Amy Dallas is a public defender living in New York.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: AMY: I am Amy Dallas and I am a person, a mother, a public defender, a person interested in restorative justice and a very emotional lady. Andrew and I, my husband and I have this concept that we call mood transferring where one person might be in a crabby mood, right? And the other person's just minding their own business at home and it's all being emoted through huffs and puffs around the house and even though you might not be articulating what is going on if you're the crabby one, suddenly the other person's like, what's up? What is going on? And if it's not really communicated or worked through then suddenly that other person's crabby because you've been crabby around the house.ZAK: Right. Crab soup.AMY: Yeah, and then also maybe you do articulate what's going on with you and you do burden them with all the emotions that you're feeling and you're like, whoa, I feel so much better and now they're walking around with it. And then they might have it for the next day or two and it just kind of goes back and forth with this mood transferring and I've found that it's not necessary to do that...to always put these emotions on someone else or put it in a space where it doesn't need to be. So, I've let myself find time, especially during the pandemic to just be alone and feel things through. So, like I'll go for a run or go for a long walk and just let those tears come. If it's something that's coming up that's making me sad. But I find that in doing that I'm able to function in a more balanced way. It's like, I can modulate my personality a little bit more appropriately where it's necessary. It's been really helpful during this time to just let myself feel all those feelings through. There's also clarity that emerges after a session of feeling through whatever I'm going through.ZAK: But I don't think it's always a burden to dump stuff or express to your partner or your friend what you're going through. So how do you distinguish when you want to modulate and do it on your own and when you want to share it with someone and kind of off-load to someone you trust?AMY: Yeah, I think in these moments where we're home with our loved ones so much, I think it starts to emerge when it's necessary and when it's not. Like, something might be coming up for me my partner's clearly in a different headspace. I don't necessarily need to shift the whole perspective of what's happening at home for this one thing that's coming up for me. And also, by knowing that I will allow myself a time later with it, I can also hold it and deal it with later and not make it a as it's coming, burdening. But of course, yes, I think also in going through some emotions on my own, when I do want to talk about something with my partner it can be a much more clear conversation.ZAK: We've been watching a lot of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood in our house. And Amy's advice reminded me of one of my favorite songs from that show. It's called, There Are So Many Feelings. It goes like this...(singing)...There are so many feelings for you to knowSo many feelings like colors in the rainbowBe happy with a smileOr sad with a frownSo many feelingsZAK: If you have some advice for me, 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Lainey is 7 years-old and a motivational speaker based in Michigan. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: My niece has been getting really into cooking. And the other day she made something she was really proud of.LAINEY: A whole chicken. Like, it's not just chicken thighs or chicken nuggets. It's an entire chicken without the head. ZAK: Right, the full chicken, minus the head. Yeah. Can you describe what you had to do to make it?LAINEY: You need to take the giblets out of the chicken which is basically the insides of it. And you take some salt and you take some pepper and you put it over it. And then you can put some cut-up onions and carrots around it and then you can put some oil or butter on top. And then you just cook it for 70-minutes and that's literally all you do. ZAK: What temperature did you do it on? LAINEY: 400 degrees. ZAK: Lainey's not here just to talk about chicken. She just sees cooking something kinda complex as a metaphor.ZAK: With the chicken recipe you thought that it was gonna really difficult. LAINEY: Yeah, we were about to make it and I kind of just was tired and I wanted to watch a show cause it was after school and then I did it and it was super fun and we ended up making a great meal and I just thought I should let everybody know this good tip. ZAK: What do you think it is about us humans where we think about a task and we get so overwhelmed by it that we don't even try it?LAINEY: Um, I think maybe you might even be tired. You probably are thinking in your head, I can't do that. If you just think about it and get it over with it could actually end up being super fun. ZAK: Right, like, so often we feel like, I'm too tired to do this but once we actually do the thing it gives us this renewed burst of energy, huh?LAINEY: Uh huh. LAINEY: My name is Lainey. I am 7 years-old. Uncle Zak?ZAK: Yeah?LAINEY: I have a question. Should I say I'm 8 years-old just in case you post this during April? ZAK: No, I'm gonna post it before. LAINEY: Alright, great! I'm 7 years-old. ZAK: Thanks for listening to another edition of Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. Is there a young person in your life who might want to offer some advice? I would love to hear it. I'd also love to hear your advice as always. As always, give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. If you're enjoying this show please consider sharing it with your friends and family. And also, leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Aaron Lammer (@aaronlammer) is co-host of the Longform Podcast. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: I love a good question. When I listen to interviews or watch them or read them for that matter, I'm often more impressed with a move the interviewer makes than with the answer given in response. One of my favorite interviewers is Aaron Lammer. He co-hosts a podcast called Longform where he interviews writers. His questions often surprise me and therefore his interviews go in places I'm never expecting. AARON: My advice about interviewing...I heard an interview I think on Marc Maron with Seth Rogan and he was talking about how they would prepare for the Ali G show. He was a writer on the Ali G show and he was like, we don't know what's gonna happen in one of these but there's only so many possible ways these can go and I'm just gonna play out a bunch of scenarios and we're gonna write jokes where if it goes this way...we're gonna write hundreds of jokes. They're not all gonna happen but he's gonna be armed with a bunch of these sort of forking path, choose your own adventure style. AARON: So my advice about interviewing is to kind of pre-visualize a conversation that way. Less like a list of questions and more like a forking tree of possibilities and themes. That kind of gives you the power to, like, steer the conversation but not steer the conversation too much. You're giving yourself enough forks that it can go a variety of ways and you can still have some degree of, like, preparation. And people actually...there aren't that many possibilities, even to a wide-open scenario, short of just walking in and being like, hey, what do you want to do talk about, you kind of know some places a conversation can go and I found that much more helpful than having way too many questions which is what I did as an interviewer when I was starting...was like, I'll just prepare by having hundreds and hundreds of questions and then, of course, it doesn't land on those questions or you can't side-track your brain quickly enough to pick up on them. The thing I like about the forking tree is that you don't have to refer back. You're always moving forward. If you pass a point, if you pass a question, well of course that was gonna happen, you couldn't possibly take all the forks of the tree.ZAK: Thank you for listening to my interview with an interviewer about interviewing. Aaron Lammer is co-host of the Longform podcast. If you have some advice for me, I always want to hear it. Call me on the hotline at 844-935-BEST and as always, if you're enjoying this show, please leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. 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

Gretchen Rubin is the author of The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, Better Than Before, The Four Tendencies & Outer Order, Inner Calm. Her podcast is Happier with Gretchen Rubin.---Doing Without Delay with Gretchen Rubin - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/202083_doing-without-delay-with-gretchen-rubin/Living the Bigger Life with Gretchen Rubin - https://bestadvice.show/episodes/2020928_living-the-bigger-life-with-gretchen-rubin/---To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: Before Gretchen Rubin was a best-selling author on the subject of happiness and habits and human nature, she was a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. She graduated from Yale Law School and went on to clerk for supreme court justice Sandra Day O'Connor.GRETCHEN: And what I realized about the Supreme Court is I was surrounded by people who loved law. They were reading law journals for fun. They wanted to talk about cases at happy hour, during lunch hour, you know, any chance they got they just loved it and I thought I want to do an excellent for Justice O'Connor, I want to do the best job I possible can but I don't want to spend one extra minute on this than I have to and I thought, in the end I can't keep up with these people who honestly love it.ZAK: And that leads to her advice for today.GRETCHEN: One of the challenges of our lives is to know ourselves and you would think, it's so easy to know myself. I just hang out with myself all day long but it can be hard to be truthful with ourselves and really see what's in the mirror and so sometimes it's helpful to think about questions that get at the truth indirectly and I think an indirect question that's very helpful is whom do I envy? Envy is a very unpleasant emotion. We often don't want to admit to ourselves or to other people that we do feel envy but it's a very helpful emotion because what it's show us is that somebody has something that we wish we had for ourselves and that's a very, very useful thing to know. And in my case I remember reading...you know how you get those alumni magazines from your college? And I was reading about all the different people in my class and I noticed some people had really interesting law jobs and I was like, uhhhh, that sounds great. And then some people had really interesting writing jobs and I was sick with envy. And I thought, well, I should learn something from that because those are the people that I envy. They're the ones that have something that I wish that I had myself.ZAK: So next time you're banging your head against the wall, thinking to yourself, what do I actually want to do in this life? Maybe a better question or a more helpful question in that moment, is whom do I envy? So good. Thank you, Gretchen Rubin.ZAK: This is the third episode Gretchen has been on. The first two I got great feedback about. You should check them out. I put the links in our show notes. But here's an excerpt from Gretchen's episode called Doing Without Delay.GRETCHEN: Anything you can do in less than a minute, do without delay. If you can hang up your coat instead of throwinG it over the chair. If you can put a document back in the folder. If you can put a dish in the dishwasher, go ahead and do without delay and what this does is it gets rid of this scum of clutter on the surface of everyday life. And for most people outer order does contribute to inner calm and this is a way that you can create more outer order without spending a lot of time or energy dealing with it. You just do it as you go.ZAK: If you have some advice, I would love to hear it. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And if you want more Gretchen Rubin you should check out her podcast. It's called Happier. She hosts it with her sister, Liz Craft. It's so good. 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

Brody is 11 years-old. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: Are you overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff you've collected over the course of your life? Do you want to start getting rid of it but don't know how? Well, today I've got some advice for you. Ok, nephew Brody. It's mid-January and you guys have been doing something kind of interesting this month.BRODY: Yeah, so, for this month everyday we have been trying to give away things. So for the first day, we gave away one thing. Second day, we gave away two things and just started to add up and this is called minimalism and it is just, like, the idea of the less you have the happier you are. So we're testing it out seeing if it works.ZAK: Like, on the first of the month you gave away one thing. The second day of the month, two things and so forth until you get to the end of January, where by the end you're giving away like 30 things, huh? So does it work, this idea of the more you give away the happier you are?BRODY: Yeah, I think so. So far it's working and I'm happy!ZAK: Whoa, it's pouring hale out here if you hear that, people. How do you figure out what you want to save and what you want to give away?BRODY: The things that I want to save are the things that bring happiness to me. They bring joy. Stuff that I use a lot. And just stuff that I don't want to keep are the things I might use once every year or something. But they're just those small things that don't really make a difference. It's not like you have to go until the last day. You can stop on the 20th if you had to give away one more thing it would be something that brings joy to you.ZAK: Oh, I see. So, when you get to the point where the only things left to give away are things that bring joy to you, that's when you know that you're done.BRODY: That's kind of the goal.ZAK: Oh, that's cool. I love that. And what was this exercise inspired by?BRODY: My dad watched a documentary and he just told me the idea so we tested it out.ZAK: Great.BRODY: I'm Brody Maddin. I am 11 years-old and I'm from Michigan.ZAK: What I like about this form of purging is that it kind of turns it into a game. Sounds fun to me. Brody's sister gave some advice on this show. It was the second episode we ever did. It's called Working Hard with Lainey. Here's an excerpt.LAINEY: Because when you finish the thing that you were working hard for, you really feel good that you accomplished it and that you're done with that thing so you can start working hard on another thing.ZAK: Our entire archive of nearly 200 advice episodes is available for you to listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at BestAdvice.Show. And if you have some advice for me, I'd 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a column for Ebony magazine from 1957-1958 called "Advice for Living." You can read all of them at The Martin Luther King, Jr Research and Education Institute.https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/advice-livingJulia Putnam is one of the co-founders of the James and Grace Lee Boggs School. TRANSCRIPT:ZAK: I didn't learn this until the other day, but Martin Luther King Jr. Was an advice columnist for Ebony magazine. Starting in 1957 he wrote monthly answering reader's questions. He was still in his late twenties at the time. I hope that today you're thinking about King or reading about him, maybe listening to his speeches. But right now I want to share some advice from him because this is an advice show. I'm going to read you a question from an Ebony reader and then reading King's answer is my friend..JULIA: My name is Julia Putnam. I'm a lifelong Detroiter and I am one of the co-founders of the James and Grace Lee Boggs School. ZAK: Did you know that Martin Luther King was an advice columnist? JULIA: I did not know that. ZAK: So he was asked to start it in 1957 and so I was just thinking about the historical context and reading about it. 1956, he spends, uh, on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And then in early '57, he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And then he's like, yeah, I'll write a column for you Ebony. Like he's taking on a lot. JULIA: Well that makes sense. Right. There was a lot to do.ZAK: Yeah. And he's in his late twenties at the time. JULIA: That's really interesting. ZAK: So he wrote it only for, I think like he did 15 issues, 15 monthly issues because he was stabbed and almost killed in '58. And his doctor's like, uh, Martin, maybe you should like, you know, relinquish some of your commitments.JULIA: Yeah, do less. ZAK: So this is from Martin Luther King Jr's advice column that he wrote in Ebony magazine. And this question and answer that we're going to go over is from that first issue.Is love really the solution to the race problem? Are there not times when a man must stand up and fight fire with fire? I will grant that love, as Jesus lived it, is the ultimate ideal. But it seems to me preachers ought to be honest and tell folks if they live by the turn-the-other-cheek doctrine, the sharp boys out here in this cold world will strip them and boil them in oil. Why don’t you preachers admit that love, in the highest sense of the word, is impractical in the world of today?JULIA: King writes...I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism; but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love. Moreover, love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the “fight fire with fire” method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos; the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and the creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem. Often love is crucified and buried in a grave, but in the long run it rises up and redeems even that which crucifies 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Abra Berens (@abraberens) is a chef, former farmer, and writer. Her book is Ruffage: A Practical Guide to VegetablesTo offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ABRA: My name is Abra Berens and I am a chef and cookbook author based in Three Oaks, Michigan.ZAK: Abra was last on the show to talk about holiday cooking. She's here today for another edition of Food Friday to advice us on how to save time, save money and not waste people's work. ABRA: Food waste is something I feel very passionately about because I have spent time farming and also in restaurant kitchens where margins are notoriously very slim. But, it's more the farming side which is that I think it is, and I don't use this word lightly, but I think it's a sin to waste food unnecessarily because you're wasting someone's work and you're wasting a ton of resources. You know, the fertility that is pulled from the soil into those vegetable or into those animals just to get thrown away is, is really a shame and so my biggest advice for how to not waste food is don't go to the store. You have something in your house that you can eat and so if you just, like, don't know what's in your kitchen or what's in your pantry just don't go to the store and go home and look around and I'm sure you can make something. And I think that that is the best way to not have food waste. Just don't go to the store. And then you'll have something and then you won't waste it cause it's not sitting in the back of your fridge. ZAK: That's great. I feel like I've had barley that I've been thinking about using for quite some time. What's your favorite thing to do with barley?ABRA: Uh, my favorite thing to do with barley is like a barley risotto where you just cook it, adding the liquid a little bit at a time and then it gets really creamy and then you just put a big, weird vegetable salad on top and if you're a meat-eater or a fish-eater that would go great with it but also you don't really need it. And the other thing about grains is that all of them have some form of protein. I think in this country we're really obsessed with the amount of protein we eat and each one has some form of protein and so they really often are complete meals and they're usually very filling. ZAK: I'm gonna make that barley risotto. Sounds delicious. Thank you Abra Berens. Abra has a book out. It's called Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables. If you have some Food Friday advice for me, as always I would love to hear it. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And if this show is doing something good for you, I would love it if you shared it with your family and friends or wrote me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to pods. Thank you 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Will Moore (@mooremomentum) is an entrepreneur, speaker, life coach, and happiness expert.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: It might surprise you, considering I make this show, but I'm kinda cynical about self-help literature. One of the more well-known titles in that genre has got to be Dale Carnegie's, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I admit it, I've actually never read it, but just the title has always rubbed me the wrong way. But not Will Moore. It's one of his favorite books.WILL: So, How to Win Friends and Influence people, if I could sum that book up one sentence, it's make other people feel important.ZAK: And how do you do that?WILL: If you look at every interaction as an opportunity to potentially build a friendship, an alliance, you never know what can come out of something. And looking at things that way versus being on your phone, looking down when you're walking past people in the office or, you know, focusing on yourself when you're talking to people and not asking questions and not making eye contact, not smiling, not making the other person feel important. You know, going back to Dale Carnegie, knowing little details like, ok, you have a daughter that's three. You're about to have another kid, next time I talk to you, hey, did you have that kid? How's it going? Little things like that, then that other person goes, oh wow, I like this person and they want to do the same and before you know it you've developed a friendship, an alliance, and you're literally helping each other build goals and its become an opportunity with that person.ZAK: My cynical nature thinks, you know, especially with the book like, How to Win Friends and Influence people, it's like, you're doing these things, you're listening to people, you're taking interest in them not because you genuinely care but because you have this ulterior motive of gaining influence so how you establish a phony filter for yourself?WILL: That's a really question. So, I actually believe in fake it till you make it. At first, there's gonna be, like this doesn't feel natural. This doesn't feel right. Because you've been locked in your own brain and you've been this victim for so long and to all of a sudden start asking people questions and be interested, you're not really interested at first, right? So let me get that clear. You're forcing yourself to be, but here's what's gonna happen and this is exactly what happened with me. Meanwhile, when I first started doing it in the back of my mind I'm thinking, ok, I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I'm asking them questions and stuff. But then something magical starts to happen. It actually starts to happen and then you're asking them questions, you see the smile on their face. You see their reaction. They start asking you questions and then you genuinely become more interested in these people and it kind of builds its own momentum and then it's a relationship and it's a friendship and when we have these friendships we care about our friends, right?My name is William Moore. Just somebody who...I'm a momentum builder. I'm helping people to build momentum via habits to help ensure that they become the best version of themselves which will, I hope, in turn help the world become the best version of itself.ZAK: You can find Will on Instagram at MooreMomentum. You can also find us at BestAdviceShow. Thanks so much for listening and as always I would love to hear from you. Give me call on the hotline and tell me your advice. 844-935-BEST. And if you are enjoying my show, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks. 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Dr. Celeste Holbrook (@drcelesteholbrook) is a sexologist, speaker and author based in Texas. You can get on her calendar for a complimentary 30 minute discovery call at her website.To offer your own sex and relationship advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST!TRANSCRIPT:CELESTE: My name is Dr. Celeste Holbrook and I am a sexologist. The question I get asked the most is how much sex should we be having and I never give a number. Because the amount of sex you should be having is the amount of sex that you and your partner can agree on is healthy and pleasurable for the both of you. And so for some clients that's ABC sex, like anniversary, birthday, Christmas and for other clients it's a lot more than that. So, whatever works for the two of you is what works.ZAK: Yeah, how do you suggest couples where...couples deal with the reality where one of them wants to have sex a lot more than they other.CELESTE: So, sex is always a negotiation. We have to remember that there are no two people on earth who want to have sex at the same time, in the same way with the same amount of enthusiasm. That's pretty rare. And so it ok that one of you wants to have sex more than the other one. It's about communicating and figuring out what frequency works for both of us. And it is a negotiation. It's going to have to be. But the more that you can focus more on making the sex quality, the less quantity matters as much. It still matters. But it doesn't matter as much when you work on having really good quality sex.ZAK: And what does that take?CELESTE: Communication. Intentionally. Anticipation. And negotiation. Again, it's always negotiation of what feels good to you? Let's do that for awhile. What feels good to you? Let's do this for awhile. And then this feels good for both of us. You know?ZAK: Valentine's Day is coming up. And whether or not you celebrate that holiday. Whether you're with someone or you're not...I'm putting together a week's worth of advice leading up to that day which is February, 14th. Very excited about that. I'm also excited that I got a lot more advice from Dr. Celeste Holbrook so you'll be hearing a lot more from her. Also, I want to hear your sex and relationship advice...advice about being single...being together. Give me a call on 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow

Kevin Smokler is Co-Director of the documentary film, Vinyl Nation and author of three books about pop culture, including most recently Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to ’80s Teen Movies. His essays and cultural criticism have appeared in the LA Times, Salon, Fast Company, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Decider and on National Public Radio.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: For way too long, like a couple years, my wife and I have been planning to sit down and make a household budget. I don't think it's gonna be that hard but I've psyched myself out of it and at this point I don't really know what we're waiting for. So, if you're like me or today's guest, you might get overwhelmed by tasks that aren't that hard so hopefully this advice is gonna help you out.KEVIN: My advice is about energy. How to spend it and how not to waste it. I am, for the most part, terrible at spending energy wisely. I have a tendency to be easily overwhelmed by things that shouldn't easily overwhelm anybody.ZAK: Like what?KEVIN: Like, I find paying bills really overwhelming. Like, even bills that are not unreasonably high or onerous to pay. I find fixing things really onerous. Even if it's like something I've fixed a thousand times like a burnt out lightbulb. It doesn't make any sense. Not from the outside at least. And what I have learned in making a movie which is a kind of creative and professional pursuit I had never done before is that there are different kinds of energies for different kinds of tasks. Energy meets the task the same way like a key meets a lock. And as such, you can change the amount of energy you spend on something based on what it is and finding that match means that you're not wasting energy or unaware of how to spend it to get that thing done. I find most of the anxiety around that comes from that mismatch of believing something is going to require a lot of energy when it's not. I'm only at the point where I've realized this is the thing I have to do. I'm not at the point of doing it well yet.ZAK: Yeah, well that's my favorite kind of advice on this show. It could be called, like, This Is Something I'm Working on rather than The Best Advice Show. There's more humility to it. And so how do you then in the moment or at the beginning of the day recalibrate and reorient the energy levels with which you're gonna have to distribute to various tasks?KEVIN: On a really successful today and it's typically when I get up early enough to convince myself I have time, I'll write out everything I have to do that day and then when I get to it, I'll write out the pieces that have to be done and if I don't do that which, that happens pretty rarely...If I don't do that what I'll do is when I approach something that seems insurmountable, I'll say to myself, have I done this before? Have I done a version of successfully before? Well, ok, then there's probably a fossil record of doing it successfully before somewhere. Either it's an email I've written before or it's a task I've performed before and then you just take 30-seconds and say, ok, well, I did this once. It worked. How did I do it? And then repeat and adjust...maybe you have a to adjust a few things here or there so the amount of new energy you have to spend on that thing is not that big. It's really mostly a version of something you've done before.I'm Kevin Smoker. I'm the Co-director of a new documentary called, Vnyl Nation. Which is a documentary exploration of the come back of vinyl records available at VinylNationFilm.com. In my day job I write books about pop culture.ZAK: Ok, I want you hold me accountable. This week, we're gonna do the budget and it's not gonna be overwhelming. We can handle. Thank you Kevin Smokler for helping me realize that. You've been listening The Best Advice Show and I want your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Thank you 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---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow