There Goes My Hero
on Jan 25, 2010 - 4:34 PM PST
As I interviewed Seth Godin on Friday, the song “There Goes My Hero” by the Foo Fighters kept going through my head. It’s not the first time that interviewing reminded me of that song, but before I get to that, I need to tell you that the experience I’m describing isn’t hero-worship.
Guests don’t come to Mixergy for me to stare at them in awe. I get to engage them in the kind of intellectual conversation that we dreamt of having in college. (I’m assuming you fantasized about that too, or else you’d be watching a wacky cat video on YouTube instead of reading my site.) Listen to my interview with Seth and tell me if you don’t actually hear me grow as a person.
All right, watching ME grow is peachy, but what’s in it for YOU? I’ll get to that. I promise. I’ll show you how you can get all this and more.
First you have to understand what “all this” means. You see, it’s not just the interviewees that make me smarter and help me grow. The people who are drawn to the writers and entrepreneurs who I interview have a lot going on for themselves too. You should see the emails I get after I interview someone like Seth. And the help they give me is something I couldn’t pay for. It’s priceless. Truly.
Alright, enough about me, what about YOU?
I think you should do interviews too.
You should find the people who make your inner ears ring with the song “There Goes My Hero,” and ask to interview them. You should spend some time learning from them. Maybe you thought I was a dork for admiring Seth Godin so much. That’s cool.
What’s not cool is missing the chance to reach out to the people you admire. Yeah, I know. You read their blogs, buy their books and learn from afar.
It’s not the same.
I love reading too, but it’s not the same. Listen to my conversation with Seth and you’ll notice how sometimes an idea needs to be challenged a bit in order to really understand it.
Besides, it’s not just about the knowledge. It’s the friendship. No, Seth Godin and I aren’t going to 6 Flags together this summer. But Gregg did take me to breakfast to talk about my business after I interviewed him. Jeanne did help me figure out how to be more of a digital nomad after I interviewed her. Neil did help my site get noticed after I interviewed him.
Let me pay it forward by helping you. If you want to do interviews like the ones I’m doing and have questions about how to do it, email me. I’ll put together some kind of FAQ here on Mixergy based on what you ask.
And if you don’t, would you mind emailing me about that too. I’m curious. I’m not judging. I don’t think everyone should do what I’m doing just because I’m doing it. I’m just curious.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:17 am
Still loving what you do, Andrew.
Been following you since the early interviews.
My moto is: Surround yourself with greatness.
I have had great achievements in my life by listening and learning from those who have struggled and those who have had their break.
I am looking forward to seeing how your work pays off for you and the community you have build around you. Glad to be part of it.
Cheers,
Bill
January 26th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Yes. I can't think of a better way to surround myself with good people.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I'm actually pretty excited for this one, I really like Seth Godin. He's like one of the three wise men…
January 26th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I also really love what you do & I adored your latest interview with Seth and just blogged it. I think this is his best book yet! And yes, Andrew, you ARE a very creative artist besides being a great business brain. ;)
January 26th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
I actually have been talking with that high-level CEO / Executive / Board coach this past month saying that maybe she should do a similar interviews site thing further up the company-size spectrum, but there were a lot of questions we wanted to ask you. Will try to get the questions together and email over the curiosities like asap. Thanks for the offer.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Hi Andrew,
I've enjoyed your posts in my FB feed for a while now, I never quite dove into your site but have experienced many “That's neat-o!” moments as you developed your use of social media tools to get your mission and message out. I've taken advantage of your invitation to explore your site a bit more in-depth and have tons of questions that you could use for your FAQ. Here are the first three topics that immediately come to mind:
1. Skype – How do you get the side by side windows and what do you use to record and stream that feed live?
2. Live Feed – I see you use Justin.tv, why them as opposed to Ustream or any other site?
3. Raw Transcripts – I read Tim's question on membercon.com and am interested in the answer, do you outsource the raw transcript or do it in-house? I know your fans edit them, but how to you get the original text?
Thanks a bunch and congrats on your success!
Jeannette
(Skype handle: first.last)
January 26th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Good. Bring them on! Thanks.
Email me for fastest response.
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El Jan 26, 2010, a las 10:51 PM, “Disqus” <
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January 27th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Thanks. I think of people like you as creative. But I'm trying to unleash my own creativity. Thanks for the post. I'll tweet it.
January 27th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
1. I use Ecamm's Call Recorder to record my interviews. It gives me a separate movie file for each side of the conversation. I then use ScreenFlow to edit the video and get the side-by-side effect.
2. The people at Justin.tv have been more helpful. They're showing me how to improve my work.
3. I use Mechanical Turk. It's the fastest and cheapest solution. But it's not the most accurate.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Thanks. I think of people like you as creative. But I'm trying to unleash my own creativity. Thanks for the post. I'll tweet it.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
1. I use Ecamm's Call Recorder to record my interviews. It gives me a separate movie file for each side of the conversation. I then use ScreenFlow to edit the video and get the side-by-side effect.
2. The people at Justin.tv have been more helpful. They're showing me how to improve my work.
3. I use Mechanical Turk. It's the fastest and cheapest solution. But it's not the most accurate.