A Recovering Journalist Cannot Help But Continue to Collect Stories

Joey Held's background is broadcast journalism, and as he has continued in his career in writing, sales, and a variety of other jobs, that background has served him well. After all, being able to ask the right questions at the right time simply opens doors.

He's a very curious guy, especially about people and the way their minds work.

Joey hosts a podcast, Good People, Cool Things, and is probably one of the best interviewers I've experienced. He hosted me to chat about my book, and I was completely enamored with him within five minutes of our conversation.

Highlights from this episode:

Joey's experience as a karaoke host (he knows at least 500 songs!)
How performance is different from just singing on stage
Difficult interviews, how Joey gets people to open up when they really aren't excited about being interviewed (hint: tone of voice matters!)
What to do and what not to to when calling someone out for saying something insulting
Calvin & Hobbs still holds up, 25 years later
Asking about the worst gig a musician had can open up all kinds of opportunities for connection and fun stories

During our conversation, Joey asked me about the worst gig I remember, and I told him about a not-so-great performance of the National Anthem, which I wrote about here. In response, Joey shared the story of this performance of the National Anthem (Maurice Cheeks, coach of the Portland Trailblazers comes to the rescue of this lovely singer):

During this conversation, I mentioned Brene Brown’s reference to the Theodore Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena, here’s the article.

Connect with Joey on LinkedIn, visit his website to see all the outstanding services he provides, and be sure to follow him on Twitter.

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Sarah Elkins loves to guide individuals and teams to improve communication, using storytelling as the foundation of her work. She is a Gallup certified Strengths coach and uses that tool to coach her clients to improve their communication in all relationships, and to find more satisfaction at work and at home.

Her book, Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will is available on bookshop.org (supporting independent booksellers), and on Amazon. The audiobook will be available in fall 2020.