Fireside Chat: Amazon Fishbowl with IN-Q

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Incredibly fun and soulful chat with IN-Q (National Poetry Slam champion and Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 trailblazer) talking about his new poetry book Inquire Within. We jammed about transformation, silence, unlearning, curiosity, and more. Grab the book, write notes, draw pictures, read poems out loud, turn the book sideways, and tell me if you find the Easter egg (listen to the last question)!

Watch our chat below via the Amazon Kindle Facebook page. Also, people have asked about the questions I prepared, in the spirit of transparency and to get better (let me know what other questions you recommend), I shared them below (after some fun photos, of course).

Author Fishbowl with In-Q

Lots of laughs during our chat.

Inquire Within has two parts “Inhale” and “Exhale” — view the cover art sideways and you see the interpretation.

IN-Q explaining the meaning behind the cover art and what the upside-down version symbolizes.

*clap* your hands and get moving.

Questions (in order):

1. What inspired you to write this poetry book?
2. The book has a unique feeling, some pages have illustrations, some pages are blank. Take us back to when you were writing the book, let’s start with the physical, where were you, what type of locations were you in? Mentally, what was your mindset during the process?
3. Which poem was the most difficult to write?
4. I found the poem titled “Metamorphosis” about a bird who fell in love with a fish, to be very vivid in the imagery. What was the inspiration?
5. In the poem titled “Silence” you insert a note that it took your whole life to write that poem. I thought it was powerful. Unpack it for us, why did it take the time it did? When did you discover it?
6. In the poem “Growing Up” you write that growing up is about learning, then unlearning, it’s about constructing, then deconstructing. What is something you had to unlearn?
7. When writing a poetry book, how do you know that the book is complete, that it is time to publish?
8. What was the inspiration for the book cover art?
9. Learn and Be Curious is one of our Leadership Principles, how do you stay curious?
10. What is your favorite failure and what did you learn?
11. What is the most interesting thing from the book we have not talked about?

Read it!