to do is not to do research and I believe in doing research, and I know you do too. The first thing to do is not to write out a list of questions and a lot of interviewers do that. We don't wanna do that. The first thing is to say, what do I need?

- I just thought of an idea of what you just said, which is, let's say I'm using this job interview example, but start asking, talking to your friend, talking to your spouse, talking to your family members about this job you're getting and see which questions that they have for you about the company that you can't answer and you wish you knew as a way to kind of-- - That's a great one.

- Generate ideas of what could be interesting. - Right. - What about when you don't know someone? You know, there's practicing for a conversation you know you're gonna have. And then there's, I'm going to a cocktail party, I'm going to a conference, I don't know who I'm gonna meet or who they're gonna be.

Is there a way to just build repetition or get your reps in for practicing conversational skills without any person that you know you're talking to? That make sense? - I absolutely do practice my question techniques in private when there's somebody that I meet and I don't think I'm ever gonna meet them again, I just throw out a question approach to see how will they respond?

I try to direct them. Tell me what you were doing this weekend instead of, so what were you doing this weekend? I try it and see what happens. If I try it on someone in person and it doesn't feel awkward and I don't see a distance in the conversation, I think it's a good technique.

Keep it in my Google Doc full of techniques for having better conversations. - Tell me what else is in the Google Doc, right? You've got starting with tell me, you used pausing and interrupting people saying because, let them continue. What other tactics work really well in this conversational flow?

- The one that started the whole thing for me was I, for years, felt really bad because I asked Jason Freed, the founder of Basecamp, how he failed, when he failed, and he just kind of looked away. I still see him right now as we're talking in my head, looking away and going, well, sometimes we just don't have any setbacks.

Some things just don't have that. And the more I push, the more he just acted, or I felt that he acted like I was an idiot who always failed and couldn't understand that sometimes people don't just fall on their face when they're just trying to walk to the other end of the room.

Anyway, that ate away at me, that I asked him about his setback and he didn't give me an example, and I kept pushing, and the more I pushed, the more he resisted. So I hired an interview coach and I gave him that specific example. I said, look, Jeremy, before we talk about anything else, I have to tell you about this one problem.

And I told him, and he goes, oh, my therapist had a situation like that. Go tell him, he goes, my therapist had a technique called join the resistance. Says my therapist would have these men who would come into her office and she would say, okay, tell me about the problem you and your wife are facing.

And the husband would go, I don't have any problems. Say, but you're clearly in here because you have a problem. There's an issue in the relationship. It's not me, it's her. I don't have any problem. He goes, then what are we doing here? I don't know, she made me come.

And the more the therapist pushed, the more the person put up a resistance and then like sidestepped the whole problem. So Jeremy's therapist said she decided to join the resistance. If she said, tell me about the problem you and your wife are having. And the person said, I'm not having any problem.

You would say, oh, must be good. You know what? All I hear that people have problems. It must be good for you to just have an easygoing life without any problems. Congratulations. And then the person would go, easy. All she does is she keeps complaining to me. And I don't know when we could spend time together because my work is now taking up a whole lot of time.

And I've never had to work this many hours, let alone this late in my career. Now they were off on a conversation that mattered. And so Jeremy, my interview coach, said join the resistance. Whenever you ask a guest a question and they resist, stop fighting with them. Join the resistance.

Say something like, well, it must be great to have an easy business. Everyone else is struggling. It must be great to have an easy time building your company when the rest of us are working really hard. When I say that, the person will immediately lash out at me and go, hard?

I mean, you think this is easy? You don't know. Last night we were up because the servers were down. And then somebody a week ago was complaining to me about the way that we are interacting at work. And I'm trying to get work done, not talk about what their interpersonal issues are.

Now we've got a real problem we can talk about. So anyway, because the coach said join the resistance and he gave me that phrase, I wrote it down in a Google Doc with that phrase. And I said, oh, I'm gonna remember this because it has a name. And so I started to, whenever I would have a new technique, I would give it a name and I'd add that technique to a Google Doc.

- I saw the list in the book where there's like a, flow chart's the wrong word. It's like a directory of tactics. So there are plenty more for anyone listening who wants more than we'll get to today. But how do you think those techniques work when you're, you know, you talk about building yourself up, not making yourself seem needy and asking questions when you're interviewing for a job, or maybe you're doing references with someone's previous manager.

Can you still use those techniques to get people who are kind of more guarded with information to share? - I use it with people all the time. I think sometimes people are guarded because they're modest, because they're not jerks. So one technique that I had, I shared this when I had, I used to in San Francisco have entrepreneurs come over for scotch at my office.

And they would just ask me all these questions and someone would say, how do you get people to give you their numbers? And I said, well, what I do is I give them a dramatic low ball. I said, what do you mean dramatic low ball? I said, I had this woman on, she wouldn't give me her revenue number.

So I said to her, and I knew that it was in, it was at least 10 million. I said to her, do you think you'll hit a million soon? She goes a million, we're doing at least 10, 20 times that. We're not trying to reach a million. Anyway, I said that at scotch night and the guy goes, oh, that's such a good technique.

If you go dramatic low ball, people feel insulted enough that they have to come back at you. Anyway, we started talking about other things and when we're at scotch night at my office, we're tasting different scotches, talking about what we're into. And at one point we got into running and the guy said, so how much do you run?

I said, yeah, I run as much as I can here and there. And the guy goes, Andrew, do you think you'll get to run a marathon sometime maybe? And I go, a marathon sometime? I've run more marathons than I can count, literally. There was one time in Washington DC, my wife left me at the top of Rock Creek Park and I just ran all the way down.

That was over 30 miles and there was no other way for me to get home except to run back to the house. So a marathon is nothing for me. And then he was smiling and others around the scotch table were smiling too. And I couldn't understand why they were laughing at me.

At first I thought maybe they were laughing at me because that's not that much to run. And then I realized he used dramatic low ball on me. And so this works everywhere. Yes, it works in interviews. Yes, it works in private conversations. It absolutely does. - Are there some examples of people you've talked to outside of the professional interviewing setting that after adopting these techniques have seen kind of real tangible outcomes or improvements in their career or their life or their relationships?

- Yes, I was invited in when I first wrote the book to talk at a company. What was it called? It was called people.ai. They said, oh, we're salespeople. We need these techniques too because salespeople, if they do it well, what they do is they ask questions. And so they bought a copy of my book for each one of their salespeople.

And then they invited me in to speak. And then afterwards I got messages from people about how they use these techniques. There's one salesperson who said, Andrew, you want to know numbers because you're trying to create a podcast where you're revealing to your audience the revenue that your guest has.

Because I need numbers because I want to know the extent of a problem. I want to know how much of an issue this is to figure out whether we can solve it or not. Because what I do is I come in with a dramatic low ball. I will use something like, well, it seems like you're maybe losing only $1,000 a month with this problem that you've told me about.

And the person will come in, no, it's more than $1,000. And then they'll start to fight back and explain how this is really costing the business half a million a year. And now that the salesman knows the measurable pain of not solving it, he can address how just spending a little bit of money on their software can help him alleviate that pain.

And so, yeah, salespeople for sure use this. - What about at home? Do you use any of these tactics with family and friends when it's not really, there's no business use case. It's just trying to build deeper relationships with people you already know a bit about. - I do.

I think the biggest one that I use is the word because. So if the thing that happens in conversations is we say what happened. What happened is just what, it's factual, it's interesting, but it doesn't tell me why you're doing something, why it matters. The problem is if I say, well, tell me why you feel that way, or tell me why you did that.

I'm putting you in this self-evaluation mode that you can't really tap into in a conversation. Even with a therapist, you have a hard time doing it. But if you're telling me that you did this and you did that, and I say because, now I'm just handing you the next word for you to have to respond to.

The next, I'm almost insisting that you tell me. I'm creating a gap that you feel you have to fill in. If I say because, you feel like you have to pick that up and say, well, because I wasn't feeling very good, because I'm feeling this way, that. Now you understand why.

So because is an easy one to use with people. - You say in the book, people prefer to be heard more than to be helped. I know my wife would agree sometimes. In our conversations, for people who have a natural tendency to jump in and help, to try to solve a problem or interject, are there any ways that you found helpful to bite your tongue effectively?

Maybe that's literally the answer for people that that's not natural for? - I have found that I don't take advice very well when it comes to problems that I don't recognize in an environment that I feel comfortable with. So if you were to give me advice on how I could, I don't know, use my Mac better, maybe even about my business, I feel like, all right, I've heard it from so many people, I don't need it.

But we just moved to Five Acres in Austin. I decided that I would get a circular saw so that I can cut wood and make it into a compost box. I don't freaking know how to even turn on a circular saw. I literally didn't know how to put the blade in.

I don't know how to connect two pieces of wood together. It turns out you have to drill a hole first and then put a screw into it. And the videos I saw on YouTube, they were just putting a screw in, but I didn't realize there was a hole there before.

Anyway, I don't know any of it. And so I'm ready to take advice better. I'm ready to be more of a learner and less of a know-it-all who's gonna stop and interrupt you. So what I'm getting at is, I think if anyone out there is in a very know-it-all place where they can't stop but give people answers and solve their problems instead of listening to their problems, get out of your own comfort zone, get into a place where you don't know what you're talking about, because there, you're just going to shut up more and give direction and advice less, and it'll build a better habit for you.

And I think that if you do that, you're gonna be much more open to listening to people and less to giving them advice. You're gonna be much more open to not knowing and looking for understanding. And I think that I was blessed with Mixergy, my podcast of 15 years, in that I really started it after I failed.

The thing that made it into a podcast was this video that I posted where I said, "I was starting a software company and I failed. "I'm going to do interviews with people "to learn how to not fail this way again." And if I've admitted to myself and the world that I failed, that I don't know how to do entrepreneurship the way that I wanted to, the way that I thought I could, now, when someone came to me, I couldn't give them advice.

I just admitted I don't know everything. I had to ask questions and learn. I had to say, "I don't know enough, "and that's why I'm interviewing these people. "Let me ask them." And so what I would suggest is if you're talking too much, you need to get into an environment where you don't know enough.

And if it's in a relationship, and the person you're with is a better runner, go run with them. If they're a better swimmer, go sign up for a swim with them. If they're better at anything, if they're better at knitting, go sign up for a knitting class with them so that you are not the expert, and you have to be the, "I don't know what I'm doing here.

"This seems so foreign to me." And you'll learn to listen, and you'll learn to want other people to talk. - So back to your example of paddleboarding, if you're having that conversation with someone, and you hear something come up about a topic you don't know, and you want to try to build a more engaging conversation, just let them run.

It might help you shut up, which I know is something that has been effective for me in my career is just learning when to stop talking, which goes back to the title. But let's go back to that example of productivity. So you mentioned if I was gonna, if you were gonna have a conversation for an hour with me, or anyone, and we were just gonna talk about how to optimize using your Mac, and moving Windows around, which we actually just did in a episode a couple weeks ago, you might be like, "I just don't want to be here." But there are a lot of conversations that people get into where leaving is not the option.

So what do you do in those circumstances? - I just shift it to what I really care about. There's so many times when you have to really go into a conversation with people, and you don't care. I think it's okay to shift the conversation to what you genuinely do care about.

- What if it's clear that that's what they want to talk? Do you give it to them? Do you just kind of feign and nod your head? Or have you found some kind of way to harness interest in things people are talking about that at first glance are just not interesting?

- I was never able to have conversations with people. I just didn't know the mechanics of conversations. Then I read a book called "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. And the big message of it is, take an interest in other people if you want them to like you.

So if they are interested in a thing, you talk to them about the thing. And I was so moved by the book that I went and I knocked on Dale Carnegie and Associates office door. And I said, "I want to volunteer to work for you for free just to see how you live these principles." And I learned it and I got good at it.

And then one day in college, I was going home with my friend, Michael, on the, I think it was the F train in New York. And he started going off on these comic books that he was into. What superhero he liked, how many of these comic books he had, and all of that stuff that I couldn't care less about.

I was so bored. He loved that I was taking an interest in him. And I would ask him questions like, "Well, why did you buy that one? And how valuable do you think it is?" And he loved it and I hated it. And what I realized was, if this is the epitome of success in the Dale Carnegie world, I don't want it.

I don't want a life where I'm sucked into conversations that don't mean anything to me, and I'm pained by just so that other people like me. There has to be a better way. And what I've learned is I can shift the conversation to what I want it to be.

Somewhere in the Venn diagram between what this person loves talking about and what I'm really eager to hear about is an overlap. And that's where I go. And so today I would have asked, "Does your Russian father have a problem with you reading these comic books?" Because he's so serious.

And there's a whole Russian culture of literature that matters more than this. And I would have gotten into his Russian experience. I would have today asked him if he was worried that girls weren't into him because his head was in these stupid comic books all the time, because I was wondering about that.

I would have asked a conversation that related to the comic books, but also to the thing that I cared about. And that I think is the answer. - I know you've read a lot of your transcripts to build a muscle of, "Okay, how am I doing this? What am I doing right?" You've even probably hired people to review them.

Is there a version of that conversational review for people not in a professional setting? Is it recording business meetings, maybe with or without consent, and listening to them? - No, always do it with consent. There's no reason for us to do it without consent, but I will tell you how you get consent and then what to do with it.

The way you get consent is to recognize that the other person doesn't care that you wanna study the way that you sell so you can sell to more people, or study the way that you talk so you can talk to more people. The other person wants to have notes on what they're doing.

So if you're doing a coaching call, can I record this coaching call so I know what it is that I said to you that's helpful? (groans) But I've coached people on interviews and other things. I will say, "Do you mind if I record this? Because I found that in the past, people want to see what I've said and they don't wanna waste time writing it down." Ah, this is helpful.

That is 100% useful to do. So yes, you can absolutely record with the other person's consent, but give them the reason, the incentive, to have that call recorded. Salespeople do this all the time. There is this software that's used. I'm actually gonna interview the founder of it. What is it called?

- Is it otter.ai? - No, otter.ai works for anyone. If you need your audio something transcribed, they will do it. But there is something called, I'll have to get it for you afterwards, you can put in the show notes, where what they do is they record salespeople's conversations so that the salesperson can have an understanding of what she said that helped close the sale.

And then AI will go through and analyze. The thing is that outside of sales and interviewing, there just aren't enough people who care about conversations to do anything with it. Too many people think conversations are just a thing you do instead of a thing you study to do well.

You would never find people who are serious swimmers just hoping to go in the pool and figure out the way that they're supposed to swim. You would never find serious chess players saying I'm just gonna wing playing chess. They study it, they learn it. And I think a lot of us go into conversations saying, I'll just work on it and be better at it instead of studying the way they played before and then seeing what they could do better.

By the way, that software is called Wingman by Clary now. So if you go to trywingman.com, or salespeople know about this, I don't need to tell them, it will record their calls and then give them feedback on it. - Do you think someone could benefit in a situation where they don't feel comfortable asking or can't get permission?

Is it debriefing in some particular way right after and taking notes or collecting feedback from the people you're speaking with? Let's take the job interview example. I imagine if you said, hey, could we interview my, or could I record my interview with you? I could imagine a lot of companies being like, no, we don't let people record our job interviews.

But you wanna get, I mean, it's a skill that I think a lot of people looking for jobs right now wish that they could review and see how they did. Is it notes after, is it asking feedback? - I think that studying it afterwards is a problem. I mean, without a recording, and here's why.

I had this one interview that I brought back to my coach and I said, look at this, I'm such a wuss in these calls. That's what he mean. I said, look, all the people that I admire, remember at the time I told him Ramit Sethi is a great blogger.

He keeps talking about how great he is at saving money, how great he is at handling hot sauce in his mouth. Like he talks about how great he is. And that's what people want. When they're reading these posts, they wanna see someone who loves themselves enough to talk about how great they are so that as readers, as followers of this person, they could wanna be that great too and be that happy with themselves.

And what do I do as an interviewer is I talk about the things that aren't working for me, how I don't understand how I can systemize my business, how I don't understand how I can hire better. I keep talking about my problems and then the guest talks about all their wins.

And look at this, I said in the transcript. And my coach looked at the transcript and he just stopped talking to me. This guy thinks that this question is not serious enough to take a look at or to consider. He's just kind of off in his own world. I just sat there feeling more miserable.

And then Jeremy says, "Andrew, I think he said something "like double click on my face, which in Google Docs "means you could scroll to where the person is." He goes, "Look, this is what you're talking about?" I go, "Yes, look at how I put myself down there "by saying what I don't know." He goes, "Now look at this, double click on my face again." I double click.

He took me down further in the transcript and he said, "She now is being open about her problem with her mom "and how it led her to where she is "and to be the kind of person she is." He said, "You are thinking you're gonna get vulnerable "and the other person will immediately be vulnerable back.

"And when they don't, you feel like you're alone "in your weakness and everybody else is a success. "What you don't realize is you start out "with this vulnerability, the person needs to process it. "And eventually they often feel comfortable sharing "and look at how it is in black and white." So when we're trying to find, the reason I'm saying this to you, when we're trying to find non-obvious wins and losses in our conversations, it's really hard for us to evaluate ourselves.

We just can't do it. That's why when you see a standup comic perform, you'll often see that they're recording themselves because they might think that a joke bombed, but in reality, there was a hint of a laugh that they didn't realize because they were feeling vulnerable and insecure about that joke.

They need to see it afterwards, not when they're in performance mode, but when they're in evaluation mode. In performance mode, you are much harder on yourself. In evaluation mode, you can go much more cerebral. So coming back to the job interview, I would suggest to you that there are a lot of people who could say, "I wanna record this conversation "so that I have notes for how to follow up on this.

"What I've discovered is that you're gonna teach me a lot "about your company. "And if I start to write it down because I wanna learn it, "I'm not gonna have it afterwards. "But if I record it and I give both of us notes on it, "I'm gonna have something that I could follow up on." I would suggest to you that something like that is really helpful for people to say, "I'm gonna record what we're doing "because I've found that a lot of people, "when they do interviews with me, "aren't aware of," or whatever.

Maybe sometimes, "I don't express everything right "and I wanna fact-check it for you. "So if I have a recording, I can go back "and I could look at it." Give them the wind, tell them why it's important, and people will be willing to do it. Now, if that's not an option, I should tell you that one thing that I've done is I will record my side of the conversation.

I don't need the other person necessarily. I can just say, "I'm recording this "so that I have my own voice." And I think that helps. It's not ideal. I prefer to see both, but I think there's a way. - Two follow-ups was one, if you're doing that, also make it clear that you're not gonna be doing anything with the audio.

You're not gonna be sharing the audio publicly. It might seem obvious, but I think that's something to add. And the other, I was thinking, "Gosh, "how would you just record one person?" Then I was just thinking right now, "Oh, I have headphones on. "If I had my iPhone right now recording this room." So if you're doing a Zoom call, throw some headphones on.

If you're watching this on the YouTube channel, you can see that Andrew has headphones on and doesn't look like it. I have headphones on and look like it. So he's got the better headphone setup here from discreteness, but I think those are both great. - Chris, there's one other thing that I think is worth noticing.

When I started Mixergy, I was in Southern California. Southern California, Santa Monica, even Santa Barbara, that little stretch has venture capitalists, but the elite venture capitalists were always in San Francisco, and it was just a short ride away, so many entrepreneurs go there. What I noticed having dinner with entrepreneurs is they would often go and have meetings with the local VCs, the locals who are newer, less likely to give them money, less likely to be the ones that they wanted to take money from.

And around the table, when someone would say, "Why did you take a meeting with this person "instead of going up to San Francisco?" Sometimes the response would be, "I needed the practice. "I wanted somebody who was going to question me. "I wanted to get my story right," and they would practice with them.

And the reason I bring this up is because if you're trying to improve your conversations, if you're trying to improve the way you do job interviews, you can go out for practice with people who you're not as concerned about. Maybe there's a third-tier job that you are thinking about or you would never even consider.

Go take the interview and then try some of the techniques that I'm suggesting. Try some of the conversation techniques. Try to ask them to record. Get comfortable with it. You're in some ways going to feel superior, and you'll say in yourself, "I deserve to be able to record this.

"Of course, this makes sense. "I'm gonna record it so I can follow up with them." And then you'll feel better about it. Once you do it there, you're gonna feel better about doing it somewhere else. So I think that's a huge, huge win. - It kinda makes me wanna go to a networking event for something that I have no professional designations for.

Like, let's go to the veterinary networking event in the Bay Area and just go talk to people in a totally different industry. Obviously, I won't be the expert. I gotta go find out where they are. If we rewind, you were talking about vulnerability, but I don't think you unlocked why it can be so valuable.

So I'm gonna give you a little bit of your, vulnerability can be an awesome skill in conversations because, and I'll let you finish that. - First of all, I think we get a benefit in talking about it to see that it's okay to say that my family had some mental health issues or someone in our family did and how it just really wrecked the family to know that somebody's going through that.

That's a share that, you can see my voice is still not, you can still hear my voice, how I'm not really comfortable talking about it. But by sharing it, by talking about it, I release some of the pain that I have around it. I also connect with other people who are having it.

And then it gives the other person an opportunity to say, oh, it's safe to say this, to talk about their suicide attempt in their family, their mental health issues. So I think if we really wanna get to know the other person, we have to show them some of ours.

Otherwise people won't do it. They'll feel like you're taking advantage of them. - I talk a lot about money on the show and I find that money is one of those places where people are very guarded. People don't talk about it. So I often just open up and just say, oh, here's how much we spent on this thing or here's this situation.

And that helps. Another tactic that I picked up from you was asking them permission to ask them the uncomfortable question. - Yeah. - I think the way you frame it in the book, and tell me if I'm correct, is it okay if I ask you, which is two questions in one.

- Right. And people will answer the easiest of the two questions. Whenever there are two questions, they will immediately go and take the easy answer. So is it okay if I ask you if you and your wife are still married? If they don't feel comfortable saying that they're not married, they will say yes.

They'll say, no, it's not okay. Or no, I don't feel comfortable talking about it. You just ask them that question. Is it okay if I ask you? Is it okay if I ask you what your revenue is? Do you feel comfortable revealing your revenue? Those types of things are giving the other person an opportunity to take a graceful exit.

And I've seen this used by other interviewers and I have transcripts of myself using it. And you will see that people will reveal things that you didn't expect because you've created that environment where they get to choose whether they answer or not. And you'll also, if you see my transcripts, see that some people will say, no, I don't feel comfortable answering that.

You've asked me, I'll ask, do you feel comfortable talking about your revenue? And they'll say, no, I don't feel comfortable talking about that. And we can move on. And there isn't that awkwardness in the middle. - So I did this mistakenly on an episode that will have by the time this airs, already come out where I was asking Adam Levin, who runs a podcast called What The Hack.

And it's all about cybersecurity and fraud and identity theft. And I wanted specific recommendations for places to go to monitor your identity and credit because there's just so many sites I didn't trust him. And at first answer, I asked him and he said, I don't like to give recommendations.

And then later in the conversation, I said something like, okay, well then who should we avoid? Like, if you don't wanna tell me who to pick, who should we avoid? And that broke him down. And he said, you know what? I said, I don't like to do this, but these three guys are really good.

You should check these out. And so I'm curious if I had said, is it okay if I ask you to recommend a few companies that you think are really good? His answer would have been no. Eventually I found out that he was willing to share more. Are there any ways to get a sense of whether you've gotten someone to open up and revisit something that you thought might've been off topic or not off topic, but you thought might've been, you know, they weren't willing to share, but might be now?

- The thing that I think about when you say that is I would write that down. I would analyze why that question worked, write it down and then try it again. And then if it works, add it to the repertoire. I think that's an interesting approach. You've asked him a tough question, he didn't answer it.

And then you ask him an even tougher question and suddenly the first one seems easy. And so he might come in, that might be why it works. So I would try it in conversations in private to see if that worked. And if it didn't, then I discarded. If it does, it goes on to a Google talk for me and that's what I use.

I think that that's important to analyze. You're asking me if there are other ways to get at it. I think that one way to get at it is to say, I don't need the exact, I need a ballpark. So if I try to ask someone what their revenue is and they don't feel comfortable, I'll say, you feel comfortable giving me a ballpark?

Like, is it millions? Is it tens of millions? Is it thousands? Okay, sometimes people will say, okay, I feel comfortable with the ballpark, I just don't want you to get the exact number. Right, sometimes I hit them with the dramatic low ball. Sometimes, so might, if in your situation, my approach might've been to say, if I asked him which three companies I should work with and he didn't give me the answer, my way would have been to suggest a really bad one.

Oh, you wanna get, and then I give him some clearly bad example and have him go, no, are you kidding me? That's absolutely the worst company. If you want someone, just go at least use this other company and then that approach would work. So there are a few different ways, but I think the bigger point here is you've just discovered a new approach to asking question and I would keep an eye on that and see if you can use it multiple times.

And that's the way that I added to my repertoire. This whole book was written on me discovering these ways of asking questions that worked and then writing them down. I would always give them a name, I would write them down, and then I would copy out of the transcript why they worked.

- I have another one I'll add to my repertoire, but I don't, I'm not gonna share it now. I gotta go test it first. And then, so if you're listening, maybe you'll hear me bring it up some more. What about, we talked a lot about the questions you ask, the questions you don't ask, the ways you interrupt.

What about at the end? Is there anything about how you build a relationship and then follow up on that relationship, whether it's wrapping up the conversation or following up after that you think has helped? - Oh, Chris, I've been so bad at that. Like, I will meet these amazing people, we'll have phenomenal conversations, and then I won't do anything about it.

And then we're gone from each other's lives after the person loves me. Or at least we connected. I love chess.com, I am on it all the time, I keep analyzing my chess game. I interviewed the founder of chess.com, we hit it off, he was texting me questions like, "Can we buy an ad on your podcast?" I said, "I'm sorry, I've run out of space." Anyway, when we were into that kind of a thing, we chatted and then the whole thing disappeared.

I happened to be in therapy recently. And one of the things that I uncovered was that I am not a great stay-in-touch-with-someone person. Like, even the people that I work with, with my producer, Ari DiCermo, we've worked together for a decade, I think, somewhere around there. And I won't just say, "Here's what I'm up to," or check in and see how's it going with the kids, or anything like that.

And he said, "Andrew, people wanna hear from you." I go, "Ah, they don't." I said, "All right, I'm gonna try it." He goes, "I wanna hear from you." I go, "Okay, I'm gonna try it. "You're my therapist. "You're saying I should hear from you. "I have your number because we do this on FaceTime." And when I discovered something like how to drive a lawnmower here in Austin, I've never mowed a lawn before I moved to Austin, I've always been a city person.

So I discovered how to drive a driving lawnmower and how to change a blade. I sent him a picture. I saw that he got excited about it and I kinda like that touch point. So then I started doing that with other people. I would just send them a picture of the thing that I've learned to do.

And it might be some random thing like, "Hey, I just got this guitar "that I've been traveling to Europe with. "It's kinda fun. "What are you up to, by the way?" And these little experiences that I'm sending in just a picture, nothing more, they're super personal and they're an easy way to connect.

And I wish I'd done it more. And so if I were to answer your question, honestly, it would be I sucked at it for years. I'm getting better at it. And my solution is to not try to find more work-related things to say to someone, but to instead just find a few personal things and share it with them.

And one of the producers at Mixergy that I've had, like the first one, Jeremy Weiss, is amazing with it. He will send me holiday text messages. He'll send me random text messages about the date night he had with his wife. And at times it feels like, "Oh, I don't care about where you and your wife went." But I never am bothered by it because we're kinda staying in each other's lives and it's incredibly, incredibly effective.

So that's the one thing that I've learned to do. And if I were to just add one other thing that's a little less harsh on myself, but recognizing one thing that I randomly have done that works is I still have the same email inbox from forever. And if I've ever interviewed somebody, our initial conversation is in that inbox.

So the founder of Dropbox, I have the first message where he said, "Yeah, I'll do the interview with you." Airbnb, and then other people who you may not know, but who matter to me. If I need to reach out to them, I hit reply on that old message. It gives them a sense of who we are and then it's easier to reconnect.

I'm not just somebody who needs something from you now. I've connected with you. I've helped you before through this podcast. Now I'm checking in or asking for something. - I don't know if you know Nick Gray, who's a fellow Austin local, but he creates a friends newsletter, which I've done in the past, which is like a scalable version of your lawnmower example, which is, you know, he sends an email out.

I think now it's weekly, but you could do it once a month. It's just kind of like, "Hey, here's what's up in my life." And I've actually noticed that all the hacks newsletter that I ship out every month, just last week, someone who I went to college with and haven't talked to in forever, but because I merged it from an email list I had before, wrote back and said, "Oh my gosh, I've been staying in touch with you for all this long.

This is what I'm up to." And it kind of brought us back together. So, you know, I would have never thought to text that person a picture of something, but to put them on an email that I send to everyone, I did do, and it worked. So I said at the beginning, I wasn't gonna spend too much time focused on just professional interviewing and all that, because most people listening, this is not a podcast for podcasters, but I know the listeners of this show have a pretty vested interest in the continuing evolution of this show.

So I am curious to get your take on a few things. You've done over 2,000 episodes and built a pretty big community around it. How do you engage your listeners, or advice for me to engage people listening today in the process of finding, recruiting, and kind of preparing for guests, and kind of make it something that more people are involved in than just me and then publishing?

I think podcasting's such a one-way experience in many ways. It's like, maybe you can email or review, but I feel like there's more opportunity there. - I was just at a conference that Nathan Lotka put on. He asked me to go and introduce the speaker, and then he introduced me before I introduced the speaker, and he said, "Andrew once gave his cell phone number "out on his podcast." I said, "There's no way that's really Andrew's number." So I called it.

He goes, "I called it, and it was Andrew, "and he picked up, and I was in college, "and we talked, and I said, "that is an amazing thing that he would actually do it." And he said, "We've stayed in touch since then, "and it's been about 10 years now." And the reason that I say that is, I think we think a lot about how do we talk and engage our whole audience en masse.

And what I've discovered is that if we can just talk to them one-on-one, that's where the real value is. The big thing I wouldn't get rid of, I absolutely need the broad reach, but the more one-on-one that I could do, the better, without killing myself. The more in-person that I can do, or I spend time with you in the same room, and we have a personal conversation, the better.

So Scotchnight was a good way. To make my cell phone available was a good way. To say, "Here's my email address, "and anyone can reach out to me," and then respond to people is a good way of reaching out to them. The problem people come up with is, "What if too many people reach out to me?" And that's a definite problem, and I've run into that over the years.

But if you care about the people you're reaching, it's worth it, and if you don't, then you have a real problem. I could never be some of these YouTube stars who are writing about how to use, I don't know, just any random thing. I need to care about the people who are out there enough that I would wanna spend time with them, not enough to just make a profit off of them.

And once I do that, then I want them to reach out to me. I may not give my cell phone out anymore, but I'll get my email address out and respond, and if I see someone on the street, I'll stop and we'll say hi, and I think that's the best answer, to reach an audience you genuinely care about, and not just one that you need more of, and be as open to personal one-on-one conversations and in-person meetings as you possibly can.

- Yeah, I think anyone listening who's emailed me knows that I would like to assume that all of them have gotten a reply, and as the show grows, maybe that reply is taken longer, but often it starts with a question, and then sometimes I follow up with a conversation, trying to understand what do you think of the show, what direction would you wanna take it?

So keep those emails coming, even if you don't have a question, feel free, even if you don't have a question, feel free to reach out and let me know what you think about the show, where it should go, other things like that. I'm always looking to improve and adapt.

- You know what, can I add to that and say, I think it's important that people also take that part of it that we keep talking about how we, if we get inbound respond, we should be responding to as many people as possible. I think people should also send out as many messages as possible.

There's this entrepreneur who I've invested in, Matt. Matt reached out to the real founder of Netflix, Mark Randolph, and he got a fricking response back. And then Mark Randolph became his advisor. And then in the book that talks about the story of how Netflix was really founded by Mark Randolph, there's a reference to Matt in the fricking book.

And then I asked Matt, did you really like, is Matt, I mean, sorry, I asked Mark Randolph, the founder of Netflix, I said, is Matt Morales really like, how do you connect with him? Is he someone who you really are advising over the years? He said, yeah, he just reached out to me and I care about entrepreneurs.

I responded back to him. And in fact, I invested in his latest business, Oasis, and he's a good person. I go, from one fricking email out of the blue. I think people are too intimidated to reach out and it's a problem. We should also be reaching out to strangers whose work we like on the internet and tell them why we like it, because they're trying to establish a relationship with their audience too and with people they care about.

- I found that from the case of reaching out to people. I just sent you a DM and said, hey, like your work, can we have this conversation? I've sent those DMs to other people. Some of them say no, some of them say yes. I think I found recruiting people to come on the show, trying to get interesting people to talk to, half the time it's just about, it's a numbers game, right?

You just have to send out enough messages that you can get someone on the time that they're looking at their email, on the week they're not too busy. And I think people should also be just trying more to get in front of people. Also, a no is good. A no is good, you've stayed in touch with them.

I started Mixergy by organizing events. I would go and invite people to an event who wouldn't show up, but nobody said, that jerk Andrew invited me to an event. Instead they go, that's the guy who invited me to an event. I better stay nice with him because maybe the next time he invites me, it'll be to an event that I care about.

If you invite someone to do an interview, there's nobody who goes, that jerk Chris invited me to do a podcast interview. Eh, he cares about me. No, just inviting people, even if they say no, it's a sincere way of saying, I care about you. I'm here reaching out to you before I really even need something.

I'm inviting you to do this thing, to get exposure for your book in this case, to get exposure for your business in the case of me asking somebody to do an interview with me. It's never a loss to just invite somebody. And you talk about Nick Gray. He's organizing events all over Austin.

He's constantly inviting people and people can't make it out, but he's got this reputation now for inviting people to events that creates a warm feeling. He and the fricking guy, I moved to Austin. He invites me to go paddle boarding. Now that I think about it, I must've done stand-up paddle boarding with him.

That was my first time. He invites me out stand-up paddle boarding. While we're there, he goes, you know, Andrew, if you and your wife wanna just go and experience Austin, there's nothing like a paddle board together. Just come on over, borrow my stand-up paddle board and you and Olivia can go out, you'll love it.

I've never taken him up on it because with paddle board rentals all over Austin, why do I need to go to his house and do it? With paddle boards costing, what, 250 bucks? I don't need to use his for free and then worry about damaging it. But dude, the fact that he invited me to use it make me feel that he is a caring person who is offering me something that's that personal.

Never a bad idea to invite people. - I sent in the email before and I know we're at time, so I'm gonna try to wrap. If you had a chance to listen to any episodes to give feedback, I don't know if you did 'cause that was only a day or two ago, but if you did, I'm gonna ask you about it.

- I'm gonna say that one thing that I wish I'd said in the beginning of this interview is let's restart. Let's restart the computer. We have frozen, I'll give you feedback on this one. I dig you so much. Our videos have frozen so much that I can't see the look in your face when I'm responding.

Like right now it's completely frozen and I don't know whether we're on the right track or not. And so the feedback I would give is maybe to both of us that when the technology is not cooperating, to not say, ah, we've got a recording of it on Riverside, it's gonna record for both of us, but to say, let's take a moment.

We're gonna restart it, it's gonna be valuable. And I'm gonna take that for myself. Sometimes as an interviewer, I think, all right, I don't wanna bother this person by saying let's both restart or let's figure out what's going on with this. Let's just go into the interview. It matters, we wanna be able to see each other, right?

If you and I were talking to each other through glass for whatever freaking reason and there was all kinds of dirt on the glass, I'd wanna at least wipe it down so I could see your face. Your video, surprisingly, has been perfect the entire time. So I didn't know.

- I'm good, okay. - Okay, this has been fantastic. I feel like I have a lot of homework so that the next time I'm interviewing someone, I'm doing a better job, I'm asking the right questions, I'm pausing, I'm interrupting and everything. So thank you. Hopefully everyone listening will thank you as the quality of the show goes up and the quality of my skills do.

I'm excited to engage with the audience more. So if you're listening, reach out anytime. Andrew, where can people find out what you're up to and everything you're working on? - If you Google me, I'm totally Googleable. Sorry to every other Andrew Warner on the planet, but I got there first.

Number two, the podcast, if they're curious about how I do my interviews, it's called "Mixergy and the Book." Stop asking questions. Available at libraries and bookstores. - Ooh, never heard the plug for libraries, though I appreciate that. Everyone that listening knows library extension to take advantage of their library as well.

- Oh dude, Chris, Libby app is amazing for that. There's so many books that I would never think to buy, wouldn't even think to get the chapter to download. Then I use the Libby app and I get the book directly sent to my Kindle and then the audio book directly on my phone to listen to.

And now, because it's just, you don't think about the price, you're just kind of experimenting, I might take a few and start reading books that I never would have before. - You know about library extension? - No, what's library extension? - So for everyone listening, library extension. So Libby is like 30% of library extension, but library extension is a Chrome extension that when you're on Amazon looking at a book, it just pops up and says, "Hey, you can get this at any of these local libraries." And if you live in a metro area, or, you know, I have my San Francisco library card and I've got my San Mateo, you know, Burlingame library card.

And in order to join Stanford Federal Credit Union, I had to join the Friends of the Palo Alto library. So like, I have a couple of library memberships and it just searches all of them from any Amazon page for a book. So there's a little hack for everyone on the way out.

Andrew, thank you so much for being here.