Books change as we do

Welcome back to What is MAVEN. This is a raw episode. It's a new thing we're doing.

I'm Jeff Sarris.

I'm Amara Andrew.

And if you're a realtor who wants to do videography, go to Jesus! Okay. Go to whatismaven.com and you can find more.

But today, let's dive right in. There we go. Okay, continue.

Yep, that was it. That was the tweet. Mic drop.

But no, just that books change every time you read them. So, even though it's exactly the same book, but you yourself are completely different from the last time. It's, oh, I just read this in something else where it was, oh, fuck, I wish I could remember the quote, but essentially the gist of it was, a man steps into a stream, and the next day he steps into the same stream, but he and the stream are totally different.

So, it's never the same moment. Even though it's exactly the same action, possibly, but not 100% the same, you still don't have the same outcome, and you're like totally different, stream's different, blah, blah, blah.

Do you remember what that's from? Because like I feel like that's like a parable or a something.

Yeah, it's an ancient Greek philosopher, but I really don't remember who said it. But it was like that one name like Baklava or Yep. You know, Baklava, the ancient Greek philosopher of filo.

Anyway. So, Filo Dough. Okay, I'm done.

Fired! But, yeah, so–

Books! I stole the mic from you, so you can't talk. I'm like, "You're cut off."

Good! Keep this lady in line. Keep your women in line.

Women! Woman! There better only be one of me.

Bitch, what are you saying? I haven't even had like all my coffee yet. But, so anyway, TLDR, books are definitely changing each time you read them because every single time– so, I have like favorite books that I always would like to go back to and reread, which is funny because now, as an adult, I don't do that as much, which is really silly.

But it's just like the same with like rewatching a movie. It's going to feel different each time you watch it because maybe So, my favorite movie is about a child murderer, and like it's from the 1930s, and it's not just because he's a child murderer.

Okay, so what is it called?

It's called M, but it's a– this is going to sound pretentious as fuck, but it's a German expressionist film, but I love Peter Lorre in it. Like he does such a good job cause he's the child murderer. But anyway, it's just it's a phenomenal movie.

He does a good job because he's the child murderer.

It's just a phenomenal movie. Anyway, watching it in like middle school, high school versus now, it does have like a different feeling to it cause even though I don't want kids and I don't really like kids, it's just different watching it where it's like, "Oh, this guy like killed this little girl. Like that's really fucked up." But before I was like, "Wow, look at how beautiful the lighting is, and look at all the sets." And like I still watch it for that, but it's just it has a different feeling to it where it feels a lot darker now versus back then.

Also, it could just be me, but that's the same thing with books.

Well, yeah, like we're changing also. So, you have a different perspective on it than when you would be a child or something.

Yeah, cause I was like, "Yeah, fuck that girl!" No, I'm just teasing. But yeah, and then the same thing with books, like, whether fiction or non-fiction, but now I guess specifically talking about non-fiction, is it's totally different, like reading a non-fiction book 10 years ago versus right now, I'm going to get something totally different from it because I am a completely different person.

Well, it definitely depends on like what it is, too, because non-fiction as like history versus non-fiction as education.

But even that still, because you're– so, history is just a story and like there are like "facts," quote unquote, but also it's still kind of nebulous because it's like, "Well, this person wrote down that it happened in 484," or whatever, but did it actually? So, anyway, but like focusing on the story of whatever it is, you're going to still pick out different things from that story, which is really fascinating, depending on where you're at in life.

So, like if you Yeah, like when you're a kid reading something, it's going to be like, "Wow, cool! They had like wings, like that's awesome!" versus now, it's like, "Oh, my god, they did what to a whole country, city, civilization? They completely wiped it out!

What the fuck?" You'll just have different takes on it and different feelings.

Well, yeah, your perception is formed by your experience.

Exactly, but then the same is for books that have like factual things, like that you're reading to actually learn something to apply to your own life, not like a moralizing tale or anything, but just like a self-help book, even though I hate that word.

Well, for context, we're talking about business books, and that's why this came up, because like you read a lot of things before–

Yeah. Yeah, whether part of class or just for fun, it was like different marketing books, cause I was in, surprisingly, marketing before, which now I'm back.

Were you?

Advertising– Yeah, advertising art direction. I was going to be an art director.

Yeah, so yeah, like a little different– Well no, just thinking like a little different, not marketing, like advertising.

Yeah. I still had to learn marketing because it was just an integral part of it. Like, "How are we going to market this to people?" So, it was very different, but it was more the creative part of it.

But anyway–

Yeah, but like that's something I also like to– I want to start making the distinction for people that what we do with MAVEN is marketing, and then It's like marketing is how you get attention, and then sales is what you do with that attention. So, like marketing alone doesn't do anything. But yeah, so you were in advertising and marketing.

Why are you laughing?

Boat sales.

Boat sales?

But we were talking about business, so now, like you've read a lot of things as you were trying to build out, say, your– you did your TikTok, your YouTube, your Etsy, like all these different things that you've done. You were a teacher for a while, like all these sort of solo endeavors, you read a lot of books on marketing and business and whatnot, but now it's funny to think about because those books, if you reread them now, they are new books to you because you're a new person, and that's sort of where this started.

Yeah, and that's– well, it literally started where I was like, "I'm excited! I'm going to go to the library today and like it'll be a little treat." I love Go support your local library, also. Just libraries are awesome.

And if you don't think so, you suck.

Nerd! No, I'm just kidding. I like libraries, too.

I am who I am! Yeah, so I got excited going to the library and getting these books that I had read before, and then you had a couple that you're just like, "You should reread them," cause like you know I've read them before. So yeah, I'm going to– I'm going to–

Yeah, I mean specifically the Cialdini books. Cialdini. But Influence and Pre-Suasion are phenomenal books because he breaks down sort of how people are influencing us, and it's it's valuable whether you are on the side of the influence, being like marketing, sales, ads, whatever, or if you're just the one being influenced, because it's good to know what tactics and things are being used, and are used very effectively.

That was the thing in one of my classes, we'd literally watch commercials and my teacher, he was fucking nuts, but he would just be like– he was kind of an asshole, too, but he would just be like, "Okay, guess the marketing strategy!" and like he would it would almost be like a drinking game at like 9:00 a.m. Like, we wouldn't be drinking in class.

That's not it. But it–

Yeah, you wouldn't be–

Hard school, baby! But that was like a fun strategy where it was just like, "Oh!" and now I still do that whenever I see commercials, which is only when we watch football, so it's like it's very straightforward, but anyway. But yeah, and you're reading business marketing, too.

So, I wanted to have just a little side tangent that's what was always funny is like I always would watch movies and TV and everything not really in it as much in the story as much as I'd be watching how it was done, which was just how I always was, but I was the only one, and now I can welcome you to the dark side of–

I did that, too!

No, no, no, sorry. I mean before we met.

Oh.

I can welcome you to my dark side of, media consumption.

Oh, yeah, and I definitely do that, too, cause I want to know how they did certain things cause it's just fascinating.

Well, and this is where we over–

I wanted to be in the talkies!

And this is where we overlap and why we like hit it off so well, because we're we're like, — what?

No, us?

Oh! Because we are very different people, but we have a certain type of overlap in who we are that makes this like magic in a bottle.

No, don't be ridiculous! No, we're like the same fucking person. Yeah, so anyway, just if you have a book that you've read a while and you thought it was good or even if it just sticks out to you in your mind, you should definitely give it a reread because I guarantee you're going to get a different nugget of information, or you might not get a single thing from it, and then you can just kind of maybe cross it off your little reread book list or something.

So, let's let's close it out by connecting this to creating content, because this is important to remember as you're creating content, as well. Like when you say thing something one time, you've said it once, it's reached someone once. That might not be the way they want to be reached.

It might not be the delivery that gets them. It might not be the time for them. So, teaching something, like this conversation right now, you're listening right this moment, this may or may not speak to you at all, but we'll probably come back to this topic at some point.

We'll maybe have a short, maybe have tweets and blog posts and things. Like who knows what this will come to, but this is sort of our raw version of talking through things that we already do just off mic. And remember, as a content creator, you're not going to make one thing and this is the de facto, single version of that thing you've done.

You want to say the same thing over and over and over again in different ways, many different ways, to try to reach the people that you're trying to reach who need that information.

Exactly. Well, yeah, and you're never going to say it exactly the same way unless you're using a script, then like you can, but even then you're going to go through the script and be like, "Why the hell did I say this? Like I should say this instead," because, hopefully, we're all constantly learning, and if not, we need to talk.

Well, and that's why we don't like scripts, also, because scripting will–

Don't use scripts!

Might have been loud.

But that's why we, like we really want it to be as natural as possible because we learn from teaching. So, the more you're teaching something organically, the more you're actually learning how to better teach it instead of reading something that you've written, and you learn from writing, like no question there, but if then you've written it and now you only say what you wrote, that's different than just speaking and having this organic conversation, ev- even though it's a one-way conversation, come out.

Yeah, cause also if you're talking to a client and they ask you a question, you don't have a moment to be like, "Oh wait, let me look at my script for a second." No, you know your stuff! Like, it's already in your little noodle, so– and yeah, again, like you said, like you can definitely write things out. Like you can't necessarily process or think as well without writing it out, I find.

Like writing it out, then you actually see it all together and you get your thoughts in a in a little mess, but then you can organize it, and then you have a better way of speaking about it. But you don't need to adhere to a script, because that's just not how you talk in regular life. I mean, maybe you rehearse certain conversations in your head, cause I think we all kind of do to some point, right?

No? Just me? Okay, cool.

Formulating Ideas Through Collaborative Business Conversations

Moving on!

But I think that's that's important to note, too, because there's two things: there's writing for comprehension, and I think conversation for comprehension, where like I'll write things down, but I also I operate better in the conversation. Like yesterday we filmed a clip, we were with her from 1:00 p.m. To 9:00 p.m., and from about what, 4:30, 5:00 till 9:00, we were just talking business the entire time.

It was awesome. I loved it. It was perfect.

Yeah, and like that's what I really love, and like that's where I formulate different ideas is through the conversation because you have sort of a sounding board. So, I think it's you don't need to feel like, "Oh, well, I don't get anything out of writing." Like if you don't feel like writing's for you, just know that you need to discover sort of who you are.

That's something that you learn with time and practice and reps.

It's true. So, yeah, pick up a book. You never know what nugget you're going to find in it.

And with that, we'll wrap. This is a raw episode of What is MAVEN. If you enjoyed this, let us know.

I think we're going to start doing this now, because this makes more sense for us. We're always having the conversations. We don't need to have a video version of this, but this can be the very first iteration of concepts that will then be putting out as video or written content or something.

So, let us know what you think, and we'll see you next time.

Bye!