Lisa Carrington: The art of asking good questions

You get 90 unfiltered minutes to probe away at the life and career of New Zealand’s greatest-ever Olympian. What do you ask her?

The answer to that question determines our success. The ‘safe environment’ and good vibes we create help, but it’s the quality of questions that keep the listener coming back.

Popular long-form podcasts take many different forms. They range from no planning / free-form conversations (Joe Rogan) to an intricate order of structured questions (Tim Ferris). We like to land somewhere in between.

Lisa Carrington was one of our biggest guests. And despite working in NZ sports media for over 10 years – I felt like I’d never seen an interview that gave me a picture of ‘the real Lisa’.

So we needed a plan, and it involved digging. We reached out to her brother, her husband, her coach, and her teammates - and got as much info as we could, then we strategised.

We wanted to show Lisa’s human side, her sense of humour, quirks, and outlook on life and get her to tell some good non-kayak related stories. Then we wanted to contrast that with her non-human side.

That being the mindset of a winning machine - who has won five Olympic gold medals and 12 World Championships.

And by the time we got there, about 30 minutes in, the relationship built meant we got an extra layer of depth to our answers. And the questions here were specific - based on the most interesting areas gathered from our numerous sources.

In response to a question about mindset at the Tokyo Olympics Lisa gave one of the most captivating answers we’d ever heard. It involved dealing with anxiety, pressure and self-doubt and how she found that solution – expressed in an exceptionally articulate way.

The answer weirdly made me emotional (I’m still working through why 🤔).

But I like to think the quality of the answer(s) reflected the work we’d put in. When guests see how much it means to us, they pay it back double.

Yesterday a listener sent us the following feedback:

"Just finished the Lisa episode. That was a banger! You guys absolutely nailed the questions and it was super reassuring to know that even the best in the world have self doubt."

Great feedback, powerful takeaway.

Also, if there’s anyone who wants to know what It really takes to achieve Lisa’s level of success – she hasn’t missed a training in 13 years. No excuses. Hard work.

Let us know what you thought of the ep.