Weirdly Helpful (formerly The Best Advice Show)

Dan Levy (danlevyshow) is a writer and comedian living in LA. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: DAN: My name is Dan Levy. I am a dad. A husband. A writer/producer and a comedian, here in Los Angeles, California. I would say my advice would be very simple, which is, never be annoying. No matter what field you are in or trying to get in to. My advice to everyone is don't be annoying. I say this as someone who definitely has gone through annoying phases. But, I feel like you are most successful and you succeed the most when you are likable and nice. Obviously, if you can be funny that's always helpful. But I find sometimes when people are annoying, it sometimes comes across as desperate and desperate is no good. ZAK: I feel like annoying people don't know that they're annoying. DAN: That is the biggest problem. The problem is, though, I feel like they don't realize that and those people...a lot of times, don't really move forward with what they're trying to accomplish because I really believed that it comes across as insecure and just that desperation which is not something anyone wants to be a part of. ZAK: What does annoying look like to you? DAN: I would say annoying could be telling the story. Aggressively asking for help. Sending too many emails before someone responds to the first one. ZAK: Do you think that it's possible to gently tell someone that they're being annoying and for them to curb their behavior? DAN: Um, yeah. I think there's a way. I think, you know, you could gently say, like, hey, you don't need to talk so much. Someone told me that one time. They're like you don't need to keep on talking. You don't need to keep on pitching. We hear you. And I'm like, alright. Note taken. ZAK: Speaking of annoying, this is probably an annoying question but what's it like for you to be a Dan Levy that didn't just win a thousand Emmys? DAN: I'm very used to it at this point. ZAK: Dan Levy, the guy I'm talking to isn't Dan Levy, the guy that just swept the Emmys for Schitts Creek. DAN: I've been confused with him for so long that it's just part of my life's rhythm at this point. I respond to emails, Thank you so much. He's the best. I didn't win the Emmys though. I'll forward the email to him. hahahah. ZAK: If its not too annoying of me to ask, I would love for you to write a rating or review for this show on Apple Podcasts and if you're liking the show please consider sharing it with your family and friends. I really, really appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abra Berens (@abraberens) is a chef, former farmer, and writer. Her book is Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: singing: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas or Hanukah or Kwanza, but not really because this year is so weird and doesn't feel like any other year. ABRA: My name is Abra Berens and I am a chef and cookbook author based in Three Oaks, Michigan. ZAK: The holidays are coming up and they're gonna be very different from a what a lot of us were hoping for or expecting. So, what do you have in mind for how we can think about cooking for the holidays? ABRA:The beauty of holiday food is that it is...there's so many traditions and there's so many things that signal the holidays. Or like, what is the dish where it's not Thanksgiving without that dish there. But now that holidays are all wonky because of this terrible virus, if you find yourself trying to fulfill a pre-conceived notion of what it's supposed to be, just stop. And think about what you actually want to eat. And make that instead. You know, so if it's like, well we always make crown roast or we always make this thing, maybe you can just stop and think, well, everything is off the table this year, so what do you actually want to eat? And then let that be your guiding force. ZAK: You're talking about kind of detaching from expectations and like, being ok with the moment. ABRA: And yeah, what did we all have to read Art of War in the 8th grade or something. It's sort of like Art of War-ing your menu or your life, I guess. Like, instead of facing the thing head-on, can you just side-step it? ZAK:I mean I love that and I think for people that aren't chefs, we're sometimes overwhelmed with like, what do I want? What do I actually want? Do you have thoughts on how to figure out what we want? ABRA: I mean I think slowing down is probably the best thing. Sometimes I'll just open the fridge and be like, well, there's some carrots. There's some red cabbage, uh what else do I go? And I'll literally just take a bite of carrot and just slow down and think, what other flavors come to mind when chewing on that piece of carrot and then I'll just make those. So if I'm eating a carrot and I want something spicy, then I'll just a chili-oil with it or some kind of spicy pepper or if I want something even sweeter, maybe I would roast them with maple syrup, you know, the way you would sweet potatoes or whatever. So, I think that you can do some of that sort of thinking. ZAK: chewing. Hmmm. Carrots. Abra Berens book is Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables. As always, I really want to hear your food-related advice. Give me a call on the hotline, 844-935-BEST. And if you're enjoying this show, please consider rating and reviewing on Apple Podcast. Thanks! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nichole Christian is a writer, artist and mother from Detroit. I want to collect your favorite advice from this year. The advice that you're actually practicing in real life that you learned from this show. Tell me what that is by writing me at [email protected]. Or you can call the hotline, 844-935-BEST. I'm gonna collect your responses about the best, Best Advice, and put together a week or two of greatest hits episodes. Embracing Discomfort with Wendy Walters - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/20201019_embracing-discomfort-with-wendy-s--walters/ TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Since the start of COVID and actually long before that, I've been on a quest for comfort. My friend, Nichole was also on that quest. But now she says she's given that up and suggests, maybe, we do the same. NICHOLE: Kill comfort. Choose now. ZAK: So is now uncomfortable? NICHOLE: Yeah. Yeah. It's completely uncomfortable. But it is what it means to be alive. The more I let go of comfort, the more I accidentally open myself to surprise. To now. To things I've just forgotten. And I think that that's really where life is. Now is a lot richer, even with all of the hell surrounding it, now is a lot richer than we allow ourselves to believe. ZAK: And for those of us who are comfortable in comfort, what's an exercise to tap into embracing the discomfort? NICHOLE: I've had comfort but I think comfort requires a kind of clinging and grasping that you do it so long you don't even know you're doing it. And so the things that you're holding on to...like you probably know what you love to eat, you know where to go for this, you know where to go for that. Well, when all that's gone, who are you? So, what if you didn't choose the thing you always chose? What if you didn't say the thing you always said? What might that teach you? Comfort is transactional. You give something and you get something back. Discomfort says you go through it, the understanding may not come for a while. And if you are ok with that, you might find some surprise. You might find yourself able to do things you never thought yourself capable of...to talk to people you never thought you would...to learn from things that, um, you'd completely shut yourself off from. ZAK: This advice kind of feels like a koan to me. It's gonna take some real work to unravel and figure out how to practice. But that's why I like it so much. NICHOLE: My name is Nichole Christian and I am a writer and a deep believer in the power of creativity. ZAK: Discomfort has been a theme on a couple of episodes of this show. The most recent one was with Wendy Walters. WENDY: Discomfort is a real gift in terms of teaching you how to get past something that is completely internal. ZAK: I linked to her entire episode in our show notes. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show and we are coming up to the end of the year. That means I want to collect your favorite advice from this year. The advice that you're actually practicing in real life that you learned from this show. Tell me what that is by writing me at [email protected]. Or you can call the hotline, 844-935-BEST. I'm gonna collect your responses about the best, Best Advice, and put together a week or two of greatest hits episodes. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura Hawley is a psychotherapist and artist living and howling in Philadelphia. She has a side gig running a support group for hospital clowns. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: When I get new messages from you on the advice hotline, it makes my day. Especially this one. LAURA: Hi Zak, this is Laura Hawley. So here's my advice to deal with stress and grief and also just kind, wanting to be connected with other people and also to be slightly, oh I guess slightly absurd, which is, my advice is to at a specific time of the week, just go ahead and tip back your head and really howl. Like, just howl for whatever you're feeling at the moment. Maybe grief for somebody. Or maybe outrage. Or maybe just a kind of longing to be nearer to other people. It's a very satisfying practice. I've been doing it for awhile now and I send out invitations to my friends and I'm hoping at some point I will have sent out enough invitations that I'll hear them while I'm howling at 7 PM EST on Fridays. Anyway, that's what I do. ZAK: Ok, do you want to try this with me? Let's do this. HOWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. I want to hear your advice. 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heather Radke (@hradke) writes essays, criticism, and reported pieces on subjects including the gender politics of ponies, the utopian possibilities of jumpsuits, the early days of public radio, the dark history of eugenics and the cultural history of the female butt. Man Against Horse by Heather Radke and Matt Kielty is a story about your butt - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/man-against-horse Exorcising the Icky with adrienne maree brown - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020519_exorcising-the-icky-with-adrienne-maree-brown/ TRANSCRIPT: Today's advice comes out of a project the writer Heather Radke has been working on. It's a forthcoming book about... The cultural history of the female butt and people always ask me why I'm writing this book which is like, fair enough, that's a good question! But, I think the most straight-forward answer is I have a big butt. I grew up in a place and at a time where that was a thing to be, sort of, ashamed of or at the very least it was not considered beautiful or sexy or good. And so, I felt a certain amount of shame about it and I feel like the project is sort of an investigation of that shame and I guess my advice is actually to investigate your shame because I feel like that as an artists as a writer, its been a very fruitful part of my practice. I've done it in a number of different ways and I also just feel like as a person when you start to really get curious about why you're ashamed of something, you end of finding out so much more than you could have ever expected and in this case, you know, and I think in a lot of cases, you end up finding really interesting political material, you know? That the shame around a certain kind of body is a shame around race and gender and gendered ideas of bodies and racialized ideas of bodies that we kind of hold in ourselves without ever knowing it. Because the nature of shame is that almost don't want to bring it into your consciousness fully, so, that means that there's a lot you kind of don't understand about it and you don't experience...unless you really think about it and you really try to unpack it then you don't fully understand what's creating the shame in the first place. ZAK: What do you think is on the other side of taking your shame seriously and investigating it? HEATHER: I was thinking about this just this morning because I think that the answer that you want to be the answer to that question is that your shame goes away. But I don't think that's true. It's almost like lancing a boil or something. There's still a scar there. It's not gone but there's some weight or kind of...there's something that's diminished by taking it seriously and getting interested in it. ZAK: Yeah. And I wonder how much of the, the investigating of shame for people, like what percentage will come back to race and capitalism. HEATHER: I mean, well you know I think 100 percent is answer! hahahah. And that's a joke I have about this book. It's like come for the butts, stay for the critical race theory, you know? ZAK: Totally. HEATHER: But I also think it's a good just in the storytelling mode, it's a good... ZAK: Oh, my God, it's literally a back door! HEATHER: Hahahaha. There ya go. Also, full of puns. ZAK: Heather Radke's book about butts is coming soon. But if you want to hear more in the meantime, she did this amazing story on Radiolab called Man Against Horse. I've linked to it in the show notes. And then there's another episode from this show with the writer and pleasure activist with adrienne maree brown called, Exorcising the Icky, which I think goes well with today's episode. The thing I know for sure is if I share it with someone, some of the ickyness goes away. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show and I want to hear your best advice. Give me call on the hotline. I'm always here for you. 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jack Cheng (@jackcheng) is a Shanghai-born, Detroit-based author of critically acclaimed fiction for young readers. His debut children’s novel, See You in the Cosmos, is winner of the 2017 Golden Kite and Great Lakes, Great Reads awards for Best Middle Grade Fiction. Share Your Good News With Us! - https://somethinggood.show/ TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: With COVID raging on and us spending so much time indoors, it's really easy to feel disconnected from our hometowns. And now, probably more than ever, what we're reading online feels like the only, or at least predominate reality and it's not pretty. But the writer, Jack Cheng recently had an experience that reminded him there is a chasm between stories we read online and the actual reality happening outside our door. JACK: So I signed up to be an election worker earlier this year and I worked both the March Presidential Primary and then the August Local Primary and I worked this past November General Election and just, like, going into it I think I had a lot of anxiety around...cause I was reading all these things in the news about, like, oh, you know, open and concealed carry and issues with like, potential challengers and poll-watchers. Yeah, I was just really on edge going into that day but once the day started and once people started coming in to vote, you know, we ended up seeing a lot of the regulars we saw in past elections in our precinct. And I think it was just this feeling of relief and this feeling that, like, maybe things aren't as crazy or as bad as I thought they were gonna be. I actually was trying to jot down little notes in my phone throughout the day and like, one of the notes that I wrote down was, "I will not let fear rule my life." And I think what that meant to me was I will not let this imagined world I've created in my head from reading all the news and from scrolling through the twitter feed...It's like, I will not let that become my reality. But, yeah, we had a number of challengers on site and they were all very respectful and all curious about the process, rather than looking for faults in the process. They were just trying to understand the work we were doing that day. ZAK: Yeah, do you like Regina Spektor? JACK: I don't think I've listened to any album all the way through of hers. Why? ZAK: You just reminded me of this great lyric of hers that I love where she says, "People are just people. They shouldn't make you nervous." JACK: Hahaha. That's great. ZAK: Jack Cheng's most recent novel is See You in the Cosmos. ZAK: I think this is a good time to tell you about a new project my colleagues at Graham Media are working on. It's called Something Good. It's a series highlighting the best in humanity. And we want to hear about the good that you're bringing into this world. If you go to SomethingGood.Show and then click that link at the top that says "Share your good news" it will take you down into a portal where we get to hear about what you've been up to. We can't wait to hear from you. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susannah Goodman is an artist, potter and community organizer in Detroit. I want to start collecting your grandparents best advice. What did they tell you that sticks with you? Let me know by calling the hotline, 844-935-BEST. Talk to you soon. TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Did you make an entire Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of people this year, even though there were just a few of you eating it? Well, today's advice is for you. It comes from Susannah Goodman. SUSANNAH: I'm an artist and potter and community organizer in Detroit. ZAK: Oh, and you may have noticed the new intro music. Friend of the show, Artemus Samual, suggested we pick out some specific Food Friday theme music. That's what this is. Ok, on to Susannah's advice. SUSANNAH: When you make enough food to freeze some of it, which you should. Whenever you're cooking something that you're really excited about, especially in COVID times, you should make enough to freeze it cause you're gonna get tired of cooking. You're probably already tired of cooking. But if you make enough to freeze it, make sure that when you put it in the freezer you label it. But not just label it. Label it with, like, gusto and flare because so often when you're hungry and you don't feel like cooking and you, like, open your fridge or you open your freezer, you're like, ugh this frozen thing. It doesn't look good and it doesn't inspire you to want to defrost it but if you write more on the label, like, 'zesty, coriander, chutney' or 'That one time you made gravy with Grandpa!' You know, if you attach both a story or some descriptive words to it, it makes the whole act of defrosting an exciting thing cause you kind of get to relive that moment. ZAK: And it gets you past that hump of, 'uhhhh this is boring leftovers' to 'Ohhhh! I remember this was great!" SUSANNAH: Totally and then you can even build it into your meal planning too. Like, "Oh, this week I get to defrost this thing that I remember from so many months ago." ZAK: I love that. How did you figure this one out? SUSANNAH: I actually figured it out when my grandparents stopped being able to really cook for themselves super regularly. So when've I would visit them I'd make these big feasts and like, freeze in good 2-person portions all the different elements of the meal and to motivate them to defrost it I would just like put the date and a little note for them on it. And then they could just...I just imagined them navigating their freezer feeling less disabled and more enabled to relive the family meals that we've had together. But it's also been really helpful in COVID. ZAK: That's a really nice granddaughter thing to do. Thank you, Susannah Goodman. And this reminds me. I want to start collecting your grandparents best advice. What did they tell you that sticks with you? Let me know by calling the hotline, 844-935-BEST. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nikki Sanchez is a frontline activist, academic, media-maker and a decolonial and anti-racist educator. Watch Nikki's TEDx talk “Decolonization is for Everyone” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP9x1NnCWNY&feature=youtu.be How to Do Thanksgiving with Less Waste - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/dining/thanksgiving-food-waste.html TRANSCRIPT: NIKKI: Pialli Cualli Tlaneci. Ni itoca Nicola Sanchez-Hood. Ni Cuscatleta, ni Maya Pipil den Cuscatlán. My name is Nikki Sanchez. I am a front-line activist, an academic, a media-maker and a decolonial and anti-racist educator. ZAK: It's American Thanksgiving and Nikki is here to remind us that this holiday isn't just about jubilation. To a lot of people, Thanksgiving is... NIKKI: ...the basis of genocide of Native American people in what's known as North America now and so the harms that it causes to celebrate that as a jubilant day when for so many people it is very intimately still linked to the trauma that they live in their lives and their communities. But additionally to that, Thanksgiving as a holiday has been borrowed and manipulated into American culture from many, many diverse and very old traditions around the world that our celebrating harvest and showing gratitude and reaffirming commitment to reciprocal relationships with land and with one another and other co-habitants of your landscape and so I think rather then needing to throw away this holiday we could reclaim it and repurpose it back into its truest origins. For most people if they did their own genealogies, they could find significant holidays that were similar that are really around gratitude and wellness and that's an opportunity to really connect with who you are and what your gifts are and what your lineage is as well things that bring you joy and comfort. ZAK: And so, before calling blasphemy on the idea of maybe not eating turkey today, Nikki suggests we create menus inspired by our own heritage and backgrounds. NIKKI: And that not only really affirms our connection to our own ancestors and our own identifies but also it's probably much better for our individual bodies because we've evolved, adapting to those specific foods and it's definitely better for out global health because we're not over-sourcing and overproducing a single mono-crop just for one day of the year. ZAK: I wonder what you think a question that people can ask themselves on Thanksgiving might be to help them reframe what the holiday can mean for them. NIKKI: Yeah, I think a really important question is what am I truly grateful for. The pandemic, I think for many people has helped reveal the things that we most value and the second questions is how can I take time to actually dwell in my gratitude. So rather than just having the thought, I'm grateful for my wife, I'm grateful for my children or I'm grateful for this river that provides me fish...what does it actually feel like to enact or demonstrate and embody gratitude in a way that feels most authentic to you, not necessarily how it's externally prescribed or marketed but in a way that really feels authentic is a healthy practice. ZAK: I hope your holiday is full of meaning and embodied gratitude. I want to thank Priya Krishna for her piece in the New York Times. It led me to Nikki Sanchez and inspired today's episode. It's called, How to Do Thanksgiving with Less Waste. I linked to it in our show notes. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. If you have some advice to offer, I would love to hear it. The hotline is always open. 844-935-BEST. THANK YOU. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chelsea Devantez (chelseadevantez) is a comedian, TV writer, filmmaker host of podcast, Celebrity Book Club. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Chelsea Devantez is a very busy creative person. CHELSEA: I am a comedian, TV writer and filmmaker and I also have a podcast called, Celebrity Book Club where I recap and celebrate really great female, celebrity memoirs with a new guest every week. ZAK: A while ago, Chelsea figured out a way to temper her disappointment. It might work for you too. CHELSEA: In order to do something creatively and do it really well you have to put your heart and soul and everything into it, but then, you know, at lease when you're in my line of it, the entertainment line, it means when it doesn't go well, it's absolutely devastating and then it's hard to get back up again because you put everything into it. So the piece of advice that me and my friend, Ashley Nicole Black, I can't remember who came up with it, if it was me or her, but we gave it to each other which is to line up another project when you're midway through your current project. So if you get your dream show and you're gonna pitch it, now line up your dream feature and before you can hear the answer to one of them, you've already put so much momentum into the second one that you can never hit the ground completely because momentum of the next project is already holding you up. ZAK: Yeah, so you're saving yourself from that awful deflation, devastation moment when they say, we're not picking up your show, and you're nothing because you had all your eggs in that basket, so you're spreading out your eggs! CHELSEA: You're spreading out your eggs and you're also, when you get that devastating news, you have a net which is like, well I'm still working on this other thing. So, I can't fall too hard because I held up some of my emotions with the other projects. ZAK: Can you compare and contrast the way a no felt then to the way a no feels now? CHELSEA: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I would be sobbing with all the lights out for maybe, like, seven hours to the point where my roommate at the time came home and was like, 'Do we need to call somebody!?' So, yeah, I would get knocked down really hard and it would take me a long time to come back and the depression was really intense. So, this really changed things for me when I learned to spread out my passions and not fully give everything until the moment it was truly going so that I always had a creative pursuit I was exciting about and no one could ever take it away from me because I always had something creative I loved going on. ZAK: To practice this advice it seems you've got to work maybe even twice as hard but it really seems like a great way to save yourself from a lot of a heartache. Thank you, Chelsea. Good stuff. If you have some advice I would love to hear it. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aaron Handelsman is a leadership coach living in Detroit. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: AARON: Stop saying yes to what's really a no. Like, you know how somebody might ask you to do something or you'll think about something and be like, I should do that, but your whole body is contracting in on itself and you're like, no, no, no, no, no but your brain is like, I have to. I must. I should. And so you say yes. And then you either avoid it until the very end or your feel a little resentful or whatever...you do it begrudgingly. Stop doing that...for a week! If you're somebody who finds yourself having a hard time saying no, there's this idea that, like, unless you can actually say a pure and authentic no, it's also impossible for you to say a pure and authentic yes, to anything. And so, it can be a pretty transformational process to just practice saying no and noticing what happens in your body and starting to relearn that you're free, actually, in your life. And that your body usually knows the answer to what it really wants you to do and doesn't want you to do. And the simple exercise of seeing how many times you can say no to things that, for no other reason that you don't want to do something. Myself in my own life and so many people I work with, like, really live like we're not allowed to say no. And it creates a lot of pain. ZAK: Because you might come off as selfish, unhelpful... AARON: Totally. Egocentric, absorbed, not good enough. ZAK: And you're not saying don't be helpful. AARON: No! I think most of us feel our best when we know that what we're doing is of service to something bigger than us. But there's a difference between choosing to do something from that place of like, oh, I want to do this. One, because I know it's gonna be beneficial to other people and tow because I want that experience right now. And doing the same activity from a place of obligation, you might have the same action but a wildly different experience and potentially impact. I'm Aaron Handelsman and I am a leadership coach. I work with leaders who are committed to living into the fullest version of their legacy and impact. ZAK: This is Aaron's second piece of advice on this show. His first episode is called, "Sharing Yourself with Aaron Handelsman." I put that in the show notes. Just say no, friends. Just. Say. No. But say yes to rating and reviewing this show on Apple Podcasts. Thanks! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe I'm more tired than I realized. The episode that was supposed to run today, Grandparent Advice with Sam Greenspan and Renée Wolf McKible, I accidentally launched on Saturday. Whoops! So, what should have been today's episode is already in your feed. Don't miss it! It's part 1 of an ongoing series I'm really excited about featuring your grandparents best advice. But as long as I've got you here, I want to ask, what advice from this show have you actually integrated into your life? We're over 150 episodes in and I want to start reflecting on some of the stickiest advice you've heard on the show. Let me know by calling the hotline at 844-935-BEST or by writing me at Z A K at bestadvice.show. You can also respond to the instagram video I posted in the comment section. I'm so excited to hear what's stuck with you this year. I'm thinking I'll collect your greatest hits into a week or two of shows at the end of the year. Thanks! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Greenspan is the creator and host of BELLWETHER, a podcast of speculative journalism and TALKGROUP, a radio zine about the lockdown & the uprising. SEND ME YOUR GRANDPARENTS' ADVICE @ 844-935-BEST! TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I mentioned my late grandpa's disdain for sticky fingers in a recent episode and it got me thinking him and his most reliable piece of advice. It was to - when you're meeting someone - always shake their hand firmly and look them in the eye. The fact that handshakes are now frowned upon would have been really hard for him to take. I want to hear about the advice your grandparents passed on to you and I think it would make for a cool recurring series on the show. Maybe we'll "Grandpar-rants", like rants from your grandparents? Maybe not the best name. I'm open to your ideas, though. Regardless, what advice from your grandparents sticks with you? Lemme know at 844 935 BEST. We're gonna kick off the series today with Sam Greenspan, talking about his grandma. SAM: She was a real badass, feminist, woman. I remember she always had a needle-point pillow on her couch that said, "A woman's place is in the house and the senate." And the only piece of advice I ever heard her give was, be polite and do whatever the hell you want. And that is what's on her gravestone in South Florida. Yeah, Renee Wolf McKible. Be polite and do whatever the hell you want. ZAK: Renne Wold McKible, thank you for that. I love it! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Phil Rosenthal is the host of Somebody Feed Phil and the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Today on The Best Advice Show, I talk to a dream guest, Phil Rosenthal. Phil is the host of the Netflix show, Somebody Feed Phil. It's a food/travel show and since we can't travel right now, the closest I get to travel is watching Phil's show. You should watch it too. Phil also created a little sitcom that you may have heard of, it's called Everybody Loves Raymond. Today on the show, we talk about TV and creativity and of course, food. It's Food Friday. PHIL: The best single piece of advice I ever got was from an old show-runner named, Ed Weinberger who I asked for advice from when I was writing the pilot for Raymond and he said this, "Do the show you want to do because in the end they're gonna cancel you anyway." It's a way of life. Not just about the sitcom. We all get cancelled one day. hahaha. So live your life. ZAK: And what's the alternative? What's the flip-side of that advice? Not making the show you want to make. What happens to you then? PHIL: You take all the notes from the studio and then you're dead anyway because you took their notes and they made it terrible but they don't take the blame. They blame you. Sorry. Either way you're out of luck. Most things don't get on the air so they're gonna cancel you anyway. If you're not gonna get on, why do what they want? ZAK: How do you think that advice applies to folks that don't make TV. PHIL: Once you're in a position where you can call the shots a little bit. Where you've already worked on other people's things. You've worked for other people. If you were opening a store and it was finally your store and you saved up enough money, right? Would you take advice from everybody on what should be in that store? You might listen to everyone but at the end of the day, you put in that store what you want to put in that store! What you want to sell in that store. If you're making sandwiches, you're gonna make the sandwich the way you think it should be made. Not the way that guy thinks it should be made unless you agree that that's better. But if you don't think that that's better, why would you listen to that guy!? It's your store! It's your sandwich. Do the show you want to do because you're probably gonna fail anyway which is the joke part. The joke part is because they're gonna cancel you anyway, right? But it's only half a joke because most of the time businesses, all businesses don't make it. And it's rare to have wonderful success. But you don't have a chance at wonderful success if you take everybody's advice that goes against your own. ZAK: So that leads me to my final question is, what is the greatest sandwich you've ever eaten. PHIL: Ooooo, that's a very good question. The first thing that pops in my head is Howlin' Ray's hot chicken, fried chicken sandwich. It might be the best fried chicken I ever had. It might be the best sandwich I ever had. That's in LA. You know, sometimes it's the sandwich that you're having right now that is the best. People say, you say this is the best all the time. Yes! It is the best. I'm having it right now which makes it the best. ZAK: My wife always makes fun of me for that. She says "You say every movie is the best." But that's an aspiration! Why wouldn't you want that? PHIL: It is the best. It's the best of that thing. Right? Of course there's qualifiers but it's the best of that at this moment in my life. I can't judge it ten years from now or ten years ago. I'm judging it right now! Not it's the best. Warren Zevon went on David Letterman when he was dying of cancer. He knew he was dying. Letterman knew he was dying. The audience knew he was dying. We knew this was gonna be his last appearance. Here's another piece of great advice. Letterman said, "Do you have any advice being in your position?" And he said, "Dave, enjoy every sandwich." Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dustin Block is a dad and the audience development lead at Graham Media. Hear Dustin's other episode from TBAS about story-catching here - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020721_storycatching-with-dustin-block/ To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Yes, I know there's an election tomorrow but I've got bigger fish to fry. There is an entire generation of children lost in a trance. Fortunately for us, Dustin Block has the antidote. DUSTIN: Hey Zak. I just got hit with an idea for some best advice so I wanted to share it before I missed the moment. I've learned something about kids getting lost in streaming shows or online anything. So, here it is. When they're lost in the trance of watching the show, they don't respond to their name at all. Like you can just be like, 'hey. hey. hey' and it's like you're not even there. But, if you respond as if they're a character in the show, it snaps them out of it. I have no idea why this works but i just did it at breakfast. My 7 year-old was just watching his show, completely tuning us all out and then I addressed him as a character in the show and he turns to me and it's like he heard me perfectly. I've tested this over many years, kind of as a joke out of frustration they won't respond so I'll just pretend like I'm one of these characters and the success rate is around 100%. It's amazing. I don't understand the psychology. No idea why this works. But it does. Any parents frustrated with kids who won't answer them, try talking to them as if you were in the show or they are a character in the show. ZAK: This is bonkers in the best way. I'm so excited to try this. Thank you, Dustin Block. He is the audience development lead at Graham Media. You have been listening to The Best Advice Show. If you have some advice on breaking trances or anything, I want to hear it. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And if you don't have kids in your life but have a friend that does, consider sharing this this episode with them. Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diana Seales is a professor at the University of Michigan. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Recently, Diana and her son have gotten really into this very specific hobby. We'll talk about what that hobby is, but her advice, which you can apply in any way you want, is to find something that is different from the world you normally inhabit, something that will take all your focus, and something that has an end-point, something you can throw yourself entirely into even for just a little while. So, that thing that Diana has been throwing herself into is tree-tipping. What the hell is tree-tipping? DIANA: hahahah. You know, it's crazy, like, I'm really embarrassed in a way to talk about it but it is what it is and it's something thats given me a lot of comfort during these uncertain times and I would say it's something that I never ever would have discovered this but because my boyfriend, who's also a nurse, and so we don't get to do this all the time, like I feel like it has to be supervised by him...I don't trust my son and me to just do it on our own. But when we have like hours to spend which is usually later in the day or in the weekends, we'll go out into the woods and my son and Chad, who's my boyfriend, are very good at spotting the ideal tree tipping tree. hahahah ZAK: What makes an ideal tree-tipping tree? DIANA: It looks obviously dead. It's something that's probably leaning a little bit. But their technique is much more refined. But from what I've gathered so far, it's something that's totally dead. It's leaning a bit and then if you give it a few pushes and it seems like it's going over...so it's a tree that's going to fall over anyway but you're just helping the process along by pushing or kicking it. Usually like pushing and rocking it back and forth. hahahah. ZAK: Can you describe what's so compelling about this? DIANA: One thing is it's very excited to have a purpose when you're walking through the woods, especially when you have an 8 year-old. Like my son loves to walk through the woods anyways, but we want to spend as much time in nature so you're going through the woods, you have a specific focus, you're looking for that perfect tree that's ready to come over. It's just an exciting adventure. The other thing is while you're doing it you're very focused cause there is an element of danger in it as well as accomplishment. So, you know, like when you're in these uncertain times or certainly in the work that I do, like my work is very heady. I'm a professor at the University of Michigan. I'm finishing my PhD at Michigan State University and having something that like, in a half an hour time is like exciting, dangerous, out in the woods, but for the most part it's just a very focused activity. And it's just something you would never do normally. This is something that's just outside of my wheelhouse. hahahah. ZAK: When Diana is tree-tipping, she's professoring at the University of Michigan. I would love to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotlone at 844-935-BEST. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Samantha Scott is a content producer at the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFzXaFbxDcM To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: In COVID times we're meeting strangers so rarely now. I miss it. And so when I get the chance to talk to someone I don't know, I really relish it. That's what happened when I met Samantha at the dog park. Our dogs were bonding and soon we were talking and she told me about this big shift she's recently made in her life. I think it's great advice. SAMANTHA: If you just need a break from the daily, constant, unforgiving, unrelenting sort of notifications and and alerts and just, this, constant sense of urgency...try PBS. hahaha. PBS is the one. They just give it to you straight. They give it to you the 360 view and they move forward and I think at this point in time that's this world needs. We just need to get to the point and move forward with solutions. And, to be honest, I used to make fun of my mom all the time for watching PBS and 60 Minutes...growing up that's something old people did. My mom unfortunately passed away about 3 years ago and this year I said, to honor her I want to do something that reminds me of her and so I woke up that day and I was like, PBS. ZAK: How has your brain and spirit changed since you made the shift. SAMANTHA: So much calmer. It really felt like a weight was lifted and I wasn't expecting that. So, I've literally just dwindled it down from watching CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and then getting the alerts on my phone to now, just PBS. You know, sometimes it feels like they just like to hear themselves talk. ZAK:Totally, and if you tell me you have breaking news one more time when it's definitely not breaking news, I'm gonna strangle someone. SAMANTHA: I'm gonna scream. Breaking news, they're still counting ballots in Philly. Ok!!! hahahah. It feels like they're playing on our stress. They know that we're anxious so breaking news about nothing just kind of feels unfair. Like, stop trying to get me amped up for no reason. We're already on edge. It's just been a wild year. We don't need anymore stress. ZAK: Samantha Scott is a writer living in Detroit. If you are looking for the ultimate PBS balm. I can't recommend enough, "Mister Rogers Remixed." It's this short video that PBS studios put out in 2012. I'm gonna link to it in our show notes but here's a taste. Mister Rogers Remixed excerpt: Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind..?" I want to know how you're calming your nerves. Let me know how by calling the advice hotline at 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Gondelman is a comedian, writer, and co-creator of Modern Seinfeld on Twitter. TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Josh Gondelman is one of the funniest people on the internet and in real life. He's a stand-up. He writes on the TV show, Desus and Mero and his coolest credit, in my opinion, is that he co-created the now inactive but deeply beloved Modern Seinfeld twitter feed, which launched the characters into contemporary, internet era situations, like this one..."Jerry meets a woman on JDate but when he begins to suspect she's faking her Judaism, Kramer volunteers to investigate." Ok, why am I telling you all this? I guess it's because, if Seinfeld resonates with you, I think today's advice will too. JOSH: So, my advice is for over-thinkers and it's to just ask yourself, like, 'What would a person do under these circumstances?" Like, if you're up against a dilemma where you're like, oh...do I do this or that, not one where you're weighing huge, qualitative differences or like, big choices you're weighing against each other, but if you're like, 'Do I do this? Is this a violation of etiquette and norms' or whatever then it's always like, 'What would a person a do? ZAK: Can you think of a recent example? JOSH: I recently got to work with somebody on a recording that I'm a big fan of and I was like, I had such a good time, should I email and say 'I'm a big fan. This was cool. I appreciate it.' And then I was like, 'Is that like a dork thing to do? Then I was like, no, I'm gonna do that because, like, a person would do that and a person on the other side as long as I'm like pleasant and respectful and don't ask anything of this other person, like, they would probably be happy to hear it...ranging from neutral to happy to hear it. ZAK: It seems like in a lot of these examples, you weight the decision and then you go ahead with it because you're thinking like, yes this is a normal thing to do. Are you ever in the position where the normal thing to do is, oh I better not do that? JOSH: Oh, that's a great question. I think it depends on what your inclination is. I think if you're a person who tends to overthink things, it's like a nice little nudge to be like, this is not an unreasonable thing you're considering doing. But, if you're the kind of person who maybe is sometimes extra assertive...if you're like, you know what I'm just gonna call this person up and tell them to give me a job...you go ok, like, how would they react to that? Do they want to hear that from me? Is that something that you feel like your relationship has space for? ZAK: Right. So how often do you find yourself asking this question, what would a person do? JOSH: I think I ask myself a lot. But it's diminished over time because I think it's now hardwired a little bit with me which is nice. Like it feels like I've rewired the way that I maneuver. ZAK: Isn't that such an amazing thing? JOSH: Totally. I think it's awesome. It's like one of the coolest things about being a human is that you can, like, see results and I think there are probably people, I imagine, who live with depression and other kinds of mental illness might have a harder time feeling clear about, like, what they deserve or what they're capable of asking for and so I don't want to be like, this is easy for everyone to do. But if it's something that you can apply, that you feel able to apply, comfortable to apply...and also, I think this is...my friend Sarah Haji, I believe it was Sarah Haji that coined the slogan that became a pretty popular meme for awhile of, "Grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man." So I understand the gender and sexuality and racial privilege at play too which is why I'm not like, "Be demanding! Throw your weight around!" But I do think that being polite and courteous and asking for the thing you want once, like, you so rarely get what you want if you don't ask and people are so rarely mad if you ask for something politely once and if they are, they are being unreasonable not you. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lauren Helmbrecht is a snack lover living in Eastern Washington. When she’s not “froggin’ it”, she’s writing ads for a women-run sports media company. PLEASE share your videos of you eating like a frog on Instagram using #FoodFridayFrog and at me @BestAdviceShow. TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: My grandpa was a neat freak and he used to hate it if we got anywhere near him with food on our fingers. Especially it was sticky food. If we did, he'd call us icky-poo or sloppy weather. I wonder what he'd think of today's advice. LAUREN: Hi Zak, my name is Lauren Helmbrecht and I live in Eastern Washington. My Food Friday advice is to eat snacks like a frog would. So let me explain, so the way you do it is you pour a bowl of snacks, I usually like popcorn or goldfish and then instead of using your hands to grab the snack, you just use your tongue. Yes, it looks really weird when you first try but there are a couple really good benefits by doing it this way. First, if you're eating anything with a lot of flavoring on it, you don't have to worry about getting all the extra gunk on your fingers. There's no more Cheeto fingers cause all that flavor goes to your tongue. Second, you never have to worry about sharing with anyone because you're eating with your tongue. It looks really weird. And third, you have an extra hand, so if you're using the remote of you're on the phone, you can still be enjoying your snack one-handed while using your tongue. So, I encourage anyone if you're interested, maybe pour yourself a bowl of popcorn and just try it. It might feel weird at first, but I personally love it. I never have gross, flavorful fingers anymore because I'm getting all the flavor when I eat it with my tongue. So that's my advice. Try it out. ZAK: Oh, I think this is frog-tastic advice. Thank you, Lauren. Life is too difficult and stressful not to try this, don't you think? You've been listening to another addition of Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. Oh, and I've got a video of Lauren eating popcorn like a frog on our Instagram page. That's at Best Advice Show. And I would love for you to share a video of you eating popcorn like a frog on Instagram too! Use #FoodFridayFrog and @ me @BestAdviceShow. What the world needs now is Food Friday frog videos, sweet Food Friday frog videos. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we remember Detroit's poet laureate, Naomi Long Madgett (1923-2020) with help from poet, playwright, arts critic, a Wayne State University emeritus professor of English, Bill Harris and artist, Nichole Christian. You Are My Joy and Pain - https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/you-are-my-joy-and-pain NLM's Monograph - http://kresge.org/sites/default/files/Naomi_Long_Madgett_Monograph.pdf TRANSCRIPT ZAK: Detroit lost one of its creative giants last week, Naomi Long Madgett was the city's poet laureate since 2001. She was also a teacher, mentor and publishing powerhouse. In 1972, she founded lotus press because she was tired of there not being enough places for black poets to publish. Today's advice is to seek out her work. There's a ton of it. I talked to poet, playwright and Detroiter, Bill Harris about what Naomi Long Madgett meant to him. BILL: She was a gentle lady and a kind of quieting presence and was always for that reason fairly intimidating to me. I always wanted to be my best self when I was around Naomi and, you know, after I got to know her as a person, she still had that kind of effect on me...that kind of aura as if she were an aunt in the family but that side of the family I needed to please. ZAK: And who was she on the page? BILL: She was a craftsperson and the kinds of things and insights at the center of her work that could only be reached through this process of being, I think, very still and very skilled at what she did. There was never any bombast. There was never any kind of look at me...drawing attention to herself. But just on the page it was a kind of internal and artistic logic that was amazing to see and the kind of images she was able to evoke were just please to both emotional and aesthetic sensibilities. ZAK: Naomi Long Madgett's final collection of poetry was published very recently, in October of 2020. It's called, You Are My Joy and Pain. Here's Detroit artist and poet, Nichole Christian reading a poem from that collection. It's called Deep. NICHOLE READING: Toward the deep clear waters that you are my dry roots yearn To stir and probe past clay and sand to wells of being is all my hope To watch one withering leaf grow green and turn to kiss the sun ZAK: Naomi Long Madgett was 97 years-old. Rest in Poetry. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Lipstein lives in Austin, Texas. He hosts a weekly radio show on KOOP-FM called Free Samples and he makes ambient music under the name, The Moss End. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: 10 years ago, Matt was living in Brooklyn. It was a cold, January morning after a snowstorm. MATT: And I was heading out to our car which was parked on the street as you do and when I went up to the car, I noticed something was amiss and I went to turn the car on and all the lights came up on the dashboard when I did that. Like I've never seen that before. And, uh, I went outside and I brushed some of the snow off the side of the car and I realized that my car had been hit by something and then as I look up and down the rest of cars that were parked on that side of the street, all the cars were hit by something and I thought that because it was a snowstorm, it was likely a snowplow that had come and just nailed an entire side of the street just kind of scratching up all the sides of the cars and knocking off side-view mirrors and all that. ZAK: It's a great way to start your day. MATT: It was a rough one. ZAK: So Matt calls his insurance company and they tell him, they'll pay for the damage but not the one-thousand dollar deductible. MATT: And I felt this since a city of New York snowplow had hit my car and so many others that it was worth calling the city of New York to find out if they would pay for my thousand dollar deductible and what unfolded was a year and a half process of trying to get the right person on the phone to understand what happened and why it seemed reasonable to ask the city of New York to pay for that thousand dollar deductible. ZAK: How many phone calls do you think you made over the course of that year and a half. MATT: I would have to guess I made at least 20-25 phone calls. ZAK: And your final call, who was that to and what were they able to do for you? MATT: So, I somehow made my way to...I believe the person's title is comptroller. In about 2-minutes, he was like, yeah, of course we should pay that. And then just in an instant the skies opened and he made it happen and within a few weeks after that I got a check for a thousand dollars from the city of New York. ZAK: Wow. Ok, so...the advice that comes out of this crazy 18-month journey is what? MATT: Always get the right person on the phone. Make sure that they understand your problem or your request and then try to gauge if they have the knowledge or the access to help you. And if they don't, you can go one of two ways...you can either politely disconnect from that call and try again or you can ask to escalate to get to the right person. But either way, use your sense and see if that person is the right person on the phone and usually you know whether they are or are not. ZAK: Right. And I feel like to actually do this takes a combination of skills, patience, resilience, persistence...You have to be willing to say to someone like, 'you are not helping me' which I think for some people can be challenging cause you don't want to, if you're a people pleaser like me, you don't want to hurt their feelings. It seems to me that you need to either be that type of person or practice to get this right. MATT: I think practice sounds right. I mean, something that i've said to people a lot on the phone is, 'don't take this personally. I know that you're trying to help me but I'm not getting the results that I need. Can I speak with your manager or supervisor." Or, I'm going to disconnect and see if I can get someone else on the phone. ZAK: Now that is some hard-won wisdom. Matt got in touch with me through the advice hotline. I would love for you to do the same thing. If you have some advice, give me a call at 844-935-BEST. And if you're enjoying this show, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much in advance for doing that. I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Debbie Beane sits on the floor in Lake Tahoe, California. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST ZAK: For this episode, I want you to get up out of your seat. DEBBIE: Hi, I'm Debbie in Lake Tahoe, California. My advice is to sit on the floor. We spend so much time in chairs almost everywhere and that repetitive positioning of our bodies has far-reaching effects on our joints and muscles. Use it or lose it is a real thing. So if you only ever bend your knees 90-degrees and your hips 90-degrees to sit in chairs then those joints start to lose the ability to bend any further and your muscles lose the ability to lift and lower your body weight to and from the floor. So many of us go to yoga or other classes or the gym to work on the ranges of motion required for your body but if you just skip your couch and instead sit on the floor in your living-room, you're getting a lot of the benefits of those classes without taking any extra time. You could eat your meals at the coffee table instead of the dining room table or watch your evening TV or visit with your friends on your deck outside without the support of a chair and that lets your body do the work and reap the benefits of that work and it's like getting more exercise just built into your daily activities. If getting all the way to the floor is too hard or too uncomfortable which it will be for a lot of people, you can start with just a low stool or ottoman or stack of cushions or something and maybe you'll sit on those for months or years before going any further. In fact, some of the discomfort when you're on the floor is almost the point because it'll make you change positions every five-minutes cause you're not comfortable and that's just that much more movement that you're getting instead of popping on the couch and staying in one position for the duration of a movie or whatever. It's a way of sitting without staying completely still for hours. So, sit on the floor. ZAK: I am literally getting out of my chair in my office...and sitting on the floor and recording this outro. Thank you, Debbie. I'm sitting cross-legged right now. I feel vigorous. No, I do. I feel good. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. I would love to hear your advice. Give me call like Debbie did on the advice hotline, 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy J. Pizza (@andyjpizza) is an American illustrator, podcaster and public speaker. He is the host of the Creative Pep Talk podcast. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ANDY: My name is Andy J. Pizza and I'm a podcaster and a public speaker and I'm an illustrator for clients like the New York Times and Warby Parker and Nickelodian. ZAK: One thing that Andy is constantly talking about on his podcast, Creative Pep Talk, is this idea of getting high on your own supply. ANDY: If you can satisfy your own creative hunger with your own work then people with similar sensibilities will feel it too. It'll taste great to them. It's just like...I learn a lot from chefs because I think there's kind of a democratic, down to earth kind of creativity that you find in food and I actually think that when it comes to food, nobody is cooking things that they don't think tastes great. If you watch any of these chef shows they say, this is terrible, did you even taste it!? And you're like, oh, I didn't know that as they're making stuff, they're going along tasting it on their own palate. That palate, that taste, that is their inner-compass. That's how they know if it's working or not working. And for me getting high on your own supply is about that. It's that I'm making this story to see if it can make me cry. I'm making this, you know, picture to see if it gets me pumped to be in that space. I'm making this t-shirt to see if I wanna sport it and if I don't come through that lens, if I don't base my creative work on my own palate, it's just baseless. ZAK: Can you give me an example of someone else's work where you know, like, the creator is indeed getting high on their own supply? ANDY: The first one I would say I have, one of my heroes, creatively, is Aaron Draplin. Do you know Aaron Draplin? ZAK: The bearded, designer guy? ANDY: Yeah, the bearded guy. He's a big inspiration to me and it's funny because our work doesn't look anything like each other but I love the guy. And he was one of the first people I saw just wearing his own hats his own t-shirts his own pins. Just constantly decked out and actually, it's interesting because not only does it mean that you can actually increase your, calibrate your taste and get better at your creative work, but it's also something about you wouldn't buy a Toyota from a guy driving a Honda. Like, there's just something about full belief in what you're doing and full buy-in that happens from just being sold out to your thing. And I also heard once, Amy Poehler say something like...Do you think Parks and Rec is funny, like is it funny to you? And she's like, if it wasn't the funniest show on TV to me, I couldn't be making it. That's it! All you have is that inner medal detector and if you can't...that is the only thing that can get you closer and closer to creative gold. ZAK: mmm, mmm, mmm. I love it. And it's time for me to be honest. I love this show! That's why I make it. All the advice that I run here is stuff that I am genuinely nourished by and strive to try. If you feel the same way, thank you so much. I'm so glad you like it. Please consider sharing this episode or this show with some friends and family who you think might also find value in it. I really appreciate it. This is The Best Advice Show. I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura Idema Shaunette and Lywen Chew have two ways to impress your palate and your friends with eggs. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Welcome to another addition of Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. Today I've got a twofer. Two pieces of advice on optimizing eggs. LAURA: Hi Zak. This is Laura and I just wanted to call in to share some of my best advice in regards to making a really mean frittata. So in a greased pie dish or cast-iron pan. Whatever you like to use. I prefer cast-iron. Before you pour your eggs and all that other goodness into bake, you want to sprinkle a nice, healthy layer of shredded cheese on the bottom. It's gonna bake into a really beautiful crust. It's gonna be gluten-free and it will impress all of your cheese-loving friends. Just a way to take your frittata up a notch. And in these times we all just need a little more cheese. Don't just attend the brunch potluck...win the brunch potluck. Alright, cheers. ZAK: Ohhhhh, yes please. I can't wait to try that cheese crust. Laura Idema Shaunette is a renaissance woman living out in Telluride, Colorado. She does it all. The next piece of advice comes from Lywen Chew in California. LYWEN: My advice is very simple. I love to poach eggs and when I poach the eggs I don't like the whites floating all over the place. So when you're poaching your eggs all you need to do is add maybe a tablespoon of vinegar to a small pan of water and that makes the proteins coagulate and then you have very nice looking, professional eggs. The other thing is when you're having poached eggs, they're always great over avocado. What else can I say? Alright, bye Zak. ZAK: If you want to do like Laura and Lywen did and call the advice hotline with your Food Friday advice or really any advice, I am so game to hear it. My number is 844-935-BEST. This has been yet another crazy week in a year full of crazy weeks. Treat yourself to a frittata or a poached egg and take care of yourself. I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meredith Nicoll is a musicologist and singer living in Germany. Owning Mistakes with Emily Barr - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/202091_owning-mistakes-with-emily-barr/ To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: MEREDITH: Hi Zak, this is Meredith and my piece of advice is for chronically tardy people...like myself. hahah. In the past I would show up in a chaotic mess, usually and apologize and say oh my god, I'm so sorry but this and this happened and this and this got in my way and I decided to stop the excuse part. I still apologize but keep it very short and sincere and then I leave it at that and I focus then on the meeting that I'm supposed to be that and the important thing in the moment. That is unless, of course, the person wants an excuse or they're angry and then I tell them because the socially-acceptable excuse is traffic or you know, the normal ones. They don't really satisfy very much. I say, "I know I'm late. I really am working on how not to be late and the strategies that I have didn't work today. I'm really sorry." And this has two great benefits. First of all, it kind of neutralizes the situation and it's really hard for the person to get mad at a person who is taking responsibility and has an action plan for not doing it again. And second of all, for me personally also when I give an excuse that's kind of the generic, socially acceptable excuse...is it then causes me also to believe them when in fact it wasn't traffic it was because I didn't set an alarm when I started watching YouTube or I didn't put my keys next to the door so I couldn't find them and therefore I missed the bus. It is super uncomfortable not saying anything or not going into to detail about why I was late but I've found not giving excuses in that very moment really helps me be honest with myself and makes me more responsible to other people. ZAK: Today's episode pairs especially well with Emily Barr's advice. EMILY: One of the things that I have learned is that when you screw up on the job you do something wrong. the best thing you can do is go right in to your boss or call them or whatever and just say, hey, I really screwed up. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sara Brooke Curtis (@sbcsays) is a radio producer and writer living in Western, Massachusetts. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Today's advice could be a game-changer. It's not gonna be easy, though. SARA: So, what if every-time you get the impulse to obsessively refresh your email, instead you do a little dance, you take a breath, eat a piece of fruit, call a friend, even just look outside. See what that does for you instead. ZAK: I mean, I guarantee that that is gonna be better for my life...if I do that. I refresh my email like a hundred times a day. What am I doing? SARA: What are you doing? Like, doesn't it make you feel so frenetic. ZAK: Yeah, and there's like...I don't even know what email...I think I'm gonna be getting an email like where someone's gonna be giving some award or something. But I didn't apply for any awards. I haven't done anything to earn the award. Like, I don't know what I'm hoping for. SARA: But that's the thing, right? Like...those are the questions that I think are really important to ask yourself. When you're stuck in that loop, because I feel like it essentially is a loop when we keep refreshing our feeds of any kind. Like, what do you want and how can you tangibly get it? You know what I mean? Like what is the hunger? If it's just that you're looking for attention or you're looking for affirmation that you're a good human on this planet, you're doing something interesting, you're beautiful, you're smart, you're successful...like, how do you find that recognition in ways that you have more control over it and maybe that are more nourishing in the long run. SARA: My name is Sara Brooke Curtis and I am a radio producer and writer living in Western, Massachusetts. ZAK: Have you figured out ways to ween yourself off your tech addiction? I would love to hear what you're doing. Call me at 844-935-BEST. You can also e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ZAK: It's Tuesday, November 3rd and today's advice is simple and it's profound and it comes from a chorus of voices including my 3 year-old daughter. NOA: Go vote. ZAK: Go vote. The late John Lewis said, "The vote is precious. It is the most powerful, non-violent tool we have in a democratic society and we must use it." NOA: Go vote. ZAK: "Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it." - Susan B. Anthony. NOA: Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. ZAK: "There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter. It all matters." - Barack Obama. NOA: Go vote. ZAK: And the writer, Alan Moore said, "People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people." NOA: Vote. ZAK: And so this is one last ditch effort to get you to go out and vote. If you're hearing this on Tuesday before the polls close. It's not too late. Go to vote.org, find out where your polling place is, grab a mask and vote. It's your civic duty. NOA: Duty. hahahahaha. ZAK: It's your duty as an American citizen to vote. NOA: Duty! hahahahaha. That's silly, my dad. Go vote. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vince Keenan has been working on promoting informed voter participation for about 30 years. https://ballotpedia.org/ https://www.vote.org/ To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: For this year's election, probably more than any other one in our lifetimes, the logistical conversation about how to vote and where to vote is super important. VINCE: Find your drop-off locations or make sure you're mailing your ballot in time. Those are incredible important pieces of information but they're also incidental. Get them taken care of and then focus on the most important thing which is who are you gonna vote for and how are you gonna cast your ballot. In the most important terms, an election in the United States of America is that it is an opportunity that comes up on a regular basis for the people of this country, the electorate, to affirm that they believe in the two truths that hold us all together as a nation and that is that everyone is created equal and everyone has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those concepts are what we affirm when we vote. ZAK: Vince Keenan has been working on promoting informed voter participation for about 30 years. VINCE: The consent of the governed is how we derive power. ZAK: It's likely you already know who you're voting for for president and it's also likely that if you haven't looked at your absentee ballot yet or if you're planning to vote in person, you're gonna look at that ballot and see a bunch of races that you know nothing about. At least that's what is was like for me when I was looking through my absentee ballot. VINCE: And it's that feeling, that's not a great feeling when you're like, 'Uhhh, I don't know. Maybe I'll pass on filling it out. I don't know enough about it.' Or maybe you fill it out based on what you can glean from that moment when you're reading it the first time. Or voting from home gives you that opportunity to do some research to try and figure it out. But I have never run into anybody that said I feel really good about casting a vote that's really uninformed. ZAK: And so, if you haven't voted yet, take some time today to figure out who you're gonna vote for, for those less prominent races. There's a website called Ballotopedia which I'll link to in our show notes. That's a very good source to learn about these lesser known candidates. Of course, also check out the endorsements from your local newspaper. And for the judicial races, I texted my lawyer friend who has a much better sense of those things than I do. I felt much better after that, knowing my voting was a little more informed than it would have been otherwise. Oh and if you still don't know where you're supposed to vote, just go to Vote.Org. You can find your polling place there. And remember, if you are using an absentee ballot, be sure to sign the envelope where it says you should. Happy voting. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eli Sussman is a co-founder and chef at Samesa restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: It's Food Friday and today on the show a smorgasbord of cooking advice. ELI: My name's Eli Sussman. I'm talking to you from Brooklyn, New York and I'm one of the co-founders and chefs of Samesa Restaurant which is a Mediterranean restaurant. ZAK: Today's advice revolved around being resourceful in the kitchen and the first thing to consider, says Eli, is that recipes are meant to be fungible. ELI: You need to understand that it's not a legally-binding document. You can navigate away from that recipe. So think about ways that you can use what's in your cabinet and not have to rush out and buy 100-dollars of ingredients every time you want to make a recipe. So think about spice substitutions. If it calls for a certain, specific type of spice that you don't have on hand, google it, figure out what it may sort of taste like and see, ok, I don't have Aleppo flake which is something we use a lot in cooking at the restaurant. But ok, I can use chili flake and achieve a similar result. Ok, I don't have sea salt. Can I use regular salt? These are certain things you learn overtime while cooking...just what works as a good substitution. The recipe calls for brown rice. I don't have that but I do have, you know, spaghetti. Is it gonna be weird if I cook it and serve it over spaghetti? Or is it gonna be fine? Is it gonna be better? So there are all these different ways where you can tweak recipes and move to a place where you're actually using up the things that are in your cabinets as opposed to just always buying new stuff which leads to this scenario where you have so many things that you just have sitting around that you never end up using because you're afraid to experiment and use them in a way where you're substituting for a specific other items in recipes. ZAK: That's great. Do you have advice about how to use up the odd stuff in the kitchen? ELI: Yeah, totally. I think the best way to use up vegetables that are just sitting around in your fridge is to just do a stir-fry. And basically a stir-fry works in any ethnic style of cuisine that you like. If you're going for a Vietnamese, Italian, Indian root, whatever type of food you may feel comfortable cooking, or not, but just simply roasting some vegetables in a pan, getting the pan hot, sautéing them, letting them get some caramelization, break down a little bit. Covering them with a good amount of spice that you're comfortable with and then serving them just with either a grain that you have. Like that's a full meal. You don't need protein in every single meal and that's an awesome way to get rid of just vegetables that are just sitting around. And then if you have a lot of starches around, I love to cook potatoes and have them in my fridge as a building block to a meal. So a lot of people will peep and blanche potatoes right before the meal. But I say get a big bag of sweet potatoes or Yukon Golds. Two sort of things that cook very quickly and easily just by boiling them in water and are delicious on their own and then you can use them breakfast. You can turn that into a hash. You can put it in a salad and eat it cold for lunch and then for dinner, you can take those cold pieces of potato, toss them in a little bit of oil and roast in a pan or in the oven till they get crispy and then serve them with a piece of chicken. You don't beed to cook everything to order for every single meal that you have and that's a good way to get rid of a bunch of stuff. ZAK: Eli Sussman and his older brother, Max, are the authors of several cookbooks. Most recently, Classic Recipes for Modern People. This has been another episode of Food Friday. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, I want to hear your advice...your food related advice especially. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sua Im is a teacher in Worchester, Massachusetts. Listening with Rikke Houd - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020713_listening-with-rikke-houd/ Listening with Autumn Brown - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020714_listening-with-autumn-brown/ Listening with Sterling Toles - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020715_listening-with-sterling-toles/ Listening with Eleanor McDowell - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020716_listening-with-eleanor-mcdowell/ Listening with Dallas Taylor - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020717_listening-with-dallas-taylor/ To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Do you know what I love? (Long pause). Silence. SUA: Hi Zak. My name is Sua Im and I'm a teacher from Wooster, Massachusetts. I'm a special educator and this is my advice. My advice is to be ok with silence. There's a term for it in teaching. It's called Wait Time. Wait Time refers to the silence you give your students after you present a question or a thought or any other opportunity to gather their thoughts before they respond. It sounds simple but it's really hard. We want to fill the silence. We ask follow-up questions or provide clarifying points or make assumptions about what they must be thinking but really we just need to be silent. In the silence is where magic happens. I work with students who have learning disabilities, many of whom take longer to process information than their peers and they're used to people interrupting their thinking time...their magic-making. They've trained me to stretch out that silence. It's nothing for me now to be silent for an entire minute. That doesn't sound a like a long time but trust me, it is. I'm almost always surprised by what comes after the wait time. It's a letting go of control and showing trust and making space...real space for my students. ZAK: Sua's advice goes really nicely with the week-long listening series we did back in July. You should go back and check that out. RIKKE HOUD: Go somewhere where there's trees and birds and sit there. If you sit there for awhile suddenly there's this sort of parralel society of birds that have very interesting lives and you can just start by listening to them and watching them. ZAK: You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. I would love to hear your advice. Give me a call like Sua did on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erica Heilman (@rumblestripvt) is the host of the podcast, Rumble Strip. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ERICA: My name is Erica Heilman and I think my only religion is the religion of starting and finishing and starting and finishing. ZAK: Are you referring specifically to non-utilitarian, creative things or starting anything in general? ERICA: I think the former. I think it's any creative thing at all. There's always a reason not to do it. I mean I think that making anything, the making of it in my case anyway, it's a kind of existential crisis every time because I don't know what it is or what it's going to be or what it...I don't know what I'm making and so to sit there and figure it out it is the nearest thing to religion that I have that that is possible. And be aware that as soon as you begin to do that, there will be this massive undertow. Really compelling, strong, dark undertow which is comprised of all the many reasons why you shouldn't do it. Um. It will be there. It will meet you there and it will pull at you and if you decide to do it anyway, that is a very brave act and I think it's a practically religious act because it's an act of faith and you will be delivered to some other place if you do that over and over and over again. Do it four times. Make four things without reason, without any expectation of audience but make four things the best you can and the fourth one will be better than the first one. And the twentieth one will be better than the fourth one. That is a certainty because you'll fall in love with what you're doing and you will want it to become...it's just...you'll be playing and you get better at playing the more you play. You know? And it's in a strange way it's deeply, you know, self-absorbed and selfish but it's also I think really generous. You know? ZAK: Yeah, it's a total contradiction. Erica Heilman hosts the excellent, unique and soul-affirming podcast, Rumble Strip. I hope today's episode gives you some strength to start and finish and start and finish and start and finish and start and finish. I'd love to hear from you. Give me a call on the hotline if you have some advice. Give me a call on the hotline if you have some advice at 844-935-BEST. And if you're looking for something to start and finish how about writing a review for this show on Apple Podcasts? It really helps. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexandra Elle (alex_elle) is an author & wellness consultant living in the Washington, DC metro area with her husband and children. She is the author of multiple books and journals, most recently After the Rain, Neon Soul, and Today I Affirm: A Journal That Nurtures Self-Care. She hosts the podcast, hey girl. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ALEX: Hi, my name is Alex Elle and I'm an author and self-care facilitator who is passionate about bringing people closer to their voice by way of writing practice. ZAK: One thing Alex has written that I wanted to talk to her about is the following quote. "Making peace with your pain is a daily practice." I know everyone's different but what might that practice look like for someone who's just starting to figure out how to make peace with their pain? ALEX: I know for me as a writer, I like to put things down on the page so I often tell my students and clients to greet your pain with a sense of curiosity and doing that requires a daily practice of not running from the things that may hurt us, scare us, etc. And facing it head-on which is extremely uncomfortable and no one really like doing it, myself included. But I think it's very important for our spiritual growth, personal growth and just evolution in general to be able to create a practice of not running from the pain and looking at it in the face and being ok with whatever's there, looking back. ZAK: Is there a writing exercise that you teach that kinda gets people in that mode of, of, you know, being ok with being around their pain? ALEX: I tell folks to write a letter to their pain...so literally writing Dear Pain and going for it. A free-write letter that can be funny at times or can be serious, it can be rooted in love or it can be like, you know, I don't feel like dealing with you anymore hahahah, I would like you to leave me alone...so having that dialogue makes people feel a little less intense about it and when we put down our pain on the page we can often see that it's not as big as it feels when we're carrying it in our mind or in our heart. So it just kind of gives a sense of ease to the practice, not that it's gonna make it go away all at once and all of a sudden but that it kind of gives us this space of compassion and understanding for ourself. ZAK: Dear pain, you think you're so cool and special and dark. You're not. You're here today, gone tomorrow. Like everything. Love, Zak. Alex Elle's new book is After the Rain, Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love. I want to hear how you deal with your pain. Give me a call on the advice hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. Also, if you found this episode helpful, please consider sharing it with your family and friends, that's how this show is gonna sustain itself. Thanks a lot. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Jordan is the style editor for WDIV, Local4 in Detroit and the style editor for Style Wise Jon. Check out his fashion and style tips here -https://www.youtube.com/c/StyleWisewithJonJordan/about TRANSCRIPT: JON: People have a vision or a notion that being well dressed means you have to spend a lot of money and you have a lot of time figuring things out and there's nothing worse...well, I suppose there are worse things but starting your morning in a closet that's disorganized and your confused about what to wear and you don't like your choices and you can't see anything, that's not a good way to start your day out. ZAK: But have no fear, fashion guru, Jon Jordan says there's a cure for this. The uniform. JON: You can wear basically the same thing every single day and the uniform is a look that streamlines your wardrobe efforts because it is basically a variation of the same thing and the references that I have for this are some really high-end people in the fashion world like the designer Tom Ford. He basically wears a black blazer and a crisp white shirt and a great pair of jeans and loafers everyday and he doesn't vary from that. ZAK: For people who are fashion challenged or people who just don't feel confident in putting together an outfit. How do they decide what their uniform can and should be. JON: I think you rely an expert and that might be somebody in a store or a trusted friend because there are basic rules that will help them out like, things should fit well, things should flatter, things should actually feel comfortable. I'm Jon Jordan. I am the style editor for WDIV, Local4 in Detroit and also the style editor for Style Wise Jon on Youtube for Graham Media. ZAK: My uniform lately has been hiking socks, sweatpants and a t-shirt with baby spit-up on it. I call the look COVID Casual. But seriously I love this idea of streamlining and embracing minimalism. Thank you, Jon Jordan. I've linked to some of his Youtube videos in our show notes. I want to hear your advice. Give me a call at 844-935-BEST. This is The Best Advice Show, talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teri Turner is the founder of the popular blog No Crumbs Left. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I have a perfect guest for Food Friday...Teri Turner. TERI: I am the founder of No Crumbs Left which is a...you can find it on Instagram, Facebook, it's a blog, it's a cookbook, Pintrest, for tips, tricks, ideas that take food from ordinary to extraordinary. ZAK: Teri's advice is about food is about food but it's also about love which to her, and to me, and probably to you, are one in the same. TERI: Have your house be the one where the kids come to. You have beautiful food and it's sitting on the stove because you get to know who your kids are, see who their friends are and it is such a gift and it will bring your family together. And if you cook with your kids nobody can ever take that away from your kids. We are so bonded by food and our love for food that it's a wonderful thing. ZAK: Do you think it was because you were making such good food that you were the magnet house? TERI: I think it's like, you know, if you could love your kids in a way that is legendary. I came from real love. Such deep, over-arching, amazing love. Celebrate your kids and them be who they are. And that's just what we knew and my parents loved us not in a spoil us kind of way but just we really knew that we were loved and so for me, I was able to give that same kind of love to my kids. And part of that for me, what that looks like for me personally is creating beautiful food that we enjoyed together. But my feeling is if you didn't come from that kind of love and many people don't, you can create that in your own life. You don't have to say, 'Oh, she had that so she can do it.' No, be that life. Be the love you want to give. ZAK: You're making me cry, Teri. TERI: Oh, I love that. Thank you. We always on our podcast, we cry, on the No Crumbs Left Table Talk podcast we cry every-time. ZAK: Obviously before you invite all the neighbored kids in for a big pot of chili and your famous, homemade cornbread, you know probably weight for the pandemic to end. But this advice in your back pocket until then. Imagine the meals that you're gonna make for your kids or your friends or your neighbors. That's what I've been doing. I can't wait to start hosting dinner parties again. Big sigh. You can hear Teri's podcast, as she mentioned, it's called No Crumbs Left Table Talks. You should follow her on Instagram. No Crumbs Left. Her stuff is beautiful. She's so loving. And this is a good time to thank my parents for cultivating the kind of house that my friend's wanted to be at. Also to my mother-in-law and father-in-law for doing the same. And to all you out there who have homes with open doors. Thank you so much. This is The Best Advice Show. What a year it's been. I hope this show has helped you through it. If it has consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. As always, I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline. 844-935-BEST. I'm running low on Food Friday episodes. Give me your food tips and tricks and hacks. I want to hear 'em. I'll talk to ya next week. Bye. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megan Stielstra (@meganstielstra) is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way To Save Your Life, winner of the 2017 Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books. She is a 2020 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. An Axe for the Frozen Sea - https://believermag.com/logger/an-axe-for-the-frozen-sea/ TRANSCRIPT: MEGAN: For the first 6-months of the lockdown, my son and I quarantined at my mother's house in rural Michigan which in some senses was really lovely because her home is in the middle of the woods and on the other side of the woods from her house is the Amtrak going from Ann Arbor to Chicago every single day at 6 o'clock. There were things that I was experiencing myself that I wasn't expressing cause I didn't want to worry my kid. I didn't want to worry my mom. I didn't understand what was happening in the world. I was trying to keep my kids safe. My mom is immune compromised so I was there to help her out as well too. So I was trying to keep her safe. So all these things are happening inside my head and heart and what the hell do I do with it? One of my favorite writers, Lidia Yuknavitch, talks about how our bodies can't possibly carry everything that we've been given to carry, so we have to get it out of our bodies so we can see it. So everyday at 5:50 my kid and I would go outside and we would walk, like down the road from my mom's house and then we would stand by the tracks and we would wait. You feel it first in your feet like you feel the train coming up through your shoes and up through your legs and then you can hear it and then you can see it and as it gets closer and closer it gets louder and louder and you can feel it more throughout your own body and as soon as the front of the train would cross right in-front of us we would start screaming. And for him it's just letting out the energy and for him it's letting out everything that I can't say, and I can't talk about and I can't express how scared I am and I don't know where to put out all of that fear so it's just a release through the body and sometimes we would throw rocks and sometimes we would like break sticks and just like this physical release of everything that we'd been carrying all day and I could feel the brambles in my back unwind and everything...and you try to do this stuff in yoga class or in running but it never works, right? But just kind of that primal screaming my face off for the 2-minutes it took for the train to pass, which sounds like such a short period of time, like 2-minutes but really it is a long time to scream without stopping. Like even if we just sit-here for 10-seconds.....................................like that's a long time of dead air space and that's a long time to open your mouth and just be truthful. ZAK: mmmm. What's a good way for each of us to find our own form of release, you think? MEGAN: Whatever you're doing right now, can you stop and roll your shoulders? Can you remember to breathe? I don't mean that in any yoga, magical, just let yourself breathe, I mean it just straight up, are you actually breathing? I mean that with edge and knives and whiskey but are you actually breathing because I haven't been. It's a thing that I have been forgetting to do. So just even this awareness that we live in a body and how are we getting whatever emotional response we're having to the world out of it. Can you break something? Cause if you don't put it out of ourselves in these possible bonkers but also maybe healthy ways, it's gonna come out of us in ways that aren't healthy. So maybe that means booze or drugs or sex or cruelty or violence. Domestic violence numbers are up right now...just trying to think of what people are doing to care for ourselves. ZAK: I'm gonna go scream. MEGAN: Please do. I hope everybody does. ZAK: Yes. Go scream listeners. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Céline Williams is a culture engineer, business strategist, speaker and founder of reVisionary. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Whether you are a boss or hope to one day be a boss, I think today's advice from an executive coach is essential. I feel like most people I talk to are pretty disappointed with the culture at their work. If you have any thoughts about why you think that is...that it's so widespread that people are dissatisfied with the way their workplaces run. CELINE: I think it's because most leaders and most organizations are really attached to an old paradigm of how things work. Partly because for some organizations, that's how it worked for them 15 or 20 years ago and we have lots of large organizations and small organizations that are attached to an idea that was effective 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 50 years ago and that's not the case anymore. ZAK: So say there's a boss listening to you right now...what's something they might try tomorrow when they go into work to start shifting things? CELINE: Well first and foremost, ask your people what their experience of the culture is and actually listen. I, I often talk about culture iceberg which is that the leaders are at the top of the culture iceberg and they are where 5% of the reality of what is happening in their organization. And middle-management is lets say aware of 30% of it and then you get down to the front-line workers and they're aware of 100% of it. So what often happens is we run on assumptions. We are human beings who like assuming things and who like to create categories in our brains cause that keeps us safe, so we assume that our experience of the culture is the same as someone else's and leaders are especially bad at it because often leaders see the positive things more than the negative and so the first and easiest thing a leader can do is go in and ask their people, ask their direct reports, ask the people underneath those people...but talk to people about what their experience of the culture is and make it safe for them to say, this sucks and here's why. Make it so that there's no fear for them to actually tell you the truth of what they're seeing and that, when you have that information and that data you can actually do something with it. Otherwise you're trying to make changes on assumptions. And we all know what happens when you assume. CELINE: My name is Céline Williams. I'm the founder of reVisionary and I'm an executive coach and a culture strategist. ZAK: Are you happy at your work place? I want to know why. What's working there that the rest of us can learn from. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shane Bernardo is a food justice organizer and the founder of Food as Healing -https://www.foodashealing.com/ To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: SHANE: My name is Shane Bernardo. I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Detroit also known as occupied Anishinaabe territory. I'm also a food justice organizer and the founder of Food as Healing. My advice is to do everything with ease. Now this might seem like a really tall order but what's more important than to focus our energy on checking in with ourselves and our needs around kindness and compassion. We often think of these things as virtues that we extend toward others but how many times have we forgotten to extend those things to ourselves? So, what this looks like in practice is whenever you feel a sense of nervous energy, anxiety, frustration or regret...ask yourself this question. 'In this moment what do I need in order to bring more ease into my life?' And hopefully what that helps you do is helps you refrain from having life just happen to you. It helps you maintain your sense of self, personhood, humanity and dignity and these are things that anyone should be afforded. A lot of frustration comes from feeling like we don't have control over our own well-being and that's such a terribly unhealthy place to be in. This point is even more critical considering that we're in a global pandemic and that the need for racial justice and racial healing in this country has been unmatched like no other time in this country's existence and it also recognizes how the capitalists profit from maintaining the psychic toll that all these things have on us and especially those of us that are on the margins that sequester this impact that it has. So I'd like to invite you to maintain this practice as a form of resistance, as an act of resistance and ask yourself on a daily basis, at least one time, ask yourself what do I need to create more ease in my life. Try it on. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wendy S. Walters is a writer and the Director of the Nonfiction Concentration and Associate Professor of Writing, Nonfiction in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: WENDY: Well, I think I'm used to being uncomfortable so I am very enthusiastic about other people being uncomfortable because it kind of makes you pay attention in a slightly different way than you would with others and, you know, I say this to my son all the time you know you have that moment of discomfort, uh, but generally you survive it. Like, usually 9.9 times out 10 you survive your discomfort. So, I think that the discomfort is a real gift in terms teaching you how to get past something that is completely internal. Other people may not recognize that you're uncomfortable but you feel it and you know when you stop being uncomfortable and the more resilience you can develop in terms of that discomfort, the more engaged I think you can be with other people who aren't like yourself. Many Americans...they associate being uncomfortable with being in danger. On the base level being uncomfortable is not having access to choosing the options that you would normally choose. And for many people that is experienced as catastrophe. That is experienced as damage and I think that is really, it's an overstatement and it in some ways reflects how much we become accustomed to being catered to. ZAK: So is this advice...make yourself uncomfortable? WENDY: Let's see, is it make yourself uncomfortable or is it if you find yourself in the space of being uncomfortable, embrace it as a moment for opportunity and reflection on who you are and what you value. ZAK: Wendy S. Walters is a writer and professor of writing at Columbia University. I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. If you're finding this show valuable I hope you'll share it with your friends and family and maybe even write a review on Apple Podcasts if that's where you listen. That's gonna help this show sustain itself. Thank you in advance. I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Friedman pops corn and makes films in LA. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT ZAK: It's Food Friday and today's advice, yes, it's related to food and food prep but I think you can also read it as a metaphor. The advice comes from filmmaker, Ben Friedman. BEN: I love making popcorn and I know that other people would like stove-top popcorn too cause it's the absolute best. And I think that one place where people get stuck is they try and get every kernel popped and what ends up happening is that opens them up to the risk of burning a couple of kernels and that will just ruin the whole batch. And so my feeling is always that it is better to leave a couple kernels un-popped and to get a great batch of popcorn every time than to try and get every single kernel and risk losing the whole bowl. Kind of like that 80/20 rule but more like 98/2. That's it. ZAK: So is this really advice about not being a perfectionist? That's how I hear it. Regardless, I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline like Ben did at 844-935-BEST. This has been yet another week of The Best Advice Show. I love making this show. If you love listening to it, please consider sharing it with your friends and family. Thanks! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg Fox (@gdfx) is a composer, drummer, teacher and coach. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: You might be a freelancer or an artist or just someone trying to figure out what to do next. I think today's advice is gonna be especially helpful if you check any of those boxes. It's gonna help you narrow your focus and figure out what's really important. GREG: My name's Greg Fox. I'm a human being. And I play music. I run a music studio. I teach drumming and I also am a certified professional coach. ZAK: One of Greg's early teachers taught him what he calls the 2 of 3 rule. It's a really simple filter for trying to figure out whether a project is worth taking on, or not. GREG: The idea is that you need a strong 2 out of the following 3 things for the project to be worthwhile. And those 3 things are good hang, meaning you enjoy the company of the people you do the project with. Good product, meaning you enjoy the work that you're making, right? Uh, you like whatever it is you're working on and sharing with other people when it's finished. And 3, good pay, right, the money solid, right? So 2 out of those 3 should be strong for the project to be worth doing and I'd add as an asterisk to the entire thing that if you are involved in a project and you find yourself constantly or regularly questioning whether or not you should do the project...you also probably just should do it. ZAK:And once you started using this, like, filter to apply to your work and creative life, did you find yourself saying no more frequently? GREG: Yeah, definitely. And I also left some projects that I had been doing. Whenever anything comes in now I do think of it in those 3 terms and you know, a lot of times people will say yes to doing something and then wish they hadn't, right? And, uh, it's a good way of avoiding that. It's been very, very effective for me. It's been awhile since I've found myself in a situation where I regretted saying yes, you know? ZAK: And if you're not wondering about whether or not you should be doing a project. Like if it's pretty obvious that you should, then you don't really need to apply this advice. GREG: If you're not wondering, man, I don't know. This band that I love so much and everybody in it is so great and we actually make some dough now and then...nobody's asking themselves whether or not that should do that project. It's like when you start to find yourself asking those questions, this is a good way to evaluate, like, maybe to clarify it for yourself. ZAK: Super clarifying, Greg. Thank you so much. If you have some advice to offer I would love to hear it. Gimme a call on the Best Advice Show hotline, that's 844-935-BEST. 844-935-BEST. ZAK: Also, you should follow Greg Fox on Instagram. He's an amazing drummer. You can see him drum there. I put a link to his website and Instagram in our show notes. Alright, I'll talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susannah Goodman (detroit_fertile_earth) is an artist and potter and community organizer in Detroit. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: SUSANNAH: Yeah, so this piece of advice is really simply stated that the more you look, the more you'll find and it's just related to the way you can walk through the world. I firmly believe that, um, wonder and awe is a muscle that you have to exercise and the more you use it the more it becomes accessible to you. So I use it when I'm feeling stressed. Before pandemic times if I was like on my way into a meeting or something and I was worried about what was gonna happen, sometimes I would just sit in my car and look at, I don't know, grass on the berm on the side of the parking lot and just watch the way the wind blows across it or how fertile just little bits of sod are in all the places in our urban landscape. If you just sit and observe the more patience you have with yourself in the process, the more it will become available to you for appreciation cause I think when I'm the most stressed is when I'm like not observing the world around me. ZAK: When you're in your head? SUSANNAH: Yeah. ZAK: Huh. Yeah. Well we're outside right now in our friend's backyard. Normally I imagine this would be like an internal monologue of you, uh, you know, noticing but can you do it externally and help me understand how you would do it? SUSANNAH: I think the best thing about being outside for me recently has been just watching the way trees move across the sky when the wind is blowing cause it's this great reminder that we're sitting at the bottom of this giant air ocean and looking up from the ocean floor at these massive, amazing bits of tree seaweed or something, hahaha. I'm Susannah. I'm an artist and potter and community organizer in Detroit. ZAK: I want to hear about the ways you deal with your stress and anxiety. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And if you can think of somethine that might benefit from Susannah's advice consider sending them this episode. You can do that by going to Best Advice dot show. Thanks. Talk to you soon. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doron Levin is the Editor-in-Chief of Better Investing Magazine. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: When anyone starts talking about investing, I get so bored. But I know it's pretty important to pay attention, at least to some basic principles when it comes to this stuff. And so, I talked to longtime financial journalist, Doron Levin. He says for young people especially, their greatest asset might be time. DORON: When you've just gotten your first job, it's very, very important to start investing and it's very, very important to realize that money invested over time can generate tremendous sums. So you have the compounded annual growth rate...let's say an average of 7% which is what you get in the stock market, generally speaking. Over time that can generate massive amounts of money. So if you start when you're in your 20's, by the time you're 50 you can have money that will pay for your kids' college, that will buy you a house on the lake, that will allow you to retire, that will allow to change jobs or allow you to do a lot of things and give you a lot of freedom but you have to start early and recognize that time is an asset. ZAK: Even if you're making, like, 30-thousand dollars a year? DORON: Even if you're making $30,000 and all you can put aside is $1,000, you should definitely do that. And then if you get a job at a place that has a 401k, which is a retirement account taht allows that money to compound, tax-free, then you should do that as well. There are lots of stories of janitors, teachers, fireman, people like that who retire with tremendous, tremendous pension accounts or tremendous savings accounts simply because they over time always invested and never spent that money and allowed it to accumulate and allow it to generate even more and more interest and the amounts become exponential. ZAK: Doron Levin is the editor-in-chief of Better Investing Magazine. If you have some pragmatic life-advice that we should hear, give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nell Wulfhart (nellmwulfhart) is a decision-coach and writer. More about Nell's decision making practice @ DECIDE AND MOVE FORWARD - http://www.decideandmoveforward.com/ -- To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: One of my favorite things is learning about jobs I didn't know existed. That's why I was very exciting about today's interview. Can you tell me who you are and what you are? NELL: Sure, my name is Nell Wulfhart. I'm a decision coach and I help people make tough decisions in one-hour sessions where we go over the problem and by the end of the one hour they know what to do and can start taking action. ZAK: Do you know any other decision coaches? NELL: No. ZAK: So you may have invented this job. NELL: I think I did kind of make it up, um, but it turns out there's a real need for it. Like people really struggle with it. I'm wondering if there's a way to start getting decision making into school curriculum or something because it seems to me like this is a really useful skill and something you can get better at but a lot of people have such a hard time with it. ZAK: Can you tick off a cross-section of the types of decisions you help people make? NELL: People who are wondering whether or not to start their own business. People who wonder if they should take a job, especially when that job involves like moving their family. People want to know whether to stay in relationships. I told somebody whether or not they should have a second child. I've given someone advice to quit their job and set-up as a sex therapist. It's a pretty wide range. ZAK: So you're actually coming out and saying you should do this? NELL: Yes, I wanted to call my site the Decision Maker but a friend of mine told me that people prefer to have a little more agency in their decisions so I should be the decision coach but it's essentially, by the time people get to me they've spent so long agonizing over these decisions that they just want someone to tell them it's ok to do what they want to do and this thing that they...these two things they're deciding between there is one better option and that's what I give them. ZAK: So that's usually the case that it seems clear? NELL: It almost always seems clear to me. I mean people come to me with hard decisions. Sometimes it's very early like somebody is in a bad relationship so you tell them break up with that person. Sometimes, like, it really is a very difficult decision but I know that any kind of decision and then taking action on that decision is better than continuing to stew in indecision so, literally any decision I tell them to make is better than continuing to be in the state of analysis paralysis. ZAK: Which brings us to Nell's advice. NELL: Take less time to make your decisions. The problem that most people have is that they spend way to much time trying to make decisions...which is essentially trying to predict the future, right, we're tying to figure out what decision is gonna make us happier, what's gonna make us feel better but we're all just taking out best guesses. And there's a certain amount of time, certain things to consider, pro and con list. I love a pro and con list but after that there's a lot of wheel spinning. There's a lot of going back and second-guessing and talking to other people and to me that is just a total waste of time and energy. So, the way that we know whether we like things is not by thinking and trying to predict that we might like them, it's by trying them out. So, my suggestion would be to take that time you would normally spend agonizing over a decision and use it to start taking action on one of your options. Because you'll have spent the same amount of time but if you take action you will have real tangible data about whether or not this is a good decision and the same amount of time will have passed as if you were still just thinking and debating and wondering. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ZAK: Back here with regular contributor, Shira. SHIRA: Hi everyone. ZAK: You have another gem for us today for Food Friday? SHIRA: Yeah, this is my advice called splitsies. theme music SHIRA: So I think, in general, whether it be you're out to dinner with your partner, your friend...I advocate for a splitsies set-up and this means that we get two dishes and we split them. And I think that this is a good practice on multiple levels. First of all, you get to try two dishes instead of one. But maybe even a more essential thing is that it makes the eating process this wonderful, you know, kind of, adventure. We're in it together. We're discovering these new foods together. And I really think that that is a good way of like, connecting and I think it elevates the experience cause it makes you guys in it together. So, Zak and I, we always go splitsies. ZAK: And you might be thinking, well what if the other person gets more than me. What you and I do, we're very fastidious about doing an even split. It's not like, oh yeah you have a bite of this, I have a bite of this. No no no. We do ever/thing short of busting out a ruler. SHIRA: Yeah, cause your bites are bigger than my bites. So we learned early on, I'm not doing bite for bite cause Zak's bites are a lot bigger than mine. ZAK: I take a big bite. SHIRA: Yeah, so we just truly just split it in half so there's no discussion and people don't feel like, oh, if I go splitisies, I'm not gonna get as much. We take away that component. Split it directly in half so everyone gets the equal amount and that's not a concern for the splitsies action. ZAK: Great. I love you. SHIRA: Love you too. Splitsies for life. ZAK: Splitsies for life. ZAK: I'm very interested in how couple's make it work from the micro to the macro. Tell me what you do at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. This has been another week of The Best Advice Show. Please share it with your friends and family. And as always, consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. It all helps. Thank you so much. I hope this helps. Bye. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keisha (TK) Dutes is an audio producer and the co-host of the new podcast, Open World. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: We're home. We're probably not going anywhere anytime soon. And so today's advice inspires you to make your place as cozy and fun as possible without breaking the bank. KEISHA: Hi, I'm Keisha TK Dutes. I'm an audio producer and with my home space, I like to make different rooms so that I can go from room to room and have a different experience everyday. My bedroom is peaceful, I got plants. Then the bathroom is like a black aunty jungle. Cause I know that's where I do my thing. And I get ready for the morning and if I have to stare at myself I want to see jungle wallpaper behind me. You know? hahaha. And the living room is like an abstract-modern thing and that's just cause over time I would buy little things from like vintage stores or through traveling and even if I didn't have like a proper place to stay, I had like a box somewhere with these little things. ZAK: Some of us are living in houses that we haven't put a lot of time into designing just cause, like, you know, we got work, we got family, we got all this stuff to do. But now we might have some time to think about and organize our space. Do you have some advice about getting started? KEISHA: Yes, go through the stuff that you have already. You have so much... I think a lot of people pack away their lives but I went through like, pieces of paper...there's always a bag of envelopes somewhere. Right? Go through that bag of envelopes. Go through that bag of cards. Some of the cards will look nice enough to like, just tack up on the wall or put in a frame. There will be photos that you forgot. Put them on the fridge. Like little stuff. The fridge can be the jumping off point for like...ok, cool...I really like the colors in that photo. Boom, lemme paint my cupboards. You know, like, find your stuff first then start branching out. Going through my stuff and finding things over time it helped me to buy less things. ZAK: You might be searching for something to listen to while you're redesigning your place. If so, check out TK's new project. It's called Open World. It's a fiction anthology podcast about how science and technology serve as a backdrop for imaging a better future. It's really cool. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. If you have some advice I would love to hear it. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Gluck is the co-author of Everydata and author of 40 Freelancing Secrets. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPTS: ZAK: Where would you say is the most beautiful place you've gotten work done? MIKE: Probably, I mean my brother and his wife live out in Hawaii so I've gotten some work done out there which is nice. The local park is pretty cool. Just knowing that if I have my laptop and a wi-fi connection most of the time, I can do pretty much whatever I need to do anywhere, anytime. ZAK: For lots of us, working from home is new and this setup takes some getting used to. I asked for some advice from long-time freelancer, Mike Gluck. He says with the great freedom of working at home, it can be much harder to get stuff done...and if you've been doing this for the last six months like I have, you know you're not just gonna be able to work from nine to five. You have to be creative. MIKE: So, yeah, I've got to two teenage boys and one of them loves tennis, one of them loves fishing. And the one, Zack, who loves tennis works very early in the mornings on the weekends, so lsat Saturday, I think, I dropped him off at work at 6:30 in the morning. I'm not gonna go and sit inside a Starbucks right now, so instead, I grabbed my laptop and I went to work. It was light out and I sat on a bench and I got some work done. And then for fishing, my younger son loves to fish and he scoped out all these fishing spots around where we live so, you know, sometimes I'll go and just sit in a chair and hangout and we'll talk about life or whatever, but, you know, he likes to do it everyday, so sometimes what I'll do is I'll bring a lawn chair, I'll bring my laptop and I'll sit there and I'll get stuff done for part of it. I think you have to embrace that. One of the benefits is that flexibility, but you also have to look for those pockets of time when you can work and you can be productive because you can't just nap during the day and go to the gym and do your laundry and then not work at night or on the weekends...you have to find those times when, ok, I have an hour here, I have half an hour here, I have three hours here. Let me take advantage of it. It doesn't have to be in a traditional work setting at a traditional work time...you can do it whenever, wherever, ZAK: Mike Gluck is the author of two books, one of which is called 40 Freelancing Secrets which you might find very valuable right now. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lois Langberg sleeps soundly in Metro-Detroit. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Today's advice from Lois Langberg goes out to all you night peers and insomniacs. LOIS: My advice, this is really helpful to me, when I go to sleep at night, I usually go to bed around ten and then I wake up to go to the bathroom and I find if you don't look at the clock and see what time it is then you can just get back in bed and go to sleep, because if you look at the clock and then you're thinking oh my gosh, it's 2 o'clock in the morning, I have to get up at six and then you're freaking out because you're stressing about getting back to sleep. ZAK: Don't stare at the clock. I love this. I've actually tried this since I heard Lois' advice and it works. Big anxiety reducer. If you want to call the advice hotline like Lois did I would love to hear from you. That number is 844-935-BEST. I want to hear about the things you're doing to get through these long days and sometimes even longer nights. This is The Best Advice Show. Talk to you tomorrow. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Norene Cashen (@there.is.a.light.somewhere) is a life-long learner, therapist, poet, coach and writer. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: NORENE: My advice is, if you want to have an ageless mindset, always be a beginner at something. theme music NORENE: I'm 52 and I don't feel it and I think that's probably because I'm constantly on these adventures to try something new and to evolve and grow and change. I got a couple of masters degrees, one when I was just gonna turn 50 and then another at age 51. I did Brazilian Jujitsu for 15-months in my mid-40s and I'm always learning. Just always being a beginner...it's a reset. It takes you to a place of energy and humility and focus. ZAK: Was there a time in your life that that would have been, uh, a foreign idea? NORENE: Yes, I believe that I always thought I would have a career path and I would stick with that and that would be it and I envision myself as 40 or 50 being really old and things being rather static in the future. But that's now how it's turning out. ZAK: I can imagine some people, maybe they're not at their best but maybe they're just comfortable in the groove that they have found themselves in. You know and finding one path and just kind of moving forth. Do you have words for that person who might just need a little encouragement to take the jump and to, and you know, moving from being an expert at the one thing they're so good at into being a beginner at this thing that they know nothing about yet? NORENE: Well, um, when you're an expert you run the risk of becoming an expert of instead of just being a human being. And when you open yourself up to new things and you humble yourself to a new lesson and a new activity, a new learning, you realize you're really super present with your own humanness. So there's a huge payoff there. And the other thing is, don't be so hypnotized or convinced of your own advertising and your own resume that you forget to be present in the moment and be yourself. Alan Watts had a great quote. Um, "you are under no obligation to be the same person you were five-minutes ago." And I just love that quote and when I talk to people who are stuck that's one of the things that that quote sometimes sets people free in the moment and I see a smile. Like, darn it, that's true! ZAK: So good. That Watts fella. Very good. ZAK: Can you tell me who you are and what you are? NORENE: I am a life-long learner. I'm a therapist. I'm a coach. I'm a writer and I'm a person who upholds the values of bravery, respect and humility in work and in life. ZAK: You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five-minutes ago. Thank you Norene Cashen. Thank you Alan Watts. That you listener for listening. I would love to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Talk to you tomorrow. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Valeriya Epshteyn is co-eggxecutive director @ The Next Egg. To offer your own Food Friday advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT VALERYIA: Hi Zak, it's Valeryia and I want to advise people to save vegetable and bone and mushroom scraps because we're at the peak of the season for lots of amazing food right now and if you have stems from kale or collards or swiss chard or if you have bits and pieces of chicken or if you have the little stubby parts of mushrooms then you can put them into a gallon bags or a Tupperware container in your freezer and the next time you need to make a broth or maybe even a time that you want to make a broth that you can cook rice in it or potatoes or anything else that needs a little extra flavor, you can just pop open the freezer and make use of the things you were otherwise gonna toss or I hope compost. ZAK: Who doesn't love a thrifty food Friday tip. Thanks Valeryia. Brothy rice, I'm coming for you. This has been Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. I would love to hear your advice. You can call the hotline like Valeryia did at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. I'm looking for advice and life advice and love advice and any kind of advice. Thanks for calling. Also, if you're still here that means you really like this show and maybe you'll consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. That's gonna help people discover the show. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brandon Stosuy is the co-founder and editor in chief at The Creative Independent. His new book is called Make Time for Creativity: Finding Space for Your Most Meaningful Work. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: Hello, my name is Brandon Stousy. I'm the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Creative Independent and the co-founder of Basilica Soundscape which is an annual festival in Hudson, New York and I manage artists with my friend Caleb. We call ourselves, Zone 6. In the end, slow and steady actually does, I don't want to say win the race cause it doesn't need to be a competition, but I think finding a way to be slow and steady is actually a really useful bit of advice and I think, like, what that means longer term is if you sort of do the thing that you set out to do each day, and just keep doing that, even if no one's paying attention to you and no one's keeping track and even if it's a small thing, you just kind of keep doing those small things...things never get out of hand, I find on the creative level or like, even at a practical level. Like, for instance this morning, I've been working on these books and the way to do these for me was realizing I gotta get up at 5 am and start writing the books, and it's like, I don't need each day to do ten chapters, I can just do, you know, a page, a few sentences and if it's not working, I'm like, ah it doesn't matter cause tomorrow I'm gonna do this again. You know you sit down to exercise one time a month and you're like, I'm gonna do this and you build it all up in your mind or I'm gonna write and you set it up in your mind, like, I'm gonna finish this book in one weekend and then you just don't do it and you sort of stress yourself out and you, um, the anxiety grows and it becomes this insurmountable task where I've found through just discovering it over years that if I just do a little bit each day, I don't find myself in these like panicked moments or I don't find myself in these moments of missing a deadline or thinking I'm not gonna get it done and I'm able to juggle the things I do which bring me a lot of joy...I kind go for it Monday through Friday and on the weekends I'm like cool, I'm just not gonna do anything. That's my advice. hahah. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nate Mullen is an artist, educator, dad and friend from Detroit. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: NATE: My name is Nate Mullen. I am in artist and educator, dad, friend. ZAK: I'm very excited about Nate's advice. It's a media recommendation. NATE: Everybody should watch Steven Universe. It's a coming-of-age story of this person named Steven learning to control his powers which are deeply connected to his emotional reality. ZAK: What does it work so well? NATE: So, it's a cartoon so it's silly, it's goofy. He raps about his favorite ice-cream cookies. But he also, in order to like, you know, access his power, he has to tap into, like, what is joy for him or what is pain for him, right? And as he grapples with that, right, like, that allows him to access superpowers. And what else do we need at this moment more than understanding that having deep access to our emotions are superpower You can find Steven Universe on Hulu or on Amazon, Apple. The other thing is that like, in my family, like, Meilu, who's 4 has been watching it for 2 years. I watch it. Jenny watches it. We're in our 30s. My mom watches it who's in her 50s. My brother watches it who is in high school. Right? It's this thing that my mom, who is a grown-ass woman and my brother who's in high school, have been bumping heads a lot. In this moment Steven Universe is something that's bringing them together. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices