If you're going to have guests on your talk show, it's your job to make your guests look good. If people are watching you so and they think you're brilliant, but the guests are awful, that's a poor reflection on you. So it's your job to make the guests look good. You can do that in part by having nice introductions, by setting them up. And by asking questions that are interesting questions that allow them to really share their expertise. What you don't want to do is just go through a laundry list of questions, and that's what newbies do.

People who are inexperienced or nervous, they're like, Oh, I want to be really prepared. I don't want to forget anything. So they sort of go in with a whole list. Now it's okay to write a list. It's okay to frame your thoughts that way. It's okay to be reading the list before the show.

It's even okay to have it on the set somewhere but when you are talking You need to be looking at that guest. It's got to be a real conversation. So don't ask really, really long winded questions. Don't ask questions that are really just designed to make you look smart. And as venues for you to get your opinions out, let the spotlight shine on the guests get there are exceptions. As I mentioned bill o'reilly.

He'll ask long winded questions sometimes. And quite often, the guest is there just to serve as a punching bag for him So Bill O'Reilly can get his views out that works for him. He is the number one rated news show on all of cable news and sometimes all of cable TV. So I'm not knocking that style but but that is more of an unusual style. You've got to make sure that's what you want. If you are doing the more traditional talk show, where you're just interviewing other people in your company or other people in your community or other people within your industry or your niche, the focus should be on the guests.

Now, if you're the host, you've got to really listen to what they're saying you can't be thinking about what's my next question. You have to be truly in the moment listening to that guest because when they say something interesting, you have to be a ha, and follow up, pull more out, you've got to be pulling interesting things out of your guests, making them look good, making them as interesting as possible, and turning it into a real conversation. That's what makes for an excellent host. And if your hosts are, excuse me, if your guest is floundering, or loses their train if you've got to hop in. So, you're the conductor of this whole thing. On the one hand, you got to think about when's the next break when we stop it for a commercial?

When does the show have to end Who's my next guest? What other questions do I have to follow? What am I going to say for my ending? And what's Mike, you got to be thinking about all these things. And that's what makes it hard and can fluster people initially. Because you've got to think, and you may have a bright light in your face, and a camera on you, you may have several cameras on you.

So it's just hard to think an environment like that. And that's why the more you do it, the less nervous you get, the better you get at it. All the things become more natural, but you've got to really give thought to helping your guests, making them comfortable bringing out the best in their ideas, covering for them if they're having an off day and all of a sudden they give you two word answers. You're somehow going to have to turn it into an interesting interview. So when you have guests on your show, you've got to focus on the guest and it's your job to pull out the most and to make them look good