The Daily Helping

Minda Zetlin is an author, speaker, journalist, and contributing editor at Inc. where she writes the Laid Back Leader column. Her articles and workshops provide research-backed advice to help ambitious people get the most out of their careers and their lives.

In her newest book, Career Self-Care: Find Your Happiness, Success, and Fulfillment at Work, she lays out concrete examples of how to improve the quality of your work life no matter what career you’re in. This has come to the forefront of our attention over the last few years for obvious reasons.

Employee satisfaction was at a record low even before the pandemic. As the economy starts to shift, it remains to be seen whether or not employers continue to give employee wellness the attention it deserves or begin cutting costs. But people who are happy and comfortable at work and at home do better work, and so it behooves us all to keep pushing for a better quality of life.

Whether you’re working from home or still in an office, the line between work and home is continuing to blur—you likely have a smartphone with you at work or a desk at home where you do some work away from the office. It’s vital that when we’re working, no matter where it is, we need to set up practices that create clear boundaries and delineations between our work life and our home life.

The book is full of exercises to move towards your goals, increase your happiness at work, and improve your mindfulness, but Minda offers us one very clear piece of advice: If you are unhappy at work, don’t sit around and do nothing about it.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“It’s your job to make yourself happy. And I mean that really seriously. Not just in the sense that you’ve got to make yourself happy because no one else will, although that’s actually true. Even the people who love you the best can’t really figure out how to make you happy, you’re the one who knows that. But also because it’s your responsibility, if you can, to the world and to the people around you, to be as happy as you can be. My ASJA colleague Gretchen Rubin has all kinds of research showing that happy people not only work better, but they’re also more likely to volunteer, they’re more likely to contribute to charity, and they are better members of society in every possible way. In every possible way, if you are happier, everyone is happier and you are better in the world. So it’s your job to figure out how to be happy and go make it happen.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• mindazetlin.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mindazetlin
• Twitter: @MindaZetlin
• Read: Career Self-Care

Shira Miller is a two-time TEDx speaker who shares her expertise in the field of well-being on Medium, LinkedIn, Thrive Global, and more, and she is passionate about helping people get unstuck and activate their greatest potential. She discusses the importance of well-being at work and in the home, prioritizing self-care, and creating wellness-based cultures. Her story and opinions have been recognized in Shape, Health, First for Women, Quick & Simple, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emory Magazine, and the bestselling business books The Power of Nice and Trust Your Gut: How the Power of Intuition Can Grow Your Business.

Shira is no stranger to the experience of getting stuck in life. It started over 30 years ago when she had a healthy weight loss that first put her on the path of a healthier lifestyle, and over the years she had even more: A divorce which led to a new, happier marriage; A business failure during the recession; And getting Crohn’s disease after the stress of that situation. After each of those moments, she came back better and stronger than before. In fact, her life of purpose was only crafted through the process of getting stuck and finding out a way to get unstuck.

Shira defines being stuck as when your life circumstances don’t match the life you want to lead. She has a seven-step process for getting unstuck, and one step, in particular, is shifting from pessimism to optimism. Some ways you can do this are by cognitive reframing or looking for the upside in a situation or leaning into gratitude. Our minds often find what they are looking for, and if we are focusing on the negative we are only going to find more of it.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I want people to realize that no matter how you’re stuck, whatever your age is, you can always get unstuck. You can overcome obstacles. It’s about following a process, having patience, love for yourself, practicing self-care, and then you can make all the changes that you need in your life.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• shiramiller.com
• Instagram: @theshiramiller
• Read: Free and Clear

Katie Barnett has been named one of the top 20 female disruptors in 2021. She runs a very successful online business, but even more impressive is her personal story.

Like so many of us, Katie didn’t recognize the pivotal moments in her life until she looked back on them from where she is now. She had her master's degree and had plans of teaching in college, but after having three kids and working as a full-time parent, she started a business on the side just to help her family out. But that experience unlocked something in her and she knew this was the path for her.

We all dream big, and then as we grow up, reality starts to set in—we have to pay bills, we have to pay off our loans, we have to support a family—and naturally, our focus turns away from ourselves and to how we’re going to meet these obligations and we forget how to dream. But we have to remember that we can change that at any time and relearn what it means to light our own fires.

If you’re not feeling that fire in your own life, Katie recommends starting with service. It’s impossible to feel like a failure when you’re helping others. By being of service to others, you’re going to gain confidence and find what really lights you up. And if you’re really feeling low, unmotivated, or in a rut, start finding the smallest ways of taking care of your physical and mental health, whether that’s through diet, exercise, mindfulness, intentional rest, or any number of tactics. It can even start with just drinking more water.

There’s a lot in the world to be scared of, but we can put our own dent in that by going out there and putting a smile on people’s faces. We can make this world a better place one person at a time, and that’s what Katie is doing, and encourages others to do as well.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Your vibe is everything. And if you feel like you’re at a low, it’s worth stepping into something bigger to attract something bigger, and that can be in your relationships, in your friendships, in your business, in your life, in everything. It’s about becoming what you want to be surrounded with. Because, as cliché as it sounds, your vibe truly attracts your tribe, what you put out into the universe is going to come back in abundance.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• levelafternextorg.com
• Instagram: @ktannebarnett
• Podcast: Level After Next

Maimah Karmo is the founder and CEO of The Tigerlily Foundation and a fifteen-year survivor of breast cancer. She’s appeared in major media including USA Today, US News, Cosmopolitan, CBS, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and so much more. She’s a sought-after speaker by the media and for policy events and a prominent philanthropist. Under her leadership, the Tigerlily Foundation has launched national and global health initiatives focused on ending disparities through the #inclusion pledge, participating with global stakeholders with a call to action to recognize health disparities as a social justice issue, and working to end disparities for Black women in our lifetime. She’s a global health advocate dedicated to justice and equity for all.

Maimah was born and raised in Liberia, West Africa until she was fifteen years old, and in that time she experienced three wars. Each time they escaped, and many times they returned—in large part because Maimah’s parents believed in philanthropy and helping those who did not have the privilege to escape themselves.

After escaping to America and starting a new life, Maimah worked to build up her own dream life. Just as it felt like it was starting to come to fruition, she found a lump in her breast. After fighting to get it examined—all of the doctors said she was too young to have breast cancer—she was finally diagnosed and treated for cancer.

Women, people of color, and especially the intersection of those two are at a higher risk of being overlooked by the medical community. Most women are not taught to fight and to advocate for themselves the way Maimah was. That’s why she feels responsible for advocating for those who cannot do so themselves.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I live by a lot of quotes, and there’s a quote by Dan Millman, it says ‘Love is a warrior’s sword, everywhere it cuts, it gives life, not death.’ And that’s something that I think, if you’re here, you’re a spirit in this body, in this vessel, for this time. What you’re here to do is to love yourself and honor and love life. And how do you do that? You honor your temple. Not just your body but your mind, your spirit. And when you’re given much and you’re able to breathe, then you have to give to others.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• tigerlilyfoundation.org
• Instagram: @tigerlily_foundation
• Instagram: @maimahkarmo

Jasan Julius has built some incredible brands, including Coffee Junkiez and Pizza Junkiez, and won multiple “business of the year” awards. He also has a marketing company that has allowed him to take his businesses nationally. Jasan is also generous, wanting to connect with people and share what he’s learned to help other small business owners grow.

He started his career as a hands-on blue collar worker. He worked for Chrysler for many years, where he eventually decided he wanted to work with his mind as well and became a union representative. But after achieving his dream job—just thirty days later—his son was diagnosed with cancer. It was the hardest time of his life, and after three long years, his son, unfortunately, lost that battle.

Stricken with grief and looking for something to occupy his mind, Jasan threw himself fully into entrepreneurship, where he saw his business as part of his son’s legacy. That strong link pulled him through the hardest parts of entrepreneurship more than the money ever could have. When it comes to growing your business, you have to make sure you embed strong motivations far beyond the money you might make, because that won’t be enough.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Pay more attention to the moment. We all do monotonous things in life, so you gloss over them and you just do it and you get it done. I look back on my life and every different stage of my life was applicable to where I am today, and I wish that I had paid more attention in the moment. Even doing the things you didn’t want to do or you didn’t find overly fulfilling or enjoyable, there’s lessons to be learned. And the only way you learn those lessons is if you are highly conscious of how and what you are doing in the moment in general.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• coffeejunkiez.com
• Instagram: @jasanjulius
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Think and Grow Rich
• Your Next Five Moves
• Principles
• The E-Myth
• Radical Candor
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Vincent Pugliese is the author ofThe Wealth of ConnectionsandFreelance to Freedom, as well as the owner of the Total Life Freedom mastermind community, which helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build a life of time, money, and location freedom. He’s also the host of the Total Life Freedom podcast and, most importantly, a husband and father of three sons.In episode 86 of the podcast, Vince joined us to share his journey as a photojournalist and his roadmap to freedom that he is living today.

As the host of his podcast, Vince talks to entrepreneurs struggling with building a business and creating a life of freedom. He kept noticing people approaching things from the wrong direction. They start a podcast, write a book, create a product, and launch it out into the world—and nothing happens. They give up, thinking entrepreneurship is too hard. But they’re just doing things backwards.

Vince looked at what made people successful, and he traced it to these five points:

• Curiosity
• Character
• Connection
• Collaboration
• Create

For each of these, there are specific strategies to improve upon them in your life. To improve your connection, you need to shift from focusing on what you want to get and start reaching out to people and finding out what they want and helping them get it. When you do that, and you start improving your character, everything else will just become so much easier.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I really think it is setting those generous goals and those selfish goals. I think if you can start with that as the foundation, if you’re struggling, it really gets you out of your own head of what you need, it gets you out of desperation mode. Because generally when you’re struggling, you’re desperate, you’ll do things probably not the way you want to do it if you weren’t desperate. But if you really think, how do I flip the switch, stop worrying about what I need, and go in this direction in terms of being helpful, because helpful people want to help helpful people. They don’t want to help selfish people. So I know it feels like I need this stuff, go the opposite direction. Do with less for a little while, be that person that other people want to be around, and I’m telling you, if you go from there and you start with character and you go on down the road, it’s going to work out for you.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• totallifefreedom.com
• Read: The Wealth of Connections
• Read: Freelance to Freedom

Liz Brunner is a bestselling author, executive communications coach, lauded speaker, podcast host, and Emmy award-winning journalist. Recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished journalists, Liz conducted exclusive one-on-one interviews with prominent figures over a 28-year career ranging from professional athletes to global political leaders, including President Barrack Obama.Interviewing such truly remarkable people over the years, Liz learned some incredibly valuable lessons. But regardless of how big or how famous a person was, the best stories came from people who went through personal transformation and resilience.

In 2013, Liz embarked on the next chapter of her journey as the CEO and founder of Brunner Communications and launched Brunner Academy, both dedicated to helping people find their authentic voices, tell their stories, and lead with presence. She had to dig deep and identify her true skillset and translate that into language that made sense for the corporate world.

Part of helping people find their presence and tell their story is recognizing that people are just as much a brand as any corporation, and teaching people to take advantage of that fact. If you’re looking to establish your own presence, you must first recognize where you are with your comfort level in owning your brand and find others who you believe are embodying their presence well. When you see what others are doing you can begin to identify the qualities you admire in yourself or find ways to enhance them.

Hearing people’s stories of transformation can show you what’s possible in your own life. It’s what led to Liz’s own transformation, and it’s what she now helps others realize themselves.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Number one: If I can make these transitions in my life, anyone can. And number two: Discover who you are. Give yourself permission to own who you are. And if you do, it will take you into your next chapters and ensure that you are living your best life. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have challenges. Life throws us challenges all the time. A quote from my mother: ‘The goal of living is to absorb all of the pain of life and lose none of the joy.’ That’s the takeaway.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• lizbrunner.com
• Instagram: @lizbrunner
• Read: Dare to Own You
• Listen: Live Your Best Life with Liz Brunner

Robin Kelleher is the President and CEO of Hope For The Warriors, an organization she co-founded in 2006 as a grassroots organization that has now grown to national heights, having raised over $53 million for impacting the wounded and fallen military members, their families, and their communities. She's responsible for developing and implementing the strategic direction of the organization, providing budgetary and mission-focused guidance to their growing staff.

Robin’s husband is a member of the military, and as a family they moved to a military community in 2002. The next year, her husband’s best friend was severely wounded. Through that, Robin realized that the wounds extend beyond just the service member—the whole family unit and even the community is damaged.

The trauma that military members and veterans face is hard to fathom, but the effects are far-reaching. Hope for the Warriors finds creative solutions to bring resources together and help solve problems. They don’t believe in “no.” When tornados ravaged communities in Kentucky, Hope for the Warriors collaborated with a group of partners from local grocery chains to Frito-Lay to truck company Forward Air, the armed forces, and the YMCA, all to address food insecurity in those areas hit the hardest.

Hope for the Warriors is primarily donation driven, and they are a great investment. All money donated goes directly to the people who are being impacted.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I want the American people to see the value and the importance of military families, and that while they're still at war at home, when you look at who's your best bet as an employee, who is going to be the leader of your boy scout troop, and who's going to be the coach of the baseball team, the first ones to raise their hands are going to be the military families. They're strong and resilient, but they still need support and just because we're not at war abroad, many families here are still at war at home.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• hopeforthewarriors.org
• Instagram: @hope4warriors

The Daily Helping is produced and published by Crate Media.

We’re coming to you again live from the GoBundance event, where there are so many amazing people – including today’s guest, Aaron Velky. He's an entrepreneur, writer, high-performance coach, speaker, and author from Baltimore, Maryland.Aaron is also the CEO of Money Club, an organization dedicated to helping growth-minded people achieve whole-life wealth. He’s also the principal and personal performance coach with Men on Purpose, an organization that helps men find purpose and create a life of intention. They host a podcast, a community, an online mastermind program, and retreats which help people clarify their vision to find their purpose and discover their mission.

Aaron realized that so many people, no matter how successful they seem, don’t know what they want in life – what their purpose is. That’s why he and his business partner started Men on Purpose: to help individuals spotlight the things that matter most and the legacy they will leave. Start by making sure you have enough money to provide your basic needs, but once you’re beyond that, start thinking bigger: What do you care about? What matters to your soul? What is going to satisfy and fulfill you? You need to start digging into these questions to begin finding real purpose.

There is nothing as fulfilling as having an impact. What you may discover as you dig is that your purpose extends well beyond what you do for a living, and it may even spur you to change what you do. But if the end result is more people living in their purpose, the world will be a better place.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Learn to witness positivity and celebrate it. When you see it, celebrate it – in your life, in someone else's life, around you. Lifting up someone else has been the most significant thing I've ever done. And now it's my lifestyle. Just simple things will tune you into what's around you. When you see positivity, celebrate it.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• wearemoneyclub.com/dailyhelping
• aaronvelky.com
• Instagram: @aaronvelky
• Read: "Let Her Play"

The Daily Helping is produced and published by Crate Media.

We are live again from the GoBundance event with an incredible guest, Javier La Fianza. He’s the founder and CEO of Valiente Philanthropic Strategies, a consulting firm that helps create greater philanthropic impact for nonprofit organizations, corporate foundations, and high net worth individuals through effective strategic planning, fundraising, capacity building, and organizational development.There’s a stigma when it comes to the nonprofit sector, specifically when it comes to making a living. The common understanding is that, to make a difference, you have to sacrifice making an income. But Javier says that’s not true. If you have the skills to run a business, and you know what you’re doing, you can make a good living in this space.

If you’re looking to make a difference in the world and thinking about starting a nonprofit yourself, Javier says: don’t – at least not right away. There are so many organizations out there, likely many doing what you would like to do. Rather than competing with each other for resources, your best bet at making a difference could be finding a nonprofit that aligns with your goals and working with them directly. 

There are so many ways to make an impact in this world beyond just giving money. Reach out to the nonprofits that are doing what excites you and find out what they need the most. Offer your time or your services. And if it turns out that organization isn’t the one for you, there are many more out there to choose from. 

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide what change you want to make in the world.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“One of the most important things in my life is trying to live a life based on gratitude and trying to stay in gratitude and be grateful and do acts of service. When I'm living my life in gratitude, that drowns out those negative voices in my head sometimes. You can't live in resentment when you're being grateful.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• valiente.group
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/javier-lafianza-0480935