The Best Advice Show

Greg Fox (@gdfx) is a composer, drummer, teacher and coach. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: You might be a freelancer or an artist or just someone trying to figure out what to do next. I think today's advice is gonna be especially helpful if you check any of those boxes. It's gonna help you narrow your focus and figure out what's really important.GREG: My name's Greg Fox. I'm a human being. And I play music. I run a music studio. I teach drumming and I also am a certified professional coach.ZAK: One of Greg's early teachers taught him what he calls the 2 of 3 rule. It's a really simple filter for trying to figure out whether a project is worth taking on, or not.GREG: The idea is that you need a strong 2 out of the following 3 things for the project to be worthwhile. And those 3 things are good hang, meaning you enjoy the company of the people you do the project with. Good product, meaning you enjoy the work that you're making, right? Uh, you like whatever it is you're working on and sharing with other people when it's finished. And 3, good pay, right, the money solid, right? So 2 out of those 3 should be strong for the project to be worth doing and I'd add as an asterisk to the entire thing that if you are involved in a project and you find yourself constantly or regularly questioning whether or not you should do the project...you also probably just should do it. ZAK:And once you started using this, like, filter to apply to your work and creative life, did you find yourself saying no more frequently? GREG: Yeah, definitely. And I also left some projects that I had been doing. Whenever anything comes in now I do think of it in those 3 terms and you know, a lot of times people will say yes to doing something and then wish they hadn't, right? And, uh, it's a good way of avoiding that. It's been very, very effective for me. It's been awhile since I've found myself in a situation where I regretted saying yes, you know?ZAK: And if you're not wondering about whether or not you should be doing a project. Like if it's pretty obvious that you should, then you don't really need to apply this advice.GREG: If you're not wondering, man, I don't know. This band that I love so much and everybody in it is so great and we actually make some dough now and then...nobody's asking themselves whether or not that should do that project. It's like when you start to find yourself asking those questions, this is a good way to evaluate, like, maybe to clarify it for yourself.ZAK: Super clarifying, Greg. Thank you so much. If you have some advice to offer I would love to hear it. Gimme a call on the Best Advice Show hotline, that's 844-935-BEST. 844-935-BEST. ZAK: Also, you should follow Greg Fox on Instagram. He's an amazing drummer. You can see him drum there. I put a link to his website and Instagram in our show notes. Alright, 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

Susannah Goodman (detroit_fertile_earth) is an artist and potter and community organizer in Detroit.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:SUSANNAH: Yeah, so this piece of advice is really simply stated that the more you look, the more you'll find and it's just related to the way you can walk through the world. I firmly believe that, um, wonder and awe is a muscle that you have to exercise and the more you use it the more it becomes accessible to you. So I use it when I'm feeling stressed. Before pandemic times if I was like on my way into a meeting or something and I was worried about what was gonna happen, sometimes I would just sit in my car and look at, I don't know, grass on the berm on the side of the parking lot and just watch the way the wind blows across it or how fertile just little bits of sod are in all the places in our urban landscape. If you just sit and observe the more patience you have with yourself in the process, the more it will become available to you for appreciation cause I think when I'm the most stressed is when I'm like not observing the world around me.ZAK: When you're in your head?SUSANNAH: Yeah.ZAK: Huh. Yeah. Well we're outside right now in our friend's backyard. Normally I imagine this would be like an internal monologue of you, uh, you know, noticing but can you do it externally and help me understand how you would do it?SUSANNAH: I think the best thing about being outside for me recently has been just watching the way trees move across the sky when the wind is blowing cause it's this great reminder that we're sitting at the bottom of this giant air ocean and looking up from the ocean floor at these massive, amazing bits of tree seaweed or something, hahaha. I'm Susannah. I'm an artist and potter and community organizer in Detroit.ZAK: I want to hear about the ways you deal with your stress and anxiety. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And if you can think of somethine that might benefit from Susannah's advice consider sending them this episode. You can do that by going to Best Advice dot show. Thanks. 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

Doron Levin is the Editor-in-Chief of Better Investing Magazine. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: When anyone starts talking about investing, I get so bored. But I know it's pretty important to pay attention, at least to some basic principles when it comes to this stuff. And so, I talked to longtime financial journalist, Doron Levin. He says for young people especially, their greatest asset might be time.DORON: When you've just gotten your first job, it's very, very important to start investing and it's very, very important to realize that money invested over time can generate tremendous sums. So you have the compounded annual growth rate...let's say an average of 7% which is what you get in the stock market, generally speaking. Over time that can generate massive amounts of money. So if you start when you're in your 20's, by the time you're 50 you can have money that will pay for your kids' college, that will buy you a house on the lake, that will allow you to retire, that will allow to change jobs or allow you to do a lot of things and give you a lot of freedom but you have to start early and recognize that time is an asset. ZAK: Even if you're making, like, 30-thousand dollars a year?DORON: Even if you're making $30,000 and all you can put aside is $1,000, you should definitely do that. And then if you get a job at a place that has a 401k, which is a retirement account taht allows that money to compound, tax-free, then you should do that as well. There are lots of stories of janitors, teachers, fireman, people like that who retire with tremendous, tremendous pension accounts or tremendous savings accounts simply because they over time always invested and never spent that money and allowed it to accumulate and allow it to generate even more and more interest and the amounts become exponential.ZAK: Doron Levin is the editor-in-chief of Better Investing Magazine. If you have some pragmatic life-advice that we should hear, 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---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

Nell Wulfhart (nellmwulfhart) is a decision-coach and writer. More about Nell's decision making practice @ DECIDE AND MOVE FORWARD - http://www.decideandmoveforward.com/--To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: One of my favorite things is learning about jobs I didn't know existed. That's why I was very exciting about today's interview.Can you tell me who you are and what you are?NELL: Sure, my name is Nell Wulfhart. I'm a decision coach and I help people make tough decisions in one-hour sessions where we go over the problem and by the end of the one hour they know what to do and can start taking action.ZAK: Do you know any other decision coaches?NELL: No.ZAK: So you may have invented this job.NELL: I think I did kind of make it up, um, but it turns out there's a real need for it. Like people really struggle with it. I'm wondering if there's a way to start getting decision making into school curriculum or something because it seems to me like this is a really useful skill and something you can get better at but a lot of people have such a hard time with it.ZAK: Can you tick off a cross-section of the types of decisions you help people make?NELL: People who are wondering whether or not to start their own business. People who wonder if they should take a job, especially when that job involves like moving their family. People want to know whether to stay in relationships. I told somebody whether or not they should have a second child. I've given someone advice to quit their job and set-up as a sex therapist. It's a pretty wide range.ZAK: So you're actually coming out and saying you should do this?NELL: Yes, I wanted to call my site the Decision Maker but a friend of mine told me that people prefer to have a little more agency in their decisions so I should be the decision coach but it's essentially, by the time people get to me they've spent so long agonizing over these decisions that they just want someone to tell them it's ok to do what they want to do and this thing that they...these two things they're deciding between there is one better option and that's what I give them.ZAK: So that's usually the case that it seems clear?NELL: It almost always seems clear to me. I mean people come to me with hard decisions. Sometimes it's very early like somebody is in a bad relationship so you tell them break up with that person. Sometimes, like, it really is a very difficult decision but I know that any kind of decision and then taking action on that decision is better than continuing to stew in indecision so, literally any decision I tell them to make is better than continuing to be in the state of analysis paralysis.ZAK: Which brings us to Nell's advice.NELL: Take less time to make your decisions. The problem that most people have is that they spend way to much time trying to make decisions...which is essentially trying to predict the future, right, we're tying to figure out what decision is gonna make us happier, what's gonna make us feel better but we're all just taking out best guesses. And there's a certain amount of time, certain things to consider, pro and con list. I love a pro and con list but after that there's a lot of wheel spinning. There's a lot of going back and second-guessing and talking to other people and to me that is just a total waste of time and energy. So, the way that we know whether we like things is not by thinking and trying to predict that we might like them, it's by trying them out. So, my suggestion would be to take that time you would normally spend agonizing over a decision and use it to start taking action on one of your options. Because you'll have spent the same amount of time but if you take action you will have real tangible data about whether or not this is a good decision and the same amount of time will have passed as if you were still just thinking and debating and wondering. 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: Back here with regular contributor, Shira.SHIRA: Hi everyone.ZAK: You have another gem for us today for Food Friday?SHIRA: Yeah, this is my advice called splitsies.theme musicSHIRA: So I think, in general, whether it be you're out to dinner with your partner, your friend...I advocate for a splitsies set-up and this means that we get two dishes and we split them. And I think that this is a good practice on multiple levels. First of all, you get to try two dishes instead of one. But maybe even a more essential thing is that it makes the eating process this wonderful, you know, kind of, adventure. We're in it together. We're discovering these new foods together. And I really think that that is a good way of like, connecting and I think it elevates the experience cause it makes you guys in it together. So, Zak and I, we always go splitsies.ZAK: And you might be thinking, well what if the other person gets more than me. What you and I do, we're very fastidious about doing an even split. It's not like, oh yeah you have a bite of this, I have a bite of this. No no no. We do ever/thing short of busting out a ruler.SHIRA: Yeah, cause your bites are bigger than my bites. So we learned early on, I'm not doing bite for bite cause Zak's bites are a lot bigger than mine.ZAK: I take a big bite.SHIRA: Yeah, so we just truly just split it in half so there's no discussion and people don't feel like, oh, if I go splitisies, I'm not gonna get as much. We take away that component. Split it directly in half so everyone gets the equal amount and that's not a concern for the splitsies action.ZAK: Great. I love you.SHIRA: Love you too. Splitsies for life.ZAK: Splitsies for life.ZAK: I'm very interested in how couple's make it work from the micro to the macro. Tell me what you do at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. This has been another week of The Best Advice Show. Please share it with your friends and family. And as always, consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. It all helps. Thank you so much. I hope this helps. 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---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

Keisha (TK) Dutes is an audio producer and the co-host of the new podcast, Open World. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: We're home. We're probably not going anywhere anytime soon. And so today's advice inspires you to make your place as cozy and fun as possible without breaking the bank.KEISHA: Hi, I'm Keisha TK Dutes. I'm an audio producer and with my home space, I like to make different rooms so that I can go from room to room and have a different experience everyday. My bedroom is peaceful, I got plants. Then the bathroom is like a black aunty jungle. Cause I know that's where I do my thing. And I get ready for the morning and if I have to stare at myself I want to see jungle wallpaper behind me. You know? hahaha. And the living room is like an abstract-modern thing and that's just cause over time I would buy little things from like vintage stores or through traveling and even if I didn't have like a proper place to stay, I had like a box somewhere with these little things.ZAK: Some of us are living in houses that we haven't put a lot of time into designing just cause, like, you know, we got work, we got family, we got all this stuff to do. But now we might have some time to think about and organize our space. Do you have some advice about getting started?KEISHA: Yes, go through the stuff that you have already. You have so much... I think a lot of people pack away their lives but I went through like, pieces of paper...there's always a bag of envelopes somewhere. Right? Go through that bag of envelopes. Go through that bag of cards. Some of the cards will look nice enough to like, just tack up on the wall or put in a frame. There will be photos that you forgot. Put them on the fridge. Like little stuff. The fridge can be the jumping off point for like...ok, cool...I really like the colors in that photo. Boom, lemme paint my cupboards. You know, like, find your stuff first then start branching out. Going through my stuff and finding things over time it helped me to buy less things.ZAK: You might be searching for something to listen to while you're redesigning your place. If so, check out TK's new project. It's called Open World. It's a fiction anthology podcast about how science and technology serve as a backdrop for imaging a better future. It's really cool. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show. If you have some advice 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---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

Mike Gluck is the co-author of Everydata and author of 40 Freelancing Secrets. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPTS:ZAK: Where would you say is the most beautiful place you've gotten work done?MIKE: Probably, I mean my brother and his wife live out in Hawaii so I've gotten some work done out there which is nice. The local park is pretty cool. Just knowing that if I have my laptop and a wi-fi connection most of the time, I can do pretty much whatever I need to do anywhere, anytime.ZAK: For lots of us, working from home is new and this setup takes some getting used to. I asked for some advice from long-time freelancer, Mike Gluck. He says with the great freedom of working at home, it can be much harder to get stuff done...and if you've been doing this for the last six months like I have, you know you're not just gonna be able to work from nine to five. You have to be creative.MIKE: So, yeah, I've got to two teenage boys and one of them loves tennis, one of them loves fishing. And the one, Zack, who loves tennis works very early in the mornings on the weekends, so lsat Saturday, I think, I dropped him off at work at 6:30 in the morning. I'm not gonna go and sit inside a Starbucks right now, so instead, I grabbed my laptop and I went to work. It was light out and I sat on a bench and I got some work done. And then for fishing, my younger son loves to fish and he scoped out all these fishing spots around where we live so, you know, sometimes I'll go and just sit in a chair and hangout and we'll talk about life or whatever, but, you know, he likes to do it everyday, so sometimes what I'll do is I'll bring a lawn chair, I'll bring my laptop and I'll sit there and I'll get stuff done for part of it. I think you have to embrace that. One of the benefits is that flexibility, but you also have to look for those pockets of time when you can work and you can be productive because you can't just nap during the day and go to the gym and do your laundry and then not work at night or on the weekends...you have to find those times when, ok, I have an hour here, I have half an hour here, I have three hours here. Let me take advantage of it. It doesn't have to be in a traditional work setting at a traditional work time...you can do it whenever, wherever, ZAK: Mike Gluck is the author of two books, one of which is called 40 Freelancing Secrets which you might find very valuable right now. 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

Lois Langberg sleeps soundly in Metro-Detroit.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: Today's advice from Lois Langberg goes out to all you night peers and insomniacs.LOIS: My advice, this is really helpful to me, when I go to sleep at night, I usually go to bed around ten and then I wake up to go to the bathroom and I find if you don't look at the clock and see what time it is then you can just get back in bed and go to sleep, because if you look at the clock and then you're thinking oh my gosh, it's 2 o'clock in the morning, I have to get up at six and then you're freaking out because you're stressing about getting back to sleep.ZAK: Don't stare at the clock. I love this. I've actually tried this since I heard Lois' advice and it works. Big anxiety reducer. If you want to call the advice hotline like Lois did I would love to hear from you. That number is 844-935-BEST. I want to hear about the things you're doing to get through these long days and sometimes even longer nights. This is The Best Advice Show. Talk to you tomorrow. 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

Norene Cashen (@there.is.a.light.somewhere) is a life-long learner, therapist, poet, coach and writer. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:NORENE: My advice is, if you want to have an ageless mindset, always be a beginner at something.theme musicNORENE: I'm 52 and I don't feel it and I think that's probably because I'm constantly on these adventures to try something new and to evolve and grow and change. I got a couple of masters degrees, one when I was just gonna turn 50 and then another at age 51. I did Brazilian Jujitsu for 15-months in my mid-40s and I'm always learning. Just always being a beginner...it's a reset. It takes you to a place of energy and humility and focus.ZAK: Was there a time in your life that that would have been, uh, a foreign idea?NORENE: Yes, I believe that I always thought I would have a career path and I would stick with that and that would be it and I envision myself as 40 or 50 being really old and things being rather static in the future. But that's now how it's turning out. ZAK: I can imagine some people, maybe they're not at their best but maybe they're just comfortable in the groove that they have found themselves in. You know and finding one path and just kind of moving forth. Do you have words for that person who might just need a little encouragement to take the jump and to, and you know, moving from being an expert at the one thing they're so good at into being a beginner at this thing that they know nothing about yet?NORENE: Well, um, when you're an expert you run the risk of becoming an expert of instead of just being a human being. And when you open yourself up to new things and you humble yourself to a new lesson and a new activity, a new learning, you realize you're really super present with your own humanness. So there's a huge payoff there. And the other thing is, don't be so hypnotized or convinced of your own advertising and your own resume that you forget to be present in the moment and be yourself. Alan Watts had a great quote. Um, "you are under no obligation to be the same person you were five-minutes ago." And I just love that quote and when I talk to people who are stuck that's one of the things that that quote sometimes sets people free in the moment and I see a smile. Like, darn it, that's true!ZAK: So good. That Watts fella. Very good. ZAK: Can you tell me who you are and what you are?NORENE: I am a life-long learner. I'm a therapist. I'm a coach. I'm a writer and I'm a person who upholds the values of bravery, respect and humility in work and in life.ZAK: You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five-minutes ago. Thank you Norene Cashen. Thank you Alan Watts. That you listener for listening. I would love to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. Talk to you tomorrow. 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

Valeriya Epshteyn is co-eggxecutive director @ The Next Egg.To offer your own Food Friday advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPTVALERYIA: Hi Zak, it's Valeryia and I want to advise people to save vegetable and bone and mushroom scraps because we're at the peak of the season for lots of amazing food right now and if you have stems from kale or collards or swiss chard or if you have bits and pieces of chicken or if you have the little stubby parts of mushrooms then you can put them into a gallon bags or a Tupperware container in your freezer and the next time you need to make a broth or maybe even a time that you want to make a broth that you can cook rice in it or potatoes or anything else that needs a little extra flavor, you can just pop open the freezer and make use of the things you were otherwise gonna toss or I hope compost.ZAK: Who doesn't love a thrifty food Friday tip. Thanks Valeryia. Brothy rice, I'm coming for you. This has been Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. I would love to hear your advice. You can call the hotline like Valeryia did at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. I'm looking for advice and life advice and love advice and any kind of advice. Thanks for calling. Also, if you're still here that means you really like this show and maybe you'll consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. That's gonna help people discover the show. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. ---Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow---Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better.https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9---Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at ZAK@bestADVICE.show---Share this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow