Topaz Adizes: How to Heighten Intimacy With the Questions We Ask

The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

If you’re feeling “stuck” in your relationships, asking new kinds of questions can be a powerful way forward. This week Andrew talks with filmmaker and author Topaz Adizes about starting conversations that lead to a deeper, more authentic connection.

Andrew and Topaz discuss Topaz’s new book, 12 Questions for Love, and highlight the importance of:

• Cultivating genuine curiosity.
• Asking open-ended questions.
• The “connective question”, which draws both the asker and the responder into a shared experience.
• Creating the right space to ask deeper questions.
• The difference between a question with an agenda, and a question with an intention.

Topaz Adizes is an Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and experience design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary fellow and Sundance/Skoll stories of change fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and SXSW; featured in New Yorker magazine, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times; and have garnered an Emmy for new approaches to documentary and Two World Press photo awards for immersive storytelling and interactive documentary. He is currently the founder and executive director of the experience design studio The Skin Deep. Topaz studied philosophy at UC Berkeley and Oxford University. He speaks four languages, and currently lives in Mexico with his wife and two children.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Three things Topaz Adizes knows to be true.
• How To Be More Vulnerable.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

For more about The Skin Deep, visit TheSkinDeep.com.

To learn more about Topaz Adizes and his work, visit TopazAdizes.com.

Follow Topaz Adizes and The Skin Deep on Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube and Facebook.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life.