Charles Kuralt was the first person I ever heard say, “Everyone has a story.” 

I knew he was right.

When I was growing up, I religiously watched Kuralt’s CBS “Sunday Morning Show,” and Charles Kuralt was always right.

He wasn’t showy or self-important about it, either. Every Sunday Kuralt and his team would merely hop into their white and slightly beat-up recreational vehicle, drive to some part of America, and get people talking. How? Kuralt’s team—after pulling into Midlothian, Virginia or Allentown, Pennsylvania or Cascadia, California or wherever—would go “high-tech.” They pulled over to the nearest gas station, grabbed a telephone directory, opened it to a random page, threw a dart, and then went to find that person on the receiving end of the dart’s sharp point.

And it didn’t matter whether that dart hit the name of a bank president or a baker, the name of a waitress, a welder, or a well-known writer. Once he found them, Kuralt could look people in the eye, put them immediately at ease, and then ask them that one question that got them talking, the one question that made all the difference.

It was that simple.

When I came to Houston in 1972, I entered the field of executive recruiting and flourished in that business for the next twenty years. What made me successful was the knowledge—taught to me by Charles Kuralt and his wry smile—that everyone has a story. That each story is compelling, fascinating, riveting. That to access that story, to unlock it like an old trunk full of secrets and surprises, you merely need to ask the right questions.

At The Powell Company, we know that your story is important to you and even more important to your children and grandchildren.

That’s why—at The Powell Company—we always ask the right questions.

Videographer Jeanie Powell, a Dallas native, came to Houston in 1972 and spent 20+ years in the personnel recruiting industry.  That's where she learned to interview.  That's where she learned that everyone has a story.