Lessons In Listening From The Tattooist Of Auschwitz - Heather Morris - #227

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello, people in Podcast Land. Welcome back. My guest today is Heather Morris, international bestselling author of the worldwide phenomenon, The Tattooist Of Auschwitz. The process of creating that book involved Heather sitting down for a very, very long time, over years and years, and listening, focusing hard, being present, and cultivating a genuine skill of listening. And today, that is what we go through, using some fantastic examples, which really give a better insight into the process of writing The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, plus some wonderful examples from Heather's life when she was a young girl. There's some interesting points here to do with gender roles and just how much we've progressed since the 60s to the present day. There's also some really important takeaways here for how to be a better parent, brother, partner, whatever it might be, even just a member of society, by being a better listener, by focusing and being present and actually allowing other people to have their say and then caring about what it is that they say. In other news, the next couple of weeks of programming are absolutely mad, including Ali Abdaal, who is one of the UK's productivity experts who came first at med school in Cambridge, dropping all of his study and learning tips. The man himself, Daniel Sloss, Netflix special comedian and good friend of the show, is returning for his round two and that will be live this Monday. I've got Andrew Doyle coming back for another time, Massimo Piglucci for another time, the rearranged episode with Chris Voss, the ex-head of the FBI's negotiation division, Constantin Kissin from the Trigonometry podcast, Jay Morton from SAS Who Dares Wins, Seth Godin, Diana Rogers and Dr. Stuart McGill, all coming on within the next month. I guess, seen as I can't train or even walk still with the old single-angle problem, I might as well record some good podcasts, so that's what you're gonna get. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Heather Morris. I'm sure some of them will be familiar with your story, but can you tell us how you came to write The Tattooist Of Auschwitz?

**Heather Morris** (2:24)
Absolutely, because it's one of those crazy things that anyone in life can look for. And I guess the lesson here is when somebody asks you to do something, unless you've got a damn good reason for not doing it, then say yes. And I've learned that particularly from what happened with me and Lully, because I was having a coffee with a friend who I hadn't seen for many months. I'd been putting it off. And while we were casually having that cup of coffee one Sunday afternoon, she just casually said to me, I have a friend whose mother has just died, and his father has asked him to find somebody he can tell a story to. That person can't be Jewish. You're not Jewish. Do you want to meet him? I said, what's the story? And she said, I don't know. And I said, okay, then I'd love to.
So from having a cup of coffee, and saying yes to that, and then saying yes to meeting a stranger, The Tattooist Of Auschwitz came about.

**Chris Williamson** (3:19)
So what happened next?

**Heather Morris** (3:21)
Well, a week later, because that was a Sunday, and I worked full time.

**Chris Williamson** (3:24)
This was like 2004, was it?

**Heather Morris** (3:27)
2003, no, the end of 2003
And yeah, a week later, the following Sunday, I knocked on the apartment door of Lully Sokoloff, and he opened it, and he had a doggy the side of him. One of them was, well, she was big, about the size of an average small pony, and the other one was smaller than my cat. And he didn't even look at me. He just opened the door and muttered the word come, and he and the doggies turned around and disappeared. So I followed them in, and he just walked into a room, a lounge dining room, and he just pointed to the table and went, sit, and pointed to a chair. So I sat, and he and the doggies disappeared again. I'm getting a little bit unnerved here, as you can imagine. But a few minutes later, all three of them reappeared, with Lully bringing me the first of many, many bad cups of coffee.

**Chris Williamson** (4:22)
You didn't make a good coffee?

**Heather Morris** (4:24)
Never. I was so grateful when our relationship got to the point where we were now friends, and I could say to him, hey, how about we go out for coffee? Anything, to be able to get this coffee.

**Chris Williamson** (4:35)