If you think being adept at shortcuts will make you indispensable in an AI world, think again.
Mastery takes time, practice, and, like Steph Curry who shoots 500 shots every single day, lots of reps. The best results come from action, learning, and exploring the stepping stones right in front of you.
That also means choosing better inputs: books, high-level conversations, and real proof of skill, not endless scrolling. In a world full of AI, low-effort work and copy-paste content won’t stand out for long.
Trust, taste, and being truly useful will matter more, but only if you can show you’ve done the work. The future will reward people who use AI to boost real skill, not replace it.
Timestamps
00:00 Why Shortcut-Seeking Kills Mastery (Robert Greene Quote)
00:59 What “Mastery” Really Means: 10,000 Hours & the Long Game
02:26 Steph Curry as the Anti-Shortcut Blueprint
05:25 Mastery = Transformation: Action → Experience → Opportunity
07:29 Einstein’s Patent Office: High-Level Inputs Fuel Breakthroughs
10:27 Avoiding the Ideation Trap: Baby Steps & “Keep Going” Momentum
11:52 World-Class Inputs vs Noise: Social Media, Books, and Signal
15:31 Trust, Bias, and Vetting Expertise in the AI Era
22:56 Curation Becomes the Product: Paying for Trusted Taste
24:43 Personal Brand as Proof: Being Useful in an AI World
27:07 Taste Makers, Luxury Signals, and the Rise of Experiences
30:56 Does Mastery Still Matter When AI Can Do the Menial Work?
33:23 Nvidia, Amazon & the Rise of the Digital Middleman
34:25 Tesla/SpaceX as Rare True Manufacturers (and Why Most Outsource)
34:58 Mastery + AI: The 10x vs 1/10x Divide
36:21 Jobs AI Will Wipe Out—and Why Menial Work Won’t Matter
37:01 Data vs Personal Brand: Two Kinds of Power
38:33 Robots Are Closer Than You Think: 30-Month Timeline & Constraints
39:53 Training Optimus: Tesla-Style Data, Simulations, and the Go/Watson Lesson
42:05 Assume You’ll Be Replaced: Becoming Irreplaceable Through Experience
45:09 How Mastery Is Built: 2009 Grind to MAVEN’s 10,000-Videos-a-Year System
46:43 Why AI-Generated Content Is a Dead End (TikTok/ByteDance “Seed Dance”)
48:22 High-Effort Systems Win: Barrier to Entry, Autonomy, and “Fire Yourself” Thinking
53:35 Final Story & Wrap-Up: The Buffalo Airport Flight Miracle
Transcript
Jeff Sarris: The very desire to find shortcuts makes you eminently unsuited to achieve mastery.
Amara Andrew: Hey, explorers, this is Useful Not Famous, the show where we’re the most useful people to anyone who’s trying to be useful to others. I’m Amara
Jeff Sarris: Andrew. And I’m Jeff Sarris.
Amara Andrew: Who’s Andrew? I feel like I don’t need a last name.
Jeff Sarris: I think it’s good to have one though.
Amara Andrew: Overrated.
Jeff Sarris: But mastery. So the desire to find shortcuts makes you eminently unsu suited for any kind of mastery that is.
Amara Andrew: Where does that come from?
Jeff Sarris: So that’s from my
Amara Andrew: Joe.
I’ve been married long time ago. Where did you come from? Where did you go? Oh, that’s gonna be stuck in my head now.
Jeff Sarris: God, you’re the one
Amara Andrew: who’s doing it.
Jeff Sarris: Um, Robert Green. That’s from Robert Green
Amara Andrew: Cotton. I joke.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. He
Amara Andrew: wrote
Jeff Sarris: a banger, Uhhuh, and then he wrote the 48 Laws of Power, and then we’re off. Yeah, that’s the, that’s all the backstory.
But Robert Green, like just looking for shortcuts makes you eminently suited for any kind of mastery, which we both read and found so apt. Yes, because that is the thing is if we just define what mastery is. It’s very like, clearly to become a master of doing something, of achieving something, of whatever it is.
Amara Andrew: And a lot of people say that is after a certain amount of hours. So like 10,000 hours is sort of like quote unquote the level of mastery. Obviously it’s like getting 10,000 steps a day. It’s more just like, well this is just a general idea. But, uh, go ahead. I just wanted to throw that in there.
Jeff Sarris: No, that was good.
Yeah. ’cause that’s, uh, Malcolm Gladwell the 10,000 hours, but
Amara Andrew: did he write, uh, cotton Eye Joe also?
Jeff Sarris: No, I think it was just Robert Green alone this time.
Amara Andrew: Oh, nice.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: What a banger. You’re like, focus,
Jeff Sarris: sorry,
Amara Andrew: I’m a little all over the place today.
Jeff Sarris: Um, mastery something, something.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. So, uh, to get like, what is mastery?
And a lot of people say that that’s like 10,000 hours in whatever your, your discipline, your area of study, your whatever it is that you’re doing to make money. That is essentially like, just so you kind of have a marker of what is mastery. ’cause I, I read that and I was like, what the hell is that?
Jeff Sarris: Well, and it’s come up before, but, uh, what is his name?
Tony Robbins. Mm-hmm. There was a recent interview where he was talking about something similar and he brought off step, brought up Steph Curry and How’s Steph Curry? Every single day would shoot something like 5,000 baskets or some astronomical number before he would actually like start playing. Like he would shoot this number of baskets that meant every year he’s, he shot millions in millions of three pointers.
And he’s not like, we don’t even watch basketball, but he’s known as one of the best three point shooter of all time. And you can see all these videos online where he’ll just start right under the basket, take two steps back. Two steps back. Two, he just drains every single one until he’s all the way under the other basket, shooting all the way across the court and still drains him in there.
It’s crazy. But that mastery to be a master of shooting three, three pointers, which can apply to anything you do. If he was looking for a shortcut, do you think he would be a master?
Amara Andrew: No, not at all. Because like how it is so funny because that sounds so crazy. Like when it’s uh, I guess specifically sports related, ’cause like basically everything else, it kind of makes sense that people would try to find a shortcut, but like,
Jeff Sarris: well
Amara Andrew: when we in sports, you like can’t find a shortcut.
Jeff Sarris: If you think about it as sports, like think about business and everything, just be like, well wait, this is the same. It is mastery of a skill.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Well, and I would think of it like from an art background, like somebody trying to learn an instrument or somebody trying to. Paint a painting, paint a whatever.
I was like, paint a painting. That sounds redundant. Anywho, I didn’t have my Wheaties this morning, but the idea of Steph Curry, like trying to find a way to shortcut that is absolutely ridiculous. Oh
Jeff Sarris: yeah. What if I just put that, remember that, remember the ab size or whatever it was called? It was like electrical stimulation on your head.
Oh
Amara Andrew: yeah.
Jeff Sarris: So it was like if he was just like, Ooh, I have this thing for my hand where while I sleep it just, it does this over. And like we would be like, are you nuts? Like, what are you thinking?
Amara Andrew: You’re getting like, I was gonna say a BBL L that isn’t,
not Steph Curry going down the court. You smuggling basketball.
Oh no, my mascara is at waterproof. I can’t be crying already. Anyway, but it’s, it’s a similar idea of mm-hmm. Finding a shortcut. But you’re not actually in like any discipline or whatever, or any life choice, finding a shortcut, you’re not actually addressing the root of the problem or what it will actually take to sustain.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. How do you, so,
Amara Andrew: because hard things are hard, I’m just gonna say, and hard things are very hard.
Jeff Sarris: Mastery is transformation. So like, like the tag on the show,
Amara Andrew: what do you do? I just still love my stuff.
Jeff Sarris: A continue. But mastery is transformation. So saying like, we are the most useful to people who want to be useful to others.
That is the transformation from watching the show. The whole point, yes, this show exists to make you better at what you do. Mm-hmm. There’s people in our sphere who we know who listen and then just apply this to what they’re doing. Mm-hmm. Whether it’s helping others, whether it’s their business. And that’s what we do is for we, we wanna help you transform.
So all of this is just transformation mastery comes from action.
Amara Andrew: Yes.
Jeff Sarris: And action traits. Experience. Experience creates opportunity. And opportunity requires more action. Like, I haven’t said it that much lately on the show, but that’s the whole, that’s the try angle. Like you’re trying in this thing that just grows around and around and around.
Amara Andrew: And it literally is exactly that. Like the more things what we found too. ’cause we’re doing so many things right now. Insane.
Jeff Sarris: Exciting.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Oh, what?
Jeff Sarris: We didn’t say the same word.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, we did Inciting, inciting violence. But it is exciting. I just mean it’s an insane amount of things to be trying right now, but like very Well,
Jeff Sarris: no, but yeah, no one knows how many things we’re doing because No.
’cause
Amara Andrew: also we don’t broadcast it. Yeah. ‘
Jeff Sarris: cause we don’t need to. ’cause
Amara Andrew: we’re working on it.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Um, but where the hell was I going with this?
Jeff Sarris: So just how mastery is doing so much more.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah. But the, the triangle, like you always talk about, we’re, we are doing so many things and in a wide sort of variety of disciplines.
Like it’s all related, but it’s all various different things with various different people. Those then inform the next step, which informs the next step, which is another thing that we were reading about. Like whether you know, or whether you don’t know. Einstein worked in a patent office as a kid, as a.
Like in his early adult
Jeff Sarris: career. Yeah. Three or four years old reviewing patents.
Amara Andrew: Fucking brilliant guy. He’s like, no, that is terrible. That is good.
Jeff Sarris: Wait. He turned down other opportunities because those opportunities would take him away from his studies and mental studies.
Amara Andrew: Even though they were higher paying, they didn’t afford him the freedom to be able to focus on other things.
Whereas in the patent office, he could get everything done in two or three hours and then focus on creating literally the theory of relativity is what he was doing at work, which is amazing.
Jeff Sarris: No, the one other thing that isn’t talked about that we were talking about regarding that choosing the patent office alone, it was a, an entry level clerk, low paying job,
Amara Andrew: but almost like a step back.
Jeff Sarris: It was very much, it was a low level thing that you don’t normally have someone of Einstein’s caliber doing. However.
Amara Andrew: Because he had connections to have the, like cushier jobs.
Jeff Sarris: However, you don’t normally have someone of Einstein’s caliber doing that. However, he put himself in a scenario where he was uniquely suited to know what was happening on, happening on the cutting edge of patents and creation.
Yes. And all of these brilliant people have their secret ideas that then they slid it across the table over to Einstein to try to get a patent to protect their ideas. He was seeing all of this before anyone else in the world was seeing it. Uh, and that’s what he did for a job, two to three hours a day reviewing these applications of groundbreaking concepts and ideas.
Amara Andrew: And that’s why I brought it up because it’s, uh, granted, he wasn’t like doing the things that the patents were four, but he had. So many inputs of so many different ideas,
Jeff Sarris: high level inputs.
Amara Andrew: I was just gonna say, ’cause there is a difference between having a bunch of inputs where that actually stunts your growth and stunts your productivity.
But it was literally things that people actually had. Yeah. Like a higher level and a higher caliber of things,
Jeff Sarris: like probably world class inputs. Yeah. I hope they just across the board,
Amara Andrew: because also, especially back in the day, like it was actually really difficult and you only did that feed like you meant business.
So, um, but that is, that’s so valuable to have all of these different inputs because it helps you, um, like taking different actions and having all these different inputs. You can actually piece things together and see things maybe you wouldn’t have seen before or maybe you didn’t realize, oh, this is actually a much better way that I can do this.
Like, that’s where innovation comes from is like. Building on, like we’ve talked about stepping stones a hundred million times, but basically where you’re at right now, the next like tiny step forward that you can take from that. Obviously not going from right here to building rocket ships. Like especially for us, unless you’re building rocket ships, then cool.
Like that’s amazing. But taking those little baby steps to eventually get to maybe a goal or just keep going. Keep going, asshole. Uh, so that’s favorite shirt,
Jeff Sarris: that’s one of our tagline kind of things for us. And
Amara Andrew: yeah,
Jeff Sarris: we have a shirt that says, keep going asshole backwards. So you see it in the mirror, uh, for yourself.
Uh,
Amara Andrew: but yeah, it’s just those little baby steps that you get to bigger and better things constantly. But you can’t stop and you can’t only focus on the ideas of things. ’cause it, it is very easy to get stuck in the ideation of things. ’cause you get very excited about the idea and then you have some momentum, but then you get.
Sidetracked by something else and then you don’t keep going with it. That actually is a huge setback, unfortunately.
Jeff Sarris: So I think we’re talking about the difference between world class, high level inputs and inputs.
Amara Andrew: Yes.
Jeff Sarris: My tongue feel the fat when I’m say inputs, why does it, it sounds weird but high. You need high level, need
Amara Andrew: mountain value, not a sponsor.
Jeff Sarris: Hey Mountain Valley, if you wanna sponsor, that’d be awesome.
Amara Andrew: I’m sure after the video that we posted that one,
Jeff Sarris: I’d
Amara Andrew: love
Jeff Sarris: to. So,
Amara Andrew: but yeah, I guess what would you say is the difference be what is a world class input and what is just an
Jeff Sarris: input? So I think there’s a very simple way to actually choose. If it’s social media, it’s low.
Low level, not low class, high class, low class, no. But if it’s social media, there’s very few areas within social media where you’re gonna get high level world class things. Whatever you think about it, like Twitter X is one of the spots where you get high level engineering ai like. Very specific sort of nerd guy categories.
Generally speaking, it’s not like only guys, but you know, like that’s where Nerd AI people live now. They don’t live in, back in the day it would’ve been like use net in forums and all these things. Now they live on Twitter, so you can get high level stuff there. But where you really get it is where someone, a human sat down and spent 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years writing this book with everything they’ve ever learned within their area of expertise.
Because that book doesn’t exist yet. Like there’s a book called Chaos. It’s all about chaos theory. And the intro to that book is from someone who they talked about how they were going in going to college for chaos, to learn about chaos theory, to like be the best at this. Discovered this book in, realized this person.
Already figured it all out. Like the theory is basically like codified now. So this person decide, the person who read this realized I’m not gonna go down that path because it’s already been like tread. That path has already been taken. Now what I’ve learned here, what can I apply? Taking a different stepping stone in a direction I want to go.
Amara Andrew: That actually brought up an interesting thought in my head. ’cause just because somebody writes a book doesn’t mean it’s an amazing book.
Jeff Sarris: No, not at all.
Amara Andrew: So how do you then, I know this is a completely separate,
Jeff Sarris: so realtor, I just wanted to say most books will be better than most social media.
Amara Andrew: Yes. So there is like a hierarchy.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. That’s an easy
Amara Andrew: an gonna say way to
think
Jeff Sarris: about
it.
Amara Andrew: Like the barrier to entry. It is much more difficult to write a book than to post on social media
Jeff Sarris: before 2025. Yes. Because the problem now, right, is, is if it’s all ai. Yeah. So then it’s like. It’s sort of like we have a a 20 24, 20 23 and before threshold, unless it’s someone that’s already established that you know, is really successful and a thinker and this, yeah.
Amara Andrew: But that is very difficult to find, uh, something which this is like so nerdy and I honestly don’t, uh, recommend it to people. But a way that I find things that are uh, I guess more valid, more has more of a barrier to entry that I find has more value in it are actually journal articles and studies.
Because just for me, because that’s also the background that I come from, is like, well yeah, you go read a journal article ’cause it does have to get peer reviewed. I’m not saying that that’s gonna be like the most amazing thing and it’s probably gonna be very boring, but you will find like little nuggets in there and you at least know that there was.
Relatively a high barrier to entry to get that in there? Somewhat, not a hundred percent. It’s so
Jeff Sarris: hard. I think
Amara Andrew: research, I’m thinking some, the people that I know who have written them, I’m like, oh, this was just like, but now with ai, it is really hard to figure out what actually is, we’re just talking about taste at this point.
Like Pier Bodu, where it’s like,
Jeff Sarris: what,
Amara Andrew: where, uh, he’s a theorist. He wrote about taste in a book, um, in a, a book pre pre 1980s, I think it was like 79. He wrote it. It’s a really good book, but it’s very like, it’s very heady. I don’t recommend it. Um, but he’s talking about taste and like the different signifiers.
This is more like a class kind of thing, like society class, but basically how do you find, what are the signifiers that something actually is gonna be worth your time and is vetted and like, you can’t actually believe this person. Because I think, especially today with ai, that’s gonna be very, very important.
Like, how do you. How do you find that? What would you say?
Jeff Sarris: Well, I, I wanted to, I opened up just stop on the journal thing because the problem with the journal stuff real quick and the academia is, it’s very, very biased now. The people, the peer review system is unfortunately a little broken.
Amara Andrew: I think it depends on what the subject is,
Jeff Sarris: I think.
But also there is a really strong bias in a lot of the areas of importance, like let’s say, like health and diet and all of these things.
Amara Andrew: Well, yeah,
Jeff Sarris: there’s so many factors that I actually personally don’t know that I trust the journals as much as I do. It sounds stupid. I think like saying it out loud sounds ridiculous, but the people who would have otherwise written a journal but chose instead to devote all the time to writing a book and then doing a podcast tour on the biggest shows that they could get on to explain these groundbreaking ideas.
Amara Andrew: I agree to some extent, but what if then they wrote the book now and then it’s just a regurgitation. Like presumably they used AI to help them write it. Like what if it is just a regurgitation of all the ideas?
Jeff Sarris: So that’s the tough part, but that’s actually where I think the long form conversations like this.
But people who are brilliant, they’re just like us. Um, but I think that that’s where it’s super helpful.
Amara Andrew: But then the hard part is there are popular shows out there. Is that because they’re like the better shows or is it just purely because they’ve been doing it the longest?
Jeff Sarris: So
Amara Andrew: like I struggle with that wholeheartedly.
Jeff Sarris: Well, I only wanted to say with the individuals though. So not critiquing the shows, but the individuals who put all this effort to get in. They’re fresh ideas out there.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Which
Jeff Sarris: I
Amara Andrew: do agree.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. So there’s like the, because
Amara Andrew: yeah, I’m not saying that journals are like mm-hmm. The only, uh,
Jeff Sarris: oh no, I know
Amara Andrew: thing, but it is,
Jeff Sarris: I’m more, I’m actually way more, because I know
Amara Andrew: tenure track is a really big issue.
Huge. Where you’re just publishing things to publish it and just so you don’t lose your job
Jeff Sarris: well and there’s so much money and manipulation in what you need the results to be in a lot, especially in the health sphere. ’cause you can always cherry pick data for anything.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And like it’s been such an issue for so long that I actually,
Amara Andrew: but that’s like anything then too.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly. But that it feels,
I think if it’s one person manipulating, it’s one thing. When it’s an entire system manipulating for a certain outcome, that’s where I get caught up.
Amara Andrew: But then isn’t everything biased? It’s ’cause like we’ll have our biases.
Jeff Sarris: Mm-hmm. Everything is, but I think it’s harder to,
Amara Andrew: because like a book is just a way to persuade you to think a certain day.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly. Mm-hmm. That’s what the show is too.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: I’m persuading you to think my way,
Amara Andrew: bullshit,
Jeff Sarris: but
Amara Andrew: not going down without
Jeff Sarris: a saying. Like, all I wanted, all I wanted to say was, I actually, I think there’s a lot more potential to curate by listening to long form conversations because people can’t like fake their way through 90 minutes, two hours, three hours of someone who’s actually doing a good job interviewing them, asking difficult questions.
So like the one guy recently,
Amara Andrew: so we were back to the 10,000 hours thing. Oh yeah. Oh. Where it’s somebody that actually has done the work.
Jeff Sarris: And you only know for me, you only know that because you got to, you either were vetted from someone else, like I might’ve said to you, this book is amazing. You need to read it.
Or you might have said to me the same thing. Or I might trust so-and-so interviewer. And the latest episode has like, there was a doctor slash scientist, I think PhD doctor, not empty doctor, talking about sleep. And I’ve done so much sleep research over like the last 15 years and the stuff that he in his lab has sort of uncovered is stuff I’ve never heard before that changed how I think about it completely.
So then I instantly downloaded the sample of his book that he has.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And I think that’s a way where you can find sort of the high level thinking because they can’t really, you’d only fake it so long. Eventually you start to, you start to see the expertise crumble when it’s not actual expertise.
Amara Andrew: Yes.
And I do agree. I do still think, I guess it depends on the discipline because I wasn’t thinking health specifically. Like I’m thinking more, uh. Sociology, psychology, uh, not even psychology, but like sociology, like more human studies, I guess, versus medical, if that makes sense.
Jeff Sarris: I think maybe lower stakes, less so, stakes might be the wrong word, but things that are, uh, less divisive right now.
Does that make sense?
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah. No, I’m just thinking how to explain what I’m thinking.
Jeff Sarris: Or Sorry. Does that mean what you’re saying or no?
Amara Andrew: Yeah, I think so. ’cause yeah, I wasn’t talking health specifically, like that’s a whole fucking bag of hammers that I will never touch. Uh, because it is extremely divisive and everybody has an opinion and probably most people are wrong.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Like they say, just like assholes. Everyone has two of them.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, you have a top one and the bottom one. Could you imagine if you was an
Jeff Sarris: asshole? I was like, I couldn’t tell if you actually heard me say two and ’cause you were just like looking. I was like,
Amara Andrew: I was formulating my joke.
Jeff Sarris: Okay, good.
Amara Andrew: You could see the wheels turning
Jeff Sarris: just like before when we were having breakfast.
Amara Andrew: What? Oh, shut up. I was literally, we were eating. You were just like, if you’re listening, I was just staring into the ether. ’cause I was thinking of things
Jeff Sarris: Uhhuh.
Amara Andrew: I know. I like it. You don’t need to perform my thinking. Like, hmm.
Jeff Sarris: No, I know. That’s how I know my little
Amara Andrew: pipe in my Sherlock
Jeff Sarris: comes becausecause.
We were talking and that’s how I know you’re thinking, thinking it through, which is fun. You’re just like,
Amara Andrew: just staring into the void. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until you’re just like, I dunno. That’s how I think
Jeff Sarris: Uhhuh. Um, so yeah, high level versus low level, like consuming and scrolling on social media nonstop.
Like we all know that’s not good for us in any way. Yes. Really? Yes. And. Finding more of the high level things is a challenge. It’s not simple, but it’s worth the effort. And curation is something that Kevin Kelly talked about probably maybe 2012. He’s always been a futurist founder of Wired Magazine. He is done all these things over the years and he wrote, I think it was in what Technology Wants
Amara Andrew: mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: In that book. And then he was like the future right now in 2012, whatever year it was, we pay for access. And he is like, in the future we will pay for curation. Which couldn’t have been more true. Like right now we have access to all of the world’s knowledge all of the time. We’ve never had that. We can get anything we want, and especially with ai, we can be convinced that we’re getting the accurate version of anything we want, even if it’s not accurate.
But we can be convinced that it is. So we’re at like an interesting time for curation. There’s, what did I say? 1400 books published every day or something. Damn. There’s some number that’s especially un unfathomable. And this is before ai, like it was like two or three years ago, I think it was 1400. That’s
Amara Andrew: Insane.
Jeff Sarris: Books published every single day.
Amara Andrew: Wow.
Jeff Sarris: So then it’s like, how do you filter through that going for trusted sources? Like I know that you’ve given me good recommendations, so now I’m gonna turn to you for like, oh, she really liked this book. Let me check it out and see if it’s gonna be for me. Or, she uses this hair product, let’s see if it’s for me.
She uses this. Dietary the supplement. Like there’s so many different things where that’s why the personal brand and the stuff we do and we build for people is so important with this. This smirk you like, oh, he is, he’s raining it back in.
Amara Andrew: Oh, because that, that’s what I was literally just gonna say is what we were talking about.
I think it was last week about building a personal brand. Or maybe it was two weeks ago, but with AI you can make proof. Yeah, exactly. Like you can make anything and everything nowadays. So how do you, like in the age of ai, you’re gonna need proof so much more like proof that you actually know what you’re talking about, that you’re real person, that these are actually good ideas.
So building your personal brand is going to be one of the best ways to essentially like survive, quote unquote, that’s super dramatic. But to survive the AI world that we’re going to be in, ’cause like it’s here, it’s not going away.
Jeff Sarris: I think this is actually perfect. So Useful Not Famous. How are you useful in an AI world?
That’s the question, not you.
Amara Andrew: I mean,
Jeff Sarris: but that’s the question you need to start answering right now. Like, how am I useful if it’s entering data into a spreadsheet? No, that’s, that’s not the answer. But I don’t care what you’re doing. I don’t care how effectively you’re typing those little fingers. Like you’re not useful anymore.
You, you’re past your expiration date. So thinking how to be useful in the future. And one of the things is taste makers being a tastemaker because a trusted source, I don’t even say, I don’t even wanna say tastemaker, but what we will turn to is people who we trust their taste
Amara Andrew: and there can be enough people.
’cause like we all like different things and we all wanna hear different voices, different people, whatever. So there’s plenty of room for. A lot of different taste makers. So like if you think that you can’t be, like, you can’t throw your hat in the ring. Well, you’ve already given up. Like you don’t know.
There are gonna be people out there that want to hear from you specifically because they like the way you say something or they like the way you act or how stupid you are. Like they,
Jeff Sarris: well, yeah, and I, I mean, TikTok speaking from
Amara Andrew: experience,
Jeff Sarris: TikTok, TikTok is a good example. There’s so many people who are famous, not useful, but people want to hear from a lot of individuals no matter who they are.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean it equates to them making money. However they are providing the taste signals to people who trust them.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: They just didn’t connect those dots early enough to be like, Ooh, I need to, this trust has to be in service of a thing if I want it to be profitable.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And that does.
It actually does sort of go back to Pierre Bodu, who I brought up earlier about taste, which is actually really interesting. Uh, he was just talking about like class signifiers, blah, blah, blah, but like, who do you trust actually online, because there are a lot of, so like speaking from my experience on my TikTok, if I’m looking at like luxury jewelry or luxury handbags or something, there’s specific people who I watch their stuff to see what they say because they have the money and the resources to buy these insanely priced purses.
Like it’s stupid how expensive they are, but I am their taste because they have money I. Subconsciously view them as having taste. So I believe them and I listen to them. And not that that’s the only signifier that you should have.
Jeff Sarris: I just wanna add one thing. Yes. Because I feel like that can be misunderstood.
Amara Andrew: How
Jeff Sarris: you’re interested in seeing very expensive otherwise unattainable goods. So who can get very expensive unattainable goods? People who have a lot of money. So I think that’s, or
Amara Andrew: people who spend a lot of money
Jeff Sarris: either way. But I wanna just make that distinction because I don’t think money and taste go together in any other context.
I think it’s only that one. So I don’t want people to think, well I don’t have money so I can’t be a taste trying to, it’s like, well no, I don’t care if you have have $0.
Amara Andrew: That’s, that’s not what I’m saying.
Jeff Sarris: No, I know it’s not. I wanted to just sort of clarify ’cause I could hear it being missed. Understood on the other side of these microphones.
I
Amara Andrew: was getting to my point.
Jeff Sarris: Okay.
Amara Andrew: But because I view that as being the taste maker, like for that specific thing, it doesn’t actually mean that they are the taste maker. It means that yeah, they purely just have the resources for that. But those are people that are sort of setting the taste, you know what I mean?
So like how
Jeff Sarris: Well it’s a taste major for you.
Amara Andrew: Yes. So
Jeff Sarris: that’s true. That’s not even
Amara Andrew: debatable, but it is always a trickle down effect, which is something to think about. So like how I brought up to you too, like I think that experiences are the, the luxury item of the future. Purely bar none. Everybody can buy any designer, whatever they want.
Now you can put it on a credit card, you can never pay for it. You can pay all cash, whatever the fuck you want. You cannot. Do that with experiences like you can put on a credit card, but it’s very different. It’s, it’s some
Jeff Sarris: experiences,
Amara Andrew: certain ones, but also some you have no access to unless you have deep pockets, you have connections, you have whatever.
Jeff Sarris: And there’s, there’s a specific per, we’re friends with someone who knows what would be called a fixer for celebrities.
Amara Andrew: Oh,
Jeff Sarris: yeah. Where, when,
Amara Andrew: that’s insane.
Jeff Sarris: When the ultra, ultra ultra rich wants something that no one should ever have access to.
Amara Andrew: They do it.
Jeff Sarris: They go to him.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Not because he’s like ultra, ultra, ultra rich.
Like he’s, he does very well. However, he has the connections to provide you with an experience that is one, a, one of one experience no one else on the planet could possibly get.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm. So it’s, that is another path. Like there’s so many paths forward. I know everybody’s freaking about freaking out about ai, but it’s.
Just a different landscape. It’s just like all the revolutions and all the industrial revolutions and steel revolution, like all the things you just need to pivot. Like it’s not as scary because so many people are so doom and gloom about it and it’s like, well no, you just figure it out. Ding dong. And like if you can figure it out early, that’s even better because then you can just totally cash in.
Jeff Sarris: Do you think in an AI world mastery matters?
Amara Andrew: Hmm. See, again, like this entire conversation, it depends on the subject, like the discipline, because we come from very different, like you and I, we come from very different disciplines and backgrounds and subjects where I see certain benefits in what I’ve learned historically. But you see benefits or maybe not benefits.
What the hell is the opposite of benefit? Disadvantage?
Jeff Sarris: No, just. I don’t think this opposite. Not, yeah,
Amara Andrew: disbenefits UN benefits,
Jeff Sarris: debt benefits and disbenefits.
Amara Andrew: Damn. Right. But you see the exact opposite because of how you’re viewing it. So
Jeff Sarris: wait, what do I see the like in what you’ve learned
Amara Andrew: or what do you say?
So what I just said about journal articles in the areas that I’ve come from, hugely beneficial because some idiot on TikTok versus a peer reviewed journal, even though it’s gonna have its flaws, I would probably trust the peer reviewed journal over some idiot on TikTok personally, because I have been that idiot on TikTok.
Um, so anyway, so your question was, in AI world, what
Jeff Sarris: in AI world does mastery matter?
Amara Andrew: Does mastery matter? I mean, I do think so more than ever because then that ties to proof, I guess proof. Of your mastery matters the most, but then what is that like? There are certain things now that you can offload to AI and you absolutely should like data, all those things, which is hilarious because growing up it was like, no, you should have a data job or you should be a medical professional.
And it’s like, well, data people, bye-bye. Um, you still need curators, blah, blah, blah.
That’s an interesting question. I feel like I need to think about that. What do you think?
Jeff Sarris: So I think that’s all that is left.
Amara Andrew: Yeah,
Jeff Sarris: because
Amara Andrew: like I feel like you do need the proof though of your mastery.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. But then
Amara Andrew: what does that mean’s?
Jeff Sarris: So let’s just say either having mastery or not, like sort of ignoring the proof side.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah. You definitely need
Jeff Sarris: to like, I think that is the only path through the AI world because AI can do every menial, everything already. There’s very little, yeah. So I was listening to a thing where. Every company is a digital company and like data like now,
Amara Andrew: or it will
Jeff Sarris: be now, which I thought was very interesting.
So Nvidia, Nvidia makes chips? Yeah, Nvidia makes
Amara Andrew: is loaded.
Jeff Sarris: Nvidia makes the chips that AI use, that everyone uses for ai. However, they don’t actually make the chips. Mm-hmm. They design it digitally and send the digital files to Taiwan is what I understand. And that’s where they’re made. So they don’t actually make the chip, they make them.
Oh, I didn’t know that. But that’s how every single company works. When you actually sort of step back and look at it, they’re in the,
Amara Andrew: oh my God, they’re the
Jeff Sarris: middleman digital design. They’re creating, but they’re not the manufacturer.
Amara Andrew: So then they’re also the taste makers though, because like we buy from Amazon, like we just because it’s easy.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: And they’re the middleman between people who wanna sell things to us mm-hmm. And us who wanna buy things.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. But, and then just thinking like everyone, so one of the, some of the rare companies that are not only in data are Tesla and SpaceX. They actually manufacture their cars a hundred percent in-house and they actually manufacture the space shuttles.
They’re, they can’t outsource those things. They’ve invented the entire workflow of all of it. Very few companies have, it’s almost zero when you really look at it. They all go out to factories to make the things they want made. So then once we’re there, it’s like they’re master. They have mastery in the thing they do, but just like all of us, their mastery is still sort of bits and bite.
So now Nvidia can make better chips because they are masters of making chips. When they integrate with ai, they’re not just let me have AI make these chips. Now they’re taking their mastery, compounding it with ai and like we talk about one 10 x 10 xing. A lot of people are one 10th xing their output into what they’re doing and letting AI handle nine-tenths of the work.
But the companies and the people who are going to be the future are the masters, the ones who are taking what they know and do and use an AI to 10 x what they’re able to do with their knowledge combined with AI in creating something so far and beyond everyone else, like a one 10th to a 10 x. Is that a thousand percent jump?
Because it’s not like just a hundred. It’s like a crazy difference between those two that is going to be like, I think the biggest divide we’ve ever had in history.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But you have to be a master to do anything like that. Any menial job doesn’t, just doesn’t matter anymore. There’s nothing of importance.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Like assistants, secretaries, all those things. I mean, they should have been gone by now, but they’re 100% gone, like not
Jeff Sarris: gone. Anything that’s been outsourced to other countries and things like, unfortunately that’s just, it’s gone. Like you just, you outsourced AI now.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The data is very interesting.
I feel like that is a really good point. Just thinking for the future, like for what we’re doing and what we’re trying to do. Hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Well, here’s the thing. So if we zoom back a little,
Amara Andrew: Nope.
Jeff Sarris: What mastery looks like for us, but then
Amara Andrew: do you only think that data actually is the future in ai? Because almost putting things into buckets, like you have your personal brand and then you just are not like an influencer, but you are the, the taste maker and you have your cult following and people follow you and listen to you and buy your products or buy whatever.
Then you have like the data version, like it feels like,
Jeff Sarris: so what you just said, we’ll call power.
Amara Andrew: Okay. Power and then
Jeff Sarris: well, yeah, like in like a personal brand equates to power.
Amara Andrew: Well, yeah. It’s more the, the awareness side of things. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And I think power, just because it’s broad. It, it could be to sell products, it could be to influence
Amara Andrew: things
Jeff Sarris: you
Amara Andrew: want, but I would also say that data is power to me as well.
Jeff Sarris: Mm-hmm.
Amara Andrew: Like, it’s, it’s just interesting thinking of these two different. Sort of buckets. ’cause I’ve never actually thought about the data side before, which sounds absolutely stupid. That’s, Hmm. Okay. Anyway, so
Jeff Sarris: wait, no, no, no. Go on. ’cause I don’t know where you’re going. I’m not sure what, uh, I’m not sure what you’re saying yet.
Amara Andrew: No, I’m just trying to think like, for the future, for example, what would future jobs be like 50 years from now? You’re not going to have, like, you’re gonna have the in-person people, so like a plumber, a shoemaker, like, like all those, like old school kind of things, but the necessity things like the trades people for plumbing.
But you look so skeptical.
Jeff Sarris: So I, I think that
Amara Andrew: that’s, or do you think it’s gonna be fucking robots or something?
Jeff Sarris: I think that’s a foregone conclusion already.
Amara Andrew: So I, I guess it just depends on when we’re gonna have robots, is the question. Not if, but when. So, so I guess I said 50 years, I meant like 10 years.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. I mean, it is
Amara Andrew: 2026,
Jeff Sarris: February 20th ish and
Amara Andrew: 21st.
Jeff Sarris: Um, the. For, uh, what are they called? Robots? The optimist Robot.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Is, or no, it wasn’t even for that. It was for an entirely different thing, but an estimate for a world that I don’t even wanna get into the topic. Oh, it wasn’t because it’s so crazy.
But the estimate was 30 months. 30 months. For a world that looks nothing like right now. Because people are thinking about the limitations and putting all their effort at what’s the, the constraint. What’s the constraint? Mm-hmm. So we think about this for ourselves too. What’s the biggest constraint in any of our businesses?
Now let’s put all of our effort, effort into annihilating that constraint, because then you can just expand and grow and do all these things. 30 months, that 30 to 36. But 30 is like a healthy estimate for the long vision for it. So that’s two, about two and a half years and a half years. The, the optimist robots, specifically, the hardest part of a robot is the hands.
If you wanna have human-like hands, apparently that’s already done.
Amara Andrew: Damn.
Jeff Sarris: Now it’s training. So how do you train an optimist robot? They’re doing the same thing that Tesla did. So Tesla has around 10 million cars on the road right now. It all, the data from every drive, from every one of those cars educates the AI in the car.
So then it learns every possible scenario that it could encounter, and that’s why you can have self-drive. And after 15 years of Tesla existed,
Amara Andrew: so see then Tesla is a data company first and foremost.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And then optimists, they’re doing the exact same thing, but you can’t just throw robots on the street.
Part of what they did for Tesla is created a a, uh, like an. Simulation simulation theory, but a simulation of the world for Tesla cars to operate in and train on. And they were very successful at doing that for Tesla. So they have the same thing for the robots. So you have 10,000 robots living in an artificial world together, making each other better, exponentially faster than we could, which is how go, uh, the IBM Watson computer years ago, they figured out how to make Watson play itself millions and millions and millions of times.
Whereas suddenly the game of go, all of the experts, no one could beat Watson. Watson was the best go player ever in this game. That’s 3000 years old or something, right?
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Like it’s been played for millennia and the best players can no longer beat Watson. So then people actually just hang it up.
’cause they’re like, well. Sort of what’s the point now? There’s something that is so much better than a human could ever be. It almost feels like pointless to get good at it and enjoy it. And this was like 2015, I think when Watson did that. But now you apply this to robots, same exact thing, and it’s happening very, very, very fast.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. We were talking to someone who, they have a very like person forward business and they didn’t think that they were gonna be replaced by AI and or robots. Which again, like not a hundred percent, like nothing’s a hundred percent yet. It’s just like how we still hand write things very seldom. But there is that little bit.
Like you, you can still hand write. It’s not like outlawed.
Jeff Sarris: We, what’s
Amara Andrew: this? We stuff? It’s just me. I’m old school. But, uh, not a,
Jeff Sarris: which is good for your brain. That’s another topic. But handwriting apparently is very good to, yeah. So I guess stave off Alzheimer’s.
Amara Andrew: I hand write on my iPad, but because the way that I think is like, as I’m writing things out, I’m like, that’s it.
Like that’s the thing. Versus like typing, I have no connection to. Anyway, I digress. But they, the person that we were talking to doesn’t believe that they’re gonna be replaced by AI or robots. And I think, like, not to be a Debbie Downer, but sorry, mom, that’s her mom’s name. Her name’s Debbie. Her name’s Downer.
No. Uh, you have to sort of operate under the idea that you will be replaced. So again, another thing that we were reading this morning, how do you become irreplaceable? How do you become so incredibly vital to people or robots or ai, but how do you build something that is irreplaceable in this day and age, and especially moving forward, like if you’re a person forward business, so that means you’re always interacting with people.
You’re maybe helping them buy yourself something, or you’re providing a service or whatever it is. How do you make the experience? This sounds insane, even better than working with AI or a robot that can do it in half the time. Probably a third of the cost. Like I have no idea what things will cost in the future.
I’m not in the future me in, but
Jeff Sarris: technically people are listening to this in the future. But go on,
Amara Andrew: this is the past. Uh, but how do you. What do you, again, we’re going back to experiences. I just keep fucking talking in circles, but going back to an experience, how do you make an experience that’s so remarkable that people are like, well, I’d much rather do that than have it done in five minutes by Jerry the robot.
Like whatever it is, just what is it and how do you do that? Like, I wish I had more answers. I’m talking so nebulously. Well, no, that’s, but it’s, it’s all the hypotheticals of just, how the fuck are you gonna make it in the new world? Like, how do you survive?
Jeff Sarris: Well, and like with from that, what you said, being indispensable to people.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Like that, those are the businesses we’ve built. Yeah. Like my brand agency people have stuck around for, so it’ll be 17 years this year.
Amara Andrew: That’s crazy.
Jeff Sarris: So yeah. There’s, that’s amazing. Some people who are, who’ve been around, let’s say 15, 16 of those 17 years, because we are indispensable to what they do.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: With MAVEN. And this is from Mastery. So let me rewind all the way back to 2009, way back when in 2009. So how do you become a master? I looked for all the shortcuts and then there I am. No, like there’s no way to do that. So for the first year of doing sort of brand design websites, all these things, which now sounds antiquated when you think in websites, but let’s remember, we’re in the 2009 world.
Amara Andrew: Back when you were handwriting,
Jeff Sarris: I would be building sites for clients approximately 14 hours a day and seven days a week, year round. I think I did that for about 16 to 18 months. Every single day. I got kind of good at doing it in a year and a half. What have we done with MAVEN? Three years, whenever we started, however many years ago, we started flying to people.
So we’ve been doing MAVEN now for a while. Yeah, three years. But we weren’t flying to people. It was like three years ago. We started flying to them and doing it in their market. Suddenly we’re producing 10,000 videos a year. So what happens when you’re producing 10,000 videos a year?
Amara Andrew: You get chopped fingies from editing
Jeff Sarris: and you figure out a couple things.
So MAVEN is indispensable to the people we work with, and it’s not by accident. It’s because we wanna be as useful as possible. And when you’re extremely useful because you have mastery of something, you’re indispensable. And I think that’s always going to be true. Like AI makes everything easier. But if you’re trying to make all of your content with ai, you’re taking the path of least resistance.
You’re taking the path that everyone else can and is taking. So you have nothing that can set you apart.
Amara Andrew: Yeah,
Jeff Sarris: there’s absolutely no way to win when you’re competing on AI generated content. There’s no way if, if an enormous company, if TikTok, which I, I am very confident they’re doing this. If TikTok decided we are gonna create every single user account using our ai, which is called Seed Dance, which they can create any movie you can be like, have Tom Cruise fighting, um, John Wick, or whatever it is, and it will do it perfectly.
Have Keanu Reeves Matrix fighting Keanu Reeves, John Wick, it creates that movie for you in minutes. Mm-hmm. This is from Seed Dance. Seed Dance is from Bite Dance. Bite Dance owns TikTok. So what are they doing? They create AI to create. All of the content for their platforms, they never have to worry about users anymore.
I don’t have to pay someone because they get a lot of views and I want to keep ’em here. I can just make that person and have tons of fans all over the world and it’s not even a real person. And you can’t compete with that ever. So if you’re using, um, 11 labs or something to generate yourself, you, you’re on borrowed time.
Like you are taking the completely wrong path because you’re never gonna be able to get anywhere unless you’re doing something that everyone else can’t do in their underwear in bed. Yeah. And that’s the big thing. That’s where mastery comes from.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And also then that’s back to the barrier to entry.
Like if it’s in incred, like posting to social media, we work in it. I would argue very easy, but de depending on how you do it, because there are easy ways to do it, which is the lazier way, but it’s the way that everybody else does it. But. There’s a way that’s a little bit more difficult, a little bit more strategy intensive, which is the way that we do it and the way we do it with our clients.
Jeff Sarris: Can I just add low effort, high effort instead of hard, easy.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, that’s fine.
Jeff Sarris: So
Amara Andrew: low effort way. Yeah. Low effort is the stuff that you can do in five seconds and it’s just like blah higher effort takes a little bit more time. It doesn’t have to be hours on end, but it’s the stuff that is not quite as easy.
There’s a little bit of friction. It takes a little bit of time. And that’s the stuff that we do with our clients because then that’s how you stand out in a sea of very low effort content, which now there is in quite in abundance.
Jeff Sarris: So, and what makes MAVEN indispensable is we, everyone we work with puts as much effort into their social media as though they were using ai, but they’re getting high effort content.
Yeah. ’cause we now. We do two days every quarter with people. With some people. We’re only doing one. We have everything so dialed and laser focused. We don’t need two days to produce three months of content across all platforms, including law form. Yeah, because we’ve been doing this every single day for years and years on end.
So it’s not even that you have to be putting in all the high effort, but you need to have your system in place for high effort output because low effort is going away. It is the low effort stuff is typing the stuff into an Excel spreadsheet. I heard like an analogy that all the best businesses in the future will be the ones who are completely autonomous using ai.
Because if you think about a spreadsheet, if your spreadsheet was all done automatically, except I don’t know. Two 50, a hundred of the cells a human had to had to calculate those cells. You’d be like, why are you having a human calculate those cells?
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: You can have software do all the rest. Why? Why’d you decide this one sheet you have to manually do?
We wouldn’t do that. That’s silly. It’d be the same idea. Once AI can do all of the things that are basically calculating a cell and a table, like same idea. It’s just we can’t see it yet. We can see in the rear view mirror, whoever that was that said that, like we, yeah,
Amara Andrew: that’s fascinating.
Jeff Sarris: We predict the future looking in the rear view mirror, but until we’re there we don’t know what it’s gonna be.
So we just, we need to be able to do the high effort things that aren’t easy for everyone else to do and be arguably the best at it.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I’m under no pretenses that obviously we can be replaced with ai, but Oh,
Jeff Sarris: for sure.
Amara Andrew: I, this is something, another thing we’ve been working on, how to replace ourselves with.
So like, what? Can we, excuse me, I just choked at my own spit. But like what, like, this is sort of a, an engineer way of thinking of it, or like you said, like a computer engineer way. How do you break it? So how would you replace yourself with ai? What would you do instead? I think is a really good way to think about it.
Instead of being afraid of it. Just being like, well, yeah, what would I use or what would I build? Or what, well, what would I build? That’s very, that’s a very, very hard thing, which you can do. Like by all means. Like, shoot for the moon, whatever. ’cause you land among the stars. But
Jeff Sarris: boo.
Amara Andrew: But how would you replace yourself with it?
Like, what are the things that
Jeff Sarris: you, if you were the boss, if you Yeah, if I, how would
Amara Andrew: you get rid of yourself?
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. I think fire yourself. I step out. Exactly. So now if you’re the employee of your organization and you need to trim the fat, how would you fire yourself? I think that’s easier than being like, how would I replace myself?
But it’s like, how would you
Amara Andrew: fire yourself?
Jeff Sarris: Would you streamline, could I not pay myself anymore?
Amara Andrew: Exactly. And that’s something that, uh. We dabble in often. ’cause it’s like, okay, well what would I do differently? Like how would I, I’m an outsider and I’m working at another company. I’d be like, oh, you should do this and you should trim that.
Like I think it’s an interesting thought experiment. And then you’ll see things in a different way instead of being reactive, being proactive. So like reactive is when something happens and then you react to it and you’re already sort of set back proactive. Which I know I’m like defining words in a stupid way, but like just trying to make sure we’re all on the same page.
’cause I keep not saying things the right way apparently, but being proactive and saying, uh, like trying to figure it out before it even happens and how to like plan of attack. Like, okay, robots are taking over tomorrow, but I already have my systems in place so I should be okay with the robot overlords.
Jeff Sarris: Should be. Okay. You’re saying everything. I just wanted to go back though. You’re saying everything right? I think this is a really rich I’m
Amara Andrew: discussion. No, I’m, I’m sleepy also. No, no. I feel like my brain, I didn’t have matcha today too, so I, I really feel it. Like I’ve noticed it. We just got back yesterday, like literally last night from, oh my God.
Jeff Sarris: We were supposed to be home
Amara Andrew: today that day.
Jeff Sarris: So this is, this is a bonus day.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Which is nice.
Amara Andrew: That was honestly the most miraculous thing ever that happened yesterday. Yes.
Jeff Sarris: We’re almost at an hour, but let’s quickly give the, okay.
Amara Andrew: Super quick, because this honestly, like, I should have gotten that, uh, guy’s name because this was amazing.
So we. We’re supposed to come home tomorrow, but we finished filming
Jeff Sarris: today. No.
Amara Andrew: Or, yeah, where am I?
Jeff Sarris: Yeah, we were supposed to come home the next day.
Amara Andrew: Yes. So we were supposed to come home today, uh, in a couple hours. And instead, because we’ve refined our system so much, um, we were able to actually, and like Michelle’s awesome, but we were able to bump up our travel day of the afternoon of yesterday instead, blah, blah, blah.
So I bumped up our flights. I was like, okay, cool. We are just hanging out. We finished filming yesterday morning, and then we just grab lunch, blah, blah, blah. We go to the airport. Literally, as soon as we pull into the airport, we, I see. Oh my God, our flight’s delayed five hours. Yeah,
Jeff Sarris: they just delayed it.
Like
Amara Andrew: it wasn’t like you just notice, notice. Otherwise I would’ve just, we would’ve hung out somewhere. But also I’m like, well, no, we should be at the airport just in case things change. We’ve
Jeff Sarris: traveled enough to know you need to be there.
Amara Andrew: Yes, change, this is very important for the rest of the story, and I’ll be as quick as possible, but we pull in and then it’s like, well, shit, okay, well we’re here like it’s comfy.
We’ll just hang out. We have tons of things we can do, blah, blah, blah. So we like are moving through security and then I check my phone and then I’m like, oh, okay, now we’ve been bumped another hour, so now it’s six hours. So I’m like, great. Six. But it’s fine. Like we already have bonus time is what we’re calling it.
Where it’s just like, well no, we’re like, we’re flying home early, so it’s fine. We’ll get home tonight. Grateful
Jeff Sarris: for everything.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Which that’s another topic. Uh, but it’s like, it’s fine. We’re comfortable, we’re safe. Like first world problems, our travel’s delayed. Okay, cool. We travel enough where it’s just like, okay, whatever.
Like we’re just gonna play solitaire or do work, whatever. You got me hooked on solitaire yesterday. So we’re sitting in the food court, we’re at a table, and this is important, I promise every single detail is important, but we’re sitting at a table. I’m all spread out. I have all my things everywhere ’cause I’m working on my computer trying to get things done.
Then we’re just like. It’s been maybe two or three hours. And I see on my phone there’s like a little update thing and it says we still have like four and a half hours. So then it’s like, okay, well maybe we should move to one of the booths because they have, uh, a plug so I can charge my stuff. And then it’s just more comfortable.
Yeah. ’cause we were sitting on hard chairs. We get to the booth. I had packed everything up. You had everything packed up. Thank God. I look at my phone and I keep checking it for updates because on the way to where we were, our flight was delayed by three hours. But what happens, which if your flight is ever delayed, just go the hell to the airport because then our flight was actually bumped back up.
Only a half hour delay before this is on the way to Buffalo. So I knew well things might change and this is the first time also, we’re not sitting at our gate. We always sit at our gate. We’re always right there. This was the only time. We have never been directly at our gate or right across from it
Jeff Sarris: because this is the longest delay we’ve ever had.
Yeah, like by a long shot.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Like because we fly united and they don’t really delay too much. But this is a little different because like going there, it’s a tiny airplane.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Typically at the most, it’s like maybe an hour or something. And then even then it’s like not a full hour. So we’re not at our gate.
I open my phone ’cause I keep checking it and I see in the app this motherfucker’s on a different flight than me. Mind you, it’s very important because I had changed our flights, so I’m like, oh my God, did I put him on a different flight than me? ’cause we’re supposed to be on the same flight. So, but then the
Jeff Sarris: kicker,
Amara Andrew: it was.
The flight was supposed to leave at seven 20. I checked my phone at seven 16
Jeff Sarris: and it said final boarding, all groups,
Amara Andrew: and I was like. Well, we should go to, because also the Buffalo Airport is so tiny, which is perfect because we could literally just run around the corner and we were at the gate.
Jeff Sarris: But when you see all droop are boarding, and I’m the only one that’s supposed to be on the flight.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And
Amara Andrew: so I was supposed to still be on our delayed flight, which didn’t leave until 10 30 or 11 at night. He’s on the seven 20 flight. And I was like, what the hell? I’m still on this other flight, so I’m. We should go to the gate right now and see what’s happening. So I like run through the airport. I’m like, he’ll catch up with me.
Like you’ll figure it out.
Jeff Sarris: I, you told this story one more time. I was like right behind you.
Amara Andrew: I mean, you were a few people. Anyway, I digress.
I
Jeff Sarris: just
Amara Andrew: wasn’t sprinting, I was just like focused. I was just like, I’m gonna go get this. And I go up to the poor guy that’s at the gate and I was just like, he’s on this flight.
I’m not on this flight. Okay. Again, am I not on the flight? I was like not even making English. ’cause I was just like, I just wanted to get us on the plane if you were already on it. I was like, I’m small. Just put me in the overhead. Like I don’t care. So the guy’s like, oh yeah, well I was trying to call you and paid you, but you didn’t show up.
And I was just like, oh. ’cause I had gotten a random phone call, but I don’t answer my phone. Who answers
Jeff Sarris: their phone? Nobody. He answers their phone. Well,
Amara Andrew: it did say realtors answer
Jeff Sarris: their phone.
Amara Andrew: It did say Buffalo Airport. Yeah. Like I would’ve been like, oh, I should pick this up even still. I would be like, well that’s like spam, but whatever.
Or leave a voicemail. But anyway, I digress. But this guy is such a saint. You were on the flight. I got on the flight and we literally made it in the nick of time. The guy that was the gay agent, uh, like who like checks people in. He was just like, yeah, I’m trying to get everybody off that 10 o’clock flight because who the hell wants to fly outta here at 10 30?
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And there’s room on this one and there’s only now three more people on that 10 o’clock
Amara Andrew: flight. Yeah. ’cause I was, when I had checked, I was like, there are only three of us. Like, I’m one of the three people on this 10 o’clock flight. So nobody else got on the flight after us, we were the last two. Like it felt like we were leaving like an apocalypse, like a movie or something.
I was so grateful. I was like, thank you. I just wanna get outta here. Like, not even bad, but just, that was the craziest thing. If I hadn’t checked my phone, we would’ve been on that 10 o’clock flight and landing at like midnight
here.
Jeff Sarris: So here’s these stepping stones, the butterfly effect, all of it. You said this is the craziest
Amara Andrew: travel thing we’ve ever had.
Jeff Sarris: No, but what you said was. ’cause I have cozy solitaire on my phone, so sometimes I’ll play it. Yeah. And I just, I downloaded it on your phone.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And then you were looking at your phone because you were playing cozy solitaire and we’re not on our phones much at all. No. So that was the only reason you were there.
So it’s sort of this trickle down butterfly effect of things that all had to happen perfectly for you to actually be like, oh, let me just see if it updated.
Amara Andrew: I was editing before and I was like, well, I should keep working and like get stuff done. But then I was like, I’m tired. I’m just gonna play solitaire.
Like, I just wanna like turn my brain off. That was the luckiest, like literally we left 10 minutes later, like we were the last two people on that flight. It was like the most amazing thing possible. So, thank you gay agent at Buffalo on February 20th at night am. He’s very nice. I just felt so bad. I was just like, I was just like the flight.
I like don’t even know what I said, but I was just like, he’s on this flight and I’m not.
Jeff Sarris: So again, I was just so confused. I’m like, I am not flying on a different flight than you. That’s so silly.
Amara Andrew: But Well, no. ’cause my thought was like, well if you’re on this plane I’ll sit like wherever. I don’t care. Yeah.
Or
Jeff Sarris: I just wait. Either way it was gonna work out, but it’s so much nicer to get home at a decent time. Not basically midnight and
Amara Andrew: yeah. So we were only two hours delayed then. Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: So that wasn’t
Amara Andrew: bad. Instead of six.
Jeff Sarris: But yeah, so that was our story for, anyway, today, hopefully, I think this episode is a very useful episode.
Just saying, I think
Amara Andrew: this is a very heady episode.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. So,
Amara Andrew: and we kind of went all over the place.
Jeff Sarris: I actually think it’s really good. I think we had some,
Amara Andrew: I have to pee.
Jeff Sarris: I think we’re stretching. Stretching minds, man.
Amara Andrew: Well, yeah. I’ll feel more mentally with it tomorrow. I think
Jeff Sarris: your eyes just got really sleepy.
You must have peed your pants. Okay, bye. Don’t
Amara Andrew: tell
Jeff Sarris: the people she doesn’t pee her pants.
Amara Andrew: Often.
Jeff Sarris: Hey, hey, hey. That was my punchline. Oh,
Amara Andrew: sorry. I mean, go ahead.
Jeff Sarris: She, no, but she doesn’t pee her pants,
uh, often.
Amara Andrew: Ha ha ha ha ha. You’re so funny.
Jeff Sarris: Okay, we’ll see you next week. Bye.