In this episode of Useful Not Famous, Amara Andrew and Jeff Sarris delve into the concept of becoming the best in the world at what you do, drawing inspiration from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. They discuss the importance of continuous improvement, redefining your goals, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. The conversation covers a range of topics, including the necessity of hard work, competing with yourself, the satisfaction that comes from doing what you love, and learning from notable examples like Michael Jordan and Taylor Swift. They also touch on the broader idea that everyone has a unique form of genius, which can be harnessed by focusing on what truly fulfills you. Join them as they explore the mindset and strategies needed to achieve greatness in whatever you do.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome Back
00:30 Discussing Naval Ravikant’s Wisdom
00:57 Reflecting on Past Podcast Episodes
01:24 The Journey to Becoming the Best
02:44 Competing with Yourself
05:07 The Importance of Hard Work
11:21 Focusing on the Right Questions
14:22 Living in the Present
18:52 Finding Fulfillment in Non-Work Activities
20:25 Redefining Creativity and Artistic Identity
23:04 Different Types of Genius
24:08 The Importance of Passion in Avoiding Burnout
26:48 The Role of Hard Work and Practice in Success
28:36 Taylor Swift: A Case Study in Reinvention
30:39 Balancing Passion and Practicality
37:08 The Magic of Mastery and Practice
40:36 Podcast Updates and Future Plans

Amara Andrew: Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. Hey, explorers, welcome back to the Useful Not Famous. Uh, nope. Welcome back to Welcome Back to Useful Not Famous. The show where we explore the topics we find most interesting and strive to be the most useful people.

You know, I’m Amara, tongue tied Andrew.

Jeff Sarris: And I’m Jeff Sarris. And this has been, uh, we’re like five weeks, uh, delayed time goes Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Amara Andrew: Quite a hiatus. It is, uh, we have much to unpack and talk about. It was so much. But first that quote was from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. And it’s a compilation of Naval’s tweets.

You put me onto it. It was compiled by Eric Jorgensen and Tim Ferriss. Tell me

Jeff Sarris: one more time. Oh yeah. One, Tim Ferriss wrote the foreword, but the Eric Guy, uh, compiled it all

Amara Andrew: Foreword Workweek. That was a very niche joke. Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.

Jeff Sarris: So we have a really, really, really early episode of our podcast. It wasn’t called Useful Not Famous, I think it was maybe called, What is MAVEN at that point? Or was

Amara Andrew: it Side Hustle Saturday? So it

Jeff Sarris: wasn’t from that one. Okay. But it was about the, we’ve had many shows. It was about the Iron law of stardom.

Amara Andrew: Oh yeah.

That was the What is MAVEN podcast and then.

Jeff Sarris: It might be like episode two or three. I feel like it’s three. I have that in the back of my mind, but it’s, I was gonna say three also. This ties into that idea. Mm-hmm. So tell me what you think about this.

Amara Andrew: I have a lot to think about it. It, well, obviously I highlighted it because I thought it was something very interesting.

So I guess just unpacking what it means to be the best. In the world at what you do, and obviously there are always gonna be people that are better than you or maybe not as good as you, because we all have different skill sets and what we can apply, but essentially it’s like to make it cheesy, like just keep doing your best and keep getting better every day.

But that is true. Like that’s how people become successful. How they become something is you put in your 10,000 hours or your whatever, like. 10,000 hours, obviously not literally it could be, but just putting in as much work and effort as possible as you can into trying to be the best at whatever it is that you do, then you become the greatest.

Well,

Jeff Sarris: and I think the important part too, not to gloss over is the keep changing that until it’s true. Yes. So like you’re still doing more, but you’re adjusting. So you said there’s always gonna be someone better than you. And it’s like world class is a like rarefied error of people. Mm-hmm. And there is a, but then

Amara Andrew: even dissecting, why, how is that person performing better and how can I get to that level?

Or what can I do different? Or like crank it up to a thousand. Well, and

Jeff Sarris: that’s the thing is like you have to have people to compete with. Mm-hmm. Above you. Yeah. Then what happens when you’re at the top? I know this is, it’s taking it on a little like side hustle on a little, a slight tangent. But I think it’s interesting to think about we, we don’t like having someone better than us.

Amara Andrew: Yes. But you’re competitive. Well,

Jeff Sarris: yeah. Yeah. We’re, we’re assuming competitiveness. That’s what we arem Glad. Well, yeah. If you’re listening to this podcast, I glad you

Amara Andrew: said that You’re podcast, you’re competitive just like us.

Jeff Sarris: Um. So you need someone to strive to like make you better. But you have the world class athletes like a Michael Jordan who didn’t as much have the people above him that were better at a, by a certain point in his career, he was the pinnacle that everyone strove for, like the pinnacle of, we’re playing against Michael Jordan.

I don’t perform as well because I’m thinking that I’m playing against Michael Jordan like it is. Not even that he stopped you from performing, but you’re so caught up in he’s way up here. Yeah, and there’s the whole book Relentless, that’s about Jordan and Kobe, and it’s not a basketball book, but it’s about being relentless and what it takes to strive for greatness and it’s.

They end up competing with themselves and making it harder on themselves to show that they can succeed even when everything’s stacked against them and mm-hmm. Jordan didn’t do this, but he had the flu, the really, really bad flu one game, and it’s known now as the flu game because he played so amazingly well when he was deathly ill.

But it was a challenge for him because that was another like, Ooh, this is a hurdle to get across.

Amara Andrew: And I think that’s something interesting about having people getting in their head about playing Michael Jordan. Like, holy shit, I’m playing Michael Jordan. And instead, you should take that mental energy and put it before and just work that you can always work harder, is my thought.

And that’s sort of how we live our lives is yes, you’re working hard right now. But if you’re saying that you’re working hard right now, you’re not working hard enough because that’s almost, that’s giving yourself grace, but not helpfully where you’re, you

Jeff Sarris: have time to say you’re working hard.

Amara Andrew: Exactly. And you had the moment to stop and be like, wow, I am a hard worker.

Like, if you’re actually working hard, you don’t have the time. And I didn’t, I never even thought of thinking like that until I heard somebody say it. Like, I work very hard. And I was like. Oh, it caught me off guard. And maybe it’s just because I try to be very humble, which maybe that sounds ridiculous now in this context, but it just, it caught me so off guard.

’cause I was like, if you are thinking that you’re working hard, then you’re also not enjoying what you’re doing because you shouldn’t even think of it as work. It can be work, but if, I don’t know, it feels like almost like you need the congratulations, the self congratulations. Yes. So that you’re just like, look at me.

I’m a hard little worker, da da da da.

Jeff Sarris: I think,

Amara Andrew: and you should celebrate your wins. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. Yeah. But if you’re,

Jeff Sarris: I wanna add just one thing though. What you just just said was, if you’re thinking, you work hard. I think thinking versus knowing is what we’re talking about. Yeah. Like we know that we work hard.

We’re not talking about that. ’cause that’s not even an, like, we’re talking about it now because this is a meta conversation. Mm-hmm. But we don’t talk about working hard. People tell us we work hard. Yeah, exactly. I didn’t even think about it. People

Amara Andrew: were like, oh, you work really hard. And I was like, I do.

Jeff Sarris: Well, you know, though that I feel like that’s your, uh, sort of self-deprecating, like, oh really? Like, but you know it deep down.

Amara Andrew: But like, I didn’t even think about it, I guess is what I mean. Yeah. Where that’s what I meant. I know I do. ’cause like it’s not by accident. I’m working all day every day. But having somebody be like, oh, you work really hard.

I was like, oh, I didn’t even think about it. I was just doing the things that I really wanted to do. So,

Jeff Sarris: yeah, and I think that’s the big difference is there’s a quote from Pavel that I think is really fun. Pavel’s the guy who brought the kettlebells to the US and like he is a, he’s a Russian, yeah, a Russian.

Sort of, not bodybuilder, but strength builder. He’s done this for decades. He like knows what it takes. And this quote always got me, but he’s just like, if you’re wondering, if you are strong, you’re not, because like you don’t, you don’t wonder like, oh, if I can lift this, does that make me strong? You lift it.

Exactly. If you’re wondering about it. Keep going because you’re not there yet, because you’re still curious like what’s the threshold where I can say I am strong?

Amara Andrew: And it’s along the lines, like along that same principle, this extends to everything in your life. If it’s like, oh, okay, well I can, yeah, I can lift this 25 pound weight or whatever, like super easily.

Yeah, I must be strong or I must be building muscle. No, you keep increasing your weight. So that it’s heavier and heavier. So then you’re just, you’re building muscle. Like you’re not thinking, oh, I’m building muscle. It’s, I dunno, I’m not making sense right now. No, you’re

Jeff Sarris: competing with yourself.

Amara Andrew: Yeah. And I find that to be so much more fun than not.

’cause if you’re competing with other people, that isn’t even remotely the same thing. But if you’re competing with yourself and trying to make yourself better and better every day. I think that’s the most worthy opponent that you could have. And you just, you feel so much better when you beat yourself versus beating anybody else.

Beat yourself if you’re a guy.

Jeff Sarris: Um,

it’s so hard because I know there’s people who aren’t competitive and that’s fine. Who want results. Like, like people desperately want results, like more, almost. You could say the bulk of people want results but don’t want the work. Mm-hmm. Where I feel like there’s a select group who the work is the result.

Like you get the thing because of all the hard work. And the hard work is what makes you satisfied. Like it’s a

Amara Andrew: similar type of person who only wants the score of the game, but doesn’t wanna see the entire game. And see,

Jeff Sarris: that drives me nuts. Not drives me nuts, but I can’t understand that.

Amara Andrew: Exactly, because don’t you wanna see exactly how you got there and what happened?

Because that’s, that’s the whole point of it. It’s not the end score. That’s the destination. That’s just the byproduct of either playing a really good game or maybe needing to refine your strategy a little bit. As a Bears fan, Jeff, you know that I said your name. That’s all weird. We don’t see each other’s face.

I don’t know you, you as a Bears fan, you know that all too well.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. I mean the team has been very bad for most of my life, but it’s, I’m there to watch it and I want them to win. Exactly. That’s the only thing I watch. The only sport, the only like sort of the only pure entertainment. Mm-hmm. I’m just like in it.

But this season, or I only have a coach Uhhuh,

Amara Andrew: but like it’s about the entire journey of it. So you’re not just there to be like, oh, okay, well I hope they won. Doesn’t matter, care if matter as

Jeff Sarris: much. They lost last night. We’re recording this Monday, the day we’re gonna post it. They lost last night to the 49 ERs in what might be the greatest game of the last decade, if not like all time Uhhuh, like I know that’s a huge leap is so many great games, but that was a like an offensive struggle back and forth.

Every single drive that was. Insane. Like, it’s so crazy how that whole game went. It’s the first time in regular season history that the score has been tied. 7, 7, 14, 14. 21, 21, 28, 28, and then 35 35. Mm-hmm. It was just a boxing match. Just wild back and forth the whole time. Yeah. But anyway, it’s, there’s the, there are the different parts of being competitive and there’s people who aren’t and that’s fine.

Mm-hmm. Everyone has their own thing. I don’t understand. That like not being competitive. And that’s why we get along. ’cause we’re very similarly competitive

Amara Andrew: and it’s asking the wrong questions too. Like, well what’s the score? Not, well, what happened throughout the game? Like, this just makes me think of what I just read in my, uh, Buddhism book this morning.

That little parable of, I’ll just recap it super briefly, but this guy. So Buddha, you’ve heard of him also. It

Jeff Sarris: doesn’t have to be briefly. We’re here to talk.

Amara Andrew: No, I know, but I don’t want it to drone on and on. Um, so Buddha, this is like very early days. Obviously Buddha is sitting with his disciples and one of the disciples goes up to Buddha and he’s like, Hey.

I am following you up, dog. What’s up, man? Like your, like your duds. Nobody says duds, but he goes up to Buddha and he says, Hey, like, I’ve been following you for a while, but you still haven’t answered these 10 questions. And it’s like the questions of life, like does life exist? Is there an afterlife? Is there not?

Is there a reason for all this? Is there not? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then Buddha goes, okay, well I have a story for you. There’s a man in the forest and he gets shot with an arrow and all of the townspeople and the doctors come and rush and try to pull the arrow out of him. But the guy who got shot goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

What did the guy look like? Who shot me with the arrow? What does the arrow look like? What kind of bow strings were used? And Buddha is making a point that if you get shot with an arrow, you’re not asking all these ridiculous questions. You’re just like, just get it outta me. I don’t care. So you’re focusing on the wrong questions.

In life if you’re asking all these different things, and obviously this ties to Buddhism and having just a, a better life and a happier life and living actually a a way that’s more constructive for you now without focusing on things that maybe don’t even matter as much. ’cause if you’re focused on the right things and the things that matter, you wouldn’t be worried about all these other ancillary questions because that’s just a natural byproduct.

So that’s like. To tie it back to the original quote too, focusing on becoming the best in the world, whatever that means to you is so much more beneficial and helpful than focusing on all these other questions that might arise at the time that sort of lead you with stray and maybe don’t help you as much in becoming the best in whatever it is that you can be.

So, and the

Jeff Sarris: what it is, doesn’t matter. That’s the thing. It’s not become the best at X. It’s like just strive to be the best that you can be. And I think the important part there is the changing because I mean, say like you went to school for art history. Mm-hmm. If today, every day since school, you’ve been striving to be the best art historian.

You wouldn’t be actually fulfilling what you need inside. Yeah, because that changes like we change with time. Everything changes. Mm-hmm. There was, I don’t know if I had it saved. We talked about it and I felt like it was on here, but I know it wasn’t because it was, it’s been a bit since we recorded, but how, I wish I could remember where it was from, but life is today.

Mm-hmm. We’re born in the morning and we die at night. This is all that we have. And there’s something about like thinking about it that way, that how can we waste the entire life our entire life is right now, like it somehow changes. At least it changed how I was thinking about things in the moment.

Amara Andrew: I thought that was like a really beautiful idea.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. There is no, because

Amara Andrew: you’re not, you’re never guaranteed tomorrow. All you have is literally right now. So what are you doing right now that either brings you joy or makes you feel better, or helps get you to where you wanna be? Yeah. Instead of, instead of the wanting to be elsewhere, like how you were saying before where it’s like, well, I want the results, but I don’t wanna do the hard work.

It, it’s impossible. It’s physically impossible to have that. You have to do all the hard work. So figure out, okay, well what things can I do right now to set me up in the future? Not even a year from now, not even three years from now, not even five years from now, but 10 years down the road where I’ll be like, I’m so glad I did this.

I’m so glad I started this. Like this podcast, we don’t have a ton of listeners, but it’s something that we just enjoy doing even though we took a little bit of time off. But it’s a way for us to. Sort of talk through our ideas and reformulate things for us. And then we’re just recording it

Jeff Sarris: and it down like on the record because we don’t have anything on the record.

’cause we make everything for everyone else. Yeah. So it’s nice to have it. Mm-hmm. But sorry. No, no, no. Was, but yeah, just the

Amara Andrew: idea of like, you only have today. That’s it. Yeah.

Jeff Sarris: And I think that’s really powerful because it’s not even is what I’m. I would only push back. It’s not even as what I’m doing today, going to set me up for 10 years from now, but am I making the most of today in the way that matters most to me?

Right. And for me, like me myself on this microphone that is improving or creating something. Yeah, like we had Christmas just happened and the whole week, which is really rare, like for either of us, but like. Really for me, just because of how I sort of operate, I didn’t like make or like do or like accomplish anything for the whole week, basically.

Like there’s things that I’ve, like, there’s an email that I’ve been working on that’s a big,

Amara Andrew: it’s a big email. Yeah,

Jeff Sarris: it’s a big like sort of educational, this is why this is happening, performance da, da, da. So I’ve worked on that a couple times since last week, but. I haven’t completed anything, and that just like wears at me just with how I’m wired every day.

I like to achieve something. Mm-hmm. And it does, it’s not just like I answered all my emails. Like that’s not anything that’s, there’s no satisfaction. Like I will answer all of them, but Oh

Amara Andrew: yeah. That’s a byproduct of what you do or the emails that isn’t the end result or the end goal. Yeah. It’s

Jeff Sarris: the creativity.

Mm-hmm. It’s like every, everyone is an artist. Not a capital A artist as in like, I have a paintbrush and I paint. Like I, we’ve talked about it a lot. I never know if it’s on the podcast or separately. ’cause we have these conversations all the time. Like this is literally how we talk in real life. It’s just slightly different.

It’s just sometimes

Amara Andrew: we sit down and put our cameras out.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. It’s a little more, um, exposition. Is that the word? I don’t even know.

Amara Andrew: Well, it’s a little more formulated, I guess. Yeah. We’re not like

Jeff Sarris: just talking. Sort of your turn. My turn. I have

Amara Andrew: way less expletives on this. I’ll say,

Jeff Sarris: um, oh no. What was I just gonna say?

Amara Andrew: You don’t remember if it was on the podcast or if it was us talking?

Jeff Sarris: What did I say right before that? Oh no.

Amara Andrew: Uh, roll the tape. There is no tape to roll. It’s. We were saying, oh shit,

I hate when those happens. That’s, I hate when this happens on other podcasts that I listen to. I feel like it

Jeff Sarris: doesn’t happen much on here. Like we’re normally, like on the rails. I think there’s too many things. Okay, so, oh,

Amara Andrew: uh, taking time off. You like to accomplish things?

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. So the satisfaction of

Amara Andrew: answering emails.

You’re writing an email performance email. People listening are just like, it’s a fucking mess. I know that’s right there. Like,

Jeff Sarris: um, but yeah, email isn’t satisfying. What is, I like to achieve something. So if you don’t

Amara Andrew: accomplish something for a while, you don’t feel good.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah.

Amara Andrew: I actually have the opposite, uh, feeling

Jeff Sarris: really uhhuh.

Amara Andrew: I actually, I feel. Good having the last few days off because I think, I feel like I accomplished something every day because we had my dad in from out of town and I had everything like planned out. I booked everything. Like I’m, I’m the planner extraordinaire and then like planning, like the meals and all the things.

I feel like I accomplished something because I did all that, even though it wasn’t work related. I think it, it. This sounds so stupid, but it filled my soul in a different way, even though it was a lot going on and maybe a little frustrating at times, but that gave me satisfaction. Now, I didn’t push my goals or anything forward for the next 10 years or whatever, but I do feel good and I feel like I was able to slow my brain down a little bit, which is actually really helpful for me.

So I didn’t accomplish things in the way that I typically do. But I actually think I’m able to think clearer now by taking that little break. It’s like when we went to Miami in May when I was just like so not myself. That really helped just sort of shift everything for me and helped my brain, I dunno.

I’m enjoying taking little breaks here and there. But then now today, I’m, I mean, we’re recording our podcast. I’m ready to do 700 things because I just, I feel so energized from it. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Sarris: And I did remember. Okay, good. I know it was hard. ’cause I’m like, okay, I know what I’m saying. So Capital A art. Yes.

There you go. Artist. So that was, was, and I don’t mean to like take you away from that, but I just wanted to say the one thing, the I, we’ve had this conversation a lot, but in my opinion. It, it helps that I’m like, I’m sort of describing us, but in my opinion, the most creative, the most, the most creative artists period, almost no one would call an artist because we think of Capital A art as someone who paints, they write, they draw, they do all of these things, but their creativity is very narrow.

And this is not to take away from the cap. I’m saying capital A artist because. You generally? Yeah, because

Amara Andrew: if you say artist, I would only think, yeah, Picasso like paint, brush art.

Jeff Sarris: You don’t, yeah. You don’t necessarily think Elon Musk. Mm-hmm. Like when I say if I would say artist, but arguably he is phenomenally more creative than any narrow artist.

Like if someone is a painter, an illustrator, they’re very creative in what they do. But if they ha, and I’m not saying across the board, but when someone is telling themselves, I’m an artist, I need to x. They’re satisfying this identity of being an artist, but I don’t think you’re an artist until you’re able to creatively do what you want to do and get the outcomes you need to survive.

So like the artist we know survived, they, everyone has to make money. Everyone has to eat and sleep somewhere, and like you need the things that you need. Who does that the best? Are generally the most creative people, like the best artists, the artistry of what they do. Mm-hmm. I would say is better than narrow.

Capital A art, I think, or powerful I guess, or uh, it helps more.

Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, as somebody who has studied art for a long time. The more I’m out in sort of like the real world, or not just in the art world, like, ’cause I was only ever around artists, capital A artists, so like musicians and visual, all the arts that you would think of like performing, visual, uh, whatever the fuck else.

Like all those types of arts. Now, being in the real world though, and meeting so many different people, I think everybody. Like everybody, truly, everybody on this planet is creative and is an artist, but like you said, it’s very different types of arts. So like. My uncle Jim would always say this, and he was a Harvard professor, so nuts beyond belief.

But, uh, he was very, very smart. And he said that there were different types of genius, and that’s always stuck with me. Like there are people who are social geniuses, so those are people who can talk to anybody in the world. And granted, these are all skill sets that you can learn. Uh, but like some people have sort of a natural proclivity towards certain things.

Where they just work really hard on making it so there’s social geniuses. So these are people that are really good at talking to people and making them feel seen, feel heard, and by your product. So these could be salespeople or these could be therapists, or it could be whatever. But that’s more of the, the social genius.

And then there is the analytical genius. I’m not gonna go through all the geniuses, but there are a few different types. And so like Elon Musk. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a genius, whatever you think or feel about him, like you cannot argue that like he is an artist with everything he’s created hands down, and we all have that in us.

It’s just finding, maybe that’s what burnout is, is it’s not playing into your genius or. Sort of art you should be creating. And it’s going for what you see as sort of the easy route to make money, which spoiler alert, there is none. And if somebody’s selling you that they are, that is what they’re selling you, and you’re buying their product and you’re making them wealthy, not yourself.

Uh, there is no way, there’s no easy way to make money. I forgot where I was going with that. So should, you’re not, oh, burnout,

Jeff Sarris: you’re doing the thing you think you should be doing, rather than the thing that actually satisfies. Your innate, I’m, I’m saying character, but that’s not the right word, but your makeup of who you are.

Yeah. Like that’s the thing. You’re fighting against it. Yeah. That’s the thing that has, you feel satisfied. Mm-hmm. Like if you’re doing something you love, you can’t burn out. Exactly. It’s like by definition, you just can’t burn out of fulfilling your internal needs. Mm-hmm. There’s no way to burn out on doing that.

Amara Andrew: Yeah. Like I’ve learned in this past like month or so, I really love performing on camera no matter what it is. Like I like sharing things with people and building that and like teaching people things like I very much enjoy that I’ve learned versus maybe some other things that I’ve done or have been doing that don’t fulfill me as much.

So instead of trying to. Work against that. I need to work into it and play into it and build that up even more. That leaves me feeling so fulfilled more than I think anything I’ve done very recently. Um, oh, sorry. No, that’s alright. I thought you were gonna say something. Sorry. Sorry. Not sorry. But just finding those different things like your, what you love to do is help people with strategy and building their businesses like that gets you so excited.

And as soon as somebody problem solving, as soon as somebody is talking about, oh, I wanna do this, you’re like, tell me more. What do you wanna do? You like levitate in your chair. And I love watching that. And it’s always so funny when I know somebody’s gonna say something like that. You’re like, go on.

’cause you’re just. I dunno, that’s, that’s your art is building things that make money for people or just building businesses in general? Problem

Jeff Sarris: solving overall. Yeah. That’s the like really, really like first principles thing is solving a problem. Mm-hmm. Gimme any problem. Make it difficult. And that’s, yeah.

You love that you said skills, like building skills and I think that’s the confusion when it comes to the capital A artist. It’s like, I. I’m not an artist because I can’t paint, and it’s like, do you know how someone learned how to paint? They painted? It’s only a skill. There is no, no one innately is a painter.

No one innately is a singer. They might have a, an easier on our ears. Their voice might sound better naturally, like maybe just how they speak. There might be a musicality to it. But they weren’t born a singer. It’s a skill that they’ve refined over time. And you, you saying sort of like going to the thing that satisfies you and like doing that, it’s uh.

It would be better to have a, a newer reference. Um, so like the person who I heard say this, they used Usain Bolt, who was the fastest man alive. He like in the Olympics. Like he just was so much better than everyone else and they’re like genetically. There’s at least one, if not dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people who are exactly genetically predisposed to be as fast or faster than Usain Bolt.

But he worked at it. Exactly. So there’s someone sitting on their couch watching him in the Olympics eating Doritos and donuts weigh in way too much. No muscle. Like they, they’ve never refined any of this, but if they did. They would’ve been if they did what he did. They’re genetically predisposed to be that.

Mm-hmm. And I think that’s the like odd thing. It’s hard to sort of comprehend.

Amara Andrew: Well, and we just watched the Taylor Swift documentary that’s been out for a hundred years and it’s um,

Jeff Sarris: um, miss Americana. Yeah, miss Americana. It’s on Netflix from 2020. Well,

Amara Andrew: you had watched it before. Yeah, it’s on Netflix. 2020 is when it came out and we’re finally watching it, uh, almost in 2026, or me?

You had already watched it. I found that so fascinating. Like, I mean obviously it wasn’t fascinating for the ways that other people would find it. Fascinating, but I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. Okay. Let me break it down. ’cause like, it’s not the fame as much, it’s the constantly working and improving.

Like the one part that I really loved was. Taylor was waiting to hear back from the Grammy committee when they let you know, oh, you’re gonna be nominated for this, or blah, blah, blah. And she gets the phone call and she’s been very nervous. You can just like see it in her body language and she gets the phone call and the person, which obviously this is a brilliant setup for the whole story, but she, Taylor hears from the person and she says, you are not nominated for album of the year.

I, I think that’s what it was. And. Taylor was crushed and she’s being recorded too. So obviously you feel the pressure of like, uh, obviously she’s used to it, to it. I think it was

Jeff Sarris: her own phone though, so it wasn’t like a, it wasn’t the film. Yeah. So it felt like a real moment.

Amara Andrew: Yeah, but she heard that and her first thing was like, okay, I need to make a better album.

Whether that was performative or not. I love that thought process of like, okay, yeah, I didn’t get to this. Point where people would actually be like, no, this was the album of the year. ’cause she had won it x amount of years before, but something about that album didn’t resonate with whatever or whoever.

So she’s like, okay, it’s the problem solving. It’s like, how do I fix it for next year so then I can be at least nominated whether or not you win, but be in that like select four people out of billions of people in the world to get nominated for that honor. So, I dunno, I just, I really liked that. Drive, I think too, because lately I’ve been trying to think about what I’ve been, what I am passionate about.

’cause I love to work on things like I love doing stuff and pushing things and making things happen, and making them a reality. But to be fully honest, like I have felt a little lost. Like, well, where do I want to go and what do I actually wanna talk about? Because there are things I can talk about and teach people.

It sounds bad, but I don’t really care to like, that’s not what brings me joy and what I like to do, because then also what am I hoping is the outcome, which again, you can’t do things for an objective, but it’s just stuff that doesn’t bring me joy. It makes me feel bad.

Jeff Sarris: I think that’s the thing is if you’re doing it with an outcome in mind.

More than likely, that’s not what you should be doing. Yeah. As, as in like the thing that fulfills you. Because if there’s an any objective, that is one of the reasons, if not the loan reason you’re doing it. Mm-hmm. And that becomes a problem, I think also.

Amara Andrew: And that would be the loan reason is to get more business, to get more clients.

And it’s like, well, that’s not the right thing then.

Jeff Sarris: Well, and I think the challenging spot that you’re in is you have. Just let me say it. I know you’re gonna be like, no, no, no. But you’ve achieved world class in the things you’re doing in a very

specific way, like I always have. You’ve achieved it though. You don’t. You can, you can compete with yourself to get 1% better, half a percent, but like you can compete there, but that’s no longer satisfying because the. The differing outcomes for getting 1% or half a percent, or one 10th of a percent better than you are at these things doesn’t change anything.

It’s not satisfying. ’cause you’re just, you’re getting this little tiny, you’re moving this little piece of sand and like, Ooh, that’s better. So now it’s like, what’s the new problem to solve? So it’s not as fun to be doing it. As it was when you were new and it’s like, I’m doing this, I’m learning, I’m growing.

But you get to a point that it’s like, okay, now, like the quote at the beginning, the changing world class, and keep changing until you are, maybe it’s also and change when you are, like, you get to a point and you’re, you’re like, well, I’ve done what I can here. The iron law of stardom, like reinvention and all these things, which tailor shows a great example of reinvention.

Amara Andrew: Like truly. But

Jeff Sarris: it’s like, I’ve done what I can here, but I wanna do so much more. It’s not that I need to attain or achieve more, it’s just like it made me feel good to get here, but I, this is it. Now if I go here, oh, there’s like more that I can do.

Amara Andrew: I think, I feel that with a lot of people we’ve talked to, like over the course of like the year or two years, whatever, people who are sort of operating in a business that maybe.

They don’t need to anymore. Or maybe it was exciting at one point and now you need to sort of dip your toe in something else. And it’s like the, and this isn’t throwing shade or anything, but it’s like it’s the seeking of something new. When in reality the business is gonna be very mundane and it is gonna be slow.

And maybe not what you want. Exactly. And maybe the problem isn’t. With your business. Maybe it’s that you’re doing the wrong business or maybe that you need to evolve a little bit and figure out sort of what fulfills you. ’cause I think a lot of people are doing things with the objective of money.

Basically everybody is, like you do need money. That is base level, like 101. Like you need money for things, but that shouldn’t be the only thing that you’re going for necessarily, like you do need. To do things that fulfill you? I think so. I dunno, that’s just speaking.

Do you think where I’m at? I know,

Jeff Sarris: but it is, it’s, I think that’s the most important part.

Amara Andrew: Yeah. Well and it sounds so naive because it’s like, well yeah, that sounds great and all like live love what you live. That was, uh, the college I went to. That was their slogan when I went there. It was Love what you live and or No.

Live What you love. Yeah. It was live, whatever the fuck it was, made quite an impact. No, it was like, live your passion or live what you love. And it’s like, oh yeah, that sounds cool and all, but if I’m a ballet dancer, how am I gonna make money? But it’s like, you can actually make that work if you’re smart and if you’re doing all the right things.

Like, I mean, not to toot my own horn, but people would literally, I know this sounds so stupid, but like I went to school full time. I worked almost full-time, and I interned part-time and I commuted. Four hours each day into the city to go to school and to do my internship. And then I would come home and then go to work, and then go to bed and then wake up and do it all over again the next day.

And then

Jeff Sarris: you did work full-time, just not, ’cause you said almost full-time, but Yeah.

Amara Andrew: Well, yeah, it wasn’t like an actual full-time job, but I did work full-time. I

Jeff Sarris: mean like yeah, how you evolved, like after that then you worked full-time. But like I’m talking about

Amara Andrew: in the moment, I worked full time in additional, all these different things and then people would literally be, and I would do my homework and like get everything done and people would be like.

How are you so much better at Italian than me? And it’s like, well, what did you do this weekend? What were you doing? And they’re like, they had literally just told me, oh, I went to this party and then I went and did this. And then I was just like sitting there twirling my hair and I’m like, oh yeah, fuck face.

Like I didn’t do that. I worked very hard to get to this point so I could be like basically fluent in. Entry level Italian, but it was like wanting to do those things and like just trying to continuously improve. Like I was the best in all my classes because I worked very hard at it. It wasn’t just an accident like, oh my God, I’m a genius.

But people would literally ask me like, how do you know all this? And it’s like. Yeah, I work at it. I don’t show you, but I work at it very hard. So I dunno. That just always irritates me when it’s like we can all do the same thing. We all have the same number of hours in the day and yeah, you have different responsibilities that you need to do, but you can still make it work.

It’s just choosing not to which everything is a choice. You Exactly. You just don’t want it. Exactly. Like I wanted to know Italian because I had, I wanted to be a spy. Like I wanted to be a spy, so that’s not gonna happen anymore. I wanted

Jeff Sarris: to.

And I’ve brought it up before, but teller from pen and teller, that’s this whole thing. Like magic is just doing something, practicing something longer than anyone else thinks is reasonably possible.

Amara Andrew: Exactly. And

Jeff Sarris: like their greatest tricks that people, their illusions, that people just don’t understand.

He’s very honest that you just don’t understand it because you didn’t practice it for 10 years before you ever performed it. Mm-hmm. And it’s like, and I think that’s like the bullet catch, like they’re, one of their big things is pen shoots teller with a bullet. It breaks glass and he touches it in his teeth.

That’s so cool. Now is that. Real? Is it an illusion? Is like, is he catching it in his teeth? Probably not, but maybe uhhuh like, and that sounds naive, but there’s so many things that they do that feel like magic and like other illusionists and all these things too. Sometimes it’s skill, like sometimes an immense amount of skill looks like magic.

’cause we can’t imagine that someone has the skill. Exactly. And like os

Amara Andrew: Yeah. No, go ahead.

Jeff Sarris: But like os Perlman Uhhuh, like it looks like he can read people’s minds. It feels like he can read their minds. That is

Amara Andrew: truly magic. Not that pen and teller aren’t magic, but that is like scary magic. Well, it

Jeff Sarris: feels more magical because he doesn’t have props.

Exactly. He has his brain and your brain and somehow it feels like he’s reading it

Amara Andrew: and you think your brain is a fortress and then it’s like, oh God, I’m just a slack jaw. Yoel.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And then some things are misdirection and they’re. Just purely illusions that other people do. And then there’s things where he understands.

He can tell how you’re thinking because he’s worked for decades, learning how people are thinking. Mm-hmm. And he can get to a point where it gives him enough data to then. Pull out the little bit more. He needs to know what you’re thinking.

Amara Andrew: Well, I’m like with Taylor Swift. I’m just gonna keep bringing it up because we just watched that.

Yeah, just y like I know nothing about her. Never been a swifty. I like the bracelets apparently, but I didn’t even know that was a swifty thing. Seeing the footage of her as a kid, like. Eight or 10 years old writing songs. And then people are like, how does she come up with these songs? How does she do this?

Because she’s literally been working at it for 10 years. Not like, oh, I’m gonna do this and do this. But just, you

Jeff Sarris: remember

Amara Andrew: literally doing it.

Jeff Sarris: Like when she had her first album, like the like sort of quote, meaning like, it was from an interview, they said like, oh, when did you write these songs? And she was 14 years old.

And she said, well, I’ve written over 150 songs. That’s what it was. And then these are the best ones.

Amara Andrew: And it’s like, yeah, you get all that practice in and you learn, excuse me, it’s, it’s literally just the 10,000 hours and just working at something, the same thing if it serves you for a very long time. And she hasn’t stayed country like she started.

She’s evolved into many different. Or I guess just one main genre, but many different styles and iterations of that one thing. So I don’t know, do it that whatever the fuck you will.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. I think this was a dread. This is a longer ’cause we haven’t been, we haven’t been on the mic for, and another thing on the mic.

But yeah, we’ll be, uh, we wanna stick to it more. We are back. So, um, but there’s so many things. I don’t wanna say we’re back, but we wanna get back on schedule recording. We’re back for this week because this is, uh, I don’t know. I enjoy this.

Amara Andrew: Oh. And we might be moving our. Uh, podcast.

Jeff Sarris: Oh yeah. The video version is probably gonna go to your YouTube channel.

Yeah, my personal channel, because that makes more sense.

Amara Andrew: Yeah. So Atara Andrew on YouTube. We’ll see.

Jeff Sarris: But yeah. Anyway. Okay. Thanks for listening, watching Smelling.

Amara Andrew: If something isn’t fulfilling you right now, go smell something else.

Jeff Sarris: Bye. See you next week.