It took 16 years to learn this

You seem to be holding a bag of trash, but if you know a diamond is inside, you'll sift through the junk.

Hey Explorers, welcome back to Useful Not Famous. This is the show where we explore the ins and outs of running a profitable business and strive to be the most useful people you know. My name's bag of trash, Amara Andrew.

And I'm big bag of trash, Jeff Sarris.

You're gonna be jewel, Jeff Sarris. You're the jewel in the trash bag.

I'm the jewel? What about a diamond?

Diamonds, whatever. You can be whatever jewel you like.

Okay, so that quote comes from Derek Sivers and…

I like it.

…I find it very interesting because we talk about stepping stones on the show, like avoiding objectives and seeking stepping stones, exploring and all the opportunity you can get from exploring.

So, I guess what does that quote mean to you?

So, you're holding a bag of trash. Normally, it's just a bag of trash, but when you know there's a diamond inside, that bag of trash becomes something to explore. It becomes something to sift through until you find what you're looking for.

And I think that's a really good metaphor for everything that we do. Everything that we're doing is exploration. We know that the more we explore, the further along we'll get.

We just don't know in what ways.

It's also interesting because it makes the bag of trash actually have so much more value, which you wouldn't think, which is so funny because I literally just recorded a video for my personal content, because I'm getting back into like all the history and art history stuff. And I recorded a video about a janitor who threw away a $38,000 artwork because it literally looked like a bag of trash.

So, it's really funny that you're just like, "Let's just like go with this," which I thought it was very funny, anyway. But it just it that's why I'm thinking of it in terms of different value, because if you know that there's something in there, you're not going to be like, "Ew, get this out of my sight." You're going to be like, "Oh, wait, hold on.

Let me see what's here." So, I think I don't know, for a lot of people that could be maybe where they're at like in their career, or their business, or something, not talking about anything else cuz we're like mostly business-focused, but if you sort of feel maybe you're you've been walking around with this bag of trash for a really long time, and you're sort of like, "Okay, well, what do I do now?

Where do I go now?" Maybe you do need to sift through your own bag of trash.

But I think even more than carrying the bag, the I think the bag is everything we choose to do. I think seeing it that way, for me at least, that's how I'm looking at it.

So, okay, so this is interesting how we're defining it then, because yeah, I guess I was seeing the bag of trash as something given to you, and then it was like you can either keep it or get rid of it. And then it's like, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get rid of it. It's a bag of trash." But then if you hear a rumor or something, or you can sense that there's a diamond in there, then you're like, "Well, hold on, let me keep this bag of trash." So, I guess we have different interpretations, cuz also I didn't read the source text of where this came from, so I don't know as much.

Well, no, I mean, this is just I just literally pulled a quote that I like, so it's not even It's out of context, anyway. So, this is just…

Wait, can you read it again?

No. I just want to say real quick, it's like Willy Wonka's chocolate bar with the golden ticket. That was just a chocolate bar until you knew there's a golden ticket within.

Then every chocolate bar became potential, unlimited? Yeah. Each chocolate bar became an unlimited amount of potential because it wasn't just chocolate.

It maybe could be this golden ticket.

Great marketing, by the way.

But I think But, you know what I mean? I think that's what this is when we're looking at stepping stones and what we're doing, when we know that taking action is what's going to get us closer to where we're going, even if we don't exactly know where we're going, then each step we take is sort of filled with potential golden tickets, like spread throughout it, if the potential tickets are future stepping stones.

Yeah.

So, we started our local platform, and our local platform is was a stepping stone. We didn't know in what way, though. We wanted to do it, and we've done this with clients all over the country, but suddenly that stepping stone just revealed an immense number of more stepping stones, one of which we spoke to today.

I'm very excited about this new like project that we're doing.

Yeah, I mean, we're helping to launch and develop Yeah, a brick-and-mortar business in the town where we're doing hyper-local content.

Which is very exciting. Like it's It's quite a business.

-huh.

Yeah, just it is interesting thinking about things in that respect. Like I know we keep going back to all the stepping stones, but we literally talked about it with this person today about stepping stones and like how you don't know where that next thing is going to be. So, like Oh, go ahead.

Sorry, I didn't I was joking when I said I wouldn't reread the quote. Do you still want to hear it? Okay, let me say it and then cuz I was kidding and then we just kept going.

What a meanie weanie!

"You seem to be holding a bag of trash, but if you know there's actually a diamond inside, you'll sift through the junk until you find it."

Yeah, that's good.

And we're all filled with that potential, that potential diamond is We're all See, I should have said "all filled". Our vantage of everything we can do. 100% of us have diamonds in that potential.

Aww!

You know, like, we can all pursue so many different We can pursue anything that we want to do.

Yeah, so then to me that feels like you need to keep persevering when things feel really difficult, because if you don't, you don't know what's on that other side. But see, this it's so tricky, because then it's like, "Well, you need to keep persevering." But then like how we talked about stepping stones, but you can't be beating yourself up against the wall and have an objective, because that can harm you, not like physically, but that can harm your progress.

But what is your progress supposed to be? Well, you aren't supposed to have that sort of in mind.

And I think as long as we don't get caught up in objectives being This is the tough part. A stepping stone objective, like I Here. These are cars.

Cars are gasoline vehicles. A stepping stone objective would be, "I want to make electric vehicles." That I would say that type of objective is fine because it is only one degree away. There's a lot of bits to make it, but we're not jumping to "I want to make electric personal flying vests," because that's so many Like that's an objective so far away that it's like, can we even make a flying vest, period?

Like, you know what I mean? And I think is I think objectives are fine, but only in near term, and the problem is we always think in the long term objective.

Yeah, cuz it's like with the computer, like you had what, the vacuum tube, and then like all this other shit, and then it's like, oh, yeah, it took hundreds of Not hundreds, but years to get Well, no, whole all of human history to get there, but you can't be a caveman and be like, "Well, I want a computer." And it's like, "What's a computer?" I don't know.

Nate Bargatze has the best joke where he's like, "If I actually traveled back in time, I don't know if I could convince anyone I'm from the future." It's so funny, cuz he's just like, "I would get there and look around and be like, "Yeah, you know, you're gonna have cell phones one day." And they're like, "What's a cell phone?" He's like, "Oh, it's sort of this phone you can sort of talk into." They're like, "What's a phone?" He's like, "Phew.

So it's a thing to communicate with people." "Well, how does it work?" He's like, "Phew. You got me.""

Well, then I was thinking, too, from like a historic perspective, like I wouldn't be able to If somebody was like, "Well, then tell me what the races are going to be tomorrow." I'd be like, "Well, what races? What are you talking about?" Or like, "Oh, well, what happens a month from tomorrow?"

You mean like horse races or something?

Yeah, like what or whatever kind of races, depending on what time period you're in.

Yeah, tell me who wins the World Series this year.

Yeah, and it's like, " fuck, I don't know! It's all in my phone!" I wouldn't be able to tell you anything! So, it's like, yeah, they would just think you're nuts and put you in a nut house, or I don't know if you could say that, but…

Right. You show up there, and you know that computers are possible, you know that cell phones, you know all these things, but if you have the objective to make a cell phone in 1901 and you happen to travel back, you have no means to do it.

That's such a great thing, cuz when people are like, "Oh, I would time travel back and invent the fliff and floorf," or yeah, just the phone, I guess, to use phone.

Cell phone, fliff and floorf! You have brought that thing up so many times.

My great-great-Pappy! But, yeah, if you went back to, yeah, let's just say the 1960s, and you're like, "Okay, cool, I'm gonna make the cell phone." What are you starting with? You would have to know the ins and outs of all computer history, and even still, you wouldn't be able to do it, because…

Well, you'd have to be able to make the microchip.

That's what I mean, all of it.

You'd have to make the glass, you need to You would need to invent every single bit.

Every single part. You would have to go to CorningWare and be like, "Okay, I want this exact type of glass that's Gorilla Glass." And they're like, "We haven't What are you talking about?" And it's like, "Okay, well, now I need to tell you how to make it." That's so endlessly complicated. So, if you do figure out time travel, you need to know every single piece of whatever you're doing.

So, the objective I just You reminded me of something, Gorilla Glass. So…

Was my nickname in high school. Ay-ay-ay!

Remember Palmer Luckey? He's the guy who made the Oculus, the Oculus…

Is that the inventor?

…Rift? Yeah.

Oh, okay. Wow, what a name.

Oculus Rift, am I saying that right? Is it Rift?

I think so.

Whatever. The Oculus, the thing that Facebook bought, the VR headset.

Is that what I got you?

-huh.

Okay, cool.

So, he made that. He invented that in a camper in his parents' garage. He lived in a camper.

He was 14 when he started, 16 when he had his first prototype, and I think 19 when he joined Facebook because they acquired it.

That's crazy.

He made billions and billions of dollars, so he doesn't need anything anymore. Like they ended up squeezing him out, long story, not cool.

Oh, wait, does he do the little

So, this is where I'm getting to. He has Anduril, which is a military AI company, very fascinating stuff. But, the fun part is he has ModRetro.

It is a remake of the Nintendo Game Boy. It is completely rebuilt from the ground up. It's in a metal chassis, like it's physical metal case.

But the thing that I just heard is it comes with Gorilla Glass by default, you know, so it doesn't scratch. The old Game Boy, the glass would scratch.

Or you can upgrade.

You can upgrade…

It's made of Twinkies, so it can survive bombs.

…you can upgrade the glass to a piece of lab-grown sapphire.

Ooh.

Sapphire being what's on my watch.

That's cool.

The lab-grown sapphire is the largest piece of sapphire in anything.

Okay, so I changed my mind. I don't like diamonds. I want a large sapphire.

There you go. Well, then I'll get you a ModRetro. It's like 400 bucks.

It's so much cheaper.

But he went He put so much effort into finding all these things and so you don't make larger Like, I think sapphire crystals are on watches. That's almost it, like that's like the biggest you see it.

That's cool.

He figured out the manufacturer to make now makes the actual, I don't know, 3 by 4 by 3 size glass, which I thought just thought was wild. And just cuz he said Gorilla Glass…

Yeah.

…I just I love the attention to detail…

Mmh-mmh.

…that goes into certain things like that.

Well, and that's why Steve Jobs, like I said in a previous episode, he literally pulled somebody out of retirement, and they hadn't made this for 40 years at the time to make this exist. Like, I don't know, I love any type of attention to detail like that is so It just speaks to my heart, like…

Speaking of the website I'm working on.

I know. Well, like all the design and everything, like I've always been a huge design nerd. Like I personally can't design anything.

Like that's something I've always struggled with, graphic design.

No, you could. You just haven't done the You haven't done the 500,000 hours.

Well, and I can from like an illustration standpoint, but when it comes to computer and design, I like can't get it together. But, yeah, it's also just…

It's just time.

Practice, practice.

I think 100% of everything is…

So I can design home stuff.

Here's the thing.

I love design, though.

I just heard a clip from Tony Robbins. He was talking about Steph Curry, the basketball player, and Steph Curry's entire career he shot 3,600 baskets, like three pointers, and he's known as like the best three point shooter ever. He'll just turn around, throw it up, and know it's in.

He would do an ungodly amount, shoot an ungodly amount of three pointers every day. He would practice for like 5 to 8 hours a day shooting three pointers. And I think, cuz Tony Robbins had the exact numbers, but I think it was something like he shot like 1.25 million three pointers practicing…

Wow.

…to shoot a total in his entire career of 3,600.

That's cool.

It was like 1% of what he practiced, but that's why he was the best ever at doing it. It wasn't like some talent he was just born with. He wasn't a natural designer.

It's just like he put in all the time to do it.

And that's what's hard because you don't see that. You see the end product. This is just like with anything, like social media, whatever.

It's like you only ever see the end product, but you don't see all of the work leading up to that, and it's a shit ton of work. Cuz like, same thing with Einstein, or Einstein, Edison, he had so many different inventions. Or like the whole parable of making the light bulb, and it's like, "Oh, well, you tried and failed a thousand ways to make a light bulb," and he's like, "Well, no, I've only needed to find one way to make it work." I know I butchered that, but essentially that was the gist.

And it's just so fascinating, cuz then one invention would then lead to another, which would then Like they were all Okay, so motherfucking Edison is the perfect example of stepping stones, because…

Well…

Well, I want to finish on Edison, cuz we keep getting sidetracked of what I'm trying to say. You're like, "Well, let me tell you about this other podcast." I'm like, "Bitch, I don't have time to listen to podcasts." but Edison, by making his phonograph, which it was called something different at the time, but that was like a way to play back sound, he then also catapulted into trying to figure out moving images, which was part of one of another book that I was reading, and then he was like, "Let's put them together!

Like, that's cool!" And then it just keeps going, but it's like little stepping stones, but he wasn't like, "Well, let's make a feature-length film and star like, I don't know, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in it and like I think that'd be cool, right?" Like, that's not how you do it. So, it all It does go back to stepping stones.

Even go to the light bulb.

Yeah.

Like a hundred or a thousand, however many it was, those were stepping stones to get to it.

10,000. It's crazy! And like different types.

Or same with photography, too. There were at least 30 to 50 different types of photography that you could do, like daguerreotype, cyanotype, a shit of other types.

Potato.

Potato type? But, there's just so many different types, but then eventually we ended up with what, film or photo became, so, I don't know, shit's just endlessly fascinating.

So, da Vinci.

Oh, yeah.

What is What's he known for? What's What's his like main thing he's known for?

Well, it depends on who you talk to, but primarily he's known as an artist, but he was so far from that. Like, that was almost That should be a footnote in what he did, which he did paint beautifully, and just his modeling and sfumato and everything in the paintings sfumato's like a smoky, dreamy, hazy quality to the painting.

It sounded like a derogatory comment towards something on his body, "his sfumato".

Well, yeah, these Italians and their language! But it was the way that he handles the subject, because I think all of his other studies Like I don't actually know much about da Vinci. I know enough, but because it's one of those tropes when you're studying art history where it's like, which is why I want to read the biography by…

Walter Isaacson.

Thank you. I want to read that biography, because I think it's going to be endlessly fascinating, and I know enough. I know what he did, but I don't know 100% of everything about him.

For someone who doesn't know, though, what's the gist? So, we think artist, but what's the What's the very, very broad-stroke truth of who he was?

Like, literally a Renaissance man, so he is sort of like He is the reason why it's called a Renaissance man, even though I learned that Renaissance is a fake term. Anyway, he painter, sculptor, inventor, scientist, medical scientist, medical practitioner sort of in a way. Like, he would study every single thing, botanist, philosopher…

And pursue, though, not even just study, right?

Well, I say study, but it just means that he was a student where he, not like literally how we think of students nowadays, but he just has like his notebooks are just fascinating, because he's looking at every single thing. So then studying the human form in a medical like a more medical kind of way, I think is why his artwork was so much more convincing and so much more real, and it just felt different versus contemporary artists, which means people that were of the same time period.

There is a dynamism to their work, but it's not the same. Like, it's so, so, so different, and it's hard to encapsulate that, like not even just the Mona Lisa, like literally any other artwork. There is a science to it, and it's so beautiful to it.

What's his most popular artwork?

Well, Mona Lisa.

Okay, that is him. I wasn't sure. I wasn't positive, but how crazy, right?

The most popular painting in history for various reasons, not just because he made it, but that's what he's known for. But then he also has what, the Vesuvius-something man?

Vitruvian Man.

Vitruvian Man.

Well, that was just a study. So, that was in his notebook that I think wasn't supposed to see the light of day. And he did that multiple times, like that type of a study to see how the human form moves.

One of my favorites, I forget which one, it's A Madonna Painting, so it's like it's the most perfect little triangle of figures, and like just the way that he painted it, I could stare at it for hours, but it's like Madonna, Christ Child, and I think Saint John the Baptist. I don't know, I haven't like studied my art history in so long, I feel so rusty.

But it's just the way that they're all grouped together. There's another painting by Raphael, and it has sort of a similar feeling, but the da Vinci one is so dark and almost kind of creepy, that's that's why I like it, even though it's like this wholesome little scene. Anyway, I can keep talking, but I'm done.

This is a podcast.

What?

It's it's a podcast, you're supposed to talk.

Oh, my god, ASMR podcast!

Yeah.

Yeah, anyway. So, I just I find that fascinating because I've always personally wanted to do those certain things of like one of our friends, she takes every single class that she can find, and I love that because that is like the ultimate exploration where she's like, "Oh, I'm going to do floral arranging. I'm going to learn how to ride a motorcycle." And now she's a badass and she has her motorcycle license and she's just being all cool and shit.

But then doing cake decorating and like all these different things. Like, you don't know what you're going to actually enjoy and like unless you're exploring every single thing. And like, personally, I've always said I hate math.

I do find it fascinating, some of it. Not 100%.

-ha!

Oh no, it's documented now for posterity! But no, it is interesting, because, well, something else we were talking about this week is truth. What is truth?

I know it's a very big question, but…

But it doesn't sound like it on the surface.

Correct. But then when you think about like, "Well, what is true? Like, what can you completely verifiably, without any question at all, say is true?" Basically, fucking nothing, cuz like even when it comes down to color, well, I say that this table is white.

Well, what is white? What is white to you? Is white Do we see the same white?

Do you see a different white? Is it even white? Is it a table?

Well, like we were saying, like, "I'm tall." Like, that's true to certain people.

Yeah, not Yao Ming.

Yeah, like certain places that I would go, the average height will I'm 6'4", the average height is going to actually be my height or taller in very specific places, and in other places, you're 5'6", 5'7", and you would be very tall compared to some people in some cultures, because they are far shorter. So, even like tall, again, is perspective, like everything.

There was the thing Here, wait, you keep going. I want to find it.

But like even with like I know we're using like physical attributes, but like having lighter eyes. Like I have always thought I have darker eyes, but now I think I have lighter eyes, and you have very light eyes, but in comparison to somebody with like crazy blue eyes, it's like, "Oh, okay, we have pretty dark eyes."

Heavy eyes.

Heavy eyes.

His eyes are touching his shoulders.

No one knows what that means, but…

Good stuff.

But, just the idea of truth is so interesting because it is all perspective, but I think perspective in relation to comparison and contrasting. Like compare and contrast, because you can't It's almost like the whole Buddhist philosophy where you need to have the bad so you can very much like fully enjoy the good, because if you only have good, you will never feel like how the Buddha came to be, like you can never just have good, because then you have a life of entirely bad.

Well, yeah, cuz it's contrast. Life is contrast.

Yeah, you need that.

Happy, sad, good, evil, like…

What?

Nothing.

Tall, short.

Yeah, that's what I was laughing at.

Left, right.

Yep.

Okay, so this is this was the perspective thing. I love this. It was just so funny.

But how everyone's truth is so relative: A traveler comes to a river and sees a local woman on the opposite bank. He yells across, "How do I get to the other side of the river?" She yells back, "You are on the other side of the river!" I think that is so funny and so true, because to her he is. Like, it's obviously just a silly like parable, but everything is in relation to who I am and where I am right now in my life, in the world, everything.

-huh. That is so funny. I remember you reading that, and I actually laughed out loud, because it caught me so off guard, which is true.

Like, it is I don't know, it's just fascinating how the mind works and how the world works, and it really does feel like whatever you are putting out is what you are taking in. I know that's a…

Elaborate on that.

I know that's like a totally different sort of topic change, but just…

That's all the show is now. Like, I like how what the show is now, cuz it's just conversations into things that are interesting.

It's not just forced into whatever we're trying to force it into. But, like your perspective Right, what was I saying?

Yeah, but just like your perspective on things. Like if you think that the world is terrible and everybody's out to get you, and everything sucks, and everybody is a liar, a cheat, and like we know people that are exactly that way, you're going to have a really bad life. Like your life is going to be terrible, and then you're going to feel even worse, but then you are going to become what you think your perspective is.

Like it's just such a simple fix, and it's hard to explain that to people, because when the weather's shitty outside, I've started trying to tell myself, "No, this is cozy weather. Like, this is weather to enjoy and put on fuzzy socks and make soup or make fucking tea, whatever." And like just enjoy the feeling of sleepiness that comes with it.

-. Well, and we can all feel just sort of like meh for no good reason.

Yeah.

So, why can't we feel why can't we feel happy for no good reason?

Exactly! Like that Yeah. Why is that so difficult?

I think because I think because it's almost more glamorous or I don't I'm having trouble saying it, but I know what I want to say, but I think I should just say it.

Is it expectations?

No, I think it's wanting to have a pity party and having the attention of having a bad time, because if you have a bad time, people will be like, "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah."

Well, it's what It's learned behavior, there. So, like for kids, kids that learn when I cry, I get what I want. This is speaking in theory as once being a kid, not as having kids or experience with kids, but like I cry, I get what I want.

So, I want that, I will cry. Like, it's a it's the learned behavior. So, the pity party thing, like, "Oh, when I'm sad, people treat me this way."

Yeah.

So, then let me express sadness. Like I think that there's something to that, what you're saying.

And it's hard because like I struggle with this where it's like I've I've tried to just start laughing when things are not great, because, again, it's just my perspective, and it just so happens to be that there were three things that happened today instead of one thing that happened today, and it's a numbers game of like, "Okay, these three things happened in a row that maybe I wasn't super fond of, but that doesn't make it a bad day," because in between those three things, I had 17 other amazing things.

I caught a butterfly, I got free ice cream, I went to the beach, like whatever.

Where was I today? I thought you were talking about like actual things, and I was like, "Wait, okay, this is a little different."

But, just like those three things, like I get shit on by a bird, which happens so frequently, I can't stand it! But I get shit on by a bird, my car gets pooped on as well, and then my ice cream gets pooped on.

Okay, let's just not list bad things. I think this is the point, is not focusing on the not seeking the negative. So, I think when we focus on the negative, we're seeking negative.

I think that's basically what we're saying. It's not that we…

Yeah, in a roundabout way, where I'm trying to get.

Well, no, but like we don't even it doesn't feel like we're seeking negative, but because we're approaching life from through a negative vantage point, we, in effect, are only seeking the negative things.

Yeah, and like how you were saying, I do wonder if that is like a learned behavior, because when you think of your parents, they may or may have been joyful to some extent, but would you describe them as being happy and joyful 100% of the time?

I think none of us would.

So, you don't really have any role models that show that. But then you do have emotions, so then it's kind of like, well, you don't want to you don't want to suppress your emotions, because like we all do feel things, but again, your emotions are perspective, or gut bugs, or something, cuz it's like, "Well, I am mad at you because you didn't take out the trash." But in your mind, I'm This is hypothetical, but in your mind, you're like, "I took out the trash seven weeks in a row.

How about you do it?" And, again, this is fake. This is all fake for right now. But it's that perspective where it's like, "Well, I'm not thinking of that.

It's it's all the other stress of everything else coming into perspective when you had taken out the trash 107 weeks in a row." And then I was like, "Well, you didn't take it out this one time. What's wrong with you?" Which, again, I would never say, but I don't know, it's just interesting to think of those things. Like, it's always It's like all the I feel like I'm just fucking rambling.

Well, no, it's the bag of trash. If we reign it reign it back, roll it back, bring around the Rosie, go back to the bag of trash, it's what are we actually focusing on in this bag?

Yeah.

Are we focusing on Well, look, this did come full circle.

…millions of pieces of things that aren't the diamond, or that, "Okay, I'm almost there. I'm getting closer. There's there's a goodie in here, and I'm going to find it, no matter how long it takes me."

Yeah, see, that's what I was going for.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah. Enjoy.

I think this was fun. So, if you enjoyed this episode, share it, cuz it's the only way anyone will ever hear this, and…

Yeah, we need to make more clips.

One day, we will.

Yeah.

You look like you're going to say something.

What do What are we going to title this episode?

I love trash.

Okay, good. So, hope you enjoyed I Love Trash. We'll see you next week.

Bye!