... stood out in the beginning of your time?

Ooh.

So I grew up in a suburb in Chicago, and we had our little Glencoe Public Library.

And, um, it's still so special to me, but my dad would take me there all the time.

I don't know if this is, uh, common or not, but like, when Amazon started, I opened an account, and, uh, it was, like, under my parents' credit card, and I got a call, and they were like, "Stop buying books!"

[laughs]

... of the sadness? And nothing really made me feel better, but reading women's stories did.

And it sort of reinvigorated my reading, and I started reading a lot of nonfiction, 'cause I'd always, always read fiction before.

I'm

Danielle Robay.

I have a podcast on iHeart, so I'm very excited to welcome Ryan to the iHeart family.

I want to know how you all wake up.

So will you turn to the person next to you? I know you're all cozy.

And tell them honestly the first thing that you do when you wake up.

How many people said they check their phones? Yeah, I'm guilty too.

That's all it can take.

I'm

Danielle Robay.

I have a podcast on iHeart, so I'm very excited to welcome Ryan to the iHeart family.

I wanna know how you all wake up.

So will you turn to the person next to you, I know you're all cozy, and tell them honestly the first thing that you do when you wake up.

How many people said they check their phones? Yeah, I'm guilty too.

Okay, I don't wanna change your routines.

Visit sceducationlottery.com slash better you.

I'm

Danielle Robay.

I have a podcast on iHeart, so I'm very excited to welcome Ryan to the iHeart family.

I wanna know how you all wake up.

So will you turn to the person next to you, I know you're all cozy, and tell them honestly the first thing that you do when you wake up.

How many people said they check their phones? Yeah, I'm guilty too.

Okay, I don't wanna change your routines.

That's all it can take.

I am an actor and host of Love Island USA and business owner with Katie Maloney of Something About Her in

West Hollywood.

So, so nice to be a part of it.

Hi, I'm Danielle Robay.

I'm a journalist and a podcast host for Question Everything and Reese's Book Club.

So I have been called the queen of questions.

And I like that title because I think questions are a love language.

And so I attribute great interviews and great conversations first to a generous guest, then a lot of good preparation and research.

you think about who you're now saying no to, what is a no and what's a yes? Like if somebody listening wants to chat with somebody like you, wants to network with somebody like you, what are they doing that's you're like, nope,

I don't have the bandwidth for that.

Yeah.

I love the way you asked that question because it's actually not about my bandwidth and it's more about their ask.

Tell me more.

What's a bad ask? A bad ask is an email that is too long.

A bad ask is something that feels really self-serving.

I would agree with that.

Yeah.

And it, I've actually never had anybody do this, but if I had a, a student email me and say, "Hey, Danielle, I listened to this ep- episode of your podcast with Tori Dunlap.

I loved what you and she said about X, Y, and Z, and I've been thinking about th- like, how maybe in your social media you could do X, Y, and Z.

If you'd love to ch- if you wanna chat about it, I'd love to talk with you and also ask you a few questions."

Great.

The first is when I started a podcast, I had an acquaintance that I was at dinner with, and she was like, "I'm dying to start a podcast.

I'm gonna email Joe Rogan, and I want his tips." And I looked at her, and I said, "What?" [laughs] And she was like, "Yeah.

I mean, he's like, he's great at it." I go, "Yeah.

Mm.

Um, and it, it created some beautiful, unexpected connections.

Even with my own parents, who I know so well, I was...

They didn't know this, I was practicing asking them questions.

And I felt like they wanted to be on the phone longer.

And my friends, who I know really well, I started asking questions aside from, "How was your day?" and sort of like the basic things we ask, and they felt way more connected to me.

And I realized that asking questions is an actual superpower.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

I would, like, sit at the park with my mom when she would be talking to her girlfriends, and my mom would say, "Go play with the kids," and I would sit on her knee and just listen to all the women tell stories.

Um, and to this day, I still love hearing people's stories.

So when I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had lied to get a bunch of internships because I was too young to get them, and worked at news stations, and graduated and thou- and thought, "I'm gonna move to LA and I'm gonna work on the internet." I called my dad, I said, "I'm gonna book a one-way ticket." I had $8,000 saved, and he was like, "What do you mean work on the internet?" Like-

Yeah.

And he was like, "Those people have a job.

They're also hired.

Like, go figure out how to s- make people see you the way you see yourself." And so COVID hit, and I launched my podcast, Question Everything.

Wow.

And he is so, as a pers- not just as my father, as a person, is so wise.

Like I, I love listening to his views and how he lives and how he sees the world.

And he said that his father always said to him, "If you cannot have forgiveness with friendships, you are going to be a very lonely person," because people-... are disappointing sometimes.

They will disappoint you.

And it doesn't mean they are a bad person.

Um, it just, it just is part of friendship sometimes.

What did you come to learn?

Mm-hmm.

And it's really tough, and I actually, um, [laughs] I ended up calling in sick for a week because I was like, "I'm so tired, I can't even think about what I want." Anyways, um, I was dating somebody, and he was like, "Wow, you're really not well." [laughs] And I was like, well, I had quit my job, and I sta- I decided I'm, I was gonna use that time to take myself to grad school.

So I started watching hours of Larry King, of Robin Roberts, of Bob Costas, of Barbara Walters, all the people that I thought were the best journalists in the world-

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Um, but it really is a cost to my job.

Um, people expect you to show up a certain way.

But I actually recently have been thinking about the, like, spiritual, personal cost of ambition.