The Best Advice Ever

Cedric the Entertainer ▸ Comedian/Actor

“My mom told me to always make certain my name had good credibility associated with it. Her actual quote was ‘Remember that your name walks in the door before you do.’ Whether it be your credit, your brand, your persona—when people speak about you, hear about you, or mention you, let your name value always hold a positive connotation... Of course, in those days of my youth, she was mainly referring to having good credit!”

Kim Massie ▸ Blues Diva and Songstress

“Even if you have a manager, know what’s going on with your business and write your own checks. You hear about it in the national media, artists going bankrupt. But I found out by experience. As artists, we can be really stupid. We have a talent. We love what we do. But we don’t know nothin’ about the business of making money, and we make some bad decisions, and some of us suffer for them.”

Rev. Mike Kinman ▸ Dean, Christ Church Cathedral

“I've always been attracted to peace—to reasoned conversation over emotional outburst, to predictability over chaos.

“The uprising following the killing of Michael Brown was decidedly unpeaceful, emotional, and chaotic. I felt a need to do something positive, gather leaders and do a teach-in on issues of power and privilege. Looking back, it was mighty arrogant. And one person, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, was friend enough to call me on it. She said, ‘You’re used to being able to fix things. You need to sit down in your discomfort—and then you need to listen. And when it makes you even more uncomfortable, you need to listen and listen some more.’”

John Danforth ▸ Attorney Episcopal Priest, Former U.S. Senator

“In November 1976, I was elected to the Senate, and I was at that time state attorney general. I was in Jefferson City and about to leave for Washington. I called up a man named Bob Peeter, who was a Republican pollster and adviser, and said, ‘Do you have any advice for me?’ He said, ‘Follow your nose.’ What he meant was just follow your instincts and don’t get trapped into convoluted explanations for hard-to-explain positions. Do what you think is right. A lot of political decision-making is what feels right to you.”

Tim Eby ▸ General Manager, St. Louis Public Radio 

When Eby wanted to quit the football team in the seventh grade, his mother told him, “If you quit this when the going gets tough, you will quit every time you’re up against the wall.” He threw himself into the offensive line and was starting by the end of the season.

Mary Danforth Stillman ▸ Executive Director, Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls

“I did not know my great-grandfather, William H. Danforth, but by all accounts he was a very inspirational person. William Danforth had a gift for coining some wonderful phrases that asked people, especially young people, to live to their potential and be the best they could be. My father was very close to his grandfather and passed on much of the advice he had received from him to me and my siblings. One in particular stuck out: ‘Aspire nobly, adventure daringly, serve humbly.’ I’m not sure this really counts as advice, but it certainly counts as a challenge to strive to live a purposeful life while keeping a healthy and realistic perspective on your own place in the world.”

Vince Bommarito Sr. Owner, Tony’s 

“‘Don’t burden yourself with small things.’ That bit of advice came from Tony Lombardo, who owned a produce company right next to the original Tony’s. One day I had letters that needed to be typed, and Tony—realizing I was a busy restaurant guy—thought he’d help out by volunteering the services of a woman who worked in his office. I came up with more and more letters for her to type and eventually ended up marrying the woman.”   

Ellie Kemper ▸ Actress, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

“Jon Hamm taught the improvisation section of my ninth-grade theater class at John Burroughs, and in this class he taught us the concept of ‘Yes, and.’ This is the central tenet of improv, and it means you take what your scene partner gives you, and you build on it. It also—and hear me out, because this is initially sort of corny—can be applied to the greater world. Getting along with other people is not about saying no. If you are able to accept the truth of a situation and figure out a way to build on it, you will have a better scene. He was the first person to articulate this to me, and the concept is invaluable.” 

Judge Jimmie Edwards ▸ Founder, Innovative Concept Academy

“My dear mom, now deceased, told me that the happiest and most successful people are those that live life without a rear-view mirror—and because of her, I have no regrets!”

Derek Blasberg ▸ Fashion Journalist, Vanity Fair

“When I had just graduated college, I applied for a job at a fashion magazine and didn’t get it. I was upset and I called my grandmother, and she told me: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ She was right, the next week I got a job at Vogue and started my career in the fashion industry. That’s the best advice: Life is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Lola Van Ella ▸ Burlesque Artist

“When I was newer in my career and not sure how to handle personal attacks, a restaurant owner told me to remember I was a queen and to behave as such. He said, ‘Don’t respond to negativity; just rise above it. You are a queen, so just throw them cake like the benevolent royalty you are.’” 

Jeff Keane ▸ CEO, Coolfire Studios

“Being an entrepreneur requires a certain appetite for taking risk. My dad, Cid, always reminded me to stop and ask the question ‘What is the worst thing that can happen?’ His point was to honestly assess the worst possible outcome and then just go for it.”

Dr. Patricia Wolff ▸ Founder and Executive Director, Meds & Foods for Kids 

“Regarding life in general, everyone is so self-conscious about their own flaws that they won’t notice yours if you don’t point them out. My now-deceased wonderful mother-in-law once told me she hated the wrinkles in her neck and liked to cover them up with a scarf. Before that, I never noticed. After that day, I always noticed her neck.

“Regarding marriage, find someone whose life is enhanced and who is proud if you become all that you can be—and then be sure to reciprocate.”

Kathleen Madigan ▸ Comedian  

“I’m with Andy Warhol: When he was asked that question, his answer was ‘So what?’ It’s like saying nothing matters, so lower your stress level. Clearly there are life-altering events—but for everyday things, nothing is worth getting riled up over. No hotel room for me? So what? I’ll go to another hotel.”

Mike Wolff ▸ Dean, Saint Louis University School of Law

“Having gotten unsteady in recent years in the advice-giving business, I am forced to rely upon messages honed over years of random rambling to students:

“You can get a lot accomplished if you're willing not to take credit for it. A corollary: If you want power, give it to others. Control freaks control very little.

You do not really need to screen your telephone calls. Years ago, in a fit of what seemed like misguided egalitarianism, I decided that if I was ‘in,’ I was ‘in’ for everyone. 

“Learn from your failures. You learn from cases that you lose because you retry them in your head for years. Admit your mistakes in the active voice: ‘I was wrong,’ not ‘Mistakes were made.’

“Pay attention to the light that flickers in your brain. It’s asking you: Is this why I went to law school? I hope you think about that question often. And my fondest wish for you is that the answer—always—will be ‘Yes.’ You cannot do better than to follow the flippant but sage advice of Mark Twain. ‘Always do right,’ he said. ‘This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.’”

Nick Foles ▸ Quarterback, St. Louis Rams

“Some of the best advice I got was from my quarterback coach at Arizona, Frank Scelfo. It was ‘Don’t let the last play or the last game affect what happens the next play or next game.’ Have that short memory and be able to bounce back. After a game, good or bad, have 24 hours to deal with the emotions and move on. I think that relates to life. We have great things that happen in our life and then we have things that aren’t so great. Staying steady, staying even-keel, staying humble is sort of how I looked at it.” 

Elliott Davis ▸ Investigative Reporter, Fox 2 News

“My best advice came 25 years ago, from an assistant news director named Shawn Briggs. He told me, ‘Do one thing at a time, and give that all your attention so you can do it well.’ I had the bad habit at the time of trying to do too many things at once. But after a year under Shawn’s guidance, I had doing one thing at a time down to a science!”

Gyo Obata ▸ HOK co-founder

“My mother told me to always listen before I do anything. HOK’s approach of listening carefully to clients has played a big part in our success over the past 60 years. Unlike some architects, we never tell a client what to do. Before we make any suggestions, we listen closely, ask questions, and make sure we understand what our clients want and need.”

Pam Nicholson ▸ President and CEO, Enterprise Holdings 

“Early on in my career, one of my managers told me to take risks—smart risks. He told me if there was a position open in my company that might be a bit of a stretch for my qualifications, take the risk and apply for it. Sometimes you just can’t wait for every box to be checked. He was right.”

Dr. John DiPersio ▸ Medical Oncologist and Deputy Director, Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 

“My mother told me, ‘Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.’ That has an important impact on seeing patients. Sometimes people come to us with X, Y, or Z diagnosis. Instead of just believing it, questioning it and redoing the studies and trying something completely different can be lifesaving. 

“I had a patient referred to me who was diagnosed with acute erythroid leukemia by an outside pathologist. The pathology didn't look correct to me, so we simply did a B₁₂ level and found out the patient was only B₁₂ deficient and didn’t have cancer. That person saved themselves chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.” 

Bill McClellan ▸ Columnist, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“The best advice I ever got came from Dave Aitken, and he didn’t tell me anything. His son, Jeff, was gathering carts at a Schnucks parking lot and found a bag full of cash. He asked his dad what he should do. They counted the money—$21,500. Dave figured it was drug money but nevertheless told Jeff the only thing to do was to take the money to the police station. When I went to interview Jeff, his mother was in a bed in the living room. She was in the final stages of ALS.  Dave had quit his job to care for her. They had gone through their savings and were now dipping into Dave’s retirement fund. If any family needed an infusion of cash, it was this one. Instead, Dave did the right thing. He taught his son a lesson, and me, too.”

Andrew Rehfeld ▸ CEO, Jewish Federation

“Two philosophy professors made me realize that all claims about the world are either true or false; they cannot be both. If you believe one thing and another person believes the opposite, one of you is mistaken. Don’t presume the other person is wrong. Use it as an opportunity to figure out why the other person believes what she does, and make the strongest case you can for the other person’s argument before trying to reject it—then make a decision about which side you believe is right, and realize you may never know for sure.”

Maj. Gen. Barbara Faulkenberry ▸ U.S. Air Force, retired

Before she walked onstage to accept an honor in junior high, her dad said, “Give a firm handshake, and look them in the eye.” So she did. She gave that same firm handshake at her Air Force Academy graduation, to reassure pilots after 9/11, and while presenting the American flag to a fallen airman’s parents.  “While  my dad may not have meant it in this way, I’ve found it is a great way to exude empathy and to connect to people.” 

Hugh “Peanuts” Whalum ▸ Musician

The 87-year-old musician is a fixture on the local jazz scene. Peanuts’ nephew Kirk Whalum has followed in his uncle’s footsteps. Growing up in Memphis, the younger Whalum learned to play the sax and went on to become a Grammy-winning jazz artist. Kirk recently posed the greatest advice question to his uncle by phone. After a long pause, Peanuts replied: “Trust in God, and believe in myself.”

“That’s a good piece of advice there,” said Kirk.

“But you’ve gotta trust in him first,” Peanuts added.

Rahul Parikh ▸ Administrator, Washington University, Great-great-grandson of Gandhi

“I grew up in one of the ashrams [communes] of the great soul M.K. Gandhi in Western India. My mother was a great-granddaughter of Gandhi, my father’s father was a lifelong colleague of Gandhi’s, and my father also followed in his footsteps. Obviously I was heavily influenced and molded by Gandhi’s ideology. But the “Aha!” moment came when my father summed up the life of Gandhi and his colleagues in a single phrase: ‘simple living and high thinking.’ That got engraved in my heart and soul. It meant simplicity by choice and a competition of sacrifice for the nation and the underprivileged. After my graduation in engineering, I decided to work with my father in his Gandhian institution in rural India rather than pursuing a lucrative corporate career. I was very fortunate to have lived in that way for almost 30 years, the golden period of my life.”

Roger Kaza ▸ Principal Horn, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

“The classical music business tends to attract perfectionists, and this is a double-edged sword: On the one hand, being obsessively picky about your playing skills can help you win an orchestra audition; the flip side is that it can then seem like the end of the world when a performance doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

“Early in my ca-reer I was lamenting this problem to an older, wiser colleague. He told me a story. When he was starting out, he’d had a bad night. He was so upset, he went back afterwards to apologize to the conductor. The maestro, Bruno Walter, was an icon, the last of a breed.Walter listened to my distraught colleague’s apology but would have none of it. ‘The music,’ he explained, ‘is like a beautiful poem. Maybe there’s an ink smudge on the page. It’s still a beautiful poem.’ 

“That image—of art transcending its human makers—instantly put everything into perspective for me, and a few thousand less-than-perfect concerts later, I’ve never forgotten it.”

Becky Sauerbrunn ▸ International Soccer Star

“The best advice I’ve ever received is to always be ready. I was first called in to the [U.S. Women’s Soccer] National Team after my last college season. I went to camp and did well enough to make my first tournament roster in China. I played in two games and thought I had done pretty well, until I was told the team was letting me go. I was crushed. I had briefly experienced my dream, only to have it taken away. My college coach told me I could do two things: work my tail off and get back to the team or accept that my dream was too lofty and aim for something more ‘realistic.’ I chose the former, and he said I would have to be ready at any moment if the team called me back. It took two years, and even then I was called in as an alternate at the last second, because someone went down injured. Luckily, I was ready. I made the most of that opportunity and haven’t looked back. I achieved my dream and helped my team win a World Cup this past summer.”

Danny Meyer ▸ Restaurateur

“My maternal grandfather, Irving B. Harris, said: ‘Always remember that you are never quite so good as all the good things being said and never quite so bad as the bad things.  The important thing is to know yourself, understand your intentions, and to stay focused on doing even better at what you know to be right.’”

John Carney ▸ Host, The John Carney Show, KTRS-AM

“Listen to what people are saying. So many people in my business have their list of questions, and no matter what someone tells you, you’re going to go through that list. I never drive the bus. People tune in to hear your guest.”

Dave Glover ▸ Host, The Dave Glover Show, KFTK-FM 

“When it comes to performing, it’s easy to be great now and then. The hardest thing in the world is to be good every day. I forgot who said that—it might have been me.”

Jim McKelvey ▸ Co-founder, Square and Third Degree Glass Factory

Standing on the wing of a plane he’s just landed, Jim McKelvey, who’s a licensed pilot in addition to being a tech entrepreneur and glass artist, can remember easily the best advice he’s ever received: “It’s not what you know how to make; it’s what you know how to fix.” 

He’s been following this advice—learned from Lino Tagliapietra, the world’s greatest glassblower, during McKelvey’s apprenticeship in Italy—in the cockpit by practicing emergency recovery maneuvers. 

“It’s actually very easy to fly as long as nothing goes wrong.” But when something does go wrong? “It’s humbling, because a lot of the time the answer is ‘I don’t know.’ Humility, then, leads to learning.”

Mike Saigh ▸ Inventor

“There is no single quote! Life is more a composite of all the wise statements made by people you love. Growing up, I spent time with people older and wiser than myself, people I hoped would positively rub off on my soul.”

We begged for more: “An older friend who taught you X, another who taught you Y…?” 

“Teaching me X and Y was the fault of my old geometry teacher, who terrorized me. I would hate to talk poorly about the dead. Also, I would hate to talk about the living, since sometimes their X’s were Y’s and Y’s were X’s. I would be haunted by the dead and ridiculed by the living. It’s a no-win.”

Kay Drey ▸ Environmentalist

“My mom, Fritzi Kranzberg, taught me that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Well, I do say lots of not-nice things during uphill battles about bad options. But I do try not to say bad things about real people—or at least only about people who are bad. And I am absolutely more comfortable saying good things about people, especially about good people.”

Mike Isaacson ▸ Artistic Director and Executive Producer, The Muny 

“I have two older brothers who are two and four years older, respectively. When I was 6, I wanted to do everything, be everywhere, and I was always frustrated that my brothers got to go to interesting places and stay up later. One day, my dad sat me down and asked, ‘Where am I going to go tomorrow?’ Didn’t seem hard. ‘To your work,’ I replied. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now, where are you going to go tomorrow?’ Just as easy, I thought:  ‘To kindergarten.’  ‘Exactly,’ he said, ‘and you go to kindergarten because you are 6 and that is what you do when you’re 6. I go to work because I’m a dad and I’m 39.’ So far, it all checked out. ‘But the thing is,’ he continued, ‘if I wanted to go to kindergarten tomorrow, I couldn’t. You see, you have to live it while you can, because you’re only who you are now once, and then it changes. So go to kindergarten, and don’t worry about what’s ahead. Just make sure you really are good at kindergarten. The rest just happens.’”