New Years Resolutions

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to a special New Year's episode of the worst Advice I ever Got. I'm your host Sean Taylor, joined as always with my producer, JB, and we're looking to wrap up 2025 and step into 2026 in maybe a little bit different way. So, you know, when you. When you look back at our show, it started with a simple idea. We. We all carry advice that stuck with us, sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for all the wrong ones. What I didn't expect when we started this is how consistent one thing has been across every single guest. The advice that shaped them the most almost never came from their wins. It almost always comes from the moments that didn't work. You know, that bad call, that wrong turn, the thing that they for too long before realizing that it wasn't true. You know, success feels great. We all love success. You know, that's where the true joy comes in. But failure, Failure slows you down enough to make you pay attention. It forces you to ask better questions. It makes you honest with yourself. It makes you honest with yourself in a way success really never has to do or even is capable of doing right. So what I've learned doing the show is that advice isn't about right or wrong. Right. It's about being ready. Advice only works when the timing is right, when the person hearing it is ready to hear it, and when the advice leaves room for them to figure things out on their own a little bit. Sometimes the worst advice doesn't ruin your life. Sometimes it just pushes you into the lesson that you needed all along. Jb, I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but that's some of my takeaways. [00:02:00] Speaker A: No, for sure. I mean, that's what's wild about how often, you know, bad advice ends up being the thing that people are most grateful for later. And actually, because it wasn't good advice. And that's why we didn't make a podcast called the best advice you ever got is just more interesting for them to have to force them to think about what's the worst advice you ever got and why it was so bad for me. And, you know, it just. It forces them to think for themselves. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, let's also be honest a little bit here, jb. If we had done a podcast called the best advice I ever got, I mean, people don't tune in for good news. I mean, you kind of are saying, hey, man, here's a train wreck. You probably want to live. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah. The best advice ever gotten. Hey, start that Company and then I did, and it was good, like, cool versus boom. [00:02:46] Speaker B: There's a big disaster over there. Let me go look at that. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah. But it. So, you know, as we wind down this year, thinking through all those things, it kind of feels like the right place to talk about New Year's advice. Because this time of year, we're flooded with advice, or at least things that come across in the form of advice. Right. One of the. One of the things that's really stuck with me doing this show is how cliche sometimes bad advice is. And. And that's what's happening every New Year's, right? We act like January 1st is fresh start, where the rules suddenly get simple. Quit this, do this every day, never mess up. It sounds refreshing, motivating, but it's the same kind of advice we talk about on the show all the time. It's clean, it's confident, and it actually just ignorant of how people are actually living. Right. The state they're in, the place they're in mentally and physically. The worst advice, and the most popular New Year's resolutions really have that in common. They promise certainty, I guess, for a lack of better word, in a world that's messy, it doesn't make room for context or seasons or setbacks. And when life inevitably pushes back, we don't blame the advice. We blame ourselves. What, What I also take from all of this work we've done on the show is that real growth is usually quieter. It's slower, it's a lot less dramatic than a resolution sounds. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I've always thought, you know, there was a lot of big correlation between New Year's resolutions and the worst advice people get because they're so black and white. Like, that's what we find on the show all the time is like, if you tell somebody, never, always, you can't. Like, if there's these big, like, words that are like, so black and white with you, it's almost always bad advice. You know, it's that gray area. Like you said, do this every day, never miss. You know, it just doesn't work that way. And, you know, it's. Life is complex and there's things, there's nuance. And so you have to live in that gray area, you know, trust your guts. We hear that a lot on this show. So, you know, in this. This is always interesting when you come to New Year's resolution because you're telling yourself this, right? So, like, it is your gut, but how much to your point of that is outside influence. Oh, I got to change this. I don't like this about myself, so I should do this. You know, it's, it's, it's all that, you know, trying to be perfect all the time. And it's thinking that change is the only way you can do that. And we're entering the season right now of very confident people selling you very generic things about being perfect. So when you, you know, really step back and look at all these episodes together, you see that this same kind of advice shows up over and over, Just dressed up differently. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And also JB real quick, it's not just from people one on one. Like, get on your social media feed right now for the last two weeks and you'll see all those six pack abs telling you about how to resolve to change yourself. Right? I mean, we, we get it from all directions, right? [00:05:56] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's everywhere now. Change better. You're, you're not good. Do this. Take this. Snake oil salesmen are everywhere in the world now with all of these products and these things. You're like, okay, maybe I do need that. And that's the kind of different types of resolutions and cliches that we've got. You know, you have your safe kind of advice, the ones that are supposed protects you from risk. You know, our episodes, like, you know, charge the going rate and don't go into advertising and Roy Keely's go to college. It will change your life. You know, it's advice built around like minimizing regret, but not maximizing your fulfillment. And that's what shows up every January as resolutions playing as like a smart and realistic kind of goal. You know, we had the, the hard and fast, which is, you know, like you said, the don't do this, don't quit, black and white. You know, you know, time heals all wounds and eat less, exercise more, say no to drugs. Like these are, you know, things. When on the surface you're like, okay, got it, black and white, do this, do this. But again, it's not leaving room for that nuance and the things and why they're so hard to, to do and why people fail these, you know, in January 14th, they're out. And then we have our last sort of like kind of category of the strong but simple. You know, they, that ignore context where they're identity based. You know, the kind that tells you like, how to succeed. You know, you should be the expert, you degree to be somebody. Hard work speaks for itself. He's like, here's how to do you in the best way. And it's. Again, sounds great. But then I. If it was so great, I don't think we'd have so many guests coming on our show talking about the worst advice they ever got. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It feels clean and confident, but it falls apart the moment real life shows up. Right. I mean, and that's. That's what we've heard from a lot of these episodes that, you know, you just referenced. Right. And. And it feels like this all. It's kind of culminating into this whole topic of New Year's resolutions or New Year's advice. Right. And so this kind of brings us to our unofficial list of classic New Year's advice you might want to take lightly or, I don't know, ignore altogether. But you'll hear this everywhere, right? New. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. We were like. We were talking about how we wanted to do this New Year's episode. We want to have somebody on. You want to talk about them. And then sort of found ourselves writing down what could they talk about? And the thing we have a kind of a cool list is like, hey, let's just share the list with the people. What we think you would have heard if we had only. I mean. And honestly, feels like we could do a whole season just on New Year's resolutions. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, without a doubt. [00:08:39] Speaker A: I. [00:08:39] Speaker B: As I stop and look at, you know, the list we pull together here, I guarantee you somebody out there could just, you know, be a guest, show up and say, this is the worst advice I ever got. One of the. Sure. [00:08:53] Speaker A: We could give it to them. We could say, hey, how many times has someone said new Year, new you to you? Or you said to yourself, go, maybe I got it. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a perfect one to start with. Jb, New Year, new you. I. I don't even know where to begin with that one. Right. It's like, it's. It's almost like you're a battery replacement or something like that. Sure. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Again, you know, replacing everything about, like, you. Like, you are bad. Change this. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's kind of the same thing on the day, but, like, this is the year everything changes. You know what I mean? It's just these big, grand. Like, I'm gonna do, like, everything. Like, this is my year. And just again, that January 1st fresh start thing that people think that they. They need and have is just like. Is crazy. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Thematically, I think both of those are basically saying, investigate what's wrong with you and fix it. Right. Which. That seems massively depressing to me. So Maybe you want to avoid those two. How about this one? Set massive goals for yourself or don't bother. [00:10:00] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, that's a good. [00:10:02] Speaker B: Just. [00:10:02] Speaker A: It's got to be. I want. I want to lose a hundred pounds. Like, how about. I wanna. How about I just wanna. I wanna exercise a little bit more, you know what I mean? Like, why does everything have to be so aggressive, like, with it? [00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Zero to a thousand, right? Because, you know, you've consistently been batting like 100. Now all of a sudden you think you're gonna hit, you know, 400. No. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Right? Not. [00:10:23] Speaker B: You're not gonna do that. And, you know, you know, this. [00:10:26] Speaker A: This whole kind of idea, like, you've missed one day, you failed. And that's why people give up on their resolutions by January 14, because it's like you've made your. Given yourself an impossible goal. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this, again, aligns a little bit with that, you know, like, seeking perfection. If you miss one day, you failed, Right? [00:10:46] Speaker A: If you. [00:10:46] Speaker B: If you miss one day, you failed. Man, that is. Again, there's no room for just being good to yourself. You know, it's just. It's. It's almost set for failure. Right? Which I think that's the theme of most resolutions, right. We set these things up, which are so different than we've been doing, and we Wonder why by February 1st, it's a distant memory what our damn resolution was even in the first place. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the ones, too, are in, like, the denial of the thing, you know, Cut out anything that brings you some sort of, like, happiness that is bad. That is, quote, unquote, bad for you. Ends up being, you know, an impossible task. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we put that on the list. Cut out everything you enjoy. Oh, okay. Well, that makes 2026 exciting. Like, no, Right. [00:11:35] Speaker A: This one, the next one, wake up at 5:00am you know, and I hear this all the time, like, all the good. You know, Take a cold shower, wake up at 5am do the thing, you do that. Then you just don't. One weekend you're like, oh, I sleep in. And now it's over. [00:11:46] Speaker B: You know, black and white, couple more that, you know, we thought of. Don't look back, only move forward. That's, first of all, very generic. But second of all, I think it goes counter to the whole spirit of this show. The worst advice I ever got, looking back means maybe investigating where things went wrong. This resolution to don't look back, only move forward, I think basically forces you to. To ignore all the things you could learn from looking back. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Right. And that only, you know what I mean, again, this hard, like, almost never, always, you know, that's what all we find with all of our worst advice, you know, and this one, actually, I keep hearing this, like, around, but it's like, you know, you are born alone, you die alone. It's like if you want to get anywhere in this life, you got to do it alone. And though that's just, you know, I don't like it. [00:12:41] Speaker B: Rely more on yourself than others is what it's essentially saying and. Right. [00:12:46] Speaker A: In a way yet, I guess, but cuts out other people helping you at all. I mean, like, how many times have we talked to somebody on the show who saw, like my mentor and my dad, you know, even people that gave them the worst advice, they went back to the, you know, the well of this person and they had other knowledge and other things. Like, trying to do every single thing yourself is insane. So if you hear any of those or you're telling yourself any of those, maybe give yourself a little bit of grace or you're going to end up on this show. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Every one of those sounds motivating. Until about January 14th, right? [00:13:17] Speaker A: It sounds all right. [00:13:18] Speaker B: Yeah. The truth is, really, change usually feels, looks, sounds quieter than that. It's smaller. It involves adjusting instead of. Of restarting. Right. It doesn't involve a full reset. It just involves tweaking and adjusting, forgiving yourself when you don't get it right. Which brings us ultimately to the part we care about the most, which is being thankful to you. This is not New Year's advice. This is New Year's appreciation. Right? To everyone who's listened, shared an episode, sent a message, or told a friend about this show. You've let us sit with you in your car, in your earbuds, on your walk, at your desk, or wherever you listen. And that's something that we will never take lightly. The show really only exists because people, you were willing to be honest about your missteps and because you were willing to listen to the missteps of others and relate them to your own life and relate them to the lives of your friends and your family members that you knew could benefit from it. So as we head into the new year, we'll leave you with our own resolutions. Mine's pretty simple. I want to keep the lights on. I want the show to keep going, to keep being a place where people can talk honestly about the advice that shaped them and the lessons that came after that. [00:14:41] Speaker A: JB yeah, mine's very simple. As well keep finding new and interesting guests who shine new light on the worst advice they ever got. You know, from different backgrounds and different industries, different stories, always keeping it honest. So if we reach out to you, it's because we value you and your opinion and we really want you to be on the show to keep guests listening. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, that's very interesting, JB if. If you think about, you know, our own resolutions there, mine and yours, what we're both really kind of saying is we're not changing anything, trying to improve anything. We're doubling down on this podcast. We're doubling down on what's worked. And we can only do that because everyone that's listening. Right. So we're grateful you're here with us as we head into another year of conversations, of lessons and stories that matter. So thanks for listening, thanks for sticking with us, and as always, we'll see you next time on the Worst Advice I Ever Got.