The Best Advice Show cover image

The Best Advice Show

Latest episodes

undefined
May 3, 2021 • 2min

Paying Your Taxes with Julia Friedman and Arthur Braverman

ZAK: It's The Best Advice Show and today we're gonna continue our on-going series, Advice from Our Grandparents. If you have some advice from your grandparents, I would love to hear it. Give me a call at 844-935-BEST.JULIA: My name is Julia and my advice is to never complain about paying taxes. Tax day is nearly upon us so this advice seemed timely. My grandfather, Arthur Braverman, used to have all these saying he would repeat and one of them was, "never complain about paying taxes." The reason behind this counsel is because paying taxes typically means two things. You are living in America or are an American and you likely have a job. Two things to be grateful for and not complain about. Both of my grandfathers were World War II vets and taught us to take great pride in being Americans. It is the land that gave our family opportunity. Also, there are so many people in our country that don't have a job right now and are hurting economically, emotionally or otherwise. They don't have the chance to pay taxes. It is important to not forget about them.ZAK: Thank you Julia Friedman and thank you, Arthur Braverman. I've got an old picture of Arthur up on our Instagram @BestAdviceShow. He's wearing a great suit. It was a less schlubby time when that picture was taken. Go check it out. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 30, 2021 • 5min

Inventing Cocktails with Kamala Puligandla

Kamala Puligandla is the author of the novella, You Can Vibe Me On My FemmePhone and writes The Dyke Kitchen Column at Autostraddle.IMPROVISING SALADS WITH KAMALA PULIGANDLATRANSCRIPT:KAMALA: I'm Kamala Puligandla. I'm a writer.ZAK: Kamala is a Food Friday returning champion. We last spoke about salad making. Today, we're taking it to cocktails.ZAK: I like, kind of make an Old Fashioned. I think that's the only cocktail I've ever made. I'm overwhelmed. How can I improve my cocktail confidence?KAMALA: Ok, so I think that classic cocktails are really delicious and really cool but I don't hold myself to doing them in the classic way. So, I like to borrow flavors from them. Sometimes I'll borrow ratios from them. I'm just really into making my own simple syrups right now that have whatever flavor that I'm into. So, recently, I think it was last weekend, a friend of mine was like, come over and hang out in our backyard and everyone was like, we'll bring our own cocktail so I was like, ooo, I have to bring a good one. So, I had some mezcal and I was like, what are some flavors that I can mix into a syrup that would go with the smokiness of the mezcal and I ended up putting some garam masala into my simple syrup with a cinnamon stick and some cloves and then I mixed that into the mezcal with some grapefruit soda. And that was really, really, really good. It's sort of like a paloma but it's like, I don't know, like a spicy paloma. ZAK: That sounds really nice. How do you imagine what will work?KAMALA: So, recently I realized that I thought I didn't like sweet cocktails but that when you add sugar to things it changes the things that everything else tastes. And for awhile, I was trying to resist putting in too much sugar because I have had sickly sweet drinks that I'm not into. But when I'm making my own syrup it helps it marry all the flavors together so that they're a little closer. They don't feel like alcohol, citrus, some other flavor. So that's something that I was like, I should just add syrups to things, But what I'm usually thinking about is like, I have the alcohol taste and I'm trying to figure out what about the alcohol taste I like so that I don't mask it. And then like, what can go with it to sort of enhance that. So with mezcal, I like that it's a little sharp and a little smoky and so I try to add citrus to it. I think citrus helps in every cocktail cause it helps brings the sharpness out and then doesn't overwhelm the smokiness or overwhelm the taste of the alcohol. And then also on something smokey, I was like, what are some other things that I eat that are sort of smokey and I was like, oh, I would put garam masala with chilis which are kind of smokey and I was just like, that sounds good. It sounds earthy and like it would go in the same family as smokey so that's what I was thinking. But then like, sometimes I'll have lighter cocktails. Like if I have gin I like to get a really herbaceous gin and then I don't love floral tastes that much but I do love putting other herbs in there so it's like, I don't know, there's like a rosemary simple syrup that I've made that I like and that sort of brings out the flavors in the gin. Things like that. That's mostly what I'm thinking about. I think it's similar to the salad question. I want something kind of earthy, something kind of bright and then something that's kind of punchy, so like, just pulling those things together and sometimes spicy is a really good addition and sometimes it's totally unnecessary. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 29, 2021 • 4min

Structured Walking with Sharon Mashihi

Audio artist, screenwriter, performer, and story editor Sharon Mashihi is the creator and host of the podcast Appearances from Mermaid Palace and Radiotopia.Sharon on managing fear and self-doubt, saying yes to your wild ideas, and using rituals to break through creative blocks.Aaron Finbloom and The School of Making ThinkingTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: Sharon Mashihi is one of my favorite audio people. One of my favorite artists in general, I'd say. She made this podcast called Appearances, which if you haven't heard yet, just stop this episode and go listen to that. But anyways, I was reading an interview with her on a website called The Creative Independent, and she talked with the interviewer about this thing called, Structured Walks.SHARON: Alright. It's recording and unfortunately, I'm not able to fully monitor the levels but they look good. SHARON: You and I would take a walk and we'd time it.SHARON: I was thinking we could do 25-minutes you and 25-minutes me and then we'll both walk in one direction and we'll both walk back. Does that sound good?ZAK: Perfect.SHARON: You know, my friend, Aaron Finbloom, devised this but I always think of Socrates and those dudes. They were walking.ZAK: So, I'm walking on Belle Isle which I may have mentioned to you before. It's the big, public park in Detroit.SHARON: Uh huh.ZAK: So, the concept here is simple. You can try it today with a friend who lives in your town. Or you can do what Sharon and I did and call someone up. You take a walk on your end, like I did in Detroit. And then they'll be wherever they are. Sharon was in New York City when we talked.SHARON: Go first Zak. I think it should be you. Alarm set. ZAK: For the first half of the walk I'm talking through this current creative struggle I'm having. I've been mapping out this historical fiction project but I don't know how to start and I'm intimidated.SHARON: Maybe can you articulate what your hurdle is with fiction?ZAK: And this is all we're talking about for 25-minutes. My current struggle and then when those 25-minutes are up, we turn the tables and it's Sharon's turn. You can do it for however long you want. I think the important thing is that it's equal amounts of time for both people.SHARON: What I had in mind to talk to you about. I'll paint the picture. It has to do with work and art and how organize this next chapter of my life. Um...ZAK: The structured walk is such a simple, effective tool. And it can work for anything. You don't have to be engaged in a creative project for this to work. Maybe you're just having such questions you want to wrestle with about your work life or a relationship. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 28, 2021 • 3min

Stop Yucking My Yum with June Thomas

June Thomas (@junethomas) is one of the hosts of Working, Slate's podcast about the creative process and also the Senior Managing Producer of the Slate podcast network.PERFECTING EGG SALAD w/Nancy KafferTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: So, today's advice, I've usually thought of in relation to food, specifically. But June helped me understand it's much bigger and broader than that.JUNE: I was walking down 6th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn and I heard these little kids arguing about whether the child had been correctly accused of yucking someone's yum and it struck me that that is a really profound and very correct piece of advice.ZAK: Yes!JUNE: Don't step on someone else's pleasure. Don't feel that you have to be scornful of what makes someone else happy. If you don't like it, you don't need to tell them. You don't need to argue about their views on something that they take pleasure in. Like, just let it be. So much of the really advice in life comes from the school-yard and I never heard that on the school yard. That was something I only heard the first time a couple of years ago but it is so right, you know. I have a lot of really weird hobbies...things that I like I know objectively, they're not good, but I love them. And so, selfishly, I don't want anyone yukking my yum. But also, it's something that I really try to keep in mind, like, I'm a very judgmental person. I'm a critic by nature as well as sometimes by profession. But, you know, when you're talking with your friends or just a stranger on the street, like, it's a version I guess of live and let live but also, if somebody is getting pleasure and fun from something and it's not harming anyone, that is the greatest thing in the world. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 27, 2021 • 4min

Building for Tomorrow with Jason Feifer

Jason Feifer (@heyfeifer) is the editor in chief Entrepreneur magazine and hosts Build For Tomorrow. A novel he wrote with his wife, Mr. Nice Guy, is currently being developed for television. How are you building for the future? Lemme know at 844-935-BEST. TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Hey, it's The Best Advice Show where everyday, a guest offers one morsel of wisdom.JASON: My name is Jason Feifer. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine. And I self-describe as the guy that gets you excited about the future. In front of you, in front of me, in front of everybody who's listening to this right now, you have two sets of opportunities. Opportunity Set A and opportunity Set B. Opportunity Set A is everything that is asked of you in your job. Everything that your boss expects. All your KPI's, Key Performance Indicators...all that stuff. Opportunity Set B is everything that is available to you that nobody is asking you to do and I am telling you that Opportunity Set B is more important. It is always more important. I have built my career on Opportunity Set B because if you focus on Opportunity Set A, all you are doing is you are helping yourself be qualified to do the thing that you're already doing. But Opportunity Set B is where real Opportunity happens. That's where growth is. If you want to focus on your future, on improving your career on finding new things that you didn't even think that you would be interested in later on, well then you focus on Opportunity Set B all the time and that doesn't mean that you have to be a bad employee. It just means, in fact, I would say it's quite the opposite. Sometimes if you go out and you focus on Opportunity Set B, you are gonna be building new skills that are ultimately useful for you at your job too. But it's also gonna open up all these other avenues.ZAK: Do you have a rubric or a filter for figuring out what's A and what's B?ZAK: It's either, are you expected to do this or are you not. Is somebody measuring you by your performance in this particular area or are they not? You want to find the thing that nobody's asking you to do. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 26, 2021 • 9min

Heart Connecting with Joey Soloway

Joey Soloway is a showrunner, director, writer and creator of Transparent. TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I love the idea of team-building. But usually in action, team-building activities make me cringe. Maybe you're at a work thing, or a meeting, and you're told to do some ice breaker, or an activity meant to bring the room together. It can be so awkward when there's no buy-in from the participants or feels forced or trite. I think we've all been there. But team-building done right, it can an be incredibly uniting and energizing. That's what today's episode is about. I'm a huge fan of the TV show, Transparent. If you haven't seen it. It's on Amazon. It was created by Joey Soloway.JOEY: I remember as I was an up-and-coming filmmaker, somebody told me a story about Quentin Tarantino. When he first arrived on the first-day of Reservoir Dogs...I think it was a grip who was there and he said he came outside. They were building a stage there and he came outside and the camera truck had pulled up. They opened the back-doors and they pull out the tailgate and he jumped up on the tailgate and he ran inside and he's like give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! And somebody was like, here...And he took the camera on got out on the tailgate and he took the camera like Simba. He was so excited to take the camera and go fill it with images. So that made me never really want to do that but it did make me want to give a speech from a tailgate. And the first day of the second season (of Transparent) was the day that Marriage Equality passed and so then we were just like, the camera truck happened to be there. So I got up there and said something about Marriage Equality and then we just kind of took turns. Different people wanted to get up and say something. And then it became a tradition where every morning we stopped using a tailgate and started using a big apple box and putting it in the center of wherever we were. So all the actors were get ready. They would all have gone through hair and makeup and be ready to shoot. And before we would go to the set, we would all just start going...box, box, box, box, box. And people would start to gather and clap and say box and the whole crew...like every single person would come and stand in the circle around the apple box and people would take turns talking about whatever they were going through. Sometimes it was good stuff like, my kid got a scholarship or sometimes it was like bad stuff like my wife has cancer and it would connect everybody so much. Even if we were wasting time that morning by box going so much longer than anybody planned for or budgeted for or scheduled for, it always made the day go faster cause we all were so heart-connected. And normally the pieces of a machine on a movie, somebody's like, that's not my fault. That's the AD's fault. That's the grip's fault. People were always throwing each other under the bus and then once we started doing box you're not throwing anybody under the bus anymore cause you know there wife has cancer.ZAK: Yes. So much is happening with box. You're decentralizing the leadership. You're connecting. This is something where you don't have to be making TV shows to practice box. I can do it with my family tomorrow morning. I can do it at work.JOEY: Totally. And then like prioritizing wasting time which is amazing. And that would be my favorite time where people couldn't really stand it anymore because we were wasting too much time. I truly believe it actually makes a better product. So, when other people were like, we're running out of time, you can be thinking that this time, that nobody thinks we deserve that is past the amount of time that we've all decided was the right amount of time to spend on love is now the most important time. Just to tolerate the emotion of feeling present to one another and the gratitude that we're making art. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 23, 2021 • 4min

Shipping Cookies with Darian Muka

Darian Muka is a baker and marketer in NYC. Perfecting Chocolate Chip Cookies with Michelle Ganley.To offer your own FOOD FRIDAY advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I hope your week has been above average, and I hope it gets better with today's Food Friday advice.DARIAN: I'm Darian Yuca. I'm a slightly above average baker.ZAK: Granted, I haven't eaten Darian's baked goods, but calling herself a slightly above average baker has got to be a gross understatement. She told me she has 12 kinds of flour in her cabinet!DARIAN: Well, I don't eat a lot of my own baked goods. I'm not really a sweet person. I really like making them. That's probably why I make a lot of bread. And also my partner has like really bad teeth. So he doesn't like sugar. So we don't really eat a lot of this stuff I bake. So anybody that will take it, I will either send it or walk it to that person.ZAK: And that's what we're here to talk about today. One of the ways in which Darien preps her care packages.DARIAN: Yeah. So anything that's like super soft, um, will harden with air. So when you're shipping it, you want to have something that will release moisture in order to keep the cookie moist. So I put slices of apple inside anything with soft cookies. Um, the apples look absolutely disgusting when they get to the person, but the cookies are really soft. So, um, the apples will like, yeah, they'll shrivel up and your cookies will stay nice and moist. So you have to like warn someone. Cause it's not fun to get like a shriveled apple as like here, I bought you some cookies, but yeah, the, the cookies take away the moisture from the apple. That's like slowly releasing. So they stayed nice and moist, I've done it over like a three to four day shipping period. So it's like, it stays good for a while.ZAK: First of all, it's very nice of the apples they're giving their life to these cookies. But so, so your cookies are in the same bag as the slices?DARIAN: Yeah. You have to put them like directly in the box. Try not to have them touch the cookie because then that part of the cookie will get really moist, like kind of wet. So you want it to like be in the box, but try to like move them to the sides so that they're sharing the same air, but they're not actually touching the cookies. Actually. You couldn't do that like normal in your house too. If you want to keep cookie soft and they're out and they're already baked, just drop, um, Apple slices in, they sell like, um, little discs that are, I don't think they're terracotta, but they're usually used to make Brown sugar moist so that doesn't harden over time. Those work the same. They're a little disk that you can buy, but if you're not trying to buy anything, Apple slices are the exact same thing.ZAK: And the cookies won't take on any of the apple properties?DARIAN: Nope. Um, I'm trying to think if there's like, I'm sure you could do this with another fruit. If someone was allergic to apple and have to have the same, like texture and moisture levels and apples. So I would try like a pear. I'm trying to think if there's...the only thing that's coming to my brain, that would be the same, like consistency. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 22, 2021 • 3min

Making Your Needs Known with Beth Pickens

Beth Pickens is a Los Angeles-based consultant for artists and arts organizations and the author of Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles (Chronicle Books, 2021) and Your Art Will Save Your Life (Feminist Press, 2018). TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Just saying the word...need, gives makes me hesitate a bit. Instead of coming out and telling someone, I need your help, I usually modify to, I could use your help. But, thanks to today's guest, Beth Pickens, I'm working on being more forthcoming with my needs.BETH: I think we have to always tell people everything that we need because we all float around we're just little children masquerading as adults...just assuming that nobody needs anything and we're the only ones with needs and we have to get rid of those needs or diminish them. But we all need emotional support.ZAK: What's a way that we can practice giving and asking for help?BETH: I like to do everything starting with a quantity. Just quantifying it. A goal of, I'm gonna ask for three things this week that are directly related to my creative practice. And here's what those needs are gonna be and here are some appropriate people I think I could ask. And I'm just gonna practice on the asking. I have no control over the outcome. Then I'm gonna avail myself three times to people. Maybe I'm asked for something or maybe I offer something or I connect with another artist friend and say, this is the kind of help I need right now. What kind of help do you need right now? Let's help each other find it.ZAK: And not necessarily a one-to-one where the help you're offering you're getting back from the same person?BETH: Right. Cause maybe the things you ask for maybe you don't know how to give or you don't have that resource to give. Or maybe the person you're asking for something from, they have a different thing to reciprocate with. Cause we all have different things to offer. Some are universal but many are very different. And we always have to identify, who do we ask...How do we match the ask, the request to somebody's who's appropriate. Rather than I'm gonna try to ask this person for emotional support who I know cannot or will not give it. But if I try hard enough, I can prove that I won by going to the hardware store for a gallon milk. They don't have it to give. So we have to think about who are we going to for which things and one person cannot meet every need which is the fallacy of marriage and modernity.ZAK: Totally. It's kind of like a creativity time-bank you're describing.BETH: Yeah, very much so. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 21, 2021 • 5min

Re-Entering a Project with Beth Pickens

Beth Pickens is a Los Angeles-based consultant for artists and arts organizations and the author of Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles (Chronicle Books, 2021) and Your Art Will Save Your Life (Feminist Press, 2018). To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I love a specialist. That's how I'd describe Beth Pickens.BETH: So, I essentially counsel artists. I went to school to be a therapist. I only work with artists and I've been talking recently with artists about how to re-enter a project or something that you have been avoiding for a long time. And you have a lot of fear about. It's a thing that comes up for artists when somebody has like a durational project, a book or an album, or some big thing that they're doing. Sometimes, you know, after the honeymoon phase wears off, it can be hard to sustain that marathon nature to keep going through it. Especially if you don't have somebody waiting for it, if you don't have a deadline or accountability. Um, and so, what will happen is a person maybe will retreat from the long durational project. And then it will start to build into something in their mind that they become afraid of, but they can't get back to, and it becomes this big mental block about, I want to finish that. I'm afraid of it. I don't know how. It's impossible. It becomes this sort of cycle of self-defeat. And so I will often work with clients to help them re-enter, kind of tiptoe back into the water of a big project that they've lost the honeymoon limerence feelings for, but they really are committed to.ZAK: How do you tip toe back?BETH: We start really simple. You start with just like 15, 20 minutes. Just planning to be in the project for 15 or 20 minutes. And I'll often recommend that people actually just kind of go into the world they're creating and turn the lights on. So if it's a manuscript, for example, or if it's a body of music to go first and just inhabit it, read everything they have. listen to everything that they have and do that about four or five times, just for 15 minute increments, maybe once a week, maybe a few times a week, to first just to re-inhabit the universe and let it come alive in your subconscious. Because so often for a big project, the solutions that artists come up with happen when they're not sitting in front of the computer, when they're in the midst of it, it's like when they're on a walk, when they're washing the dishes, when they're doing something else, they can have an idea of, this is where I can go next. Not necessarily a breakthrough, it doesn't have to be that big, but it can be just an indication of this is a next step. So we start with really tiny increments and then celebrating that as an achievement, like telling an artist friend right before you do it and then telling them right after you do it and celebrating, just re-entering, tip-toeing back into the water. And that sort of breaks the myth that seal of I can't do it. It's impossible. There's no way back in. It's just by slowly reentering and not doing it with a ton of pressure that I have to go in and finish it or figure it out. Cause I think that's not realistic. And it's a mean thing to expect of oneself.ZAK: Yeah. I love this two-part process.BETH: Oh yeah. Having somebody outside be like that big congratulations. You can do it again, but for today you're done. You don't have to do that again today. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow
undefined
Apr 20, 2021 • 7min

Quit Future-Tripping with Stephanie Wittels Wachs and (Harris Wittlels)

Stephanie Wittels Wachs is the co-founder of Lemonada Media, host of Last Day and author of best-selling memoir Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss.Harris Wittels (April 20, 1984 – February 19, 2015) was an American comedian, writer and podcast. His book is Humblebrag: The Art of False Modesty.TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Whoa, I just realized this. Today is the one -year anniversary of The Best Advice Show. We are more than 250 episodes in. Here's to another at least 250. In honor of this one-year celebration I would love to your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Ok, lets get to today's show.I never met Harris Wittels but in my mind, we were dear friends. I get the feeling he had the effect on people. Even if you've never heard his name before, you've you've probably laughed at Harris' jokes. He was a writer on Parks and Rec. and the Sarah Silverman Program, Master of None and Eastbound and Down. He also hosted one of my all time favorite podcasts, Analyze Phish, in which harris, who loved Phish more than most things, spends hours and hours trying to get his co-host, Scott Aukerman, to like Phish too. The band Phish I'm talking about. Harris also invented a word. Before harris, we didn't have a word for an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud. Yes, the humblebrag. We have harris to thank for that. Today is 4-20. Harris' birthday. Harris Wittels was born on 4-20. That this is a fact makes the world worth living. Harris died in February of 2015 when he was just 30. Since that time, Harris' sister, Stephanie, has flown her younger brothers flag. In the wake of his overdose, she started a podcast, Last Day in his honor and subsequently she co-founded a media company called Lemonada which recons with the messy, ugly, hilarious, painful parts of living so very well. And so, today, on Harris' bday, I'm here to talk to Stephanie about just one of the many pieces of advice Harris left us. STEPHANIE: He used to say quit future-tripping. And one of our dear friends from high school got that tattooed on his arm. And its become this kind of mantra for a bunch of very high strung, anxious, neurotic people. And I think what it means is that very cliched, like, live in the moment and you can't control what happens tomorrow. So I love that advice and I have internalized and tried to abide by that as much as possible. There's been a lot of things that have happened to me in the past 5 years, 6 years that, you know, pre-COVID, that would have caused me to future-trip...have caused me to future-trip.ZAK: What does your future-tripping look like?STEPHANIE: Oh, it's movies in mind. I direct them. Star in them. Produce them. Sound-design them. Edit them. They are sprawling. There are multiple sequels and I can just really get caught up in anxiety. I have very intense anxiety. I'm medicated for it. God bless medication. But, I can seriously spiral out on if this, then this and it's not real. It's not steeped in reality. It's steeped in my version of reality. It's steeped in a lot of fear and for me fear is about everything that we can't control. Everything that's unknown. And the thing about life is, it's all unknown! It is all unknown. I am talking to you right now...in five minutes, I have no idea what's gonna happen. I can predict based on prior experience living my life everyday but I truly do not know. So, that's what it looks like for me.ZAK: Next time you're getting ahead of yourself. Directing movies in your mind. Just think of Harris and his advice. Quit future-trippin'. If you don't know Harris' work, give him a Goog. He was one of the greats. You can listen to Stephanie's podcast, Last Day, wherever you hear The Best Advice Show. Thanks, Stephanie. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode