The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

This transcript was auto-generated from an audio recording. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Last year, one of my favorite Sound Judgment guests, Laura Joyce Davis of Shelter in Place, recommended Kelly Corrigan as her dream guest for Sound Judgment. “Who's that?” I asked. Laura was kind: She didn't laugh at me for living under a rock, because I should have known. Kelly Corrigan has written four remarkable memoirs, each of which was a New York Times bestseller. Between her podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders, and her PBS show, Tell Me More, she's interviewed authors, actors, philanthropists, and leaders of all kinds—everyone from Katie Couric and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Melinda Gates, Anne Lamott, Michael Lewis, Margaret Atwood, and famed human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson—the list goes on. And on. And on.

So, of course, I checked her out. And what I heard, I loved. Kelly Corrigan is blunt but compassionate, serious and funny, a straight shooter with heart and soul who is deeply curious about how we can tackle the world's biggest problems...while also noticing the smallest of details and delights. She became MY dream guest. 

And so, for this last episode before our holiday break, I'm delighted to be able to bring her to you. We can all learn how to be better interviewers from Kelly—but also, better practitioners of curiosity, and of wonder. 

This is Sound Judgment, where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved audio storyteller by pulling apart one episode at a time, together. I’m Elaine Appleton Grant.

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Oh, and if you need help with your branded podcast, contact us here at Podcast Allies. We help mission-driven organizations reach your audiences with top-quality podcasts as part of your communications strategy. The link is in our show notes. And now, to my interview with Kelly.

Elaine Appleton Grant

HuffPost, a while ago, called you the Poet Laureate of the Ordinary. Would you describe yourself that way?

Kelly Corrigan 

I mean, I must say, I liked the way it sounded. Because I am kind of wowed by the ordinary. I mean, I am a person who is often in a state of wonder. I mean, that's why the podcast is called Kelly Corrigan Wonders, which is to say—the verb wonders, like I'm curious and I ask people a lot of questions, but also I am often in a state of wonder. And I can find it easily and I sort of credit 10 years of working in nonprofits for helping me appreciate these ordinary luxuries.

Like I—honest to God, almost every time I get into bed, I think, this is so fantastic. Like, these sheets are clean, this pillow's soft, I'm warm. And now I'm in New York City, so I walk home from dinner, and I pass people who are not going to sleep in a bed. And I think, I am so happy to be in this bed right now.

I do think that there is a tendency to squander these very ordinary moments of wonder. And I think from a writing perspective that I have always enjoyed most telling the smallest conceivable story. So like there's a tiny, tiny moment where my whole family got in a big fight and everybody disappeared. You know—teenagers. And I thought, oh God, when are we going to get glued back together? And I hate this, and I thought it was going to be easier. Georgia was in the shower. And I went up and I thought, maybe I'll just put a nice towel in the shower for her, and wait in my bedroom and see if she wants to come in and do a little repair, as mothers and daughters need to do.

And I heard her singing in the shower: “All the single ladies, all the single ladies.” And I thought, Oh, I guess it's all okay. I mean, if your kid's singing in the shower, there's something fundamentally okay about their lives. So in that sense, it was an incredibly ordinary moment. Everyone has sung in the shower and everyone's overheard someone singing in the shower. But there was a profoundness to it that for me was super soothing, in a way that all parents need to be soothed, especially on the heels of an explosion. 

So in that sense, being the poet laureate of the ordinary—I do think there's a lot of awesome, awe-inspiring ordinariness available to us, and I think that we squander those opportunities at our own peril.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I am absolutely positive that you're right, that we squander those opportunities often. Maybe most of the time. You know—it's so funny, I was, I was gonna say at the outset, Kelly, that I wanted this to be a conversation. And yet, I am not one to actually usually make it that much of a conversation. Because I sort of—I don't know, maybe it's like, nobody's looking at me, they don't want to hear my story. But I will tell you a story about that, was that I am a cancer survivor like you. And I was young. I was about 28. And I had had surgery, and I woke up and it's like two, three o'clock in the morning, I'm in the hospital, and this nurse was like—I'm a very small person. And she was—she was a very large woman, and she was one of those people who you could imagine wrapping her arms around you and you would just feel better, like just her presence in the room. I still remember this. This is decades ago. And I was okay. And she said, I hope you remember what this feels like. and that you're so grateful—I'm going to get choked up talking about it. You're so—you know—you really are grateful to have your life, and so that you appreciate that. And I think about that every now and then in that—you know, you get frustrated in traffic, or somebody—I don't know—takes a project away, or you owe a bill, or it's messy in the house. Whatever it is. You've had a fight with your kid. I think it's hard to hang on to,honestly. 

Kelly Corrigan

I think it is too, and I think probably there are scientists who could prove that it's hard to hold on to, and I think there are anthropologists who could tell you that there's an evolutionary reason that it's hard to hold on to. Like you can't linger on the savannah thinking about how great it was that that lion didn't get you, because there's another one behind another tree and you got to stay alert.

But I have had that same sense, that same crystalline awareness. And I've also experienced the fade. I've also experienced the return to the trivial. And I think maybe as we age, the best we could do is try to hold it for a little bit longer each time. Like hold the awareness, hold the gratitude. 

I have really specific memories of being—I was 36, I was in chemo and surgery and whatnot for a couple years there. And during that time, my husband, who was kind of new to me—you know, I got married when I was 32, and I was 36 when all this was happening—turned out to be a real prince. You know, he was kind of good at what we were going through. And then when it was over, he turned into a regular guy again. And he totally bugged me and I totally bugged him, and I remember thinking like, oh, right, we're just not going to be able to freeze these insights and keep them present with us. It's going to revert to the mean, behaviorally and emotionally. And so be it. Hold it lightly. But it's not a bad thing, I think, to have been ill early on and have access to the thing you described and the thing that that nurse was trying to underline for you. Which is: It's really hard to feel your life. It's really hard to remember how much you want to be here.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I do find this really interesting because you've written four memoirs, all of them bestsellers, about family life. And at the same time, in Kelly Corrigan Wonders, you seem really fascinated by exploring big, sometimes abstract ideas. Tell me about your fascination with these very big, consequential ideas. 

Kelly Corrigan

I mean, I think that it's important to be able to toggle between the moves in your individual life and the state of society. I mean, part of what I'm doing is trying to make your listening or viewing or reading minutes actually worth it. Like, the thing that you and I are asking for when we put stuff out there is attention. And what could be a more exquisite currency than attention? I mean, in this world, where there is so much coming at you, to ask for that is like asking for someone's soul. I mean, you are asking for the most precious thing that they've got. And what I'm thinking all the time—when I'm going to these larger abstract places, I'm leaving the poet laureate of the ordinary space and going into something more societal—is how can I be worth your minutes of attention? How could I tell you something or reveal something or elicit something from another person that would actually make you feel at the end of the experience: That was definitely worth my time. Because that's the thing I want people to say. I want people to say, I'm so glad I listened to that, I watched that, I read that.

Elaine Appleton Grant

What does it feel like for you when it's clicking?

Kelly Corrigan

When I'm saying something I haven't said before or when I know that they are saying something they haven't said before. A really hard thing about interviewing people who have been interviewed a lot is that they have go-to sound bites. They have their greatest hits. They're really good at telling them. I mean, listen, I've done four national book tours. When I go to present a new book, I have my greatest hits. I develop a story and I tell the story, town to town. Therefore, the juiciest part of any reading is Q&A. Because something can happen that hasn't happened before. 

And ironically, you can be interviewing someone who's been interviewed a lot. You know they're giving you their greatest hits because you've done all your preparation. You can't get them off it. It's very disappointing. I feel like I'm failing. And yet, some other part of you is like, this is gonna be a good episode. For people who haven't listened to this person on 10 other podcasts, they're gonna love this. Because the person's really good. Like, they've really got their razzle dazzle going. They have these great anecdotes. They know how to tell the story, beginning, middle, and end. They've got a punchline. They know when to stop talking. You know, there's an expertise that develops in guesting, and so it's like both parts of me are hyperaware. The disappointed part of me that's like, I'm not getting anything fresh. We're not off script. And—people are going to like this. It's interesting content. They're a really good talker. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

What's an example of one of your episodes, that you just think of off the top of your head, just an intuitive hit, where somebody told you they hadn't said something before, or you found yourself saying something you hadn't said before? 

Kelly Corrigan 

I mean, 90 percent of the time, something like that happens. Like it's happening right now. I have never talked about this very specific problem that I often have before on a microphone. I've told my husband about it, you know—when I finish an interview, he's like, how'd you do? I’m like, I couldn't get them off their talking points. And you know, the more professional they are…Samantha Power is a great example. So Samantha Power is the head of USAID. She was the UN ambassador under Obama. She's a great thinker. She won a Pulitzer for her writing. She's devoted to making the world a better place. She's one of the most impressive people I've ever met. And she's constricted by her job. Like, she has a big public job where there's people who work for her who cover her press and they want to talk to me beforehand and they want to make sure it's going to stay on the rails and we're going to cover this and cover that and I nod along. 

And, you know, I will satisfy the requirements, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop there. And then the other thing about somebody like Samantha, or Pete Buttigieg, or even Bryan Stevenson, is their time is constrained. So it's not like this luxurious situation where I can spend an hour and a half with Samantha Power—like, I'm between meetings for her in the middle of a huge day where she's going to be coming up with money for Darfur and giving policy position suggestions to Biden on Syria and, and, and, and, and.

Elaine Appleton Grant:

And so getting the best version of the scripted celebrity—the razzle dazzle—is fine. If that's the best that can happen. But honestly, “fine” is disappointing. Kelly wants more. She wants the human story. But with Samantha Power, could she get there? 

Maybe...because of the way she got Samantha to come on to the show in the first place. Kelly tried the proper channels. Nothing doing for months. Then, her daughter Claire went to college. And on her bookshelf in her new dorm room was Harry Potter, and Samantha Power's memoir. Kelly wrote an essay about letting go of her youngest daughter for the New York Times, and mentioned that bookshelf. Samantha Power's friends said to her, hey, that college kid has your book—and Samantha reached out on Instagram to Kelly. Now, they had a human connection, and Samantha said yes. Without even trying, Kelly's daughter, Claire, had created a little thread of a bond between them. 

Kelly Corrigan

We're in her office and I was feeling like there was a possibility that we could get off the talking points. Because I really liked her as a person and she really liked me. So, anyway, I could feel that there was an opening. And that's like a lesson in interviewing. How you time the three questions you're slightly afraid to ask, because they might answer, or they might not. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Yeah. 

Kelly Corrigan

And the thing about Samantha Power that I think is kind of meaningful is that she and her mother and her family left her father and moved to America without him because he had a terrible drinking problem. And he died, in Ireland, without them, in her bedroom. And I know it because I read her book. She's done the hard work of sharing it. And she's put it into the context of her life. And so it should be okay to ask. It's not like I heard a secret about her. But it made me wonder if that's where her compassion comes from, and her ability to hold complexity. Which is to say, if you're a woman trying to raise kids, you gotta do what's right for your kids. And also, it will be very hard for all involved. And also, it might torture you to think about your father in Ireland. And also, it's very poignant that he died in your bedroom. And also, it might cause you a lifetime of chronic back pain, which she had mentioned.

Clip from Tell Me More

Kelly Corrigan: So in your memoir, you shared some really personal stuff about panic attacks, which I've had a few myself, and back pain, and many miscarriages. You also said that you did some therapy. What did you learn in therapy that's useful information for the rest of us?

Samantha Power: Well, back pain is often not simply back pain. 

Kelly Corrigan: Yeah, yeah. 

Samantha Power: What I learned about myself is that I was carrying around a lot of unresolved questions about my own childhood, about loss. I was carrying a lot of guilt that I didn't even know I was carrying. I was a very self aware and introspective person, and then once I went in and someone who knew what they were doing really started to probe, it just all kind of—and just purging that and understanding the role it was playing, I think was very cathartic, but also helped me understand why I was drawn to war zones and bad boys, and all the rest. So I credit that deep dive into myself with much more of a sense of peace now, at this stage of my life. So I feel really, really lucky. 

Kelly Corrigan

And I thought, now the whole interview will be received in a different way. Because before, she's this superstar that you're like, she should win a Nobel Prize. And now she's a human being who is also a superstar who should win a Nobel Prize. But if you don't—if you can't get that part of it in there, there's just a separation for most people. They're listening and they're like, I can't even with this woman. Like, she's so smart, she's so accomplished, she's so devoted. I can't relate. And then all of a sudden, she became a person. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

On every episode, I ask a guest to share an episode of their show that they either loved or found challenging to make. Kelly shared an interview with Dr. Helen Fisher. She's a biological anthropologist, she's a sex and relationships expert, and she's chief science advisor to Match.com. If you've taken a personality quiz on a dating website, it's probably the one she wrote. When it comes to love, she's ubiquitous. 

Here's a taste of Helen Fisher, telling Kelly about the research she conducted on the love lives of millennials. 

Clip from Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Helen Fisher: They're very serious. I'm crazy about the new—I mean, I call them the new Victorians, because they're less sexual, they're extremely interested in career. They're a very earnest lot, the young are today. I'm very impressed with them.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Given that she's been interviewed over and over again, how could Kelly get something fresh and valuable? The key came down to the unusual way she and her producer, Tammy Stedman, would frame the episode. I played Kelly's own introduction back to her. 

Clip from Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Kelly Corrigan: Welcome to Kelley Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan and today I'm wondering about relationships. Love. Romance. Sex. And how intellectual humility might make all those things much better. Whether it's a first date with someone you just met on the internet, or a 25-year debate with a spouse you've been with since college, I'm wondering how can we show up in a more open, flexible, and humble way?

Elaine Appleton Grant

She's been interviewed a lot. And her information is interesting, but I think most of the interviews that have been done with her have been far more literal. Tell me what you know about personality matching. Tell me what you know about staying in love. You found this other way in, talking about intellectual humility. What is intellectual humility? What got you interested in that?

Kelly Corrigan

So we got interested in intellectual humility because it was a topic that came up through the Greater Good Science Center. Do you know the Greater Good Science Center? It's at UC Berkeley, and it's trying to use social science to educate the public on how to improve our own wellbeing. The idea, which felt so timely, given the state of American conversation, was, what would happen in every arena and relationship in your life if you were constantly aware of this one thing: All knowledge is partial?

And that's the heart of intellectual humility, which is—I don't know things and if I knew everything there was to know, I could reach a state of conviction. Short of that, I should be more curious than convicted. So I was loving the idea. I was loving the potential of circulating that idea. I mean I've done 400 interviews in the last couple years between PBS and the podcast.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Wow.

Kelly Corrigan

I know. It's a lot. Of every one of the ideas that has come through those conversations, intellectual humility has been the most sticky.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I wanted to know how Kelly makes editorial decisions, and who she's making them with. Is it a sizable team? How much does she rely on her producer, Tammy Stedman? It turns out, it's a lot. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So let me break down the process a little bit. Because I'm really interested, having spent a lot of time in newsrooms and those editorial meetings where it's like, oh, we could do this, or we could do that, or no, that's a really bad idea…Take me through—you hear about intellectual humility, you get kind of hooked on the idea. Then—I'm equally interested in the ideas that make it to air and the ideas that—no, it just doesn't meet the bar for one of these big consequential ideas. Who's saying, yes, we should do it?

Kelly Corrigan

We've been at it together for, you know, two years now. And she tells me. It's only the two of us. We don't cast a wide net. We don't equivocate too long. We make quick decisions. And we produce so much content that not any given episode we're gonna gnash our teeth over.

So anyway, if Tammy says it's a good idea, we do it. If Tammy says she thinks the guest will work, we do it. If she doesn't, we just move on. I trust her completely. Whatever she says, I'll do.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Is there one that you proposed? You said we should do this big idea or this particular guest and she was like, no?

Kelly Corrigan

Where we part is that I could probably just talk to professors all day long. I love the way they talk. I like how articulate and specific they are in their communications. I like the detail that they bring to the conversation. I like how careful they are. They don't speak in bromides and idioms. They say something very true and proven rather than snappy and Instagram-ready. 

And she curbs that a little bit. She likes story. She's like, I want to meet a person and hear their story from top to bottom. And that's how you end up with a Samantha Power type episode. And that's how you end up with Helen, who gets into all of it. She'll tell you the whole story of her relationship. She'll tell you how they have two apartments, they don't live in the same place. She'll tell me about how she still goes out for girls’ night. Like, she gets personal, because that's where information lands for people. It lands in the context of a person and their life.

Clip from Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Helen Fisher: And so we have two apartments. We both live in New York. I live in Manhattan. It's a small apartment, but it's right next to Central Park and it works. And he’s got a big apartment in the Bronx, and I've got my own room in that apartment. But we go back and forth. And what's nice about it is two nights a week I go out with my girlfriends. Tonight I'm going out to an art exhibit and out to dinner with a couple of women, and tomorrow night I'll probably go to the theater. And he loves to sit at home and eat pizza and read, and nobody's cheating on anybody.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I had a kind of tough question I wanted to pose to Kelly. Because, frankly, I thought this interview with Helen Fisher really hit its stride about a third to halfway in. But that at first, it was sort of a barrage of information from Helen. Take a listen to a clip from the early part of this interview. I wonder if you'll hear what I mean.

Clip from Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Helen Fisher: And of course they're getting their education and that takes many, many years. A lot of them are going to graduate school and they want to put a career together before they settle down. And they think they've got enough time, and they're enjoying their youth instead of settling right into marriage and family.

Divorce probably plays a role. World political instability probably plays a role. Actually, I think that a lot of the instability—certainly the pandemic—is driving them to settle down earlier, not later. 

Kelly Corrigan: Wasn't there some huge jump in one of the questions you asked before the pandemic and after the pandemic?

Helen Fisher: Yes, absolutely. And thank you for—you're wonderful, you're prepared. I really appreciate it. Yes, we ask about 200 questions. And this is a trend question. And right before the pandemic, in 2019, I asked the question: Would you like to meet somebody who wants to marry?

Elaine Appleton Grant

So as I was getting ready for this interview, I put a question out on LinkedIn and I said, what are your biggest problems with interviews? If you could ask one question, what do you want to know? And this guy, Frank Racioppi, who writes a Medium column about podcasts, said, you know, there's a tension often between hosts and guests where the guest—they flood you with information. And, of course, the host does not really want that, because it's very hard to edit, it's not that interesting, et cetera. And my sense was that that's what Helen was doing right from the get go. She's a character, but she was like, let me tell you this data and these statistics and this number—and very fast, and she doesn't take a breath. Was that your sense? 

Kelly Corrigan

I don't remember it that way at all. I got such a kick out of her and I admired her so much for her—I mean, I just loved her energy. I thought, this is amazing. God, if I am 77 years old and have this much juice and this much enthusiasm for my work—yahoo, you are my new role model.

But the other, the other thing—I mean, that goes to how much time you set aside for the interview.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Oh, yeah.

Kelly Corrigan

Because things get better! People can't stay in that state for very long. So they kind of wear themselves out in the first 20 minutes, and then they start to slow down and then they'll tell you a little bit more, and then they kind of forget a little bit—you know, they kind of let go of their stance, their professional stance, and that’s the advantage of having an hour instead of a half an hour.

Elaine Appleton Grant

And what you did is very interesting. She remarks, she says, wow, you're so prepared. What do you think this says about the sort of state of most interviews?

Kelly Corrigan

There's so much slop. There's so much slop I can't get over it. There's such low barriers to starting a podcast that you just really don't have to have any practice or any preparation or any particular expertise to just flip on the mic and start yakking. 

When I'm doing it, I'm thinking: What podcasts drive me bananas and what podcasts am I so grateful for? So that my own tastes, to some degree, are telling me whether it's working. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Mm-hmm. 

Kelly Corrigan

So that's who I'm producing for, is people who have the same criteria and taste that I do. And that's plenty of people. I don't need to talk to everybody. You know, neither do you.

Elaine Appleton Grant And so tell me: A lot of people were like, how do you prep? What's enough prep? What's too much prep? 

Kelly Corrigan

Well, there's a lot of information about Helen that's readily available. I like to listen because I like to get their rhythm in my head. I like to hear their voice. I like to hear how long their average answer is. I like to hear if they're an um-uh stutterer, restarter, or if they're pretty smooth, top to bottom, from the beginning of a sentence to the end of a sentence. So that's my favorite way. And then at some point I'm kind of dumping things into a Google doc, and then the kind of last thing I do is just thin that out and try to really see—if a person listening was going to get three things out of this, what would I want them to get? 

But my big advantage, that I'm so surprised more people don't do, is that at the end of every episode, long after the recording and the edit, I give the listener my takeaways. And there's often 8, 10, 12 things that—either they explained something that I understood, but they explained it in such a memorable way that it helped it really click in for me and become memorable. I would put an aha in a takeaway list. I would put a stat that's really impacted me in a big way. I'm assuming that everybody listening is hustling around as much as I am. Like there's no way that anyone's sitting there listening and entirely focused on what you're saying with a pen and a pencil in their hand. So I'm trying to give that to them at the end, which is: Here's my takeaways. And then every Wednesday we email out our takeaways to our listeners. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Is there too much prep? Is there a way to do too much?

Kelly Corrigan

Yes, especially for PBS, because it's extremely costly to shoot a PBS episode. There's a crew of ten people. We often have to go somewhere. I just shot one in Boston on Monday. They're setting up—you know, lights, camera, action. We have four camera shoots. Like, it's a very elaborate production. And because of that, I feel I'm overpreparing because I—it's hanging on me so much, whether it works or not. And there's no reshooting. And so because the stakes are higher—much, much higher than recording a podcast, I feel that drives me to to show up with like 18 pages, which is just terrible. Like you should have a page.

On the flip side, almost every single time I do an interview, there's something that surfaces the very day of the interview that makes it into the final cut and makes it way better. And I don't know what that is. It's like serendipity. It's like that last peek at their book or the—I'm flipping through and something catches my eye. Or it might be some kind of subconsciousness on my part, where I'm looking for the big pieces and then by the time the morning of comes, I'm more open to something small but meaningful. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Yeah, give me an example.

Kelly Corrigan

I didn't know that Bryan Stevenson played the piano until the morning of the shoot. And him playing the piano is such an important part of every day of his life. Here's another thing I didn't know, that came up the morning of the shoot. 150 guys on death row have his cell phone number. That's who they call. He's like their family. He's their brother. He's their priest. He's their father. He's their son, if they're really old. So you think about what it would feel like to be carrying 150 people's fate, and then you think about how much you would need to play piano. Like to step away from all that and to make something beautiful and to be alone inside a cloud of music. And it just was—to me it was this incredible unlock of these two disparate pieces of information that to me seem so related.

Elaine Appleton Grant

So what did you do?

Kelly Corrigan

I went right there. I brought it right up with him. And then amazingly, on the set where we were shooting, there was a baby grand piano. And between shots, he went over, and I was like, would you like to play piano? Would that be relaxing for you? And he's like, I would love to. So he's playing the piano. Then all the cameramen are turning towards him. And so it's actually a beautiful part of the episode, is when I'm asking him about it, we cut to the B roll of him playing piano on a break.

Clip from Tell Me More

Bryan Stevenson: When I play the piano, it's the one thing that takes me out of my head. It's just fully engaging. So I love being able to kind of just step out of my life, into this world of music. And I'm curious about every piano I see. It's a bad, bad habit, but I want to know. What does that one sound like? And what does that one sound like?

Kelly Corrigan: You just have to touch every piano you pass. 

Bryan Stevenson: I just feel like it's saying something. I want to hear what it's saying. 

Kelly Corrigan: Bryan, Bryan, come over. 

Kelly Corrigan

And you know, it was like the most special thing that happened, and it's not in any other Bryan Stevenson interview. And that's how you differentiate from 60 Minutes or CBS Sunday Morning, or whoever else has interviewed Bryan Stevenson, which is pretty much everybody. I mean, I'm sure he's been interviewed 1,000 times.

Elaine Appleton Grant

And so you have to be open. I mean, there's a skill there, right? I can think of how I would describe that skill, which may be so intuitive it doesn't feel like a skill, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. How would you describe that?

Kelly Corrigan

Well, I mean, if you want to start a podcast because you want to make money or get famous, there are better ways. If you want to start a podcast because you want permission to pursue your curiosities, there you are. This is the right job for you.

The purest motivation for podcasting is to have permission to pursue your own curiosities. And if it exists, I think it will be very evident to the listeners. And if it doesn't, and you're just kind of into like—playing the game and telling people at cocktail parties you have a podcast, or the 19 other reasons why people do this, I think that too will be evident.

Elaine Appleton Grant

When you're curious, when you're observant, you've sort of gotten to that point where you've done all the hard tactile research, it's down on paper—something does shift and you notice things. You're open to it. Like, I don't think serendipity happens just because it's woo woo. You're open to noticing.

Kelly Corrigan

Like the worst interviews—everyone knows this. But the worst interviews are where it's like, I have my 18 questions and I gotta ask my 18 questions. I can't really veer from this. So someone will say something somewhat fascinating, with a couple different openings where you could dive back in and take it a little further, and then they'll say, interesting. So my next question is—and it's like, oh my God, don't leave that on the table. That's where the action is.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

Okay, so: lightning round questions. Are you a person who is so curious and interested in the world that you just want to do everything?

Kelly Corrigan

Yes. I mean, Tammy has this terrible job, which is, uh oh. She went on a train ride and now she has 14 ideas. You know? There are certain environments that are super rich for me in terms of generating ideas. Like, God help me if I go to some kind of thing. I went to Aspen Ideas and I came home with 14 different collaborations that I wanted to do with 14 different people, and Tam's like, okay, let's write them down. Let's try to put them in order. Let's see how much they're going to cost. 

So—yes. I have so many things I want to do. I want to make a movie. I want to make a musical. I want to do a live conference. I want to go on tour. Everything.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Do you have a dream guest for Kelly Corrigan Wonders or Tell Me More who you have not talked to yet?

Kelly Corrigan

I mean, I have tons. Michelle Obama, Dave Chappelle. I also have dream collaborators. I would love to have a different co host each week. So I interviewed Dan Harris, I interviewed Krista Tippett, I interviewed Rainn Wilson. All those guys were just so fun to talk to and we’re so spiritually aligned that it made me want to work with them again. I often have that feeling. Which is, I can't wait to interview you again, or I can't wait to do another thing with you, a live event, or whatever it might be.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Kelly, thank you so much for all your time and such fascinating answers. It's just been such a delight.

Kelly Corrigan

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Elaine Appleton Grant

At the end of every episode, I give you some takeaways. Here are today's. You’ll find more in our Substack newsletter, also called Sound Judgment.

1. The thing we are asking for when we put our podcast, our book, our speech, our film out there is attention. And there is no more exquisite currency than attention. So how can we reveal something, or elicit something from our guest, that will make the listener feel like the time they spent with us was worth it? That’s Kelly’s guiding principle.
2. Carefully time the three questions you’re a little afraid to ask. Don’t ask your toughest ones first—and feel for the opening, like Kelly did with Samantha Power.
3. The purest motivation to start a podcast is to follow your curiosity. When it’s there, it’s evident to the listener. And it’s evident when it’s not there.
4. Kelly knows when an interview is going great when she’s saying something she hasn’t said before. Or when she knows that her guest is saying something they haven't said before.

Measure Your Podcast (39:55-45:00)

Elaine Appleton Grant: And now, I'm excited to share part three of my series with Paul Riismandel of Signal Hill insights. Storytellers, he’s helping you—and me—clearly understand whether we're succeeding with our listeners and how we can serve them better. You need to hear this, because his information will lead to more renewals, and also more new launches if you serve clients.

Paul, it’s great to see you. Welcome back.

Paul Riismandel: Thank you. I’m glad to be back.

Elaine Appleton Grant: It just so happens that this episode is the end of this season of Sound Judgment. Now, we’ve already decided, Sound Judgment is coming back in January, so I’m doing another season. But can I actually measure what content my listeners like and want more of, and what to leave out—or what new content to add?

Paul Riismandel: Absolutely. So once you’re surveying a listener, you ask them questions about that content and how they feel about it. If you’re doing this where you’re just asking them in the program, or asking them on social media, you don’t always know exactly what they’ve heard, but when we do a branded content lift study, then we can know exactly what listeners heard, because we’ve ensured they’ve listened to a specific episode of the series.

Elaine Appleton Grant: What would you say the top two or three most important questions are to ask?

Paul Riismandel: I mean, you definitely want to ask, “Did the podcast hold your attention? Did you learn something?” And, “was it entertaining? Did you like the host?” And then you can also ask questions about the content in general. You can give people a bunch of statements and say, “It was boring. Do you agree with that? It was just okay. It was better than other podcasts.” Right? And you want to ask both positive and negative, even though we don’t love to hear the negative, but maybe that is a warning sign, right? And maybe folks said, “yeah, I learned something, but it was a little dry. It was more instructional rather than entertaining.”

Elaine Appleton Grant: Tell me more about how to measure what matters when it comes to generate word of mouth.

Paul Riismandel: You can ask people, “Would you recommend it?” They’ll tell you. Folks don’t want to recommend things they don’t like. So we ask those questions, as well as we ask questions like, “Would you listen to another episode? Will you come back? Was the content compelling enough to drive you to say, “Hey, no, I want another episode of this podcast.”

Elaine Appleton Grant: How big a budget do I need to engage a research firm on a listener study?

Paul Riismandel: The first thing I’m going to say is to think about the research as part of the budget. Just as you would budget for some labor, or if there’s going to be travel involved, think about the research as part of that. So, generally speaking, if your overall budget is in six figures, now you start being in a range where you can build in this sort of branded podcast lift survey. So build it in so that you know you’ll be delivering it and you’re ready to answer those questions at the end.

Elaine Appleton Grant: Gotcha. And just to clarify, we’re talking about a six-figure budget to produce the podcast overall. 

Paul Riismandel: Correct.

Elaine Appleton Grant: What’s one piece of advice for creators who don’t have six-figure budgets.

Paul Riismandel: Think about it in advance. What are the objectives for this content? Why does it exist? What do you hope listeners get from it. And then two, what does the brand want to get out of it? Or the sponsor? What do they want to get out of it? And think about how might I answer those questions?

Elaine Appleton Grant: Just for fun, Paul…How could I study whether my listeners like this new research segment of Sound Judgment?

Paul Riismandel: Well, you could give them a survey. You could ask them to email you. Often, if you want to increase your survey responses or emails, you can incentivize people. The incentives can be that you are going to answer them. That maybe you’re going to tally up the responses and you’ll report back on what listeners think about it all. And sometimes, you have something to give away. It could be a chance at something. It doesn’t have to be a one for one. But maybe there’s some listeners who would love to win a little consult with you.

Elaine Appleton Grant: Ohh. I like that. That’s a great idea. And Paul, where can listeners go to get more information?

Paul Riismandel: We really think research gets you to yes. So we hope to get you to yes, maybe bigger yeses, and really get to that renewal. So we’ve set up a special email newsletter just for this topic, for measuring branded content. So go over to measureyourpodcast.com. Completely free. We just want to help you learn how to measure the impact of what you make so that you get to make more.

Elaine Appleton Grant: And I’ve learned quite a bit from measureyourpodcast.com. What I’ve always appreciated about you, Paul, is that you’re very educational, and I know everyone will feel the same way.

Paul Riismandel: Thank you. I just love podcasts, and I want to help everyone who’s making them.

Elaine Appleton Grant

That’s all for today—and all for this season. We're taking a short break for the holidays. We'll be back with a new season in January. 

Thanks to my guest, Kelly Corrigan. Follow both of her shows—the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders and the PBS TV show Tell Me More. You’ll find the links, plus links to her books, in our show notes.

If you liked this episode, you'll love my conversation with Laura Joyce Davis. That episode— pulling apart her fun, touching show Shelter in Place—was Season 1, Episode 5. Again, the link's in our show notes! If someone recommended Sound Judgment to you, please follow the show now—and please share this episode with one friend. 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies. If you’ve been looking for a listener-first, story-first production partner, get in touch. Our contact info is in our show notes and at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. We’d love to work with you. 

Sound Judgment is produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant. Audrey Nelson is our production assistant. Sound design and editing by Andrew Parrella. Podcast management by Tina Bassir. And gratitude to the rafts of producers, editors, sound designers and other team members behind every great story. Without you, the world would be a less beautiful place.