Welcome to the Jody Mayberry show. I received wonderful feedback for the episode about Dream Chasing with Bob Wise. I wanted to share my process and why that turned out to be a good episode. First of all, it was wonderful because Bob Wise is wonderful. If you haven't read the book Dream Chasing yet, get a copy. It's a great book, and Bob's going to do a great episode no matter who is interviewing him. I have to get that out of the way first. I can't take all the credit for that being a wonderful
episode. I will say though, I prepared more for that interview with Bob Wise than any conversation I've had in quite a while. I think when you're going to interview someone like that, the key is research and questions coming up with questions. Some people don't like to use questions. I've heard some podcasters say, I don't like to have questions ahead of time because I want it to
feel like a conversation. And I get that. Hopefully, you felt that episode, that interview with Bob Wise was a conversation and it is and it was because of the preparation I did. For me, it's not about having a list of questions and reading those questions. It's not coming with prepared questions. It's coming prepared with questions. And here's the difference, prepared questions mean that I would have a list of 10 questions and I read those questions off the list without variation.
Yes. You can do that and it would be better than no preparation at all. That is prepared questions. Prepared with questions. That means it's well researched. It means I'm well prepared. I'm ready to keep a conversation going and I have an idea of where the answers to those questions may lead the conversation. I may get surprised Bob gave some great answers. Some of them I saw coming from reading the book and listening to other interviews he's done.
Some of his answers I didn't see coming, but that's what the preparation is for to get there. Being prepared with questions allows me to have something to talk about at any moment while also being able to pounce on anything that just comes up naturally.
And having a list of questions, here's one thing that I've noticed. If you do not have questions, if you don't come prepared with questions, then while someone like Bob is talking, you're constantly just trying to find, oh, no. What am I gonna ask next? And you don't really listen. But if you come prepared with questions, you can fully listen. And that just brings up better conversation because you're not looking for what am I going to
say next. On the other hand, if you stick with your list of questions, you'll likely miss the best opportunities for great conversation. So there is a balance. Prepared with questions allows you to listen better, but also don't stick to just your questions. So without those questions, I though I think that you you have a chance of missing deep conversation
about something you're curious about. If you don't have questions and you're wondering what am I going to talk about next, You really can't fully listen to what they're saying. But if you're prepared with questions, you can really listen to what's being said. Something will spark your curiosity and you can chase that down. There's some other pieces to it though. I think research is a sign of respect. Imagine if I had had Bob Wise on the podcast and had
not read his book. I read the book one time and parts of it twice, and it is not a small book. I'm flipping it open right now. It's more than 400 pages. Dream Chasing is more than 400 pages. I read the whole book once. I read other parts of it twice. I watched interviews. All of that is a sign of respect to Bob Weiss. I just can't imagine having someone like him come on the show and have not done my research, have not paid respect to his 40 year career with Walt Disney Imagineering.
And I took the same approach when Lee Cockrell and I launched the Creating Disney Magic podcast. We could have started the show way sooner than we did, but I told Lee I did not want to. I wanted time to prepare. I wanted to know as much about Lee Cockrell as I could, and it worked. That show has been running for 10 years, more than 530 episodes, millions of downloads. I think part of the key of why it was successful was the time I took nearly 2 months I took just to research Lee
Cockrell. Now that I've told you all this and how I prepared for that interview, Go back and listen. I know I did 2 episodes with Bob. 1, me interviewing him. The second one, him asking me 3 questions. Listen to that first one, and I think you'll pick up on this, how I did it, what I've explained in this episode. Now that you've heard that, I think you will hear how that came across in that first episode. It's a great conversation, I think, and a great example of how it all worked
out. The part where we talk about Karl holds. That came because of the book. I saw that story in the book. I had not heard that story anywhere else. I know Karl and I'd never heard that story and it was wonderful. It's a small piece in the book, maybe a paragraph, but so much of what we talked about centered on that page or 2 around Carl Holtz. Mean, that's the story was maybe a paragraph or 2, but it also spilled into a couple other pages
because it led right into the next story. I think that conversation about Carl showed that I did my homework. It showed that I'm curious, and it gave Bob the opportunity to tell a story that he enjoyed. Had I not done my research, I don't think the Carl Holt story would have shown up at all. Also, doing my research allowed me to pull out a couple of my favorite pieces from the book and talk about those. In a 400 page book, what are you gonna do if you haven't read the book? Are you gonna
say, hey, Bob, tell me about your book? You might, and Bob is a professional and he may entertain that and he may have a good conversation around that. But I just think the research is a sign of respect. And if you're interested, I can tell you how I do my research, how I come up with questions, but this doesn't really just apply to podcasting. You can use this if you get the chance to have lunch with someone you respect or you're going to meet with a mentor. I think
the same method applies. If you get the chance to have lunch with someone that you really look up to and you feel, oh, I'm really lucky to get this meeting. If you go through the process of doing the research and showing up prepared with questions, you may never get to ask any of those questions. And I say it doesn't matter. The fact that you were prepared with questions will make the conversation that much better. Well, I have some podcasting courses that I rarely talk about. Podcast
magic, it's about having a great podcast. Podcast guest, podcast guest magic, it is about making the most out of being a guest on someone's podcast and the one I'm working on now. Very relevant to what we've talked about today. Podcast interview magic and it's how to do great interviews. If you're interested in any of those, they're currently not on my website. So reach out to me directly, jody@jodymayberry.com or just go to jodymayberry.com. There's a contact form
right there on the page. And I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you thought of the interview with Bob. And did this episode talking about the process of being prepared with questions, did that enhance listening to the conversation with Bob Wise knowing that? Whether you listen to it again, whether you reach out after hearing this, I'm just so glad you were here today. Thanks for hanging out with me and listening to the Jodi Mayberry Show.
He is undefeated in axe throwing against Dan Cockrell. It's Sugar Jay.