Weirdly Helpful (formerly The Best Advice Show)

Céline Williams is a culture engineer, business strategist, speaker and founder of reVisionary. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Whether you are a boss or hope to one day be a boss, I think today's advice from an executive coach is essential.I feel like most people I talk to are pretty disappointed with the culture at their work. If you have any thoughts about why you think that is...that it's so widespread that people are dissatisfied with the way their workplaces run.CELINE: I think it's because most leaders and most organizations are really attached to an old paradigm of how things work. Partly because for some organizations, that's how it worked for them 15 or 20 years ago and we have lots of large organizations and small organizations that are attached to an idea that was effective 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 50 years ago and that's not the case anymore. ZAK: So say there's a boss listening to you right now...what's something they might try tomorrow when they go into work to start shifting things?CELINE: Well first and foremost, ask your people what their experience of the culture is and actually listen. I, I often talk about culture iceberg which is that the leaders are at the top of the culture iceberg and they are where 5% of the reality of what is happening in their organization. And middle-management is lets say aware of 30% of it and then you get down to the front-line workers and they're aware of 100% of it. So what often happens is we run on assumptions. We are human beings who like assuming things and who like to create categories in our brains cause that keeps us safe, so we assume that our experience of the culture is the same as someone else's and leaders are especially bad at it because often leaders see the positive things more than the negative and so the first and easiest thing a leader can do is go in and ask their people, ask their direct reports, ask the people underneath those people...but talk to people about what their experience of the culture is and make it safe for them to say, this sucks and here's why. Make it so that there's no fear for them to actually tell you the truth of what they're seeing and that, when you have that information and that data you can actually do something with it. Otherwise you're trying to make changes on assumptions.And we all know what happens when you assume. CELINE: My name is Céline Williams. I'm the founder of reVisionary and I'm an executive coach and a culture strategist.ZAK: Are you happy at your work place? I want to know why. What's working there that the rest of us can learn from. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shane Bernardo is a food justice organizer and the founder of Food as Healing -https://www.foodashealing.com/To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:SHANE: My name is Shane Bernardo. I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Detroit also known as occupied Anishinaabe territory. I'm also a food justice organizer and the founder of Food as Healing.My advice is to do everything with ease. Now this might seem like a really tall order but what's more important than to focus our energy on checking in with ourselves and our needs around kindness and compassion. We often think of these things as virtues that we extend toward others but how many times have we forgotten to extend those things to ourselves?So, what this looks like in practice is whenever you feel a sense of nervous energy, anxiety, frustration or regret...ask yourself this question. 'In this moment what do I need in order to bring more ease into my life?' And hopefully what that helps you do is helps you refrain from having life just happen to you. It helps you maintain your sense of self, personhood, humanity and dignity and these are things that anyone should be afforded. A lot of frustration comes from feeling like we don't have control over our own well-being and that's such a terribly unhealthy place to be in. This point is even more critical considering that we're in a global pandemic and that the need for racial justice and racial healing in this country has been unmatched like no other time in this country's existence and it also recognizes how the capitalists profit from maintaining the psychic toll that all these things have on us and especially those of us that are on the margins that sequester this impact that it has.So I'd like to invite you to maintain this practice as a form of resistance, as an act of resistance and ask yourself on a daily basis, at least one time, ask yourself what do I need to create more ease in my life. Try it on. 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

Wendy S. Walters is a writer and the Director of the Nonfiction Concentration and Associate Professor of Writing, Nonfiction in the School of the Arts at Columbia University.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: WENDY: Well, I think I'm used to being uncomfortable so I am very enthusiastic about other people being uncomfortable because it kind of makes you pay attention in a slightly different way than you would with others and, you know, I say this to my son all the time you know you have that moment of discomfort, uh, but generally you survive it. Like, usually 9.9 times out 10 you survive your discomfort. So, I think that the discomfort is a real gift in terms teaching you how to get past something that is completely internal. Other people may not recognize that you're uncomfortable but you feel it and you know when you stop being uncomfortable and the more resilience you can develop in terms of that discomfort, the more engaged I think you can be with other people who aren't like yourself.Many Americans...they associate being uncomfortable with being in danger. On the base level being uncomfortable is not having access to choosing the options that you would normally choose. And for many people that is experienced as catastrophe. That is experienced as damage and I think that is really, it's an overstatement and it in some ways reflects how much we become accustomed to being catered to.ZAK: So is this advice...make yourself uncomfortable?WENDY: Let's see, is it make yourself uncomfortable or is it if you find yourself in the space of being uncomfortable, embrace it as a moment for opportunity and reflection on who you are and what you value.ZAK: Wendy S. Walters is a writer and professor of writing at Columbia University. I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. If you're finding this show valuable I hope you'll share it with your friends and family and maybe even write a review on Apple Podcasts if that's where you listen. That's gonna help this show sustain itself. Thank you in advance. 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

Ben Friedman pops corn and makes films in LA.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPTZAK: It's Food Friday and today's advice, yes, it's related to food and food prep but I think you can also read it as a metaphor. The advice comes from filmmaker, Ben Friedman.BEN: I love making popcorn and I know that other people would like stove-top popcorn too cause it's the absolute best. And I think that one place where people get stuck is they try and get every kernel popped and what ends up happening is that opens them up to the risk of burning a couple of kernels and that will just ruin the whole batch. And so my feeling is always that it is better to leave a couple kernels un-popped and to get a great batch of popcorn every time than to try and get every single kernel and risk losing the whole bowl. Kind of like that 80/20 rule but more like 98/2. That's it.ZAK: So is this really advice about not being a perfectionist? That's how I hear it. Regardless, I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline like Ben did at 844-935-BEST. This has been yet another week of The Best Advice Show. I love making this show. If you love listening to it, please consider sharing it with your friends and family. 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

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices