Weirdly Helpful (formerly The Best Advice Show)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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