The Best Advice Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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