Values and beliefs

What they thought was worth doing, and what they thought was not.

7 questions. There is no order you have to follow.

• What does it mean to you to be a good person?
• What was your attitude toward money — a tool? A goal? What wouldn't you sell?
• Tell me about a time you stood your ground because something didn't seem fair.
• What do you want to be remembered for?
• What is the most important thing you tried to pass on to your children?
• Is there something you would do differently if you could go back in time?
• Tell me about a time you gave something — money, time, attention — without expecting anything back.

Using these

Ask what changed. Most people’s convictions moved at least once, and the story of the move tells you more than the position they landed on.

Asking about someone, rather than asking them

If the person is not here to answer, the same question has to change shape. “Where did you grow up?” is a cruel thing to ask about someone who has died, so each question also has a second wording, for asking someone who knew them.

• What did it mean to them to be a good person?
• What was their attitude toward money — a tool? A goal? What wouldn't they sell?
• Share a time they stood their ground because something didn't seem fair.
• What did they want to be remembered for?
• What was the most important thing they tried to pass on to their children?
• Is there something you think they would have done differently if they could have gone back in time?
• Share a time they gave something — money, time, attention — without expecting anything back.

The other themes

• Who they are: The questions that get past what someone did for a living.
• How they speak: Turns of phrase, filler words, how they open a conversation — the texture most interviews never ask about.
• Memories: Specific moments, not summaries of a decade.
• Personality: How they handle change, order, other people, and themselves.
• Relationships: The people who shaped them, and how they talked about them.
• The harder questions: Failure, contradiction, regret. Ask these late, and only if you have earned them.
• Objects, songs and places: A photograph, a piece of music, a room — the fastest routes into a story.
• Everyday life: What an ordinary day actually looks like. The detail that vanishes first.