Philip Galanes
Appearances
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
Oh, but that is where you were wrong. You really don't need to be an expert about anything, and I am standing here as living proof of it. I really think it is not telling people, but instead listening to what they are telling you, and starting at that point, helping to guide them to what... might be the best outcome that we both can envision for them.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
the mark of really great advice is listening so closely that you're almost the same person with the person who is asking for the advice. In my experience, the best way to do it is not to think, what should I do? But really listening to Melissa telling me about her situation and thinking, Melissa and I have this problem. We share it now.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
What's the most helpful thing I can say to her to help her march toward a solution that's going to work for her? Because, you know, the other thing about advice is the thing that works for me may well not work for you. It really is about... rethinking the idea that we have inside of us the right answer. We just need you to hear it. Really, you know the right answer.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
And the best advice that I can give is one that makes you hear what you know already is the right answer.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
Yes. I don't give advice to anyone unless I hear them asking me for it. Because often you end up hurting people's feelings inadvertently because they hear you're doing this wrong. So I am going to tell you how to do it right. And that's about as unproductive as it gets.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
I do. I do. I think, for the most part, if we had the imaginations to come up with resolutions that weren't so crushingly banal— getting our steps in, going to the gym more, eating fewer carbs. I mean, things that are joyless.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
Yeah, very puritanical. The most common one that I hear is about diet. So if you eat 10 crappy cookies... Rather than saying, let's reduce those cookies to zero, let's instead find the best cookie you can possibly find at the best bakery. Let's do the legwork. Let's find the cookie that is really going to turn you on and eat two of those in a week.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
And if we can just do... I think if we could incorporate some more joy into our resolutions and less drudge, then they would... You know, the gyms wouldn't all be ghost towns on January 15th. You know, if our resolution was, I want to find somebody whom I will love...
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
to talk to on the treadmill for 30 minutes at the gym three times a week, and you make the project finding that person, that's a fun resolution. You're deepening a friendship or finding somebody out of thin air. That's a good one. But it's not about the stupid steps. It's about finding the joy in whatever we need to do in order to make ourselves, I don't know,
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
thinner prettier whatever silly thing we decide we need to be which is generally not what we need anyway that is good advice this is why you are the authority um any advice for humanity for 2025 um Let's make 2025 the year of listening. Less talking, more listening. I think it really pays off, and it also pays dividends. And I'm going to try to listen more.
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
Well, there's a ton about money. There is a lot about parenting and a lot about marriage, pets, your family's finances, the way your parents divide the money between siblings, the way your siblings treat you at Thanksgiving, the way your boss speaks to you in meetings. I can't think of a human relationship that I have not gotten a question about. It's everything.