“On those wonderful occasions when I have the opportunity to speak with students, there’s one question that I can almost always count on: When you’re reporting on the awful things that happen to other people, how do you protect yourself emotionally and psychologically? The short answer is: I can’t and I don’t. And I wouldn’t really want to even if I could. I don’t mean to say that I wear my emotions on my sleeve during interviews, or that I don’t have any boundaries, but if I’m going to expect strangers to be completely vulnerable with me, I think it’s only fair that I make myself vulnerable, too. When I find myself in that rare and intimate interview space in which someone is willing to tell me anything, to wall myself off would be almost as bad as not listening. Quite often, the most important and honest thing that someone is trying to tell me is not a fact, but a powerful, life-defining feeling; if I’m not emotionally open, I might miss it entirely. To allow yourself to be vulnerable, you might say, is to listen with your heart.” Elliott Woods