I've interviewed a lot of people           

in my years as a creative consultant, and it never ceases to amaze me how
people come alive when someone shows genuine interest in their personal story.
It's as though they don't expect people to really find them interesting.
I can understand this.

 The people we share

  the dinner table or conference table with   most of the time have heard our stories   before, and may have grown accustomed to this amazing person who is their spouse, parent, boss, or employee.

But when a professional outsider like me is curious, listens intelligently, asks questions, and gets excited about the cool accomplishments and amazing discoveries each person has made just to cope with their challenges in life ... well, it's fun and it's exciting and it's encouraging to those who are being asked about their life. And it's equally fun and encouraging to me when I get to hear their story.

That's why I have the best job in the world.

One day I'm asking a Nobel prize winner how he stumbled onto the secret that made atomic clocks possible... which led to GPS and MRIs. And the next day I'm asking a house painter how he keeps his ceiling lines straight or what challenges he must face to be green and clean and lean and mean in business. So that's what I try to do every day:

Find someone's story, and help them tell it. Perhaps that means helping them see what's unique about their enterprise; more often it means helping audiences catch the wonder of it all.