Weirdly Helpful (formerly The Best Advice Show)

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

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

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

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

Brandon Stosuy is the co-founder and editor in chief at The Creative Independent. His new book is called Make Time for Creativity: Finding Space for Your Most Meaningful Work.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:Hello, my name is Brandon Stousy. I'm the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Creative Independent and the co-founder of Basilica Soundscape which is an annual festival in Hudson, New York and I manage artists with my friend Caleb. We call ourselves, Zone 6.In the end, slow and steady actually does, I don't want to say win the race cause it doesn't need to be a competition, but I think finding a way to be slow and steady is actually a really useful bit of advice and I think, like, what that means longer term is if you sort of do the thing that you set out to do each day, and just keep doing that, even if no one's paying attention to you and no one's keeping track and even if it's a small thing, you just kind of keep doing those small things...things never get out of hand, I find on the creative level or like, even at a practical level. Like, for instance this morning, I've been working on these books and the way to do these for me was realizing I gotta get up at 5 am and start writing the books, and it's like, I don't need each day to do ten chapters, I can just do, you know, a page, a few sentences and if it's not working, I'm like, ah it doesn't matter cause tomorrow I'm gonna do this again.You know you sit down to exercise one time a month and you're like, I'm gonna do this and you build it all up in your mind or I'm gonna write and you set it up in your mind, like, I'm gonna finish this book in one weekend and then you just don't do it and you sort of stress yourself out and you, um, the anxiety grows and it becomes this insurmountable task where I've found through just discovering it over years that if I just do a little bit each day, I don't find myself in these like panicked moments or I don't find myself in these moments of missing a deadline or thinking I'm not gonna get it done and I'm able to juggle the things I do which bring me a lot of joy...I kind go for it Monday through Friday and on the weekends I'm like cool, I'm just not gonna do anything. That's my advice. hahah. 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

Nate Mullen is an artist, educator, dad and friend from Detroit.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:NATE: My name is Nate Mullen. I am in artist and educator, dad, friend.ZAK: I'm very excited about Nate's advice. It's a media recommendation.NATE: Everybody should watch Steven Universe. It's a coming-of-age story of this person named Steven learning to control his powers which are deeply connected to his emotional reality.ZAK: What does it work so well?NATE: So, it's a cartoon so it's silly, it's goofy. He raps about his favorite ice-cream cookies. But he also, in order to like, you know, access his power, he has to tap into, like, what is joy for him or what is pain for him, right? And as he grapples with that, right, like, that allows him to access superpowers. And what else do we need at this moment more than understanding that having deep access to our emotions are superpowerYou can find Steven Universe on Hulu or on Amazon, Apple.The other thing is that like, in my family, like, Meilu, who's 4 has been watching it for 2 years. I watch it. Jenny watches it. We're in our 30s. My mom watches it who's in her 50s. My brother watches it who is in high school. Right? It's this thing that my mom, who is a grown-ass woman and my brother who's in high school, have been bumping heads a lot. In this moment Steven Universe is something that's bringing them together. 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

Janice Fialka is a nationally-recognized lecturer, author, and advocate on issues related to disability, parent-professional partnerships, inclusion, raising a child with disabilities, sibling issues, and post-secondary education. Janice is also a parent, poet, a compelling storyteller, and an award-winning advocate for families and persons with disabilities.To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:JANICE: My name is Janice Fialka. My husband and I have two adult children, Micah and Emma. I'm a social worker by background and also been an activist for a few decades since the early days of the Woman's Movement and I have grown fonder and fonder of poetry over the years.ZAK: And you have a belief about poetry.JANICE: Yeah, I mean poetry lives on the page and many of us, you know, pick up the book or pick up the page and read the poem quietly. And that's one way, but I have found that a way that really...I'm drawn to is to lift the words off the page and read them out loud because it takes a different kind of energy when I'm just reading it from the page silently I sometimes will speed to the punch-line or the last line where as if I'm reading it out loud to myself, it doesn't have to be to anyone else, you know, I linger sort of leisurely on each line. Sometimes repeating the line out loud. So it just has a very different feel for it. There's a call I think of poetry that says I want to be out side just your head and that connects me to taking it beyond sort of the internal. So many times I think it's just for me. I mean for years I was intimidated by poetry. I didn't understand a lot of it and so I found that if I read it out loud or someone read it to me I, I got more of it.ZAK: Obviously, we have to finish with a poem. This one is from Mary Oliver.JANICE: It's called Instructions for Living A Life.Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. ZAK: This is The Best Advice Show. I want to hear your advice. Give me a call at 844-935-BEST. And if you love this show think about rating and reviewing it on whatever app you use. I know Apple is a popular one. I know you can rate on Stitcher. It's another way of letting peope discover the show. I'll 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gretchen Rubin hosts the podcast, Happier and has written a bunch of bestselling books. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT:ZAK: Being the person that you are, do you formally or informally coach people?GRETCHEN: Well, I mean, if by coaching you mean, do I give unsolicited advice, probably yes, my sister calls me a happiness bully because if I feel like there's a way for somebody to get Happier I can just start throwing things out. ZAK: Something that Gretchen throws out a lot is the following prompt...GRETCHEN: Choose the bigger life.THEME MUSIC PLAYSGRETCHEN: Because what is the bigger life? Because only you can decide what's the bigger life. For instance in our family, my children really, really wanted to get a dog. This was like 5-6 years ago. My husband was like, eh, I'm ok with getting a dog. And I was very much on the fence because I thought this is a lot of work, a lot of trouble. It's a big commitment. This dog is probably gonna be living with me and Jamie longer than are only children did...I felt the pros and cons were very evenly balanced. And t hen I thought to myself, choose the bigger life. Now, I think for some families a bigger life would not be getting a dog because you might have more freedom, you'd travel more, you'd have more money freed ip to spend on other things. It's expensive to have a dog. So I think for some people choose a bigger life would be not to have a dog. But it was obvious to me the minute I asked myself that question, that for our gamily the bigger life was to get a dog and so we did and I',m just absolutely thrilled. It was exactly the right choice. But I think for a lot of times you get very confused about what's better, what's worse and then...or like I remember talking to somebody who was like, should I move back to my hometown, my husband's there too, we have all this family and all these old friends but we love being in big city and I said, well, choose the bigger life. And for her the bigger life, she realized, meant going back home because she felt like that's the bigger life for us but other people might have said, oh, the big city, that's the bigger life. It would have been obvious to them. It kind of shows you that indirect look into your head which can be very hard to do. It's easy to get confused and distracted...I feel like that's a helpful question. I'm Gretchen Rubin. I'm a writer and podcaster who explores the issues of happiness, habits and human nature. ZAK:Gretchen Rubin's podcast is called, Happier. Is there a prompt you use in your life when you're feeling confused? I would love to hear it. Give me a call at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. Also, please consider sharing this show with your friends if you think they would like it. I would like that. 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

Polly Washburn (@pollywashburn) makes things in Denver, Colorado. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BESTTRANSCRIPT: POLLY: I'm Polly Washburn and I live in Denver, Colorado and I would recommend that you figure out your sleepy foods. So when I was about 30, I read a book about sugar sensitivity and was like, Me. Me. Me. This is me. And so I started out cutting out sugar. And so my basic advice would be to, it's not like you can never eat sugar or whatever you find out is your sleepy food. But, don't have it during the day. So have it at night and then if it makes you sleepy that's cool, you can go to sleep. So my sleepy foods are sugar and flower. So, I'm not gluten intolerant or whatever, but it's great for me that there's been all these gluten-free foods that have come out cause it gives me an option during the day to have a rice cracker instead of Triscuit or whatever. ZAK: And once you realized that that was a thing and that you were made sleepy by, uh, sugar and flower, was it difficult at all to not go after that stuff?POLLY: So yeah, sugar is totally addictive. So, it is a problem to give it up and and it's tough sometimes and that's why I would say, don't put yourself in the mindset that you can never have it again. Either, I can have on the weekends or I can have it at night...ZAK: How do you learn what your sleepy food is?POLLY: So, the best way is to do a little log for about a week and every half-hour log what did I eat, cause some people, you know, things don't kick in for another half-hour, hour, so make a log of what time you ate everything and then give yourself like an energy scale, maybe 1-10 or 1-5. And rate your energy scale through the day and notice, ok, after I ate that...trash happened...I was fine eating that. You know, so for someone else it might be rice or dairy or you know, something totally different.ZAK: You've been listening to what I hope has been a very helpful Food Friday on The Best Advice Show. Thanks Polly for that advice. My name is Zak Rosen and I would love to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. That's 844-935-BEST. And if you're enjoying this show. If it's making a difference in your life somehow, I would so appreciate you going on to Apple Podcasts and rating and reviewing The Best Advice Show. Another really helpful thing you can do is tell your friends and family about this podcast. Well, just the ones that you think would like it. Thank you so much. 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

Emilee Speck is the host of Space Curious.Upcoming Rocket Launches - https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/events-calendar?pageindex=1TRANSCRIPT: EMILEE: My name is Emilee Speck. I'm a space reporter and digital journalist for WKMG in Orlando, Florida and I host Space Curious.ZAK: In her personal and professional life. Emilee has gone to a ton of rocket launches. And she has some advice for you in case you're gonna go to one, which is possible in a handful of states. Or if you're just gonna watch it online.EMILEE: If you've never been to a launch before. The number one thing you need to do it put your phone down. Don't record it with your phone. Just watch it and be amazed.3, 2, 1, 0 and LIFTOFF!And the other thing I would do if you're gonna watch it in person is watch it with other people. In particular watch it with kids. Watching a launch with a child especially with one who has never seen a launch before is the best experience. Kids are just, they're just us and they're little and they just don't contain their excitement and they get so excited. Some of the favorite video that I've ever seen covering a launch is watching kids react to the rocket. They're just absolute freaking amazed. It is so cool.If you're trying to watch a launch online, my advice, and this is what I did the other day because during the Coronavirus, I haven't been able to cover as many launches in person. So I will put the launch feed up on my tv in my living room and that's kind of the best thing that you can do. It's amazing. And turn the sound way up. hahaha. Yeah. Cause the booster, the launch, the rumble...it's way, way better in person but sometimes the live streams will do a good job as well.ZAK: And for those of us who haven't witnessed a launch, like, what is it that's so amazing to you about it?EMILEE: If you're watching it in person, just the feeling of knowing that something that we made here is leaving earth, because that's really freaking hard to do.ZAK: If you want to attend a rocket launch in person or online, you can go to the link I posted in our show notes from Kennedy Space Center to see their launch schedule. Emilee Speck is the host of the new podcast, Space Curious. And full disclosure, I edit that show. It's totally worth checking out. I didn't care much about space when I started hte project with her and now she's convinced me that it's amazing and there's so much to learn. Each episode she answers a different listeners' question, like "where does all the space junk go?" How did the International Space Station get assembled in the first place? Stuff like that. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. You've been listening to The Best Advice Show, I'm Zak Rosen. If you have some advice I would love to hear it. The hotline number is 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