If the bagged produce you bought is past the “sell by” date, is it safe to eat? What about the five-second rule? How dangerous is it to eat something you just dropped on the floor? Does cooking food to the point of charring it put you at greater risk for cancer? Those are just a few of the questions we tackle in this edition of Doing What Works. Our guest also happens to be our producer, Darrell, who’s been hosting a food and agriculture radio program (now called Farm to Fork) for almost twenty-five years.

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Want to learn more about Farm to Fork [https://northshoreproductions.com/]?

Your state’s land grant university has an extension program that, according to Darrell, is a great source of information about food safety [https://nifa.usda.gov/extension].

Have you heard the one about the adventure that only became an adventure because you started writing it down? When Darrell and I moved into an RV in the Pennsylvania wilderness, a friend back “home” in Minnesota wanted to hear everything. In real letters. By snail mail. When other friends wanted to hear everything, too, I started sending them copies. The fun of seeing their reactions to my latest is topped only by the thrill of writing it, and in this edition of Doing What Works we talk about the life-changing magic of jotting things down.

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Would you like to be on the mailing list for missives from the RV [ mailto: [email protected] ]? I’ve written four chapters of It’s All Downhill from Here so far: Hell, Frozen 2, A Series of Unfortunate (But Mostly Just Weird) Events, and Happy Campers.

Want a free copy of Do-Over: An Accidental Template for Scaling the Abyss? I’m happy to send you one [ mailto: [email protected] ]!

“No one cares about the stories they’re not in.” That’s from Matt Nathanson [https://www.songlyrics.com/matt-nathanson/last-days-of-summer-in-san-francisco-lyrics/].

“We want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth -- but not all at once.” That’s from Dr. Nick Morgan [https://publicwords.com/].

Dr. Jordan Peterson [https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson] says the human heart demands an adventure.

Richard Goldman’s decision to change careers and open a bookstore is chronicled in The Career Clinic: Eight Simple Rules for Finding Work You Love [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001UE88OK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0].

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.” That’s from Neil Gaiman [https://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-keynote-address-2012].

Back pain? This stretch [https://bodybyyoga.training/yoga-for-beginners/happy-baby-pose/] might help.

SWSWSW is often taught in sales training as a way of dealing with rejection. Some people will say yes, some people won’t, so what?

Are you afraid of making the wrong decision? What if there’s no such thing? That’s difficult to remember when the stakes feel high, but in this edition of Doing What Works we’ll share some tools that can help. Like approaching life as improv. Take your best guess, go all in, and say yes to whatever happens. You’ll have fun, and you’ll learn a lot. Promise!

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Need a burst of silly? This should do it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IUSM4EKcRI]!

Darrell and I know a little something about tight squeezes. And that’s why Katie and I are devoting an hour of the program to the importance of having your own space. Maybe it’s just a closet. Maybe it’s a corner of a bedroom. But we, all of us, need a “room” of our own. Even if it’s in an RV, or a cramped studio apartment that houses an entire family in a pandemic. In this edition of Doing What Works, we have a few suggestions that might be as life-changing as they appear at first glance to be trivial.

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Want an all-in-one desktop computer [https://buyersguide.org/laptops/t/pc-all-in-one?m=p&d=c&c=83356854647360&oid=kwd-83357201396569:loc-190&qs=all-in-one%20desktop%20computers&lp=112093&li=&nw=s&nts=1&tdid=9049364]?

“There will be time, there will be time,” T. S. Eliot says in one of Katie’s favorite poems [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock]. “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”

A friend once told Gretchen Rubin, “I cleaned out my fridge, and now I know I can switch careers.” Gretchen knew exactly what she meant [https://gretchenrubin.com/2015/03/do-you-have-things-that-you-dont-use-but-cant-toss-hobbits-do/].

Memento mori [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori]. Remember you will die. It will help you know how to live. Mitch Albom talks about the concept in Tuesdays with Morrie [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/571089-every-day-have-a-little-bird-on-your-shoulder-that].

Depending on the size of your community, it can be challenging to keep up with current events. Rob Blatt knows. He’s the founder of The Briefly, which Katie and I devour with more enthusiasm than breakfast. “Without local news you’re essentially lost one mile from your home,” Rob says. And in this edition of Doing What Works, you’ll find out what you really lose when a business closes, for example -- and what a community gains by even failed attempts to keep it open. Rob notices and appreciates where he lives, and in The Briefly he’s built a community of people who do the same.

Here are your show notes…

You don’t have to live in New York to find The Briefly [https://www.thebriefly.com/] fascinating!

The Briefly is a passion project for Rob Blatt [https://www.robblatt.com/].

The Grand Prospect Hall’s commercial is a classic. Want to take a look [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYDsZY3Ns-g]? Here’s a summary of the fight to save it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTHlTO0bEg].

It was in The Briefly that Katie discovered the Subway Social Club [https://www.instagram.com/subwaysocialclub/] -- “normalizing conversation on public transit” -- and now she and Subway Social’s Claire Feuer are friends. Hi, Claire!

Want the local news where you live [https://patch.com/]? Want to be a more informed voter [https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page]? Want a story about a baby goat that made its way to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway? Stick with the show all the way to the end for that one!

What if there was a switch you could flip that would make you less afraid? What if you just need more information to help you assess the risks you take? Can you know too much? We don’t pretend to have the answers in this edition of Doing What Works, but we’ll help you ask the right questions -- like whether the stories you tell yourself make you more or less afraid.

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“An anecdote is not evidence,” Seth Godin says [https://seths.blog/2021/10/life-by-anecdote/]. “But we often treat it that way.”

Happy City [https://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design/dp/0374168237], by Charles Montgomery, is about “transforming our lives through urban design.”

Don’t read I’ll Be Gone in the Dark [https://www.amazon.com/Ill-Be-Gone-Dark-Obsessive/dp/0062319787] in the dark!

Do you wonder how many crimes are being committed in your neighborhood? There’s an app for that [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/crime-and-place-the-crime-app/id1045488584].

Warren Buffett says you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/billionaire-warren-buffett-shares-indispensable-life-advice-he-learned-more-than-40-years-ago.html].

Dan Ariely’s book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty [https://www.amazon.com/Honest-Truth-About-Dishonesty-Everyone-Especially/dp/0062183613], describes the Simple Model of Rational Crime.

You don’t know what’s going to make you happy until you try it. The job or the relationship that looks good on paper may not feel so great at, say, ten o’clock on a Tuesday. That’s one reason to say yes to more things, so you can get a better feel for more things. Saying yes is a habit and a mindset. If you practice saying yes to smaller things with low stakes, you might find yourself more willing to take bigger risks. That’s what we hope to inspire in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Irresistible author Adam Alter [http://adamalterauthor.com/] was one of Katie’s professors at NYU Stern and “say yes” was his advice.

“I wish I might go back and do the little things you asked me to” is from a poem by Alice E. Chase [https://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/860.html] entitled “To My Grown-Up Son.”

Saying “yes” (and “yes, and”) is a rule of improv [https://medium.com/the-improv-blog/the-first-rule-of-improv-is-yes-and-30e5954240d6].

“If you can’t imagine any other explanation for a set of facts, it might be because you are bad at imagining things.” That’s from Dilbert creator Scott Adams [https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays].

“Marriage is a big bet. It’s the only bet of its kind, one in which you say, ‘This feels right; I think I’ll change everything.’” That’s from Jerry Seinfeld [https://www.today.com/popculture/seinfeld-turns-25-read-jerrys-best-real-life-lines-1D79884423].