Transcript
00:00:00 Jeff Sarris
The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces.
Hey, explorers! Welcome back to Useful Not Famous, the show where we gather and share the secrets that give your business an unfair advantage. I'm Amara Andrew.
I'm Jeff Sarris. Look at you with a last name now.
I know. I like it. I got to got to ride the wave cause I only have a short amount of time with my last name.
Yeah, 1 month ago today is our last podcast episode. So, we've been away for a little bit. We're going to talk about certainty in a minute, but…
I am certain why we were away.
I was sick, which is crazy. Like I literally have not gotten sick… I think it's been 3 or 4 years.
It was my birthday last time. It was my 30th birthday, so yeah, it was 3 years ago when I got sick last. I don't get sick.
We do not get sick. We're not sick people.
Well, yeah. And that was…
That was a time when I got sick first, and then you rode it out and then right when I was getting better, you got it, and got it just as hard as I did.
Where this time around, I mean, it's been 3 weeks. You're finally like you on week four, but I never got sick once.
Like my brain is still not all there, which is crazy. Like it's so weird how that works. I couldn't imagine being sick all the time like some people are where they're just like every time you see them or every other time, they're just sick.
Well, and I think the big thing, too, is you have immunity and you have stressors. And stress can open up the door for something to come in. When that happens, then things change.
So even when your immunity's up, other things that aren't in your control can end up leading to something that really just debilitates you. And I think because we don't get sick, when it gets in…
Your body like doesn't have as many reserves built up because you haven't been fighting off as many different things.
Well, yeah, the thing was on our flight back, there were like 100 people on our plane that were coughing the whole time and I was like "Ugh." But I was like, thankful…
Which was weird. I don't know, they must have been connecting through Miami, because they were not people who just left Miami. Sounds so judgey.
I think so. Well, no, they weren't sunburned and they weren't tanned, so…
Well, yeah, they sounded like winter.
Yeah, it was quite gross. I don't know why they would be connecting through Miami, though. Well, whatever.
Yeah, coming from anywhere.
But, or if they were just there for like a conference or something and they didn't get to step outside. But, yeah, it was so weird, like everybody was coughing and then the guy next to me was coughing. And I was like, "Oh, we should be fine." Cause like we always are.
Like we travel all the time. And then, yeah, we get home and then I just die. But there was a big stressor when I got home, so that was I think mostly what led into it.
But anyway, but I'm better.
Yeah. But, anyways, so we're back. We're back at it.
We are We have a lot of stuff we've been talking about, especially this week now that you're thinking a little more.
So much. Why am I holding the mic like you?
Cause we're one person. [03:01 S1: Yes, we are. And we shall be one more.
Yeah, lots of things that we're talking about. Like even…
…because we need to get this show back on the on the rails. Going off for like a month isn't what we want to do here, but…
Well, no. And so we were supposed to be back before, so what happened… Sorry, this is like so boring, probably.
But I was sick for like a week, week and a half, like actually very sick. Then I got better and then my throat I like couldn't talk.
You started to get better, but you were She was coughing non-stop like…
Yeah, just like people on our plane.
…old man who smokes a cigarette every day, a pack of cigarettes every day for 70 years, like from her lungs coughing.
That's actually who I am. So once you proposed, I was like, "Oh, I can just let down the guard!" So, I'm not actually a cute, little 33-year-old. I'm an old man.
A cute, little old man.
But, yeah. So like, eventually, I think what happened is your body was like, "Oh, finally! Okay, we don't have to cough as much anymore.
Okay, now I need to heal all this damage." And your throat, your tongue. Like, I got out of the shower one day and you were just like, "I can't talk." I was like, "Are you joking or are you serious?" Because I was I was afraid you were having like an anaphylactic…
Well, yeah, cause the back was all swollen. Yeah, it was the weirdest thing. Like I couldn't use the back of my mouth, so I talked like this.
And then I woke up…
And only when you were trying to not feel the pain. Just for anyone listening, it wasn't It was a moment where she talked that way, and I was like, "Oh, god, do we need to go to the hospital?" But then you were just like, "Well, no, I'm fine. It's just it hurts."
But then my throat did swell the next day. It was like a whole fucking series of events.
Anyway, for people that don't get sick, it is quite alarming cause it's like, "Oh, my god!" Where as probably everybody else just walks around feeling like that, but it was very alarming. So, anyway.
Well, there's a lot. But certainty! So, we're certain that you were sick for a month.
"The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces." That's from Robert Greene.
And then the funny part is I also had this one marked down basically right next to it from "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" from Mark Manson: "Certainty is the enemy of growth."
That's so crazy. But they were like back-to-back, basically.
Yeah, like they aren't things I just read, but I'm always curating from the stuff that I've read before. We use Readwise. If you want to use Readwise, you can find a code in the description of this that you'll see our little face on it because they gave us a special code for our listeners.
But it's very cool because it surfaces all these quotes that you highlight from books that you read in the past.
It's probably Not probably, it is my favorite app besides Procreate.
Two favorites, by far. Like so cool.
-huh. So that's up there as like your favorite app right now?
Not right now, but of all time. At one time, it was by far my favorite app.
Now, obviously, I don't use it as much, but it was It's magic. Like how it works, how you can use it, and I drew so many different things. I launched like We had our NFT projects and everything that I drew on there, so…
If you go to amaraandrew.com, you can see them.
Oh, yeah. And then my Etsy sticker shop, like I did so many things in that. I don't know, it was just It was a new experience, like…
So, I think this actually sort of makes sense now. So, certainty.
So… I'm not certain where you're going.
Well, you just said all the different things you've done that led…
Those were just a couple things.
Well, you've said a list of a bunch of different things you've done and they all led here because they were stepping stones.
You were certain that you would do them, meaning you just did them. But you weren't certain that they were going to be the path and the only path, and "I need to be drawing to make money," or "I need to be selling stickers on Etsy to make money." "I need the certainty of one thing."
And like, certainty is the enemy of growth. The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces. If you were certain that this is it, "There's no other choice.
The only thing I can do is use Procreate and draw, and I have to make money doing that." Like you could have, but you also could have missed all of the other opportunity with one stone away on your stepping stone journey to see like, "Oh, what will get me further in where I want to be?"
It also feels so self-defeating and self-limiting where like thinking in a creative discipline specifically, you're supposed to be creative, but then you're not being creative. It's like see, my brain's still not up to speed. But you're you're limiting yourself on what you can actually do, where it's like, "No, I could use Procreate.
I could use yo-yos. Like I can do anything I want to make whatever this art piece is." But then if you're like, "Well, no, I have to do it in Procreate because X, Y, and Z." What if it looks better as a painting or as a shoe box or like whatever?
"Or I have to use a pencil and paper because digital isn't real." Or, "I have to use digital with my hand because AI isn't real."
As exactly who I was as an artist before was you could only do it with your hands. If you did it digitally, you were a graphic designer and you're not a real artist, which I know sounds crazy now, especially, and especially talking to you. But it was like, "Well, no, that's not art." Like, it is an art form, but that's not what art actually is.
It was, "No, you get dirty and you make the shit with your hands." Now, though, obviously, that's changed. And that was why I had such an aversion to Procreate in the beginning, because, "Well, no, it's digital art. I'm not actually drawing it." But you are, it's just a different format.
And I think that also really just illuminates it a lot. So, you said an artist, you should be creative, you should be doing creative things. Like, so many people who, here it is, people who identify as artists…
Like, it's a pronoun or whatever, but like…
Yeah, people who identify as an artist, like self-proclaimed artist, I've found like we both have, but almost universally, they are completely against AI in every way. Like, AI is the problem. When they're the problem, because they're not creative.
They're the least creative people anywhere. They can draw. They can whatever.
But that's not creative when I've gotten good at one thing. But like, they're like, "I'm creative, I'm an artist." It's like, "Well, then use the tools and do something creative." But you're so certain that, "I'm only an artist if I do this," that you're not actually going to make it. So I said it illuminates things because when you were in that mindset before of like, "It's only an artist if I do it with my hands…"
And that's just me. That doesn't mean that's all artists.
Well, I mean, but all my experience is very skewed of the starving artist by choice, but they don't know They don't feel like it's by choice, kind of thing. But just I want to say just the illuminating thing is when you didn't want to use digital was when you weren't able to make a thing out of it yet. It wasn't until you started using the other tools, your certainty, you pulled your certainty back and you did other things that then it opened up so much more opportunity to do anything.
I would only push back on that I had an objective when I was working with Procreate. So like an NFT, I couldn’t have a piece of paper, like I could have, but that would have been so different from what it actually is, cause NFTs are digital art, in case you don't know what an NFT is. Well, that is one type.
Anyway, I'm not even gonna go down that rabbit hole. But the having digital art, I needed to get comfortable with making digital art. And even for Etsy, for my sticker shop, I wanted more crisp lines and I wanted a specific look, so I had to get more familiar with the digital.
Like it all coalesced at the same time, which was really interesting. I would also…
I just want to say, but that's because you're creative. "I want this to be that and I can use this tool for this to be that."
So this is where I was gonna go, too, is that I can see people having apprehension, going back to the certainty thing, of, "Well, shit. I've spent 700 years learning how to draw hyper realistic or very creative my own style. And now I'm gonna get rid of that because like they don't have the certainty of, 'Will I actually be able to be an artist in the AI world?'" Cause it's such a different It's a It's such a different type of creativity.
There is creativity there, I will argue, especially the more that I've worked with it. It's just a very different type where I think doing traditional art, like you get the satisfaction of like working with your hands. Like there is something about it, like, "Oh, my god, I made this vase," or jar, whatever.
But there's something different about that versus, "Well, I typed all these things on a keyboard and then it showed up." And not saying that's not art, because I would actually argue that is an art form. But the type of Maybe the type of job that they've had is very different or completely obsolete now. Like thinking about it, which is really scary, if I had done what I was gonna do, go to Manhattan, get my degree in illustration, I would be fucked now.
Like, granted, I would always make whatever work. But it's just such a different landscape. Like if I had sunk It was a very expensive school and I still had a decent amount of scholarships for it, but it was gonna be very expensive.
You have all that debt. So, I can see sort of where that uncertainty and that apprehension comes from. But then it's like, "Well, what do you do?" And not to only make it about artists, but…
Well, no, but you're making the point: uncertainty. Like that's the whole point of this, is you have to embrace the uncertainty. Like the problem is not being creative, not thinking outside of like, "Well, no, it has to be certain." Like, "I paid for this degree.
Like I learned how to be a court stenographer." Like I learned I learned shorthand.
Because to be a professional secretary, oh, now they call it administrative assistant. Okay, so now I'm an administrative assistant and I can write in shorthand. "But wait, there's a computer?
No, no, no, no, no! Like I paid for this. I learned how to write shorthand.
We're not using computers here." Like someone to say that would be absolutely bonkers today. But that's the same thing. Like shorthand If you don't know what shorthand is, it is handwriting where you're writing little lines and squiggles to write And like my mom learned that.
That's how she was like a secretary. She would use shorthand to do everything, like take meeting minutes and all these things before computers.
That still breaks my brain how that works.
-. Have you ever seen the stuff she's written?
Not hers, but I've seen that written other places, and I'm like, "What in the hell is this?" I feel like I found, like, hieroglyphics or something.
Yeah, it literally looks like horizontal squiggles, circles. Like, it doesn't look like anything, but it means something.
Yeah, looks like spaghetti, like you just took a noodle and threw it at your fucking paper.
Yeah. But then that's the thing is the uncertain—you have to embrace uncertainty. It can't be—we can't be certain that, "Okay, I spent…" Let me just use the this example of shorthand.
Let's pretend I spent $10,000 to learn shorthand. Obviously, this was like '70s or whenever she learned it, so it was not that, but I spent $10,000 to do that. I'm I'm certain this is the only thing I can do now forever.
I mean, you're out of luck. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, it's— I was listening to a thing about gig economy drivers, so like Uber and Lyft, who they're fighting back against Waymo because Waymo is like robotaxis, and they are fighting saying, "You can't do this.
What are you doing to all these jobs? Like, we work for Uber and Lyft. Like, that's our job.
How can you take away our jobs?" But the one thing that like sort of got me listening to this podcast is no one said the job didn't exist 8 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever. Like, literally, that's a brand new job and new jobs always come, but our certainty is, "No, I drive. This is what I do.
This is what I do. This is what I do." Like, that's just like you're so certain, which then holds you back.
What else was it that we just saw? It was like— Well, my—it was some podcast or something, and I think we were watching the video of it, but it was like, "Well, my mom was a reporter or a journalist, but those jobs don't exist anymore. But now I had to be whatever." Like— Ugh, I forget—
I know exactly what it was. So, Diary—
Yeah, so it was Daniel Priestley? Something Priestley.
So, he was talking about how basically how everything changes.
And everyone, when blogging in the internet started, they were just like, "This is destroying the journalism. This is destroying the industry of magazines and newspaper publication and journalists." What happened was there were like a couple thousand journalists, or whatever, however many journalists existed. Suddenly, it wasn't that nobody wrote anything anymore.
It's that instead of the few thousand journalists, now there was 750,000 bloggers. So, it just exponentially grew the number of journalists, except a journalist isn't what people were stuck on like, "This career's going away. This job is going away." And people made more money doing that when they were creative and not stuck in like what does it mean to be a blogger?
Well, it's not just talking about the food I'm eating right now. Like, you can be a journalist, you can—people did and still make serious money doing that, better than they ever would working for like News Corp or something. We just watched the Rupert Murdoch documentary, which is really interesting.
It's so fascinating. And so that's where— that's kind of what I'm thinking about then is being an artist doesn't go away, it's just a very different type. So, like there's a lot of apprehension in like the movie industry right now about, "Well, shit, this person generated the clip of…" What was it?
Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a rooftop?
Yeah, there's a lot of different ones. Keanu—
Yeah, that was like the first one, though, that just went completely viral, or maybe the Keanu one did. But it looks so good. It sounds just like them, and it's like, "Oh, okay, Hollywood's done." But no, it's not.
It's just everything is constantly shifting, and especially now with how rapidly technology can change, it's just you need to be— you need to be flexible, and you need to be malleable, and be able to roll with the punches. Like, even what we do with MAVEN, we fly all over the country, we film with people. That's going to change significantly—
Yeah, that's going to change significantly in this next 6-month window, because I just saw what you sent me on Twitter about CapCut or whatever. I fucking hate CapCut, but they have an like an auto editor, essentially, which is what I've been talking about forever.
So, what I sent, if it's the same one, it's a studio where you can create an entire film scene by scene, rearrange it, do all these things using AI, which is wild.
And it'll edit it as well. They're like specific editing directives, I think. But then like something like Descript, which is what I use for editing now, they are working very heavily on their AI beta to edit everything, so like you don't need to— you— But, and this isn't self-preservation or anything, I really don't care, but you still need someone— this is what we've talked about a lot, like Jeff and I.
You and I. That you'll still need somebody who knows what they're doing to do the thing. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to need 10 people as part of your marketing team, or 20, or 100, or even 5.
You might just have one or two, and then they can do everything, which is already what we do.
But you can significantly reduce how many people are involved in the project or in the company or whatever it is, but you do still need the people who know exactly what they're doing. So, like with—
Who have taste and everything, too.
Yeah, and just to make it so much more effective. So, like you, for example, you have so much experience with coding, computers, all that fun, wonderful stuff, so Claude Code now is like your perfect tool, but you— you need to know still what you're doing and what you're looking for. It's like Sherlock Holmes.
He solves the mysteries by looking for what's not there. I think that was something in our Daily Stoic today, actually, or maybe yesterday, but he only caught the suspect because the dog didn't bark, but nobody else would have noticed that. It's looking for the thing that isn't there, and you know to do that having worked with computers for 700 years.
Well, and that's the thing that's sort of the running joke right now is everyone can now make software and make apps, so it— we're at a time where everyone has apps with zero users.
Like, sort of that's the rub, is sure you can make an app, is it something that has a market? Is it something that you found a product market fit? Is it something anyone needs and can you reach the people who need it?
All of those things— Like, the AI can make the app for you, but then there are so many other things, like we talk about stepping stones. Like, making an app is only one of the stones. Make an app and publish it and good luck like if you want to try it, but then you still need to understand how to orchestrate everything.
So, the App Store now, just for a quick a quick rundown that the Apple App Store, so like iPhones, it was a couple week process, because when you submit an app, someone reviews it. Like, they don't just put all the apps up there. It's not Android, why Android's a little like kooky is you can get some really bad stuff on there, but iPhone is walled off, they make sure that stuff is up to par.
It would be a couple weeks before you could get an app up there. Apparently, they have so many submissions now that it is five or six months before an app will be approved.
Yeah, because they're getting tens of thousands of apps, 'cause anyone can do it.
So, like just because you can doesn't mean you're going to be able to do anything with that. So, like that's the thing is there's lots of skills and knowledge and understanding that now I have so many more tools at my disposal to 10x what I can do.
But we talk about it a lot. Most people are trying to 1/10x. So, it's like, "Okay, I don't want to do any work.
Make social media for me. Go!"
Like, even how you said like editing, that you started to say you won't need an editor, but like you know the truth of it is that there is not a video editor AI that's even remotely usable yet, like not even close.
No. There are only some where you can cut out the gaps, and that's basically it.
Yeah, you can do very specific things, and it'll get better with time, but like—
Which is helpful. Yeah. We're still a very long way out because there's so much nuance and stuff.
It's easier to generate new video than to edit with AI. Like, you can generate anything you want, but then when you're generating AI video, that's again a different product. Anyone can do it, so then you're— you have your product of your video with zero viewers.
You have your app with zero users, like business is long. If you just type a thing, then put it out there for sale, you're not getting anywhere, but if you're planning and trying to do something for the long term, you will, as long as you stick to it and keep going and iterating. What?
Sorry, I just remembered the cat video you showed me.
I was listening to you, but then you just said "generate any video" and it was so stupid, but it was adorable 'cause we love cats.
Well, yeah, it's the best Sora video. So, Sora was OpenAI's video generator that they—
Yeah, they just shuttered. Like, if you have any interest in staying up on AI, you can't wait.
Like, you're not— you'll never get a book. You'll never— it's hard to even watch a YouTube video, because—
Kind of, if you haven't been looking into it, you're kind of almost too far gone at this point.
Yeah, you need to find your platforms where people are at the forefront of it, like X is basically the main one, where Anthropic, who has Claude, they launch something almost every day, and the running joke is they launch the most groundbreaking piece of technology the world has ever seen, and just say, "Oh, we just did this," because there's so many.
They probably launched three things this week, I think, that are the next— it changes everything. Like, one thing real quick is Claude Code Can now run your entire Mac computer. Not Windows, not Linux.
No, those are actual, but—
Like, it can run your Mac computer, which means you can connect to your computer from your phone and type to it, and have it do whatever you want. Like, "Oh, I'm late for my meeting. Will you— will you reformat all the images in my presentation, shorten it to only 12 slides instead of 16, and like send it to my email?" It'll just go and click around on your computer and do this thing as an employee would.
But, even more than that is now you can do anything on anything. You don't need to have— it's called an MCP. You don't need an MCP connection for AI to connect into software.
You don't need any of this. It will go online, use your browser. Like, if you watched the computer, you would see what it's doing.
It's literally using your computer, which absolutely changes everything. And that was an aside. They just said it like, "Oh, that's out now."
Yeah, on like Tuesday at like 1:00 p.m. They're just like, "Yeah, whatever."
Yeah, that's it. It's out.
-huh. And then everyone on Twitter's like, "What the fuck?!"
-huh. But, and they keep doing that because everything's moving so fast. So, if you want to stay up to speed, you need to stay up to speed.
You can't wait. Like, a YouTube video from last week is old now on AI, because it's changing so fast. So, Sora.
Sorry. OpenAI had Sora, the image generator. We used Sora—
We're very passionate about this, as you can tell.
We used Sora as one of the generators for both of our AI films we made. We made short animated films a year and a half ago, a year ago, when it was very, very difficult to do.
But, we made them, and we're very proud of them. Sora was one of the generators that we used to generate individual clips, like two seconds at a time kind of thing. Well, they just shuttered Sora to focus elsewhere, because basically Sora was early, but they didn't have any sort of viable approach to all the cost on their end to do it.
So, Grok has Imagine, and Grok has just eaten all of the— like, a bar graph, you just see Sora shrinking and Grok growing. So, they're already blowing through money, so they shut it down. So, people are sharing the best Soras ever made, and one of them is a cat on a porch, and it is so funny.
Like, we have to play it. We can't say it.
Well, so, just as like an idea, it's a cat, and it starts where, you think he's playing a fiddle, is the first one? He's like, just playing it on this porch, and it looks like it's like a Ring doorbell cam. And then this woman comes out of the door, and she's like, "Hey!
I told you to stop making noise! Get off my porch!" And it's just so funny, and then it's just a whole series of them where he's like bagpipes at one point.
He's like, yeah. And then the woman just says different things. Anyway, so it's just a—
You showed it to me and I was like, "Oh my god!" 'Cause like the first day I could actually talk, and I was like, "!"
But, yeah. So, anyway, so Sora is no mora. And there's so many things to talk about with AI.
Oh, yeah. Like, literally every single day there's something new, but it's really— not but, it's really exciting, 'cause then it's like, "Oh, cool. How can I use this new tool?" Like, even talking about Claude Code, I'm like, "I can think of 100 different things now where…" So, we're We've, historically, obviously you've been an entrepreneur way longer than me.
Historically, we've just been literally just the two of us, and then your business partner, Dave, doing everything. That's it. And I keep saying it, and it's truer and truer with every passing day, especially now with all these new things that Claude's just sprinkling into the fucking atmosphere, This is the perfect time if you are a lone wolf entrepreneur that doesn't want to hire people, that doesn't want to have to deal with managing people and shit.
This is the perfect time for you to exist and make your company exist. Like, if you haven't, do it now. My god, this is like the perfect time.
Like, the guy from Shopify said 2026 is going to be looked at as the year that we look back and say, "Wow, everything was up for grabs. Anyone could have made anything and been a huge success." But, that window closes closer and closer and closer every single day. It's like if you were interested in NFTs early and you bought CryptoPunks, or Bored Apes, you made hundreds or mil— hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
Or, if you joined late, you lost all your money because you're like, "Oh, this is a good investment," and then it went from $300,000 to $3,000. And like, this is that window. You have your window right now and either you get on get on board or you're going to be you're going to be trapped on the runway.
Like, someone said, "There's a storm coming in. You're in a plane. If you get that plane up above the clouds, you're going to keep flying.
If you don't get off the runway before the storm comes in, your plane will be grounded, maybe forever."
That stresses me out so much.
But, like, we already have things in place. We're already building things, and we have platforms.
I know, but having like basically a month down from being sick—
—that has stressed me out so much, but I've I was trying to not let it, because I was like, "The longer If I stress out about this, I'm going to be sick for 6 months instead of just a couple weeks." But that has been weighing on me so much where I'm like, "Now is the fucking time. Do it!" So, yeah, just if you if you snooze, you're losing.
Well, yeah, it's going to be a problem, and not having any sort of platform, too, is going to be a major problem, because right now we can turn to AI for anything. I don't need to go to Joe Schmoe's website to figure something out. I ask— Like, we use Grok for questions above everything.
So, I ask Grok every single little thing that I possibly need to know. Like, our furnace wasn't kicking heat, so I'm asking it questions. I'm working with it, trying to figure it out.
You don't need a person for that anymore. But, what happens when you already have a trusted person, like using the furnace, for example, and I'm like, "This person Has always been the person I turn to because they're so helpful, I don't have to worry about it, I can trust them." You go to that person. They have a personal brand.
They have a thing, so you trust them implicitly for various reasons that you have that no one else has. So, personal brand builds that trust amongst a bunch of people, and then that's how people make money. You make money by being useful to people because they implicitly trust you to be useful to them in certain ways.
If no one yet trusts you To be useful to them to give you money, and the AI storm comes in, you've lost. There is no way to Surpass the storm, and you're going to have to completely reimagine what you're doing with your life. Like, it really It just is.
No, I know. I'm laughing, but I'm like, "Yeah, that is very true."
And like nobody, nobody sees it. Nobody sees it coming. Like, especially Like, so people who are doing things, it's like it's talked about.
But, the further and further back you get, like when you get to norm— normies, they have no idea.
Like, no idea that they're done. Like, if you're not building something now, you are done. That's it.
Plain and simple.
It is wild just thinking of the entire restructuring of everything, basically. I know we've talked to a couple people in different areas who don't think that they're on the chopping block with AI, and it's like, "Oh, no. Like, you're gone." Like, maybe you'll still be involved in a different capacity, but no.
Yeah, everyone has to be a micro influencer, whether that is online or just in human life. Like, there's 12 people that trust me to take care of their lawn, to like help them with things, to, "Oh, I cook for the neighborhood," like whatever it is, like micro.
That's not a problem. Like, that's sort of how we work. We exchange goods or value of some way.
But, if you don't have that, which is our— like, our value is online, external. Locally now because we've built our local platform, which isn't like an accident, like because we need to prepare for everything. But, like so many people just work a job, and the job doesn't care.
Like, it's not like a morality thing, 'cause I've heard people talk about morality, having AI take jobs and stuff like that, and it's like, well, no, it's literal. Everyone needs to survive.
Yeah, like a business who isn't embracing AI is going to crumble, and you won't have a job anyway. So, like, they've already They've already signed the sort of death certificate on your job if they're not doing AI. If they wipe you out, it's so they can survive.
This sounds shitty, but if you're not valuable enough to your company then if you haven't proven that you're valuable enough then you're sort of gone already, or you had no point in being with that company or business or whatever.
It's all really It's, yeah, it's a It's a whole new world, but it's also reverting back to basic like early days. How did you like barter for goods? You had your cobbler, you had your steel worker.
What is that?
Blacksmith. You had like all these things. You had your farmer.
You have whatever else.
No, if that was it! A shoemaker and a black—
But getting back to those things, you know?
Like, not those specific jobs, but working human to human.
No, our digital version of it. And that's why like the things that we keep seeing over and over and over and over again, and that we've sort of noticed, is personal brand is huge. So, if you haven't started on your social media, your personal brand, or anything right now, you are very much in the home stretch.
This is kind of it.
Either online or in your community.
Yeah, so then that was going to bring me to my next one, which is— No, you teed me up perfectly. Which was doing hyperlocal. That is something that few people have tapped into, but we've actually learned more and more people are in a variety of things.
So, like specifically for me, I think of video first, but newsletters, podcast, do the things hyperlocal and become the face and the voice of your town, especially if you are a small business owner, real estate, whatever.
Anything. Or you want a job.
Like— Like I said, a small business owner. Yeah.
Honestly, if you're— If you're the face of your town and you need a job, and you If you post your videos, so like our platform, the hyperlocal one, get 2 to 5 6,000 views every video.
Of people who live in town, no one else. We're very, very explicit that we only reach people who are within like driving distance of the town. So, what happens if you wanted to get a job?
You're just like, "Hey, I'm looking for a job, everyone. I'm looking for this industry. Do you know anything?" Could you imagine—
Oh, you'd have a job in like an hour.
It'd take you 10 minutes. You'd have 12 job offers because they know you, they like you, they trust you. They've seen you every single day to implicitly trust you because they're constantly listening to you, because by choice, not by force.
And by focusing on value first for everyone.
So, a lot of people Some people have done hyperlocal, but it's very much not value-first. Like, why would anybody care or anybody listen? That is the key.
So, personal brand, preferably hyperlocal if you can, or if you like— I know it's kind of daunting, 'cause it's like, "Well, now my whole neighborhood and everybody in my town knows." It doesn't matter. Like, that's where you live. That's where you have the most capital.
Well, that's also— And that's only talking online, 'cause again it can be in-person, going to all the events and offering to help people when they need help.
Yeah, which is also what we've done. So, those two things, and then I forget what else. Oh, in-person experiences.
That is going to be something very unique in the AI age, I think as well, especially now. Nobody wants to go out. Movie theaters are dying.
Nobody even really wants to watch a movie as much anymore.
Breaking news: movie theaters are dying.
Wait, let me check the newspaper real quick to see if it says it.
But I was listening to a different podcast the other day, and they were one of the people was just talking about movie theaters, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, I forget about those." But like, I love going to the movies, but we haven't been to a movie in forever because, honestly, I'd rather just be at home.
Which is everyone, too. Like, shopping. Like, you go to You see how many stores are closing, how few people are ever in a store because there's no reason to.
I know. Alvin's in Miami closed. Making an experience so good and amazing that people want to leave their home, and if you own a restaurant or a bar, how— like, yeah, takeout is going to be really big, but if you can even get people in, in-person, you can have a higher ticket value or a higher bill— I'm talking like sales— but you can have a higher ticket per customer if you have people in there, and they're having a great time, because when you have a great time, you want to spend more money, especially with alcohol and whatever else is involved.
Well, and talk about it. So, that's the secret thing, is like, so in Miami, there was this place with frozen yogurt. Not the one we went to, the other one that is basically like it sort of went viral on TikTok because they deliberately made an experience that people would talk about.
So, then every time you walked by, there was a snaking line, like with ropes, of what would you say, 20 to 40 people at any given time waiting?
Like, always waiting outside. There was 100% of the time—
Just glad we didn't go, 'cause I was like, "I don't wait in lines."
Oh, yeah, we don't. But, always a line. But then people do that because you're— we just talked to someone locally about her like local business she's starting, and it was giving telling her, "Giving people content to make."
So, like this frozen yogurt shop in Miami Beach, they're giving people content to populate their feed. It's like, "I just went to XYZ frozen yogurt. Look at this line.
It's crazy!!" Like, everyone wants to post something.
Whether or not they're using it for any value to like get fame or try to make money, like, that's a different story. But it doesn't that's not your job. Your job isn't to be like, "This is a way you can leverage it to build your brand." It's like everyone's just wants attention, so give them reasons to get attention, and then they'll advertise for you.
And mostly what started it was the experience in the shop. So, there's no seating. It's I forget the name of it now, but you literally just walk up to this—
Myka! That's what it was. M-Y-K-A.
Yeah, it literally looks like you're in Greece. It's this like tiny little archway. It's like in between H&M and another store.
Tiny little archway. That's why there's a line outside, and it's just like three very Greek-looking people behind the counter, and it's these giant, like, ceramic bowls that look hand-painted, like they came from Greece. You have all the toppings in there, so you can have like goji berries or coconut flakes or whatever, bee pollen, whatever the hell.
It's wooden spoons, so it's not like Cold Stone where everything's plastic and it looks disgusting, and it makes you sad. I don't know, I've actually never been to a Cold Stone, I'm just realizing.
Cold Stone, not a sponsor.
Sorry. But they It's this whole experience where you feel like you're not in Miami.
I just like Cold Stone taking strays. It's like stray bullets at Cold Stone for no reason.
I literally have never been to a Cold Stone in my entire life, I'm realizing.
I don't think it's as I don't think it's how you're thinking of it. However, continue. I just I just like that you're just like, "You know what?
Let me just turn the knife."
Or like TCBY. I've been to a TCBY, where they have like all the plastic It's not an experience. It's just pink, and it's like, bleh.
But that feels so elevated, and we all want that little bit of luxury in our everyday lives, where like I saw it on TikTok, and I saw someone in there, and I was like, "Well, that looks fun," and it's frozen Greek yogurt, too. Like, it's all the packaging, all the branding, all the promise of an experience. And as soon as we walk up to it and I see 100 people in line, I'm like, "We're going to keep walking," 'cause that doesn't appeal to me.
Every other Every other person, though, they stopped because they wanted to be part of that experience. So, if you can make that in-person experience, and have at least a couple people talking about it, that's gold.
And who are you trying to get? Because they almost universally had a demographic. Yeah, like younger women, sometimes with their guy.
And like you could tell who was there by choice and who was there by a plus one. You just You can tell on their body language how they're interacting. Like when you're just like…
And then everyone's all excited and getting selfies and stuff, and taking video, and the guys are just like, "Ay-yay-yay."
And that isn't to say that TikTok is only women, that's not at all. But, they were They targeted the specific range they want, and they have a very specific avatar of person, and they're bringing them in. And all that to say, if you want to bring in a specific avatar of person, you should reach out and go to whatismaven.com, where we can help you with your hyperlocal marketing, 'cause this is all we do and all we think about 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, when we're not completely deathly ill once every 5 years.
I know. Thankfully, it's literally once every few years.
Hopefully, that was the last one.
"The Defiant Ones" is a great documentary. But, anyway, we should go.
You don't want me to rap on the podcast? Hey,
We— We I feel like this picked up by the end.
I can rap I can rap quite well.
Oh, yeah? Should I play a song?
Don't you dare! I'm not going to. Okay, see you next week.
