The Best Advice Show

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---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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

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---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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

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---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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

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---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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

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---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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Ken Haddad (@KenHaddad) is the digital content manager at @Local4News in Detroit. LIVE BLOG: Tracking COVID-19 vaccines in Michigan: New openings, clinics, appointmentsTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: It's The Best Advice Show where everyday a different guest shares one piece of advice.KEN: I'm Ken Haddad. I'm the digital content manager at ClickOn Detroit and Local 4 and I've been helping people find vaccine appointments in the state of Michigan. After getting a ton of emails from viewers about having trouble finding appointments, I started a live blog and I started live Tweeting any appointments I could find. Any walk-in clinics popping up around the state of Michigan. So basically, what I've been doing is combing through county health department sites, through pharmacy scheduling sites, through community organizations, calling around to pharmacies and just finding out just where appointments are available and offering that information in real time.KEN: My top tip for finding vaccines is to not wait around. There are a lot of waitlists right now. Especially in Michigan and I've heard it's like this in other states as well. Big wait lists at the bigger pharmacies or the country health departments have a giant wait list for all of their residents and people are frustrated with that but there are a lot of other options that you can take upon yourself. Call an independent pharmacy near your house. Call a community health organization that's near your house. There are a lot of places that have vaccine supply but they don't have the platform or the marketing to tell people about it. So that's what I'm finding right now. There's a lot of people waiting 2, 3, 4 weeks for an appointment with the health department. They could have gotten a vaccine around the block from their house yesterday. And then, check with community organizations, like even churches. There are so many clinics happening at churches right now in neighborhoods. Again, they just don't have the platform to get the word out. But if you check with them, just give them a call. They may even refer you to a different church. There's a huge network of that happening right now.ZAK: If people want to find you, what's the best way to do that?ZAK: I have a live blog on ClickOnDetriot.Com or you can follow me on Twitter @KenHaddad and I'm live tweeting anything that comes across my radar pretty much all day and all night. I do sleep during the early morning hours but there will be information there 7 days a week as long as we need to keep giving that information 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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Nancy Kaffer is a columnist and member of the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:NANCY: I'm a life-long fan of egg salad and I've often thought about how to improve my egg salad. This is slightly controversial. I make my egg salad while the eggs are still warm and everyone I've ever said this to thought it was disgusting and then as soon as they ate it they've been a convert to the warm egg salad theory. So, the way I've started making egg salad is put the eggs in the cold water, turn the burner on high for 15-minutes and then boom the perfect hard-boiled eggs every-time. No lid. Run cold water over them. Peel them. Smush them up with some mayonnaise. Salt, pepper and cayenne and then here's the secret. Toast a piece of bread. Cut a clove of garlic in half. Rub the garlic all over the toasted bread. Put the egg salad on the bread. Eat it as an open-faced sandwich. You will not regret it. It is the perfect egg salad sandwich.ZAK: Raw garlic?NANCY: Raw garlic rubbed all over the toast. It turns the bread yellow-y and then spread your egg salad on there.ZAK: What kind of bread?NANCY: Just white bread. I mean, I guess you could it with...I like a multigrain but for this the texture and flavor a multigrain would over-power the garlic rubbing. Just a nice, white bread, though. Like your Pepperidge Farm or your Sara Lee or your Avalon, your Whole Foods store brand. You don't want your Wonderbread.ZAK: Set the scene for how you're eating this. Are you standing by the sink? Are you sitting down with napkin and plate?NANCY: I normally sit down. I have a thing for decorative napkins. I'm sitting down with an attractive napkin, little glass of iced tea and a book and I cut it in half and eat it by myself. I don't want to be eating my egg salad with anybody else. I want it to be a private experience with me and my book. I love to read while I eat. Egg salad. Book. Iced tea. Garlic rubbed toast.ZAK: Do you want to hear about my ancestral egg salad?NANCY: Yes. I do. I always want to hear about egg salad.ZAK: It's actually not mine. It's my wife's family's. This is why I married her cause I tasted her family's egg salad. We have it on Shabbat on Friday night. And this comes from her grandma. She's from Poland and it's mayo-less...but wait. There's no mayo but wait. Hard-boiled eggs and then cut em up with grated radishes, diced white onion and diced, peeled cucumber and salt and vegetable oil.NANCY: Wow.ZAK: We never eat it as a sandwich. You know, we eat it with, like a piece of challah, maybe shovel some on the top of it but we're eating it with a fork as an appetizer on Friday nights and it's fab. NANCY: I can see that that would be delicious. If you were in the mood for egg salad, that might not quite scratch that itch. ZAK: It's a different kind of egg salad. NANCY: It's surprising how controversial egg salad is. People really have deeply held opinions.ZAK: Well, cause it smells farts. I think that's why people are afraid to admit they like or afraid to eat it in-front of other people like you mentioned.NANCY: I'm not afraid to. It's my oasis. 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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Gary Macko is a husband and father living in Michigan.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: When Gary was a young dad, his son loved playing pots and pans. Everyday, he would take them out, make a big pile, make a mess. And then Gary would come in and clean it up.GARY: I can't tell you how many times my wife would look at me and laugh because of watching me put the pans and pots away every single night. ZAK: So your wife understood that it was a kind of fool's errand but you didn't? Is that what you're saying?GARY: Yeah. Yeah. I mean she had certainly some type of EQ that gave her the ability to step back and realize that, you know, this kid is just having a good time and let him be.ZAK: And how long did it take you to learn that lesson?GARY: At least 45-days of solid banging my head into the wall. ZAK: Yeah. GARY: And then when that moment came of like, I'm not gonna do this anymore and it's perfectly fine. It was the most amazing revelation. Get out of the way. Let go and enjoy your life. It's tough to be a perfectionist in a world in which we live in. I mean, you might be able to keep that quest for perfection at some level and be able to modestly chase it. But when you put kids into your world that chase or that desired outcome, it doesn't seem to be achievable anymore. Hi, my name is Gary Macko and I'm a husband and a father of three boys. ZAK: I love this story because Gary pinpoint the moment where he internalized that lesson. Let go. You can't control everything. Perfection doesn't exist. Have you internalized that realization? If so, how'd you do it? Lemme know at BestAdvice.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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Steven Handel is a published author, coach, and creator at The Emotion Machine, a website dedicated to all aspects of psychology and self improvement in the 21st century.Investigating Your Shame with Heather RadkeTo offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I don't really have a morning routine. I would love to, but I feel like I'm constantly in reaction mode, just basically responding to what the kids need...breakfast, clothes, but still I love hearing about your routines and I'm thinking about the day when I can finally start my own.STEVEN: My name is Steven Handel. I have a psychology and self-improvement website called The Emotion Machine.ZAK: Not surprisingly, Steven has a very intentional morning routine that we're gonna hear about.STEVEN: Reflect on a strength. Reframe a negative thought. Think about one thing you're grateful for. I do that every morning. Those are my three tiny, mental habits I do every morning. And it's a little thing but you have to put in that work everyday, even if it's just 5-10 minutes. It is effort.ZAK: Ok, so you wake up and then take me through how move through those three things.STEVEN: Uh, it's not the first thing I do when I wake up. Usually walk the dog first and have coffee and shit like that but when I'm...like I'm taking a moment before I check my e-mails. It's literally on my to-do list on my daily check-list, I have, reflect on one strength. And I try to choose something different everyday to remind myself of all my strengths or maybe if something really good happened yesterday, I'll be like, oh, that strength really shined through yesterday.ZAK: What was today's?STEVEN: Today I said consistency and the fact that I put in the small steps everyday which is a strength I think about a lot but I think it's a really important strength for sure. And then, find one thing to be grateful for. It could be anything. It could be a good meal I had yesterday or a new opportunity I came across or a new person I met. One thing to be grateful for. And then re-frame one negative thought. So, I have to first think about a negative thought thats been buzzing in my mind and try to re-frame into something more positive or more constructive.ZAK: And all three of those things you put on your to-do list.STEVEN: Yeah. I actually have a fourth one too which is appreciate one thing in nature.ZAK: Like, appreciate it theoretically or go out and find the bird?STEVEN: Something I experience. And I don't really have to go seek it. It's usually if I'm just outside and I see something interesting. There's a lot of interesting wildlife in Florida, especially compared to the suburbs of New York. I see crazy birds all the time. And honestly, my thing a lot of the time is enjoying sitting in the sun. 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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Jenae America is a storyteller, photographer and pulp fiction writer.TRANSCRIPT: JENAE: My name is Jenae America and I'm a storyteller, photographer, pulp fiction writer and a badass woman. Being single was something that I was scared of. I was raised in a house of loving parents. Four brothers and sisters. And as I got older I realized that I put so much pressure on myself...I put a lot of pressure on my young, little, tender heart. I didn't know anything. I witnessed my parents marriage and their arguments and I'm studying about what it's like to be with a companion and so on and so forth and I just found myself being drained and disappointed.ZAK: About what?JENAE: I was drained and disappointed about the relationships I pursued. I was drained and disappointed about people and how they act and how they have the free will to do anything even if you give them your very best. And it just made me feel like I'm unlovable and it's not a pretty site. Especially as a woman because you don't want to be looked at as desperate. You want to look at yourself as confident and cool and calm in any state. And I've witnessed woman who are married who I could just tell, they have a calm about them but it wasn't because of the marriage. It was because of them and they had somebody else come into their life.ZAK: So, what changed?JENAE: What changed was, it was the summer of 2020 and I remember that I'm thinking about my last relationship. It ended just before COVID hit. It was only 4-months with a young guy. He didn't know what he wanted and obviously was using me and I tried so hard to keep him and I remember just thinking about it and then I basically announced to myself I'm gonna stay single and I felt like this spiritual feeling of somebody taking something off of my shoulders. It was almost like a heavy coat and somebody just took it off. And I was like, I feel lighter and I had the courage to pursue that idea to the point that every time I scrolled through social media and there's something about relationships I was able to look past them and be like, that doesn't interest me anymore. Now, I'm not gonna say it wasn't a mental battle but it gave me the strength and courage to not look to others to feel fulfilled but look to myself and my morals and yeah, that's it and accept everything about it. I got more concerned about doing things for me and not for other reasons that had nothing to do with me. I changed my perspective. Basically being single means testing the love you have for yourself and being single is not easy because you feel lonely, you feel you can't do nothing with the urges so the fact that if you're going to a place by yourself you don't have anybody watching your back because that's a benefit as well but it's testing the love you have for yourself because the benefits of being single was, I ended up becoming strong, sharp, interesting and unique. I ended up being pretty dynamic because of how much I've widened my world in being single. Enjoy being single because you deserve to get to know you and love you first.ZAK: That's so beautiful. Like, are you open to being in a relationship if you meet the right person?JENAE: Right now I'm casually dating. I'm enjoying the person's company and getting to know them and I believe if it's meant for me to say, hey, I want to move forward. Well, it takes two to tango and if the person doesn't say anything, I'll be like, well, back to dating me again. And that's easier said than done but I can definitely say it's liberating. It's very liberating. 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 ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow