Dying To Ask dyingtoask

Can you hack your way to better health? The creator of "Fit Girl Hacks" says absolutely.

Monique Christian is the trainer behind the social media community "Fit Girl Hacks." She has worked in the fitness industry for more than 20 years. Her big conclusion after training hundreds of people? Working out and eating well don't have to be so complicated.

She's sharing her shortcuts to better health in weekly hacks including:

Don't think too long or you'll talk yourself out of a workout
Start the day with a win and see how the rest of the day goes
Go to farmer's markets and learn the growers' names since they are generous with their friends

Simple but effective.

Listen to this episode on a workout and I'll bet you'll burn a few extra calories!

On this Dying to Ask:
Christian rapid-fire breaks down more than two dozen fit girl hacks
How friends can help or hinder your fitness goals
Why your brain is your biggest workout enemy
A summer grilling hack that will change how you look at meal prepping
And Monique shares what it's like to embrace life as a fitness influencer at 50

Stressed out? Maybe it's time to dig in the dirt.

A recent study highlighted in Agweek confirmed gardening has tremendous benefits for reducing stress and improving mental health.

Struggling to relax or focus?

Try planting some seeds and watching flowers grow. Or, bury a tomato plant and watch half of a Caprese salad sprout before your eyes.

The experts at WebMD confirm the correlation between time spent around plants and a sense of peace.

And more Americans than ever are sowing the seeds of sanity as they give backyard gardening a try.

In this solo episode, I'll share how I got into gardening and how it's kept my mind clear during some of life's most stressful times.

On this Dying to Ask:

The science of why gardening is good for mental health
Why watching things grow is good for focus
How to get started even if you have a small space and limited budget

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.

On this Dying to Ask:
How to diffuse conflict in places like planes or stores
How to extract yourself from a gossipy conversation
Two ways to instantly improve your interactions with people

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.

On this Dying to Ask:
Why you should throw yourself a money party
The power of using the word "investing" instead of "saving"
And three changes you can make today to change your money mindset

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.

On this Dying to Ask:
Pallavi Golla's advice for entrepreneurs coming out of the pandemic
Why she's against quitting your day job to follow a dream
How she gives herself grace to make mistakes
How to mine your resume for hidden skills that might help you start a business
And how to handle the people in your life who think you've lost it when in fact you might be about to find your next big thing

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.

On this Dying to Ask:
Why "Harlem Shuffle" is such a diversion from Colson's previous two novels
How he found out he'd won a Pulitzer Prize and how it changed his life
What it's like to write a crime caper and why listening to our parents can save us a lot of time