How to Ask a Stranger for an Interview

From the archives: 5/7/2008

Mr. Godin,

I would like to interview you for a documentary I am compiling exploring the evolution of purpose (personal, social, technological).  Actually, I would be ecstatic honored and quite possibly wet my pants if you said yes to an interview for my film.  It’s working title at the moment is “Life in Perpetual Beta“.  We have an interesting line-up of creatives, techies, life coaches, authors etc. that we are interviewing [ Sidney Levy, Nova Spivak, Dan Pink to name a few].  I think that your personal style would really kick ass and fit with our message. (ala Dan Pink “there is no plan” or Yoda “there is no try only do”  – how social networking and collaborative economy is changing the shape of society and shifting the way we think about work).  It may turn out to be the irreverent whorish bastard child of “the secret” with a heart of gold, thus making it world famous or it may just be another blurb that gets put up on Youtube, but all the same, I’d love to get a few moments of your time to interview you.  Please do let me know if you would grant me the honor of an interview.

In gathering information for Life in Perpetual Beta the book (common’ you knew it was coming) I looked through my old interview pitch emails. I didn’t know Seth Godin from Adam at the time to tell you honestly, but my tribe told me I had to have him, so I made an impassioned plea… was even ready to pee my pants… then had the audacity to mention honor… still hard to believe, I did eventually get the interview, You can see it here.