You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
Hey, it's Marielle.
Today we've got a special episode.
It's a little meta, actually.
A conversation about giving advice.
That's what we do here at Life Kit.
But we're not the only ones in this advice game.
The podcast Am I Doing It Wrong from the Huffington Post, well, they're like our cousins in a way.
Theirs is a conversation show that explores the anxieties we all have about trying to get our lives right.
Everything from how to say sorry to how to do your laundry.
And their hosts, Raj Punjabi-Johnson and Noah Michelson, invited me on to talk about this thing we do.
Talking to experts, bringing you advice.
We get into some of the best advice we've gotten in our personal lives, how we decide when to share personal details on our shows and some of the episodes we're itching to do.
It was a really fun conversation.
And that's coming up after the break.
Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi-Johnson, head of identity content at HuffPost.
And I'm Noah Michelson, head of HuffPost Personal.
Welcome to a very special bonus episode of Am I Doing It Wrong?
Today we are talking to Mariel Segarra, the host of NPR's Life Kit.
Raj, I love Life Kit.
I never thought we'd have this like worlds colliding where two advice shows would come together.
It's going to be magical.
Yeah, let's get into it.
Mariel, thank you for being here.
We're so excited to chat with you.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
It's, I guess, not that often that like three advice givers, getters all get in a room together.
So we thought it'd just be fun to sort of say like, how do we do this?
Why do we do this?
What are our lives like?
And I guess the question we can start with is you know, as a professional advice giver or someone who facilitates that, what's the best piece of advice that you've gotten in your life?
Yeah, I think I get a lot of really good advice from my dad.
He gives advice on a range of things, and there are these pearls of wisdom that come out at just the right moment.
So I remember him saying to me after a bad breakup once.
This is not... He's not the guy.
He's just a guy.
I love that.
And he also told me that I just needed to change a channel in my head.
Like turn off this guy's channel and tune into something else.
That was so... It was so right.
And in that moment, you can't always feel that.
You're deep, deep in it.
He also told me that...
You know, when you have like jars of tomato sauce and there's a bit of the sauce that gets on the lid.
Yes.
He was like if you want the jar to last longer and not get moldy, clean off that sauce from the lid.
Because that seems to be the first spot that gets moldy.
This is not scientifically proven, but it does seem to be true.
Yeah.
I love that, though, from high and low.
The whole spectrum of from men, what to do with men, to what to do with your tomato sauce jar.
Yeah.
That's really sweet.
Raj, what about you?
I love that.
Best advice you've gotten.
Oh, I think on the show, on our podcast, a lot of people encourage us to not judge ourselves.
Yeah.
And be gentle with ourselves.
That's my favorite advice, and it keeps coming up.
It's a motif.
Just, you know, whatever we're talking about, whether it's like cholesterol and heart health or like a breakup or whatever it's like, take a beat and just stop judging yourself.
And i judge myself so much i feel like we all do.
Yeah, so that feels really good.
Do you feel like you're judging yourself less since doing the show?
Oh yeah, i mean i, i also have always felt that way, but it's hard to put into practice.
I always say that to my friends.
I'm like oh my god gentle please, this is my best friend you're talking about.
Yeah, but we forget to do that for ourselves for sure Yeah.
My best advice is definitely from two women in my life.
First, my mom.
She always said, before you send an email or you make a big decision, sleep on it.
And I was like that.
I love to like fire something off, you know, and just.
Yeah. just the passion inside of me is like, I want to get on this immediately.
And she's like, just wait, you can do it in 12 hours.
And that has saved me so many times.
Yeah.
Do you find it challenging to wait though?
I do, but I'm getting better.
Okay.
The more you practice to look at.
It's cool to look at your like former self, maybe like even six months ago, and be like i'm doing this in a way that serves me more.
Yeah yeah, you can also take a walk that sounds.
Or take a bath.
It sounds so cliche, but there's a reason that in every movie that they say take a walk when the person is like freaking out, it's so true.
Yeah, it gets you into your body.
Same thing with taking a shower or a bath is like get out of your head, get into your body, take a second.
I think a lot of therapists recommend that for people experiencing anxiety too.
Just like a temperature change or like a change of scenery or whatever it is.
Suck on a sour candy.
Yes.
Put ice on your face or on your neck.
Yeah.
It's kind of magical.
Also, we've heard, too, play Tetris.
Oh, I don't know that one.
Yeah.
You do because you were in the episode when we learned about it from Dr. Schaefer.
If you're having a panic attack or you're dealing with heavy emotions, whatever part of your brain that you use to play Tetris sort of like dismantles the panic which I thought was so interesting.
I wonder if it has to do with problem solving.
It has to.
It's like a different problem.
Low stakes problem solving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean the fact that I didn't remember that means I have a lot of advice like crammed into my head.
Well, we've all been doing this long time, you know, which I think is kind of an exciting thing to look back and realize.
The other one I'm going to say too is my old therapist, Gail.
When I was 21 and I had just gotten dumped and I was like going through it and I would catastrophize, and she would say what's the worst thing that's going to happen if you do that thing?
Or if that thing happens, be like i know it's not that big of a deal.
And she'd say no, i actually want you to name it yeah.
And once i did, she's like okay, you're not gonna die like you would get through that even if it was terrible.
And so now i still do that to this day.
When i'm really anxious about something, i think what is the worst possible thing?
And i work backwards from it and it really helps me.
So I want to – I've thought about this before.
There were moments when someone said, what's the worst thing that could happen?
And the worst thing that could happen was really bad.
Like, you know, like it could be the worst thing that could happen is that you die.
Yes.
But even that as an exercise can be useful, because when you actually face your own mortality you're like, oh okay, I –.
It's probably not going to be that bad.
But if it is, I have no control over it.
Yep.
And if I die, then I'm done.
That's what I always say, too.
If I die, I'm done.
Then I won't be worried about it either, you know?
That's kind of morbid, but I do feel a release and a liberation in that.
There is something about that.
Like, I have airplane anxiety sometimes, like, turbulence anxiety.
And that thing about, like, what's the worst that could happen?
I sometimes also... The reality hits me that, like...
I have a lot of love in my life.
I've done a lot of things.
Yeah.
And like haven't led the worst life.
Like, you know, I haven't like, oh, 23 regrets that I'm like sitting on either.
Right.
Yeah.
Mortality.
That's crazy.
I mean, this is getting very deep, very quickly, but.
It's like a bar conversation.
It's like, yeah, are we drunk right now?
But no, I thought about this when I was diagnosed with cancer in the end of 2023.
And then I went through treatment in 2024.
And a lot of people, when they are diagnosed, especially if there's...
Because there's a moment where you're still waiting for all your scans and tests and biopsies to come back and you don't know how serious it is.
It hasn't been staged yet.
Right.
And you really are confronting, like, what am I thinking about dying in the next...
Six months?
Ten years?
Like, or normal.
Or like the expect, the hopeful, like when I'm 90.
A lot of people, when they're faced with that, they think, oh my God, I have to make all these changes in my life.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't feel that way.
That's not really good.
I was like, I show people and tell people that I love them.
I treat people with care and respect.
I'm doing work that's meaningful to me.
I have a lot of family and friends and community.
I don't know.
I'm not happy all the time, but nobody is.
That's not a reasonable expectation.
I feel like I'm living a meaningful, joyful life.
That's kind of magical.
It's a gift in that moment to have some perspective about what your life is.
Yeah, that's intense.
And I know you've talked about your experience on the podcast.
Yeah.
And I'm interested in knowing, because we all talk to a lot of experts and we are kind of better versed at some topics than the other.
What do you, Marielle, consider yourself an expert in?
To a certain extent, I have some expertise in having head cancer and going through treatment and being a part of being in the hospital and and having to deal with the healthcare system and the massive bureaucracy that is the healthcare system.
And it doesn't make sense a lot of the time.
And I had some experience with that before.
But then when you're going to a lot of appointments, you end up bumping up against some of the most ridiculous things.
And there were many moments where I felt like profit was more important than patients.
So there's that aspect of it and just dealing with all the red tape of health insurance.
I feel like I'm not really an expert in anything.
I don't either.
I was thinking about that too.
I think mine's more existential.
Mine's like, I feel like I'm an expert.
I think I know a lot about therapy because I've been to a lot of therapy.
So like I'm familiar with what all the talk means.
I love psychology, et cetera.
And, you know, I feel very comfortable in like talking about therapy.
So not an expert, but I feel comfortable there.
Where do you feel comfortable and comfortable?
I mean, I've been an editor and a writer for almost 20 years.
So I feel like storytelling is something I'm really good at.
I'm really good at zooming out and seeing the big picture.
And I really enjoy that.
So someone will come to me, even Benji.
He's my partner.
He's a reporter.
And he'll say, you know, I'm writing this thing.
And I'll say, okay, but did you think about this part of it?
Right.
I feel like I'm often like on the space station, three miles up from the story and I can see the whole thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I find that really, really enjoyable.
I just have to say one more thing.
Just from like being around Noah, Noah is an expert in people, in humans.
Like.
I've seen him communicate with people in that, like everyone he's ever communicated with like in a very tactful, diplomatic way.
That's very sweet.
Gentle and kind.
Sometimes like we get interesting emails, like for the both of us.
And I'm like, are you effing kidding me?
And Noah writes back this like thoughtful, balanced, unbothered email.
Yeah.
And I'm just like, oh, I was about to curse this dude out.
That's because I take a beat.
That's what my mom told me.
I probably want to curse him out too.
But I was like, let's just wait a second and see what my real feelings are.
Well adjusted.
I would love to know more about Life Kit and how you guys choose what topics to do.
Like, what's that process like?
Yeah, a lot of it, and y'all may do this as well, it comes from your own life, right?
You're just, you're walking through the world and realize that you don't actually fully understand this thing.
When we have our pitch meetings, a lot of episode ideas come from either from me, our showrunner, our producers, our reporter.
Everybody sort of tunes into what's going on in their lives, i think, and that inspires some of their questions.
We also get we get a lot of book pitches, so we will go through those and and sort of look especially for books that have takeaways that are clear in them.
Um, because sometimes there can be a book that has really interesting research but it's more defining the problem than it is like coming up with a solution or even like researching a solution.
We also do episodes where we have reporters from our newsroom come in.
So whatever slice they're covering.
Yeah, like our reporter, Will Stone, he covers, he's a health correspondent for NPR.
And he just did a whole newsletter for us on strength training.
And also like we had him on the show to talk about it and just like myths about strength training, which were really useful and surprising to me too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we're similar.
Yeah.
In how we choose.
It is a lot of like what we are dealing with.
I think the trick for us which and I love this we were talking about this earlier before we came out in the air you guys can do sort of like more specific or little chunks, because sometimes you just do 15 minutes.
Yeah.
And Raj and I usually talk for at least 35, 40.
So we want a topic that feels big enough that we can really spend some time on it, but not so big that we can't get everything or we can't get into it.
Sometimes I think we think some things feel too specific.
Yeah.
Like we would love to do an episode on weddings, per se.
Mm-hmm.
But it's like weddings are so different depending on your budget, depending on your culture, depending on what you want.
So how do you give people advice about weddings when it could be so wildly different?
We haven't cracked that one yet.
Yeah.
There are some topics where I'm like I don't even know how we're going to approach this, because it would be like four episodes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I do think we also think a lot about what would feel very universal.
And there are.
At first I was like, oh no, we're all so We all have, like different cultural perspectives.
No, there are certain things that, especially, like, we had an episode on laundry.
Like, full episode.
It was one of our most popular ones.
Everyone is thinking about this.
And, like, it's very universally appealing.
And it's kind of cool to get into that mindset, like what are we all kind of struggling with?
Yeah.
Yeah, the day-to-day stuff.
I think those broad episodes that could appeal to a lot of people tend to do well.
Anything on finance or health.
And then life skills like laundry, like you said.
Weddings is a certain subset of people.
Sometimes, I mean, I know we've done some coverage on weddings.
Maybe not recently, but it can help to try to take a slice, I think.
What about weddings?
Or even think of a slice of what stage are you at in the process like, are you deciding whether you want to have a wedding at all?
Are you, you know, just starting to plan the wedding?
Is it the day before your wedding?
And you're like, how do i actually have a good wedding day?
Yeah, you know.
Or like, how do you set yourself up to have a good wedding day?
Yeah, what kind of work do you put into it?
Or maybe it's thinking about like, the scope of the wedding, because maybe for you, like it's To have a good wedding day, it can't be some massive thing, some performance, essentially.
Yeah, right.
Or it could be like if you're – I could see you doing an episode about like, Deciding what kind of wedding you want, and part of that is also communicating with your family and setting expectations and saying, like I know that this may be disappointing to you, but this is what we're deciding to do.
It's so true.
Benji and I just got engaged and we're planning our wedding right now.
And I've realized more and more that the wedding's not actually about you.
Or often it isn't.
It's about all these other people's expectations of what they want.
Especially if you have someone else paying for it.
If your parents are paying for it, what do they want?
You know what I mean?
What does grandma want?
There's so much to take into it.
I will say Benji and I are not considering anyone else's feelings.
We're not literally having the party that we want to have.
Yeah.
I will say, first of all, a cool thing you can do is get married in a non, or like later.
I got married when I was like 40 and no one really had a say, because people were just excited that I was going to do it.
They were like, finally.
Oh my God, do whatever you want.
So it became absolutely about me and my partner.
I also have to say I love the slice kind of thing because there's also like being a good wedding guest.
There's like gifting.
Like I think there's like several layers to that wedding cake, if you will.
And I think we can have whole episodes on that.
I think the thing that we struggle with is that we only have one episode a week.
And so if we have a really sort of a slice that a lot of people just aren't going to care about, they're going to dip out.
And that's something we worried about more when we first started.
I think we now, thankfully, have a lot of listeners who just want to hear about a topic.
Even if they don't care that much, they're just like, oh, maybe I'll learn something.
And that's exciting, too.
Yeah.
It's sort of like an algorithm thing.
It's like, how do we figure out what people really want to hear?
Yeah.
No, that's a good point because we have three episodes a week.
Yeah.
I'm so jealous of that.
We have more room to give a buffet, as Megan puts it, sometimes our showrunner.
And that seems to work really well for us.
We also have the radio show, which is a version of one of the episodes from the week.
And we have our Instagram and we do a lot of Instagram videos and we have our newsletter.
So everything kind of like we can use little pieces from different things or even like –
We do versions of an episode for All Things Considered or Morning Edition.
And that'll be like a three or four minute version of it.
That's so smart, though.
I love that.
I have a follow up with that one.
With all the different mediums, do you feel like you have a different audience in mind?
Like, how do you think about who are you talking to in Life Kit especially?
I think that's something that we think about, too.
Yeah.
Yes.
I think...
We do have a different audience, especially for radio, for traditional radio broadcast tends to skew a little bit older.
And also, it's a more general audience in the sense that they're not necessarily seeking you out.
They're turning on their radio.
Maybe when they're in the car, maybe when they first wake up, that's part of their routine.
And there are some shows that radio listeners will seek out.
Like they're like, oh, I always listen to Brian Lehrer in the morning or whatever.
But very often it'll be people who are just listening to NPR.
And so you have to, I think, give more context and also – choose topics for the radio show or for those four-minute pieces that would apply to a quite broad audience.
Whereas on the podcast you can go a little more narrow, because people are coming to you and they can read the headline and say yeah interested, not interested.
And if they're not interested in an episode, they might listen still, because they just like the vibe or they are like oh well, it's not really for me, but my sister's going through something like this.
Or they might skip that one and then listen to the next one.
I think for our audience in general, for the Life Kit audience, I would say that we're going for people who are Sort of striving.
They want to make their lives better.
They want to kind of... I mean, it's similar to the title of your show, Am I Doing It Wrong?
How do I do it right?
Or how do I just feel better?
How do I get to the next step in my life?
Maybe I'm thinking about, am I going to try to buy property?
Or am I going to pay off my student loans?
Or how can I kind of get my finances in order?
Or I want to be... healthier.
I want to make sure I'm on top of my screenings for whatever.
It is like colon cancer or breast cancer.
Or like I want to start a new habit.
Like people who are trying to do something.
I find that that's a lot of our audience.
You know my friend Shia uses this word a lot ease, where I think it's not the first thing I go to, but it's exactly what I'm looking for more in life.
And I don't mean ease as in like I get to sit back and do nothing.
I mean ease as in less struggle.
So when I'm trying to learn about, you know, doing my lipids labs on time and like maybe being better financially and like doing my taxes earlier and being better, like what you're talking about, it's to bring more ease in my life.
Yeah, like i want less struggle.
Some mornings i wake up and i'm like, oh my god, i have so many things to do and i'm late to all of them.
Yeah, i need less of that.
Yeah, like Who wants that to happen to their blood pressure?
Like, no one.
It's just stressful.
We actually get a lot of grief from people about the name of the show.
And they say, you know, I feel like you are telling us that we're doing everything wrong.
And if you actually listen to the show, that's sort of the opposite.
It's the opposite of that.
The show is sort of a provocative title.
But what you find out when you listen to the show is that Raj and I are doing everything wrong.
And we just, like you said, we want to do it a little bit better yeah, and we're like joyful and non-judgmental exactly, and so, like i think that is the thing, is that like these shows are supposed to help people not be as anxious about life?
Yeah um, you know, and i loved you just had an episode with prue leith from bake off that you re-ran yeah, and i was listening to it today and she was talking about her new cookbook and how it's called, something like it's life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
Yeah, And she was saying, you know like yeah like, spend your time worrying about things that really matter.
And I think these kind of shows that we do and I feel really lucky to get to be part of it is like we are telling people like here are some ways just to make life a little easier.
And you can pick one or two and maybe try it.
And if you do, things could be better.
And if you don't, that's fine, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, ultimately, there's no permanent record.
There's no report card that someone's keeping track of everything you do.
These changes that you make are just for yourself, really, or your family, you and your family.
And the idea of making your life easier.
I like that a lot because it's sort of like sometimes I have things in my house that Have just been a certain way for so long that I don't think about it.
And then you can make one minor design change.
Yes.
And you're like, oh, that's so much easier.
Your life changes.
Your whole life changes.
Yeah.
Like getting a different laundry basket or getting like oh, now that I – this is actually kind of the reverse of it.
I have to figure out a solution, but I – installed a new bathroom sink and what's it called?
The vanity underneath it?
Is that like, you know, the drawer thing underneath it?
And also we redid the tile in the bathroom.
So now it's a little bit higher and then the mirror on the wall is in the same place.
So the the mirror that swings the door swings open, hits the soap dispenser and knocks it over every time.
So i have to get a different soap dispenser, because this is just like not tenable.
But guess what?
That's your morning routine.
And I feel like it shapes your whole day when things run amok.
That is part of life.
Yeah.
All those little things, little tweaks that you can make, that it's like oh, I actually can change my life.
And even in these small ways.
And it changes my life. my feeling of, am I in chaos or do I kind of have this?
That's the struggle I'm talking about.
I just want to feel less mental chaos.
Well, that makes me wonder for you two, what are some things that you've learned from hosting the show, your shows, that you've actually incorporated into your own life?
What are some of the advice that you've gotten in real time and you're like actually that made my own life better.
So many things.
Yeah.
Well, one thing that I've actually been doing is I got an alarm clock and I moved my phone out of my room.
So many people have told us to do that.
I can't do it.
I'm so jealous of you.
I got an analog alarm clock.
It does not connect to the Internet.
So it's great.
Like it makes me really happy that I finally was able to do this, because I kept scrolling through my phone every morning.
And even when I would block the apps like Instagram or whatever, I still would find stuff to look at on the phone.
You know, the weather app.
Yeah, you dive in the weather just ridiculous.
Or looking at old photos or whatever, and it's like i don't want the first thing i do to be looking at this device.
So we have done a lot of episodes around you know, phone health, like basically how to, how to have some separation from your phone and use it as a tool rather than letting it use you?
Yeah um, also there's one there.
It's everything from like like big picture emotional, to the tiny little things, like when you get another laundry tip.
If you get blood stains on something, you can use hydrogen peroxide to remove them and it works so well.
Yeah, it just kind of disappears it instantly.
Apparently you can also try using cold water, but i kind of like the hydrogen peroxide.
It makes it like bubble bubble yeah yeah, And it just works really well.
You do calf raises when you brush your teeth.
Yesterday as I was writing this episode, which is about investing diversification, and it was really thick.
It was like, it's nutrient dense.
And so every time I wrote, I finished writing a section of it, I would do 10 squats.
Yeah.
And it helped me also get like, I don't know, it helped me think in a way.
Oh, we just had an episode with Dr. Wendy Suzuki on, you know, memory and exercise and brain health.
And she was talking about that.
And it was so useful.
Like, I love the idea of kind of like. exercising throughout the day and yeah your creativity and your like mental acuity just like yeah it's you get sharper yeah the mind body link is real and i think yeah the more you move your body the more i find that too when i'm trying to write something i go on a walk and i write a lot of the piece i'm writing in my notes app on my phone because i need a little bit of distraction and my body's moving and yeah i think that's great raj what are some of the things that you have learned that you have incorporated One that I am thinking about right now, because we're talking about brain health, we had a brain health episode with Dr. Rita.
And I remember you know I bring up vices in our podcast, a lot like smoking, weed and drinking and things I do to like just regulate and self-sedate.
I'm sorry.
Raj loves the martini.
Yeah.
Dr Rita gave me permission to have my martini.
When I get, I do get lectured a lot in a good way, as I should about alcohol.
But she was like have the martini drink your drinks, but then for 48 hours after you have to flush your life out.
Water, like vegetables and stuff.
And like, it was a very specific piece of advice.
And you can take it if you want to.
But it did make me think a lot about moderation and just balance in life.
Like, I'm a yogi and that goes with yoga a lot.
Like, you know, being able to balance things, you know.
We did get a very angry email, though, about that tip where they said, you're a doctor.
How dare you say that we can drink?
Like, drinking is so bad for you.
And that's the other thing we love about our experts, I think is that our experts are pretty good about moderation too.
We don't want to be prescriptive.
We don't want to be prohibitive.
It's not realistic.
People aren't going to do it.
And also, think about how we feel about authority that's too prescriptive.
Like, we're just going to shut it off.
Like, it feels judgy.
Yeah, I agree.
What about you?
I feel like so many good things.
And you take good advice.
We have this amazing guest named Jason Tetreault.
He's called The Germ Guy.
He lives in Canada.
And he's done a bunch of episodes with us about just germs everywhere.
One of the ones that just shocked me was the idea of a poo plume.
So when you flush the toilet, if you don't shut the lid, poo is just flying up up to six feet in the air and landing everywhere.
If your toothbrush is by the toilet, there's probably poo on it.
I do know that.
I do keep my toothbrush in that little cabinet.
That's very smart.
But what about when you're at a restaurant and you're in the bathroom and it doesn't have a lid?
We've talked about this.
Literally, he's like, flush it and run.
I do that.
Get out of the stall.
He's like, make sure you're ready to go.
I've said this on that podcast episode.
I flush with my foot and I run.
I'm like extra.
There are some things that we care about as individuals and some things we care less about.
I'm really weird about the poo plume and the pee plume.
And for the most part, the poo plume's not going to hurt you.
Well, that's the thing.
It's a poo ghost.
If it were, then people would be getting really sick all the time.
But just in my head once I heard that I was like I shut the lid every single time and I run as well.
So things like that.
I love a public bathroom sprinter.
That's who I am now.
Yeah.
Another one, too.
We had an episode on how to take care of your eyes.
And I work contacts, and she was like, do not ever sleep in your contacts.
Never.
Or wear them in the shower.
Or wear them in the shower.
I still do that.
I know, but that was, that seemed less dangerous.
Maybe I'm just telling myself that, but she was like, I was like, if I'm you know away for a weekend and I forgot my solution to store my contacts, would you rather I slept in them or put them in tap water?
She was like, I would rather that you just couldn't see for the weekend.
Do not do either.
And so like that, I get a lot of wake up calls on this show.
Cause I do appreciate the drama.
Cause I think I take things like I'm a little too lax about things.
And when these experts, who are really, you know, experts in their field in every sense of the word, look into our eyes and tell us things like I'm like okay, maybe I should take this seriously.
Yeah.
But okay.
If you can't see, it depends how bad your eyesight is, but if you can't see for the weekend like you're going to crash your car.
I mean, I hope you're not driving.
No, you're right.
There are always things, but she was just kind of saying like It's really bad to sleep in your contacts.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of us haven't thought about that.
Yeah.
I've started taking my glasses places because I took that very seriously.
Are there topics or episodes that are too personal?
Is there anything that you wouldn't do?
I think we've had a hard time finding a way into talking about sex.
Uh-huh.
Even though it's a big part of life.
Yeah.
Because I also do allow some of my personal life into the show and I try to be intentional about it, so like I will share something when it feels like it furthers the point or it might make people feel less alone, or it just like helps like Explain something.
But there are certain things that are off limits for me.
I'm figuring out what those are.
But really, it's about personal details, about my family, anything like that.
And also about my love life.
I can talk in the abstract about things like oh, I went through a breakup and my dad gave me this advice, but I'm not going to say well, I'm dating this person right now, and blah blah, blah.
And even the mention of dating, sometimes even saying that I am someone who dates or has dated or whatever implies sex.
And then so suddenly you feel like, I don't know.
I came up as a reporter.
I wasn't used to sharing anything of myself.
I get it.
Even when you haven't said anything about that part of your life.
It's like people can make weird comments.
I shared this on another show actually, but someone wrote a comment about how I say my last name, which is Cigarra.
It's a Puerto Rican last name.
They said that it's over the top and it sounds like I'm having an orgasm every time I say it.
Oh, I can't.
And I was like, a rolled R sounds like an orgasm to you.
Interesting, you know?
That says a lot about you.
It says a lot about you, yeah.
But I felt like you took something that's very sacred to me and made it sexual and then also turned me into a sex object.
You know, like in that moment it's totally yeah, it's totally racist.
Like it's misogynistic too.
It's like yeah, it was just gross in a lot of ways, but things like that sometimes make me hesitate even more.
I hate that though.
Yeah.
But it's true as a public figure, which we all are now, just by default.
And then as a woman who's a public figure, the stakes are higher, I think.
And I don't blame you for even hesitating about that.
Yeah, wanting to shield that part of myself.
And in general, being...
With NPR, there are some things that we – especially on the radio that you can't talk about.
Even when we have episodes on like – we did an episode on constipation.
And it's like we had to – I don't think we've run it on the radio.
But if you're doing it in a medical context, like it's probably okay.
But sometimes it can be a fine line and you're like okay, there's stuff that I think maybe – we're a little more conservative about.
For that reason.
But yeah, I think, and sex is just like, it's like, what are we doing?
Like, what kind of tips are we going to give people?
You know, that's like a whole other podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you?
Stuff that is, that you consider off limits?
I was thinking about like you share a lot of personal stuff, but in a really balanced way I struggle with it.
I'm an oversharer.
I'm an oversharer, too.
And I have to really think about what I'm saying because when I'm sitting here sometimes, especially because, like, the wonderful people and producers I work with are, like... dope women and I feel very comfortable with Noah so I'm kiki-ing with my girlfriends yeah and I it can get out of control I I like a good laugh yeah and I have to be really and it's about other people like it's about my partner it's about my family like I don't want to give any details that they would feel violated by yeah because there's very little I could say about myself that you know what I'm a very open book yeah for better or worse but you're right you have to remember yeah There's other people.
And the platform you have and how many people are going to hear it and all of that.
Yeah.
That's important to consider.
Yeah.
You can forget that people listen.
A lot of people.
And it can feel like you're just having a really fun conversation.
Yes.
And there are things that I would be – I'm very open, one-on-one with people, even if I've just met them.
Like I can be – Same.
Like, you know, I'm okay with talking about having had breast cancer like pretty quickly.
Mm-hmm.
Partly, I don't think it's something that we should stigmatize, you know?
That's right.
And I think that makes people feel less alone.
But yeah, I'm... And I did talk about that on the show.
But there are things that I would like joke around with you guys, for instance about you know off mic that I wouldn't on mic.
Because I'd just be like...
That part of myself, I don't know who's going to listen to this.
You know, I'm sharing this now with anybody, basically.
Yeah, exactly.
Noah, is there any subject you don't feel comfortable with?
I don't have anything.
But I also came up.
You know a lot of the work that I did before I started doing.
This is like I wrote these crazy essays every week about the queer community.
And it was like activism in a way.
And like, I was writing about being sexually assaulted.
I was writing about my dad dying of cancer.
I put so much of myself out in the world, but I don't think a lot of people do do that.
No, it's not the norm.
It's not the norm.
And like you were saying, a lot can come with that.
And people feel like they know you then.
People feel like they have a right to comment on your life then.
And you have to decide how much you want to share.
I think it's really important.
And I think being intentional about it is protecting yourself.
We had an episode of the podcast.
It's the only one that I did not co-host.
It was on grief.
For a number of reasons, I don't feel I could have talked about the subjects they were talking about grief-related.
I didn't feel safe.
And Noah was so gentle about it, and so was everyone else.
And we had a wonderful colleague step in, and it was such a great episode.
I couldn't have been my best self on that.
And I think... being like this is me at 41 me at 25 would have powered through it and then probably had like a mentee bee after and like called my therapist like scream crying so like why for what you know i want to give to the world what i can and then what i can't i'm gonna ask someone else to do it i love that yeah yeah that's great i'm glad you did that thank you I feel much more myself, much more confident in myself as the years pass.
And I actually another piece of advice that I got that I that has stuck with me, was from my therapist.
It was like, you don't have to be nice all the time or nice to everyone.
You know, what is even like reexamining what niceness is and how authentic it is.
You know that doesn't mean don't be kind or loving.
It doesn't mean be like rude to people or mean it just means like you don't always have to put on this, act like you're the nice girl yeah um, when what's happening in this situation doesn't deserve niceness.
You know that has stuck with me and i've really put that into play in my life in the past like five years.
That's beautiful.
I want to also ask, we talked about things that we are not necessarily comfortable talking about.
Are there any topics where you feel like are such an enigma that everyone wants to know about, but you like haven't gotten great advice about it or you can't really find it?
And I'm going to give you an example.
Like we're going to do an episode on dreaming.
There's some science behind it, but there's still a lot we don't know.
So it's like, there's a certain comfort to like figuring out how to do it right.
Some topics you actually can't do right or like get better at because we haven't nailed that enough.
Yeah, we did one on headaches, too.
And we had the head of the Yale School of Medicine for headaches.
And it blew our mind because we talked to him for like an hour.
And at the end, I was like, Raj, I'm not sure that we learned how to do headaches better.
No, we did learn a lot.
We learned a ton.
But not how to.
But we didn't learn that much.
It was actually practical advice, because he was just like we're still learning a lot and they're really complicated.
Yeah.
That is the challenge when you're especially in the medical field.
There's just a lot that we don't know.
And we assume that doctors know everything.
And actually there's a lot that they just sort of shrug and say well, we can't find the cause for your pain.
It's terrifying.
Yeah.
There's a lot where they're still researching.
The further you get into it, the more confused you get sometimes.
I think that sometimes when there is debate like there, for instance, like when we did the breast cancer screening episode, there are different guidelines from different medical organizations for when women should start getting mammograms and also whether they should do breast self-exams or like a physical breast exam in their doctor's office, whether those are useful or not.
Yeah.
It makes sense given their specialties, right?
Like, the gynecological association is like, we see the benefit of doing these exams.
We find breast cancer this way, especially for women who are not eligible for mammograms yet, which is happening more and more, that women under 40 are getting breast cancer.
I was 34 when I was diagnosed.
And my doctor found it by feeling it just in a regular gynecological exam.
So...
They will say, no, you should keep doing them.
And then other medical groups that are reputable will say, no, you don't need to do those.
Their research shows that it doesn't generally increase the risks or increase the chances of survival, or whatever their reasons are.
Right.
In terms of giving advice on this thing.
We had to pull back in that episode and say okay, so there's disagreement here.
Here's what's underneath the disagreement.
Here's what these people say.
Here's what these experts say.
And then we talked to two oncologists, two breast oncologists, who were like we think Generally you should start your mammograms at age 40, unless you have history or like a genetic mutation, and you should get those physical exams done.
Like they're more conservative because they see young women coming in with breast cancer all the time.
When there's something that where there's still debate over it reasonable debate we try to explain what the debate is about.
Not always.
Sometimes it's so in the weeds and so unclear that you can't really do an episode about that topic.
But if it's something that is affecting so many people, like headaches, it kind of feels like you need to do the episode and just explain what's out there.
Exactly.
And that's where we sort of landed.
It was like we maybe can't give you great advice on this, but like, let's talk about the landscape and why this might be happening to you.
Or maybe you didn't know that this is what was happening to you.
That feels useful to me as well.
And I love like showing respect to people in that way where, like you said, you tell them what the experts are saying and kind of you're like okay, you decide what you should do.
Here's all the evidence.
I mean, when it was time for covet vaccines, like we, i learned a lot about the mrna, you know style of vaccine and stuff and i made an educated decision and i love that i was given and to me was a no-brainer but, like it's, i jumped into the research and i love being offered information.
Yeah, it's empowering and it goes to say, like you're listening to a podcast.
We are not doctors.
And the doctors we have on are just specific doctors.
Like you should never be taking that kind of advice just from a podcast.
I would say you know like learn how to clean the grout in your tub.
Sure.
But like something like that, like get some different opinions.
Talk to your own doctor.
It's a starting point.
It's a starting point.
Yeah.
Invest in these funds or whatever.
No, we can generally explain to them what different kinds of investment funds, how they work and what it means, for instance, to diversify, like to what a stock is, what a stock investment is, what a bond is, how the risk is different for those, why you might want to have some investments in international stocks and not just US based stocks.
And then they can take those building blocks and and either talk to a financial advisor or build a financial portfolio on their own.
I love that.
I think to end, I would love to know if you either of you have an episode that you still want to do.
Like, what's your dream episode that you haven't done yet?
Like, I will say mine.
Yeah.
We've been trying to do supplements for forever and we're going to do it.
But we either get doctors who say when we try and book them as a guest, they say no one should be taking supplements because they should get all their vitamins from Whole Foods.
Or it's more like influencer people who are like, let me sell you my supplement.
Yeah.
We really want someone in the middle.
And my other one is my dream.
I'm putting this out there in the universe.
I really want the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, to come on and do baking with us.
Like, am I baking wrong?
I love all of her videos that I watch.
I love.
She's just the best.
And she's the perfect person for that.
So, Ina, if you're listening, get in here.
Okay.
I have mine.
Do you have yours?
I have one, I think.
Yeah.
Okay.
Go for it.
I thought a lot about drinking water quality.
Oh yeah.
Interesting.
Like how to get a good filter for your drinking water and how to know what's in your tap water.
Um, because a lot of the time people just say, Oh yeah, the tap water here is great.
Yeah.
New York.
Yeah.
New York.
And they might say that in other places too.
Yeah.
The tap water is fine.
And you almost seem like when you go to somebody's house and you ask, like, do you have a filter?
They, It can seem a little like you've got a tinfoil hat on.
Absolutely.
But actually there is a lot of stuff in our drinking water, even once it's filtered, that you'd want to filter out, that I want to filter out.
And I thought about that. like after I got cancer as well.
And a lot of the time like we just still don't understand the environmental causes of cancer, like of breast cancer specifically.
We understand some of the lifestyle causes and the genetic causes, but there's a lot that's just sort of like maybe something in the environment caused it.
And so that makes you say, okay, well, where are some places where I can tighten up around that.
Not that I'm sure that this is what caused it, but that this is one opportunity to Maybe be healthier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do better.
Be exposed to fewer chemicals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And water is such a big one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really good one.
What's your dream, Raj?
So mine, I would love for us to do an episode on like self-confidence or feeling beautiful.
And I would want Rihanna to be our expert.
Okay.
So that's, like, here's the thing.
Hear me out.
Like, I think, like, being sexy would be a really fun, like, subject because it's so broad.
Like, what does that mean to you?
Like sometimes to people it's like being really smart and having read a lot of books in that like book smart.
And sometimes it's, like, looking and feeling good and dressing well.
And, like, I feel like Rihanna's very confident.
She is.
She's the queen of confidence.
I don't know that she would give us great tips, though.
I feel like there would be a lot of good one-liners that wouldn't make any sense to most people.
But, like, I want that.
We would enjoy that.
You just want to talk to Rihanna.
That's it.
Rosh just wants to hang out with Rihanna.
That's what it is.
I think you should get India Arie on.
Oh.
She's a really good one.
Her song video.
Yeah.
I love that.
That's all about self-love.
I'll take anyone who really has consistently shown us self-love.
Yeah, not just like performatively, but you can feel it in their energy.
Yeah, but i do want it doesn't have to be either one of these people.
I want an episode in like how to really love on yourself all the time.
Yeah, all the time.
All right well, we're gonna make it happen.
Then you call him rihanna for me.
Yeah, let me dm her really quick exactly hey, riri.
Well, she's not busy making an album, so she can't.
I mean, maybe she is but um, hopefully she's making babies.
This has been so good.
Thank you for coming in and chatting with us and sort of going behind the scenes.
Yeah, this was really fun.
It's nice to meet you both.
Yeah, same.
Okay, Raj, I'm not going to ask you if you've been giving advice wrong because that's silly.
But what did you think of today's episode?
I thought it was really fun.
I felt very supported.
And it's cool to see the kind of behind the scenes stuff that happens, because I think all three of us are really trying our best to be a vehicle for this advice.
Yeah.
And we're not really giving it.
We're just kind of like, here's the experts and then kind of like chiming in as far as what we know.
I love that.
I like to give our listeners just like a little more intel about that.
That's the funny thing.
Before we start recording and we meet the expert, we always say to them the show is kind of like three friends hanging out.
And two of us are dummies.
And the third person is an expert.
And they're lovingly schooling us.
And so, yeah, I feel like you and I, we're the conduit for the advice.
But we aren't really giving it.
Although sometimes we do.
We've lived a lot of life.
I know.
And we have some things to say, too.
But it was great to have another person who does this for a living and hear what their life is like.
Working at NPR, it's different than what we do.
And I just love sort of going behind the scenes and taking a second to do that.
Absolutely.
And it's it's nice to know that we see our listeners as like kind of family, too.
And we're trying to do the best we can for them and for us.
It feels a little corny.
I know.
But we really mean it.
I am corny.
Yeah.
So I'm very comfortable.
Absolutely.
She cute, too, though.
She's real cute.
Anyway, until next time, as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do it better.
I love y'all.
Am I Doing It Wrong is a co-production between HuffPost and ACAST.
Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borja Carrillo, and Malia Agudelo.
Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience, Abby Williams.
Head of video, Will Took.
As well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez, and Terry D'Angelo.
And we're your hosts, Raj Punjabi-Johnson.
And Noah Michelson.
