Talking About Work
Thoughts on Recording 10 Podcast Conversations.
I have been reflecting on the design of the podcast, here in Substack.
As a reminder, in each episode, two people who don’t know each other or who they will dial in to speak to meet for a 35-40 minute conversation, always with the same structure.
Intro: What are you interested in?
Conversation prompts, from creative-surplus.com
Outro: What can we wish you?
Having published 5 of these and recorded double that, I am reconnecting to the power of prompts to allow for generous, mutual, but not transactional, communication. And how generous communication can bring in magic and profound openness when participants are embodied and grounded (/self-leading).
When that happens, we can reach an acute tipping point:
Talking about work without talking about work.
As a listener, by the end of each episode, you would have an idea of each person’s area of work, but with a key distinction: who they are, rather than what they sell—moving away from scripts, small talk, and a fixed self into a much more fluid and generative place.
By not sharing who a guest would meet and the nature of the conversation, I invite people who are grounded enough in their practice to show up in this way and discern those who rely on self-orchestration.
When people are grounded in conversation, they can easily let us into their back-of-the-house, their ideas, intuition, self-strategy, and future thinking in a way that is enabling and can inspire you to think differently about the options available in your own work.
This week, I invite you to show up differently in a new professional conversation. If you need a new ice-breaking question, I invite you to visit creative-surplus.com.
p.s. I heard that ‘When do you perform?’ is an excellent question for large groups.