Dying To Ask

"Maxxing" is having a moment. But should it be?

The maxxing trend refers to taking a part of your life and trying to optimize it.

There are maxxing trends for working out, personal finances, and improving your looks.

Maxxing has blown up because of Instagram and TikTok, where influencers are sharing their hacks and sometimes their products encourage others to maxx out.

The trend is so popular that Dictionary.com named "maxxing" its 2026 word of the year. But does maxxing actually work as a self-improvement tool?

It depends.

And that's why some are saying it's more gimmick than a game plan and that true personal change might be better achieved without the internet hype.

In this episode, we're asking whether it might be more effective to focus on one area of self-improvement versus trying to maxx out in multiple areas at once. We're calling the anti-max movement: enoughing!

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You wouldn't think gratitude needs a rebrand. But Jamie Hess says a lot of people are missing the point.

Jamie is a personal brand expert, professional development coach and producer and host of the Gratitudeology podcast.

Jamie says many are confusing toxic positivity with gratitude.

"I mean, at the end of the day, gratitude is a muscle. Just like you can't go to the gym once and expect to have biceps, you can't write three things in a gratitude journal and expect that to last you through the hard times," says Jamie.

You also may have watched Jamie grow up on TV. Her mom is TV journalist Joan Lunden. Jamie admits she led a privileged life early. But that doesn't mean it was easy . She battled addiction in her 20s and over the years went from party girl to role model online.

Her new book "The Gratitude Shift" is an A to Z guide to resetting your mindset and reframing your life.

"Resilience isn't built in life's biggest moments. It's built in thousands of tiny decisions to do hard things."

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I thought there had to be a mistake. Oprah and I are finalists for a major podcast award.

The Signal Awards named Dying to Ask a finalist for Best Video Podcast Host. I reread the list and then asked my longtime KCRA co-anchor Teo Torres to read it, too.

There, alongside names like Oprah, Monica Lewinsky and Anderson Cooper, was my name, Deirdre Fitzpatrick.

Bananas.

How did i end up there? Well, that's a funny story.

In this episode, Teo joins me for a conversation about the importance of dreaming big and why we tend to dream less when we get older.

And, if you’d like to cast a vote for Dying to Ask in the Signal Awards Listener’s Choice, please click here. Voting closes October 15.

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Want to expand your social network? Lace up your conversational running shoes.

Dr Ivan Misner is back with his latest book, "Networking is a Marathon, Not a Sprint."

Ivan is known as the "Father of modern networking," and he's sharing techniques to help you connect with people in meaningful ways that won't leave you feeling icky.

Ivan says you need think about building relationships and not making a transaction.

"Most people, because they're not taught, they go in doing it as a transaction. And look, even a blind squirrel can find a nut," says Ivan.

Trust is earned. It's not instant. But it doesn't have to be elusive either. Aim for deep connection and not just shallow interactions.  

Ivan walks us through easy ways to put yourself out there and network from a giver's mindset.   

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Think you have no time? Laura Vanderkam says you're fooling yourself.

Laura is one of the world's top experts on time and productivity.  She's a New York Times best-selling author of eight books on time management and host of the daily productivity podcast Before Breakfast.

Oh, and she has five kids which might be her biggest time management flex! 

Laura's TED Talk about changing your relationship with the clock has more than 10 million views.

"Anyone can create a perfect schedule. Real time management masters make a resilient schedule,” says Laura. 

Laura's most recent book, "Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance,"  is a blueprint to creating a life that lets you do things that feel big and enriching and ultimately create happiness.

Her latest research will help you uncover pockets of time you have no idea exist in your schedule. 

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What would change if you walked into every room believing you belonged there?

Traci Mitchell spent years as a television journalist covering Washington for Hearst Television stations across the country. In fact, she did live shots with me during our morning news 20 years ago.

She once did 68 live shots in a single day, appeared on House of Cards and landed an interview with Oprah Winfrey that changed how she looked at herself.

Traci left TV news for personal reasons and found herself in need of a major reinvention. That reinvention let to some serious negotiation...with herself.

Today, she is a speaker, coach, storytelling expert, author and negotiation strategist. Her message is simple: The most important negotiation you will ever have is the one you have with yourself.

Traci says women are often taught to be prepared for rejection, but not always prepared for success. That can make it difficult to ask for the promotion, negotiate the salary or accept a compliment without minimizing our accomplishments.

Her advice? Prepare for “yes.”

Does how you're living fit you right now? It might be time to "right size" your life.

Amy Schmidt went through a series of moves after her kids went to college.

Amy says, "We had three storage units across the country at one point. Three storage units full of things."

Those things were weighing her down.

Amy is a best selling author, podcast host, entrepreneur, and TED X speaker . Her latest project is called the "Right Sized Life."

The concept challenges you to look at how you're living and be honest about whether it's serving the person you are or more importantly, the person you want to be?

Does that mean downsizing, decluttering and getting rid of half your stuff? Maybe. Maybe not.

"Ask yourself those questions of what you want to do in your space. You don't want to live in a time capsule," says Amy.

From tidying up his apartment to cleaning up on social media. Tidy Dad is everywhere.

Tyler Moore aka Tidy Dad is a New York City school teacher, husband and father of three. 

The "dadfluencer"  started sharing his hacks for keeping his family's 750 square foot apartment tidy on his Instagram page and website. 

Tyler's ruthless attacks on clutter rack up hundreds of thousands of views and Tidy Dad became a thing. He's a frequent guest on morning news shows and is frequently featured as a lifestyle expert in magazines and online.

His book, Tidy Up Your Life: Rethinking How to Organize Clutter, and Make Space for What Matters Most, is a best seller. 

Tidy Dad has evolved into a full-on lifestyle brand in a space dominated by women. Tyler says fans often assume he can't handle a mess.

"I can deal with a mess. I can tackle it and figure out what to do to problem solve it so it doesn't really happen again. But for me, I'm all about making space for what actually matters. Like I don't want to spend all of my time looking for something, or all of my time cleaning my house," says Tyler.

Having an organized home creates the space to enjoy the rest of life.

Tyler says, "That's the foundation of my organizing work. But yes, you Google "tidy" and you get Marie Kondo, and then you get me, which I think is great."

Saying Chris Lillis is a details guy is like saying he kind of wants to win another Olympic gold medal.

Lillis won gold in mixed team aerials at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

Making a second Olympic team in his discipline of freestyle skiing is arguably more mental than physical.

Tracking the details of how he eats, sleeps, trains and recovers is crucial to unlocking what does and doesn't work for him as an athlete.

The data helps shape his mindset training. The key to mental preparation is visualization.

Chris says, "Visualization can just be like a kind of mental imagination, whether it's in the first person or the third person. You really just imagine yourself doing that jump."

Aerialists are like acrobats on skis. They ski down a ramp, launch themselves in the air and complete a series of flips and twists while maintaining enough spatial awareness to land on on snow.

Jumps last seconds. But Chris says the time in the air feels a lot longer than that because of how in tune he is with every small move his body makes.

Just making the 2026 Olympic Team isn't enough.

"It's different when you've won before because the only question anyone has for you is, are you going to win again? My answer is always the same. It's yes," says Chris.

From grit to glam. The women of Team USA are flipping the script on what longevity looks like the winter edition of Women's Health.

Amanda Lucci is the director of special projects for Women's Health. Editors created a mirrored set to evoke icy, wintry vibes and Amanda says the athletes turned models understood the assignment.

"They just turned it on the second they got on set and it was so much fun," says Amanda.

The Olympics issue celebrates longevity.

"We really wanted to explore what it takes to be an athlete for actual decades, while also living a lot of life outside of that," says Amanda.

Snowboarder Jamie Anderson is an Olympic gold medalist. She took three years off since the 2022 Winter Games to have two kids. Her Olympic push for Milan Cortina involved a lot of multi-tasking.

Amanda says, "She's still talking about how she's still getting into her flow of how she's training and also being a mom but at the same time, she's so much stronger."

Cover model Chloe Kim left the last Olympics with more than a gold medal in the halfpipe. She describes extreme burnout and what she's done to work through it and fall in love with snowboarding again.

Peak performance means new things. It's not just medals. It's mental health, motherhood, rest, and redefining success.