Andrew and Trash Video

When I started Your Story on 2007 I modelled myself on Australian Story and Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope but before too long I started hearing about Richard Fidler’s Conversation Hour on Brisbane’s 612ABC radio. To my surprise I discovered that Richard and I are doing basically the same thing, conversations with people about their lives.

I have only listened to a few of his shows but I know that we happen to have had some of the same people on our shows.  Frankly with the resources of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation including a producer to help it’s not surprising that he has harvested all the interesting people who live in our city.  To that end, as I poke around to find some of the interesting people with my limited resources we are going to cover the same territory.  Today is one of those situations.

As I write this I am listening to Richard interview Andrew Leavold from one of the most enjoyable episodes that I’ve had the pleasure to produce.  You may remember Andrew as the passionate, hyperactive cult film video store owner, Trash Video here in West End where I live.

If you want to listen to my podcast with Andrew this is the episode and if you want to listen to Richard’s interview with him it is here on the ABC site.

I was chatting to you from by the river.

I thought it was time to get you up to speed on what I’ve been up to with Your Story and the new podcast Create Your Life Story.  This is 18 minutes of me filling you in on developments over the last couple of months so you know that I haven’t abandoned Your Story and what I’m hoping to achieve in the next few months.

Create Your Life Story

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This is something I’ve been wondering for some time as I’ve been doing Your Story. What are the dynamics of a great story or conversation? What are the things that we sometimes do well and we sometimes could change to improve conversations? Are these things simply good luck, part of our nature and environment or are they skills we can learn?

It hasn’t been just since I’ve been doing Your Story that I’ve had the complement paid to me. It’s happen on and off all my life.  We’re wrapping up the conversation and the person I’ve been chatting with mentions that they had a wonderful time and really enjoyed it. I can sense that they genuinely mean it, as though as we part it feels like something special was shared.

But what?

It was three years ago when I was reflecting on my life and wondering what I should do with my newly discovered  inspiration of doing a podcast that one of the things I considered is the number of times this scenario has occurred in my life and that it’s one of those things that I find profoundly rewarding. Maybe I have a little natural ability or maybe I’m simple curious about others and that helps them feel engaged but it doesn’t always work, sometimes it falls flat so there are things that I know that I can improve.

I’ve been wondering for some time what is it that people get from a great conversation and what is missing from a poor one? What are the elements that make a conversation simply polite and courteous verses one that connects two people in some deeper way?

I have a few ideas, some of the things that I use are…

• Genuine interest in them and the subject
• Specific questions that require an explanation rather than a simple answer
• Summarise the points that are made
• Happy to be contradicted. I’m interested in their opinion.
• Remain engaged and listening.
• Contribute my opinions and thoughts but remain more interested in them.

My underlying approach is I know about my life, beliefs and attitudes, what are yours? Please educate me about something new and change me for the better through your knowledge.

1. What are the aspects of a great conversation?
2. Where have you seen it done well and poorly?
3. What do you do best and where should you improve?