In this episode of Useful Not Famous, Amara and Jeff explore the concept of desire and how it ties to unhappiness. They discuss whether happiness truly exists or is just a state of contentment and joy. They delve into how setting no specific objectives can lead to unexpected and fulfilling paths, using examples like Robert Greene’s journey to writing ‘The 48 Laws of Power.’ They also touch on the importance of continuous learning, especially through reading non-fiction, and how it can lead to personal and professional growth. Tune in to find out how exploring can lead to significant and unexpected successes!
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:23 Meet the Hosts: Amara and Jeff
00:49 Exploring the Concept of Desire
02:54 The Three Types of Fun
04:45 The Nature of Happiness
10:40 Desire and Unhappiness
12:23 Personal Reflections on Desire and Career
14:41 The Joy of Unexpected Freedom
15:51 Embracing the Unknown
16:10 The Power of Learning and Exploration
17:43 Introducing Hiveway: A New Framework
19:55 The Journey of Robert Green
25:49 The Importance of Continuous Learning
32:44 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Jeff Sarris: Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
When you stare at me, it just makes me laugh.
Amara Andrew: I was like, why are you giggling? Hey Explorers, welcome back to Useful Not Famous. This is a show where we explore topics that we find interesting and share them with you, uh, and strive to be the most useful people that you know or maybe don’t know.
Who are we? That’s the question for today. I’m Amara.
Jeff Sarris: I’m Jeff. Sarris. You don’t have a last name? Amara Andrzejewski.
Amara Andrew: Nope. I don’t need a last name. Okay. Yeah. Don’t tell people my real last name. That’s not your real last name. Your real last name is Andrew. I like to be hidden in the shadows. Nobody knows that I have a real last name.
Jeff Sarris: I mean, this is your real last name. This is a, this is a way to start…
But desire as a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
Amara Andrew: I feel like so many people. If, I feel like all of us struggle with that to some extent, where it’s like, well, I want this, but I can’t have it, so I’m just gonna be really upset.
Like, I want a bigger house, I want a better car. I want the whatever hunk down the street. Like, I want all these different, I don’t, I’m saying,
what’s that? I’m not, I don’t want any of these things. What is a hunk? A hunk. I meant it like a, a hunky hunk down the street. I’m just saying these are wants that people have. I don’t want any of these things. I have all the things that I need, but like there are certain things where I’m like, oh, that would be nice, or, oh, that would be cool.
And we all have that. But it is a fascinating idea because it is like, do you choose to be unhappy because of this? And then why? Like what is leading to that unhappiness? Is it the feeling of. Lack of fulfillment, like how do you get to that point
Jeff Sarris: on what is a desire?
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Like is a desire only filling only in in existence to fill a void?
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Desire is an interesting one because then it’s like, okay, well I desire to be happy. How do I assume that I’m gonna get there to happiness by having all of these material goods? But really it’s just. Having, so I guess, what would you say? ’cause to me, I tie desire to happiness and unhappiness, like, which I know is that quote Yeah.
Directly. Mm-hmm. Uh, so what, to you, what would you say is happiness? Like, is it a feeling? Is it a thought? Is it an emotion? Is it is very difficult to unpack and is happiness something that you can actually experience? Or is it. A, I don’t know. I’m getting in the weeds of my question.
Jeff Sarris: Is it like the three types of fun?
Exactly. We talked about the three types of fun being mostly two of them, but the third sort of so you can have fun looking forward to something you enjoy, planning you enjoy, like this is gonna happen in Yeah. That’s you For anyone not watching, but like enjoying the anticipation. That’s fun. And then there’s reflecting back on it, another type of fun.
So I enjoy. Talking about reminiscing, thinking about looking at the photos of what we did.
Amara Andrew: Like what did I literally just say to you on New Year’s Eve?
Jeff Sarris: There’s nothing to, oh, happy New Year, by the way. Yeah, yeah. We’ll say it.
Amara Andrew: Well, we didn’t have plans scheduled to go out. And I was just like, well, maybe we’ll just like hang in and just like keep it chill, whatever.
’cause we do a lot, we work a lot. My brain isn’t like working right now. I’m not making words. Make sense. So sorry. Uh, and then Jeff was just like, oh, well we could go out. Like, where would you wanna go? And then analysis paralysis, everything’s booked, all the reservations, blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, well, let’s just stay in.
Then he’s like, well, no, we should go out because you would like that. And I said to him. No, because part of the excitement for me is having something to look forward to during the day. So that’s part of the fun for me. I realized when he was like, oh, well, we can make a decision to go out right now. That’s not as much fun to me as like the planning of it and like, oh, we get to go here and we get to do this.
Like, it’s a, it’s a very weird phenomenon. I realized, mm-hmm. On New Year’s Eve where I was like, oh no, I actually don’t wanna go out. I just like the. Anticipation of what’s coming.
Jeff Sarris: And we knew this ’cause we’ve talked about this like years ago, I think on the show even. Yeah. On the, the three types of fun
Amara Andrew: different episode.
A different, a different version of the show, of
Jeff Sarris: our podcast. But yeah, the three types of fun being looking forward to looking back upon. But then our question is, is there even an immediate fun because can I be having fun? In the instant that it happened, because what I just said is the past already. So I can say this conversation was, is fun or has been fun, but is it currently fun or is it how I think about it being fun?
And I’m bringing this up only ’cause he said happiness.
Amara Andrew: I’m having fun with you right now. Okay, good.
Jeff Sarris: But then weird. Well, happiness is very, that’s a weird
Amara Andrew: because it’s fleeting, like it isn’t. I would argue it isn’t even real.
Jeff Sarris: Well, is it related to the three types of fun?
Amara Andrew: I don’t know. ’cause like I love Disneyland, but when I go I stress myself out because I wanna do all the things. Shout out with your face. But looking back, it is fun, but in the moment. Maybe not as much.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. So just for anyone to a quick, uh, rundown. My sweetie here has a Disney, hi, I’m sweetie here. A Disney to-do list that not a list.
You don’t say to do list, don’t, but you say, we have too many things to accomplish. We can’t waste any time. I don’t say
Amara Andrew: accomplish. Those are my mother’s words. I say things I’d like to do. I have a very different
Jeff Sarris: Here, hold on a second.
Amara Andrew: Okay, so, hey, what are you
Jeff Sarris: guys saying? She, she did say accomplish when we were there at least once or twice, but we’ll, we’ll let it slide
Amara Andrew: this time.
Okay. What are you saying over there?
Jeff Sarris: What,
Amara Andrew: what?
Jeff Sarris: I didn’t say anything. No, because you did say accomplish and like, it’s fine. I must have blacked out, but it’s because it’s like, it’s the. So that specifically is the fomo. It’s the, this is my only shot that I’ll ever have to be here. I need to do everything 18 times.
Yeah. So like that is the thing which I never, what if I
Amara Andrew: died in a churro related incident? You have no idea. Yeah, that would not be good. All the gluten attached me.
Jeff Sarris: Um, but that is the thing. It’s a little different, but happiness.
Amara Andrew: So can you actually, I. I, the more we’re learning and talking about happiness and like dissecting it as a society and just us, I feel like happiness doesn’t actually exist.
It’s the packaging of the feeling of contentedness and or joy. ’cause I feel like those are as close to happiness as you can get. Like Christmas. In the moment. Again, very stressful, but afterward I’m like, I’m really glad we did that. I feel happy that we did that. That’s a contentedness. I would say I’m leading the campaign that happiness doesn’t even exist.
Jeff Sarris: I don’t think so either,
Amara Andrew: because like we’re we’re, people would say that we’re very happy people because we’re always, for the most part, like upbeat and smiley, maybe psychotically. So, but I don’t feel happy all the time. Like it’s. Maybe we’re just joyful and contented content, con content, content with what we have.
Did you put c, b, d in my water? So we have, I haven’t had any substances like that in over a year. Yeah. Look at you. That’s Or almost a year. A year this month.
Jeff Sarris: Oh, it wasn’t the start of the year.
Amara Andrew: No, it was January 29th. Ooh. I just punched myself in the boob.
Jeff Sarris: Um, but happiness real quick. There might not be happiness, but there is definitely unhappiness.
Amara Andrew: But then is that just all these other emotions?
Jeff Sarris: So I think we can be unhappy. We’re discontent. We’re joyless, we are unhappy. I think that is a very definable thing. It could be a depression, it could be a clinical depre. There’s all these sort of things, but I think they all tie together as unhappiness.
Amara Andrew: So then happy and unhappy are like the blanket terms for different emotions then,
Jeff Sarris: but then I only, I was only gonna say like unhappy.
I feel like unhappy definitely exists. But I don’t know if happy exists or if it’s just the counterpoint to unhappy.
Amara Andrew: All right, pessimist. But being this is half full or faff. Faf, empty Jesus. But
Jeff Sarris: being like content being just like I. I feel content and like what, what in the sort of, you’re one, say, probably one of the
Amara Andrew: most content people I’ve ever met.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And like I, like I’m happy, but also I know the, like the term happy describes a state. So happiness I don’t feel like is a thing I can, I can’t be happy
Amara Andrew: Is that next to Kentucky?
Jeff Sarris: What
Amara Andrew: Happy is a state
by Puerto Rico. I dunno what this voice is. Okay. Delete this part of the episode.
Jeff Sarris: Okay. Turn the volume up on it. Perfect. Okay. So
Amara Andrew: sweetie, now? No. Um, so yeah, happiness is a state. Maybe that’s the problem because, but then you’re trying to bring yourself to happy. But I guess meditation and philosophy isn’t trying to get you to be happy.
It’s getting you to be content. Yeah. You’re the bud.
Maybe that’s what we should all be striving for is contentedness over everything, which I think that, I think
Jeff Sarris: that that’s definitely true. Okay.
Amara Andrew: Bringing it pack, bringing it pack to the quote of the day, desire na.
Jeff Sarris: You’re like, I don’t remember it.
Amara Andrew: I was hoping you were pulling it up as I was rambling.
Desire is a
Jeff Sarris: contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. Wait, read it one more time. Desire.
Amara Andrew: Ooh is a
Jeff Sarris: contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you jet what you want. I am desiring this thing, and until I get it, I won’t be content, I won’t be complete, but getting the thing never makes us happy.
Amara Andrew: Side tangent.
No, not side tangent, but like related. Mm-hmm. Like cousins in the state of happy. It’s Oh gross. My hand was made the most egregious sound. Um, oh, it’s my
Jeff Sarris: phone.
Amara Andrew: Okay. Fuck, I forgot. Oh, would you desire, I got the quote. Would you say that it’s bad to have desires?
Jeff Sarris: I think it’s bad to be, ’cause our
Amara Andrew: desires, objectives,
Jeff Sarris: so I think that they’re related, but I don’t know if they’re the same
Amara Andrew: goodness,
Jeff Sarris: but I think, hmm, like definitely desires can be a major problem. Because when it’s like I live my life desiring everything else. Mm-hmm. That is making me unhappy because I am not accepting or appreciating anything I have.
Yeah. So there’s a point so that you’re
Amara Andrew: not even living in the moment, you’re living in an imagined future. Yeah, essentially because I’m living for
Jeff Sarris: retirement. Like sort of the cliche of like, like when I had my one desk job a hundred years ago. Yeah. Like that was sort of all. All you had to look forward to before I realized I could do something else was just, well, I’m just going to be at this desk every day for decades.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Like it was very like resigned to that fact. So it was a desire, I wouldn’t say it was a desire for retirement, but I can see how you hit a certain age where you’re desiring. Retirement, you’re looking forward to it and not living, because you’re like, well, that’s when Andrea to do it.
Amara Andrew: But then at your desk job, did you have a desire to leave and try something else and do other things?
Jeff Sarris: It depends on all of those definitions. I, because before I understood, yeah,
Amara Andrew: to exit the building and never come back,
Jeff Sarris: but, you know, but that was the thing. It wasn’t, I never thought about quitting. I thought about if I could only, no, remember this is the early two thousands. Good God. Re so if I, I was a child, if I could only make the next million dollar idea like Facebook, I know that sounds crazy to, it’s not a million dollar company, but at the time it was a million dollar idea because this is early.
Um, that
Amara Andrew: was me drinking water. If you just heard that.
Jeff Sarris: Back to my story. Um, it was a million dollar idea in the early two thousands. It wasn’t everywhere. Like my thought was if I could come up with that, then I could actually live my life and not just be stuck in this world. So I didn’t think about quitting because I would have to get another job, but then I spent all my time learning and pursuing all these other things that eventually became what I do.
Amara Andrew: So you had a desire, but then you also took action for it. Then you were miserable at your job, but you didn’t choose, you didn’t choose that misery.
Jeff Sarris: Well, I didn’t choose to leave. They fired me, which was perfect. No, I know. That was the perfect thing that could have happened. Like why are you looking at them?
Because I want you to know that it’s true, but like it was perfect. Perfect. It couldn’t have been, can you hear that
Amara Andrew: Betty Boop, in the office,
Jeff Sarris: but like the. I might have said it down here before, but the thing that I always remember is when the person told me they were letting me go, I apparently had such a look of joy on my face that it was startling to them.
Amara Andrew: Not happiness.
Jeff Sarris: No, it was joy. It was, it was the joy of being like, I’m free. I had no prospect of making money. I didn’t even, I had no idea what I was gonna do, but I knew I was free. And like she, I forget what she said now, but it was something along the lines of I’ve never had anyone like respond this way to this.
And I was just like, no, it’s all good. And like, I just remember going home, taking off my fancy old Navy khaki pants for the last time and never putting them on again.
Amara Andrew: I wish you wore those every day. I haven’t
Jeff Sarris: worn pants since then. Yeah, he’s and nude from the waist down, no underwear,
Amara Andrew: nothing. He’s just dangling Winnie the Pooh style.
Oh. Anyway, if you see him in public, it’s quite a show
Jeff Sarris: anyway, but yeah. Um, so desire, like I do think there’s a line for, that’s where you don’t
Amara Andrew: leave the house in the winter. I
Jeff Sarris: leave the house wearing shorts. Sweat. Sweat. You love that. Sweat shorts. I went out to get the male today wearing flip flops, shorts, and a t-shirt.
Amara Andrew: And there’s snow and ice on the ground.
Jeff Sarris: And what is it? 20 degrees,
Amara Andrew: not even
Jeff Sarris: 25. Oh.
Amara Andrew: Okay.
Jeff Sarris: Anyway, desire. Desire is a problem. It can be a problem, but it could maybe have you take action. Like my actions I was taking was to, I was learning because it was amazing, like Twitter was just invented. There were all these people who knew all these things I didn’t understand, and it was like marketing and business and all these various things that I could consume and learn and dive into.
That was all a new world to me, but I didn’t have the objective. Of starting a business. I didn’t know that was a option, which sounds to me today crazy. But I knew absolutely no one who didn’t have a job that they kept for their entire life. Like one job start to finish. I knew no one who didn’t do that.
That was all I knew. It was a very reverse negative. I was like, reverse, double negative. Close enough, flip, repeat. Who knows?
Amara Andrew: Did you just quote Uno to me? How dare you. I’m a lady, but I think we keep coming back to like the same themes in this show, which I think is really interesting. Like from past episodes you said you were constantly learning and exploring and that’s something that’s super crucial to us, like something we recently learned, which I’ll talk about.
Hopefully in a future video, like in an actual standalone video about what we learned and applying it to what we want you to do, it’ll make sense. Bearing the lead?
Jeff Sarris: No. So highway is shorts. It’s short videos and it gives you the exact, exact framework. It’s the exact framework to make short form content to make do.
Hyper-local marketing and be successful in your local market. So that’s what Hi is that we’ll be out very shortly ’cause it’s almost done.
Amara Andrew: Finally. Yes. I was gonna say, if you’ve been part of any part of the journey with hi, we’ve been talking about it for 700 years and we have finally figured out even better what it is now.
Jeff Sarris: Well, I mean, no, it’s been, it’s been 80% done for like four months, but there just hasn’t been time. Yeah. So we’re just about there and it should be hopefully later this month, however. What was I saying? Hiveway is the short form. Yes. How you can be hyperlocal. So what you’re saying now is from what we’ve learned, we’ve actually deciphered how to convey to you.
Dear listener, how to create long form content just as successfully as the short form with Hiveway Yes, but without being overwhelmed. So that’s what you’re really excited about.
Amara Andrew: I’m so excited about that because I do this for everybody else, but not for myself because it is very difficult. But I’m, I’m good at keeping people on the rails and keeping them, like prompting them because I know exactly what they should be saying.
But then when it comes to your own content, which I know everybody struggles with this, it’s like, what the hell do I talk about? I don’t know anything. Like not, I don’t know anything. We all know things, but how do I package what I have into like this is why people hire us and this is why we fly all over the country.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. We do all of this for them. Yeah. But now giving a framework where you can be like. All I need is their framework.
Amara Andrew: Yes. And this is gonna be so stupid simple. Like it gets me so excited and we just had this little unlock today about it. So I dunno, that’s what I was working on for part of today, and I’m very, very excited
Jeff Sarris: when you’re talking about exploring and you don’t know where you’ll end up.
So exploring a completely different, um. Discipline is what led us to these con connected threads. Yeah. That suddenly is like, oh, this is how you package it.
Amara Andrew: And it’s something that I’ve wanted to explore for a really, really, really long time, like since I was a kid.
Jeff Sarris: But, and I just wanted to say with the, this is why we say no objectives in explore.
And so Robert Green wrote The 48 Laws of Power. He’s a very, very famous author. He. Spent his career as a journalist. He as a kid, he wanted to be a novelist. He realizes no money writing fiction, so I’m gonna be a journalist. And then years into his career as a journalist, someone from the office, his manager or whatever, brought him out to lunch.
And then he is just like, okay, Robert, you aren’t good at this. Go to law school, go to whatever, further your education and find the thing that’s actually what you can do because your, your writing is too weird. Like you’re, you’re not relatable. Like the things that you say aren’t able to be connected with, with the people reading the magazine or newspaper, whatever it was.
And then he is like, okay, like I guess I’ll just, uh, try to figure out. What I’ll do. So he said, the way he frames it, he spent six years wandering. He was a, um, what is it in the lobby of a hotel concierge. Yeah. He was like a concierge at a hotel in Paris. He did construction in like somewhere else in Europe.
He did every possible job you can think of in six years. He did. Over 60 different jobs, which is bonkers because that’s like, that’s 10 a year, one a month, Jesus. So he just kept jumping job to job, to job, to job, to job, to job, to job. He’s always writing because he has a passion for it, but he had no outlet for this.
And when he’s 36 years years old, someone that he met through his current job at the time took him out to lunch and he’s like. As you know, like I package and print and distribute books. I know you’re like writing. Do you happen to have a book in you? And in that moment, Robert was like, well, the thing that I’ve found in all these jobs that I think is really fascinating is you look throughout history at people with power and.
The exact tactics they seem to use, like a Julius Caesar is being used in these like jobs with the people that I work with now, and everyone’s trying to put up this front and they’re exerting their power in ways that is so familiar throughout history. Look, I think it’d be interesting to write a book about that, and he was so passionate about it that this guy who just wanted another book to publish and try to make a.
A buck. He said, I’ll pay you to live for you to write 50% of the book. Once you have 50% of this book, I’ll pitch it to publishers and then we will get in advance so you can finish the book and we’ll publish it. That’s his very first book ever written, and that’s the 48 Laws of Power. He spent six years doing anything after being told he can’t be a writer.
Being a journalist isn’t for you because you just, you’re not good at this. He did something, comp, everything completely different from writing, and then the opportunity, sort of the presumed objective that he would’ve had when he was a kid, presented itself. He had all the experience to be able to make the thing that got him to that point, and that path was completely random and sporadic.
Only clear looking backwards, not forwards.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
And for context, uh, 48 Laws of Power, if you haven’t heard of it, is probably one of the most celebrated books of modern history, just because it’s essentially a how to manual for how to understand power dynamics and what’s going on. He sets it up in the intro, I believe is like, so you can see what people are using against you or you can use against people, which I loved the way he framed that, which I was like, Ooh, that’s spicy.
Um, and then he went on to write 48 laws of, or the Art of Seduction and a couple others. Yeah, several others,
Jeff Sarris: but 48 laws of power by far leaps and bounds is his big hit and like, has made him very, a very wealthy. Author,
Amara Andrew: and that’s where Ryan Holiday got his start. Mm-hmm. Another, uh, very profound and prolific author, in case you haven’t heard of him.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But yeah, so like that’s, that’s another example of why we talk about no objectives and how objectives get in the way because you can’t, he couldn’t have mapped that out. There’s no way. And if, if he wanted to write a book and be like, I am going to write a book, he would not have been a concierge at a hotel.
He would’ve not. Done construction. He wouldn’t have taken 58 other jobs in that six year period.
Amara Andrew: That’s another book. He should write 60 jobs of Robert Green.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. But like there’s no way he could be, that would be a very interesting book. There’s no way he could be where he is now if he didn’t explore.
So that’s why we’re so adamant that you have to explore.
Amara Andrew: And that’s what we’ve been doing a lot more of lately and that’s when I’ve had the best. Time in life, like that’s probably the closest I can get to happiness is when I learn something new that just brings me so much joy and you don’t know where you’re going to use it in the future.
If you do or if you don’t. Like there’s, I keep saying that, but there’s no pressure to use everything you learn. You can purely just learn something for the fun of learning it in the moment. Maybe sharing it as a dinner party fact, but like just learn anything like literally. Learn anything. I don’t care what it’s,
Jeff Sarris: well never stop learning too.
Yes. Because that’s everything you learn forms who you are and how you think about things. Everything you experience does the same, but it isn’t that if I learned how to make a glass jar on its face, there’s no utility in me learning how to do that. I would have to then be understanding more of the principles of what makes glass, what makes it work in different temperatures, what the reason is for certain shapes to the glass, because it’ll stop it from shattering.
It’ll this and that, how all of that myriad collection of specific knowledge would apply to different things that. We do is unknown, but who knows if learning how to make a glass jar that could inform everything we do forever. But I wouldn’t know this until I actually took the opportunity to explore and see.
Amara Andrew: I literally just had a quote pop up on Readwise. If you don’t have the app, you get it immediately, especially if you are an avid reader. But it was talking about, we have a
Jeff Sarris: Discount code on our site too, I think in the, uh, show notes here.
Amara Andrew: There you go. Uh, what was, oh, the book. So it was from Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned.
Hold Please.
Jeff Sarris: And this is a book, if you’re interested in the topic of objectives and not having objectives and why you shouldn’t, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned is a phenomenal book. It is. It completely changed how we think about so much. And that book, I could see looking back on that book as being one of the formidable books in our journey.
Amara Andrew: Got it. I only made it a little bit through the book, and that’s completely fine, but I got what I needed. So this was the quote that I just saw. He was talking about how, uh, I forget exactly. I think it was to make computers, like how you actually got to the computer, the most ass backwards, wind about way possible.
Like if you set out to make a computer, you wouldn’t have made a computer. So it just, it reminded me of that, exactly what you were saying. Even after vacuum tubes were first discovered, no one would realize their application to computation for over a hundred years. The problem is that the stepping stone does not resemble the final product.
Mm-hmm. So like,
Jeff Sarris: and just so you know, that’s how computers, computers work. Like binary, like one zero. So vacuum tube you can think of as like a one or a zero, like it’s on or off.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Who did that song? 10001110101.
Jeff Sarris: I dunno, but you’re, you’re diverting from what we’re talking about. Yeah.
Amara Andrew: But just it’s not having an objective, like just taking all the disparate pieces that you’re dumping into your little head and like stirred around and then you get a stew of whatever.
Like, that’s exactly what happened with Robert Green. If you didn’t work all these different jobs and have all this access to a variety of very different people. He would not have made one of the best books written in all time, I would argue. So just one of the most
Jeff Sarris: popular for sure, like or successful. I mean,
Amara Andrew: don’t be afraid of doing things outside of your normal vein.
And something I wanna say, if you read primarily fiction books, you need to dabble in the nonfiction just a little bit. I’m seeing everybody’s end of your reading list and it’s all fiction books fine. Like whatever brings you joy. But for every like two fiction books, throw in one nonfiction that will help you, especially if you don’t feel happy or feel good in the moment.
Learning that little bit, like I feel like that’s almost the secret to finding your happiness and finding success, and it’ll jog your brain loose of things that maybe, especially if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur. It’ll help you sort of figure out like, oh, maybe I should try this, or maybe this could be a solution for what I’m sort of looking for, or like, I feel stuck right now in my business.
What if I try X? Like any little thing, it can help you. Like every book has one little nugget of wisdom. I’m a firm believer in that. So like if you go into a library, it’s just a bunch of nuggets waiting for you to find them. I’m like, my nuggets are gonna be different than your nuggets. I love chicken nuggets and you’re good.
Jeff Sarris: But that was the thing with the Thick Face Black Heart Book.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. I also didn’t finish that one
Jeff Sarris: because it was one specific premise we’ve talked about before. We don’t have to get into it, but that changed so much and is so valuable. But yeah, learning. So like reading fiction, you’d get. Sort of a look into human dynamics and like life and things.
But I mean, I’d argue mostly that’s surface level. You can’t get too far unless it’s hard science fiction. Like this is like The Martian. That’s a great book. It’s, I think the book is way better than the movie, and that’s hard science. So. How whatever Watley or Watley or something, how he survived on Mars is how you would survive on Mars and how he escaped Mars is how you would escape Mars based on science.
So there’s stuff there, but a lot of books are fun. Yeah, they’re just entertainment. But as soon as you get into the nonfiction you can, it’s infinite. We can learn so much about the world about. Society and culture and entertainment like we can learn about entertainment and learning about entertainment can inform.
Things that we do in a way that just consuming the entertainment might not,
Amara Andrew: and then it’ll also help you even enjoy your novel more is if you’re dissecting it as you’re reading it. I don’t know. That’s something that we really love doing is we dissect every single thing. So
Jeff Sarris: I don’t know though if that would, that might hinder other people, but for us, we find joy in that.
Amara Andrew: But I feel like then it helps you appreciate it more. I see. Again, this is my perspective, but for us ’cause we’re crazy. Yes. And, but I love dissecting it and seeing why it is a piece of creative writing or why somebody chose to tell the story this way versus like the traditional sort of story format.
Like why is it like this? Why didn’t they do that? So. I guess, yeah, maybe that, that might ruin your stories for you, but at least just try to throw in one book of nonfiction for every fiction book. ’cause that’s honestly, that’s gonna have, that’s gonna pay bigger dividends than anything else that you’re reading.
Jeff Sarris: And just for real quick, Robert Green, you think if he, if he kept with journalism and never explored, never wrote his book, he, he could just have a long career in journalism. That’s fine. The estimate estimate the estimate of his net worth right now is $10 million. He’s sold over 10 million copies of his books with 48 laws of power being the bolt of those books,
Amara Andrew: and not that monetary success is everything but just he.
Accomplished a major goal, or not even a goal. He accomplished a major pursuit, which is amazing. Through action. Exactly. I know. ’cause
Jeff Sarris: it, it all ties back to everything we talk about. Like if you’re, if you’re stuck on I need to get this thing and I’m gonna follow this set path, maybe then I’ll stop and maybe I’ll start again.
You know, I wish I could do like, no, just do it and do something. You’re gonna get somewhere. It won’t be right there the point that you’re looking at, but you’re gonna get somewhere and there’s gonna be opportunity that shows up.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, and it could be the shittiest way that you’re doing it right now, and that’s fine.
Like everything will look like shit when you start out. Trust me. I had to look through some of my old videos that I had did and I was like, dear God, kill me. But. I had to get through that to get to the videos that I create now, which I would say are pretty fucking great. So,
Jeff Sarris: and they’re effective, they work very well at what we have them do.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. So you have to get through the muck and like the ble in order to get good. So just keep doing it and don’t be a quitter ’cause we don’t like quitters.
Jeff Sarris: And with that, let’s quit this episode.
Amara Andrew: Bye.