Dying To Ask

Gotta get away?

Good luck getting away from toxic people this summer.

Summer travel is predicted to hit pre-pandemic rates and you'll need to pack more than patience to make it to your destination with your cool intact.

Diane Gottsman is a modern etiquette expert and the founder of the Protocol School of Texas.

If you think people are edgier and crankier than ever, she says you're right! And those dicey interactions are spilling into many aspects of daily life.

Pandemic anxiety lingers and crowded airplanes are often where passengers who don't see eye to eye on virus precautions get into it.

Internships are back. But, employers and interns may be out of step on expectations on everything from communication to wardrobe.

The labor shortage has made shopping in some stores difficult because of inexperienced workers. It's easy to get frustrated. It's easy to say something you shouldn't. And it's often difficult to calm conflict.

So, how can you diffuse a hot situation?

Diane has a script for that and she's going to coach you on how to tricky situations and difficult people.

• How to diffuse conflict in places like planes or stores

Why is our relationship with money so complicated?

Financial insecurity creates anxiety. The best way to fight that anxiety? Become more confident in your money knowledge.

Ashley Feinstein Gerstley is the author of "Financial Adulting: Everything You Need To Be a Financially Confident and Conscious Adult."

She wrote the book she says she wishes she had as a young adult struggling to manage a personal budget. That says a lot considering she majored in finance and worked as an investment banker! A career change led to a pay decrease and Ashley quickly found herself living beyond her means.

Sound familiar? People of all ages are struggling with mounting debt and inflation.

She challenged herself to get a better grasp on her finances and started blogging about everything from 401(k) accounts to buying a house. That website, The Fiscal Femme, launched a career as a money coach, speaker and author of "The 30-Day Money Cleanse."

Financial adulting challenges readers to learn about everything from 401(k) accounts to buying a house in simple and often humorous ways. You'll learn about how insurance works and what kinds are important at different stages of life. And, you'll see how re-branding common financial terms like "saving" to "investing" is a useful way to change a money mindset.

And, Fitz and Ashley get into the challenges of teaching money values to kids in our increasingly cash-free society.

• Why you should throw yourself a money party

Ever had a great idea but didn't know where to start?

That's called being an entrepreneur.

The successful ones start somewhere and often end up with a company or product that seems to have followed a linear path. The reality is that business journeys rarely make sense.

But there are some hacks to launching products that tend to work and Pallavi Golla is sharing those secrets in this Dying to Ask podcast episode.

Pallavi is the founder of Lark Adventurewear. Lark makes breathable activewear for kids.

Pallavi's son was 4 months old when she noticed he'd get really sweaty in his cotton onesies. She looked for more breathable materials to dress him in and struggled to find any that met her family's needs.

So, she created it.

But, designing activewear for kids wasn't easy. Most adult workout clothes contain chemicals to make them "breathe" during sweaty workout sessions. That fabric wouldn't work on a little kid's skin.

Pallavi had zero background in fashion or textiles.

But, in six years, she's created and trademarked a fabric called Softek and is the driving force behind a seven-figure online kids clothing company that is expanding to adult clothes too.

In this episode, Pallavi shares how she used knowledge from a background in hedge funds and the wine industry to propel Lark Adventurewear to success.

• Pallavi Golla's advice for entrepreneurs coming out of the pandemic

They say good things come in threes.

And a lot of people suspect author Colson Whitehead may become the first person this century to win three Pulitzer Prize awards in fiction.

Only three other novelists, William Faulkner, John Updike and Booth Tarkington, have won two Pulitzers for fiction.

Whitehead was recognized for "The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys." Both books use prose to draw attention and insight to systemic racism in America.

| RELATED | Colson Whitehead talks about his new book 'Harlem Shuffle'

But Whitehead's latest novel, "Harlem Shuffle," his eighth, takes a detour and tells the story of Ray Carney, a lovable crook in 1960s Harlem.

• Why "Harlem Shuffle" is such a diversion from Colson's previous two novels

What is your life's purpose?

Sometimes we feel passionate about going in a direction. Other times life itself seems to send you down a path.

Maura Horton's life trajectory changed when her husband, college football coach Don Horton, was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

She watched Don struggle to do basic things like button his shirt as the disease robbed him of his mobility.

That loss of independence was crushing.

Maura looked for clothing with snaps that were easier to close.

She couldn't find any, so she invented it and patented a magnetic closure system to make dressing easier for people with limited mobility.

MagnaReady specializes in adaptive fashion and fills a gap whose importance most people don't recognize until an illness or injury impacts their ability to do something as simple as getting dressed.

The clothing line is sophisticated and trendy enough that it's popular with people who don't need adaptive features.

Amazingly, Maura Horton did all of this without any prior experience in fashion or entrepreneurship.

• How Maura started a company with zero experience in fashion

Are you old enough to remember the before times? Before times — as in before the internet.

If you are, then this is the interview for you. If not, then this is the interview for you.

Pamela Paul is the author of "100 Things We've Lost to the Internet."

It's a collection of 100 essays about things we no longer do or no longer need because of the internet. She writes about everything from Rolodexes, to answering machines, to struggling to remember the name of an actor on TV before you could google it.

Pamela recently took on the role as a full-time opinion writer for the New York Times after working as the editor of the Book Review and overseeing the Times' book coverage.

The idea for "100 Things" sprang from an essay she wrote about the lost art of boredom titled "Let Children Get Bored Again."

The result is a fun walk down memory lane for some and a true history lesson for others. Either way, it's a great reminder of how much our lives have changed in a reasonably short period of time.

On this Dying to Ask podcast:

• The viral NY Times article that sparked the idea for this book

Getting into college. It's complicated.

Navigating this year's college acceptance season is tricky thanks to some emerging trends.

There are record numbers of applications. But class sizes haven't increased and that means more kids than ever aren't getting into their target schools.

It's made talking about college plans challenging for a lot of families.

Jenn Curtis and Cynthia Muchnik are the authors of "The Parent Compass: Navigating Your Teen's Wellness & Academic Journey in Today's Competitive World."

Both have worked as college counselors for years and have been troubled about trends they were seeing in their offices. Kids who couldn't speak for themselves and parents who can't stop talking about their kids' college dreams.

Post-Varsity Blues Scandal, they say the spotlight is heavily on who gets in and who doesn't get into select schools.

The pressure is greater than ever for high school seniors, and sadly, a lot of parents add to the stress.

• The do's and don'ts of college acceptances

Procrastination isn't new. But it's getting worse, especially with kids.

Why?

Because there's a lot of stuff we'd rather be doing than the stuff we should be doing.

And that is basically the definition of procrastination.

The difference these days is that we have so many digital distractions to monopolize our attention.

You think you have a tough time focusing on a task at hand? It's way worse for kids.

Patrick Quinn is a parenting expert at the online homework help site, Brainly. Before that, he worked as a middle school teacher in Brooklyn.

The father of three is also a viral video star and the creator of one of the greatest time wasters of all time, the Cheerio Challenge.

His sense of humor combined with his understanding of how kids' brains work make for a powerful combo in his role at Brainly. And, he has some time (and dad) tested ideas of what's fueling our ever-growing tendency to procrastinate and more importantly, what we can do to get more stuff done.

• How Patrick went from making viral dad videos to becoming a parenting expert

Do you Venmo as a side hustle?

If your answer is "yes," there's a decent chance you could be breaking the law if you’re not aware of recent tax changes related to selling goods and services.

Tech expert Jennifer Jolly is on the podcast this week with a heads up for anyone who provides a good or service on a cash app.

For more than 15 years, Jolly has been one of the top tech journalists in the country.

Her website Techish is a landing place for all things consumer tech. It's a go-to place for unbiased and unsponsored product reviews.

Jolly's stories have appeared in The New York Times and USA Today. And, you've likely seen her consumer tech segments on NBC's "Today" show and on KCRA 3.

Recently, she made a huge personal pivot and moved herself and her business out of the heart of Silicon Valley.

Why? Because she could thanks to, wait for it, technology.

Jolly explains how she made the decision to join what's become known as the Great Relocation.

• Who is and isn't affected by cash app tax changes

Feeling helpless over the situation in Ukraine?

Share a tweet or this podcast link and potentially change a life.

In this bonus episode of the Dying to Ask podcast, learn about a program that is helping ensure Ukrainian refugees' important documents are safe.

Article 26 Backpack is named after Article 26, the Universal Declaration of Human Right to education. But, people forced to flee countries often have to leave without documents like diplomas and other professional certifications.

That can make continuing a college education or pursuing your career path difficult.

Article 26 Backpack allows users to create a safe place in the cloud to store documents free of charge. The program is run by UC Davis professor Keith Watenpaugh and requires just a cellphone and email.

"Americans, we always think our documents will never be lost always be stored and we know that's not the case even for us," said Watenpaugh.

More than 2,000 people, including many Ukrainians, are using Backpack.

But, as the situation in Ukraine becomes direr, the push is on to make sure even more Ukrainian students and professionals get access.

That's where you come in.

Share a tweet from Article 26 Backpack or this podcast and spread the word.

It's an easy ask that could literally change the trajectory of a life.

• How Article 26 Backpack was created