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Ever since I was younger, I would make table reads at home where I would give fake interviews.

We have a training period; we have certain guidelines and structure. You can't hire talented people and stifle them. That's not the way it works anymore.

I learn something in the interviews from time to time.

Most people have bosses who hire them to fill a slot in the work chart and to do what they are told. And most people who are doing what they are told feel safe; it feels reliable.

Too often, people get jobs based on who they know - not what they know.

They know that the column resonates in the community. They know that people like it, and yet they don't have room for one column once week that consistently got it right.

I've been giving interviews for the last 25 or 30 years, more often than not answering the same questions over and over again, ad nauseum.

You worked every day to earn what's on the table, literally. It was a week-to-week thing. And I wouldn't change it. I would not change it for anything.

Learning about and from your customers isn't always easy and requires a commitment to continual observation.

You do 1,000 interviews, 20 percent of every one is not what you said, or is twisted a little. If you multiply 20 by 1,000 you've got a lot of inaccuracies out there.