The premise: a multi-volume self-help book comprising interviews with a lot of successful people in and around my city. By successful I am not exclusively looking at financially successful people but people that have pursued and fulfilled their goals while having a positive effect on other people in the process. Could be a CEO, could be a priest, could be a boy scout.
Now, what I need help in is articulating the questions. So what would you want to know from a very successful person. I am trying to avoid yes/no questions...so please think open-ended questions.
I would first want to know what makes them successful. What makes a priest successful? What makes a boy scout successful? If you're talking to a particular CEO, but not about his/her financial success, then what...? Is defining success in this way just a matter of the individual believing they fulfilled their goals?
If the answer to that last question is "Yes", then I'd like to know things like "how did they stay on track with their goal?", "what obstacles got in their way and how did they handle them?"
In general, I would be interested in reading something more of a narrative about each person rather than a straight-forward interview.
Hope this helps!
-Adeena adeena@mignogna.org Author of "Cute Little Store: between the entrepreneurial dream and business reality"
How, if at all, has their background moulded them to the people they are today? Has (how?) their success affected their views of the world and the relationship with those around them? What has been the biggest change in their lives relating to their success? Do the achieved goals remain their ceiling in achievement or do their goals change with every step of success? Meaning... is that the end of the success road now that they have achieved set goals?