Huell Howser, host of "California Gold" is the only person I know that can get pretty excited about broken glass.
Let me explain. Huell travels up and down the state and discovers some of California's unique and eccentric places like lighthouses, Emu farmers and artisans who make things out of broken glass.
One episode, Huell visited a man who creates "deco art" using recycled glass. I was listening to the conversation with amazement and I got the sense that Huell sincerely cares about this guy and his broken glass.
Curiosity is hard to develop, especially if the topic is of no interest. I mean how excited can one get about wall paper design? But being curious requires me to really listen and enter another persons world with empathy.
Curiosity softens my "self certainty" about life and increases my ability to see life with a sense of "wonder." So I became "curious" watching Huell work his magic in getting people to open up about what I thought was mundane topics.
I went on to "youtube" and I watched closely how the great interviewers like Huell Howser, Jack Paar, Brian Lamb and Roy Firestone brought a person to life.
I listened to how each of these conversationalist weaved curiosity into the interview. Soon I began to notice something interesting. Over the course of the conversation, the interviewer took a back seat and I was focused on the other person and their story-I almost forgot the interviewer was in the room.
The interviewers had to be ok with backing down and allowing the other person to come alive. The ego sure can get in the way of being curious, especially in this current age of "self obsession.
Conversation is becoming a lost art in the land of tweets and twitter. It's time bring curiosity back, dust it off and learn "conversation" all over again.
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