Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

Were they outgoing or inhibited?
Were they good in school, and did they like school?
What were their parents like, and where were they from?
How were they parented?
Did they like to read?
Did they go to the movies?
What were the first records they bought?
In a powerful interview with comedian Tracy Morgan, Terry dug down to
the roots of a troubled adolescence that nurtured Morgan’s latent creativity.
Notice how she framed her questions without judgment but without hesitation.
GROSS: So I just wanted to get back to your childhood a little bit. When
your father died of AIDS when you were in high school, you dropped out
of high school, and you needed money. So you say you started selling
marijuana and then eventually started selling crack.
MORGAN: Yeah.
GROSS: But—so I’m wondering. Did you take Al Pacino’s advice from

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Scarface—don’t get high on your own supply?
MORGAN: No, I never did drugs. My drug of choice was beer, was
liquor. As far as narcotics, no. I would smoke weed and drink beer like
any other—like Michael Phelps do that. But I never did no narcotics—
never. My father had died from that. So I already knew better. You know,
I’m a very smart person. I was able to see that. As a child, I was able to
know that I wanted a better life.
GROSS: You say that it was helpful to you as a comic to sell crack
because of all the characters that you met. What do you mean?
MORGAN: Well, it wasn’t helpful for me to sell crack, especially to my
old community, and it still bothers me today, but it’s something that I did.
It was survival. Now I’m living. Now I don’t have to do any of that stuff.
I’m a grown man now, but when I did, I wasn’t good at it. So I had my
fledging attempt at being a drug dealer.
GROSS: So, tell me really, how did you feel when you were selling crack,
knowing that you were selling a drug that destroys lives?
MORGAN: I was a kid. I had no fear. I was crazy, and when you don’t
have fear, you’re crazy.
Terry’s questions penetrate gently but insistently. She is interested in
creative tension, setback, and adversity, but she does not try to embarrass or trip
up her guests. Her voice is warm and her listening accommodates the ranges of
emotion she encounters:
“I’m not looking to shame somebody. I’m not looking to have them say
anything that’s going to keep them awake at night, regretting that they said it.
I’m not looking to have them say something that’s going to end up with their
mother or their child or their best friend hating them for saying it.”
Terry Gross prefers to let her guests take the lead when questions get
personal and the emotions get rough: “I don’t just sit down and ask people about
their sexual orientation or their religion or their fear of death, unless it comes up
organically in some way through their work or through something that they
said.”
That’s where empathy plays a vital role. “I try to imagine what is it like to be

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that person,” Terry explains. “What might they have been feeling when they did
this or experienced this? And is there anything like that in my life, not because I
want to talk with them about my life, but because I want to be able to understand
it in a way that might make sense to me.”
When Terry interviewed renowned author Maurice Sendak, her empathetic
questioning produced a remarkable moment.
Sendak, the beloved children’s author of Where the Wild Things Are and
other books, was a famously complex character. He could translate dark reality
into a playful children’s adventure. An avowed atheist, he was introspective and
deeply creative. He came out as gay late in life. In September 2011, as the New
England fall was setting in, Sendak spoke with Terry by phone. He was eighty-
three and in failing health. His partner was gone, and loneliness was his
companion. But Sendak had just published Bumble-Ardy, a book about a pig
who, on his ninth birthday, throws himself his first birthday party. The story is a
fable about growing up and staying young, about celebration and convention,
about love and forgiveness. Terry had interviewed Sendak many times before.
They’d known one another for years. He trusted her. You can hear the affection
in her voice.
She congratulates him on the book and asks simply: