We’ve been doing it all wrong. And we had no idea.
00:00 Introduction and New Rule
00:29 Personal Reflections on Teaching
03:13 The Shift to Storytelling
06:04 Navigating Negativity and Positivity
11:56 Exploring Storytelling Techniques
16:09 Balancing Creativity and Analysis
19:55 The Intersection of Art and Science
20:32 Elon Musk: Analytical and Creative
21:30 The Balance of Creativity and Practicality
22:25 Defining Art and Creativity
27:50 The Role of Storytelling in Human Connection
34:11 The Underdog Phenomenon
39:22 Football Analogies and Lessons
42:15 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Jeff Sarris: We have a new rule right now. No teaching. Let’s talk about that.
Amara Andrew: This is a personal attack. Welcome to Useful Not Famous. Thank you. This is a show where we share things that we find interesting with you, ’cause maybe you’ll find him interesting too. I’m Amara
Jeff Sarris: Amara with one name. You don’t have a last name?
Amara Andrew: Nope.
Jeff Sarris: Okay. I’m Jeff, last name.
Amara Andrew: Not yet.
Jeff Sarris: Hey, hey, hey,
Amara Andrew: you didn’t adopt me yet. Isn’t that funny? Marriage is almost like an adoption. I’m adopting you into my family.
Jeff Sarris: This is what we’re talking about today. So
Amara Andrew: anyway, shower thoughts,
but
Jeff Sarris: on
Amara Andrew: a
Jeff Sarris: podcast, but no teaching. What does that mean? What is like, why is that something for us?
And why, uh, why has it impacted you specifically today?
Amara Andrew: This has been quite an issue for me ’cause I love teaching. Like, I love teaching people new things that I learn like all the time no matter what. But the problem is when I’m trying to make content, and I don’t know, maybe you struggle with this too, but when
Jeff Sarris: you being me or the listener,
Amara Andrew: everyone in the world.
Yeah. You royal listener. I’m bowing to you. Anyway, I didn’t realize what I was doing, but I go so hard on teaching because I realized I hate when people make a video and there’s no resolution at the end, meaning there’s no like cut and dry next steps. ’cause I don’t think that that’s. Valuable. Inherently useful.
Yeah. Like I don’t feel like that’s useful. It’s like a lot of people live in the theory of, well, here’s how you could think about doing it, but then there’s no actual like, here’s what to do, or Here are some actionable steps and that drives me bonkers. But. I think personally I go too hard the other way, where it’s like, only do this or else I’m gonna kill you.
And it’s hard because I like teaching, like I have been a teacher and I enjoy that part of it.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. College level. Ugh. Ugh. I’m drinking bone broth. I was a little Fleming, but college level professor.
Amara Andrew: I stole a sip of your bone broth, by the way. Sorry. Not sorry. What? So yeah, college level teaching. So I’m used to being the one in the authority position that has all the answers, but life and ultimately being a good teacher is about not always having, what are you doing?
Sorry.
Jeff Sarris: I almost knocked my laptop off the table.
Amara Andrew: Jesus.
Jeff Sarris: Which is what we recorded to get it together.
Amara Andrew: But life is about becoming, like still being an long student, like forever. Just always be a student and you don’t have to have all the answers. And giving up that authority has been difficult and. Also contrary to what I’m doing on this podcast, this is like, uh, this is a very meta podcast.
I’m not used to talking about myself at all. I talk about ideas or where we’re moving forward or strategy. That’s it, that’s all we talk about. Uh, so talking about myself is very, very weird and it feels foreign to me because I wanna focus on other things. So,
Jeff Sarris: so I think the thing is, so this shift now.
It’s a big shift into being more effective at teaching, but the rule is no teaching. So what does that actually mean?
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: That is more that instead of saying, you should do this, or you need to think about this, or what you just recorded, like, look in your closet right now, that da, da da, da. We’re not as engaged in things like that for us.
Like that’s your dad. Calls us efficiency experts, which is like funny, but it’s also kind of, sort of correct ish.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. ’cause he doesn’t understand what we do because he’s 82 years old almost.
Jeff Sarris: And he understands more now. But he had said that. Yeah. And he’s like,
Amara Andrew: and we were just like, hi idiot. And then now we’re like, oh, that actually is like exactly what we do.
So he can see through the bullshit as an insurance man. He can see you through it.
Jeff Sarris: But, um, effectiveness and concisitude. But, um, it is funny ’cause on tru, our WordPress theme, I had put the little tagline was tru. The, I remember that. Um, do you remember what it is?
Amara Andrew: No, I just remember concisitude.
Jeff Sarris: I put, um, I, I use the word elaboratenesslessness.
And I thought that was funny.
Amara Andrew: It’s very concise, dude.
Jeff Sarris: Anyway, anyway,
Amara Andrew: much concise Aude,
Jeff Sarris: but it’s about efficiency and effectiveness and how we can achieve as much as we can in the shortest period of time possible. But that’s not what we enjoy l we don’t enjoy learning in that way. Like there’s one book that’s someone who wrote a trilogy of books and we loved the first two, their storytelling and teaching.
The third one is basically a textbook. It’s like, if you want this, do that. If you want this, do that. Which is where we lean in, how we convey things.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: So the shift now is teaching, but through the lens of you, sweetie, across the table. Listen, I’m
Amara Andrew: sweetie
Jeff Sarris: across the the
Amara Andrew: table. You’re the sweetie across the podcast,
Jeff Sarris: but it’s at from you because I’ve learned like.
How we can convey this is, I’ve learned this, I just discovered this. I just BBBB, B, we never say I like in our normal lives, we don’t talk about ourselves like you said, but that’s how we can take people along on a journey and have them feel something. ’cause we’ve talked about that a lot, where the entire point of everything you trade is to make people feel something, preferably something positive.
But if it’s negative. You’re going down a different path than we would, but it’s effective too, as we can see.
Amara Andrew: And also the negativity is temporary a lot of times, or people will sort of just forget about you. So I always like to think that negativity online is very temporary. Like it’s gone within 24 hours.
Like even if you try, you’ll still find people that absolutely love you and love what you’re doing in the midst of having negativity. Like we have a friend, very big platform. Hated by the, I’ve never seen so much hate and vitriol for a person in my entire life, like in their comments section, but there are people in there who are like, love your content.
This was so helpful. Like, I’ve never seen anything like it, and I showed it to you and I was like, holy hell.
Jeff Sarris: Well, and that’s a tension.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Like, but if you’re, if you’re striving, I think I wanna like actually, uh, make a point of that. If there’s negativity. It’s one thing like that just happens. We all get it.
But if your goal is make people feel something, I wanna make them feel angry. That’s a different, that’s a completely different thing. Yeah. And not where we think the value is. Like people have built platforms like that and a few of those people have made good money and built something from it. But is that what you wanna feel all day, every day is just hate and negativity.
Feeding sort of the, the troll world and
Amara Andrew: just Oh yeah, you should build a community on like positivity and joining more. So, yeah,
Jeff Sarris: see this is teaching. You should, and this is something we’re gonna try to do. We don’t like this. Like I don’t wanna feel, it feels uncomfortable. I know. I don’t wanna feel the negativity.
I don’t wanna live in that. I wanna be surrounded by positive people.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Like you who are doing things. Like you who are motivated and driven
Amara Andrew: like me? No,
Jeff Sarris: I mean, that, that wasn’t on my list for the show, but I wholeheartedly. But, um, but doing things like that’s, we get energy, like we get energy from people who are driven and motivated in doing things.
The negativity is something we just completely avoid. We don’t. We don’t feed into it because it doesn’t feel good to us, and we don’t want to perpetuate that.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. As soon as somebody brings up anything negative, we do sort of just shut down a little bit and we’re just like, okay, how do we navigate through this to get to the other side?
Jeff Sarris: And like, not even that we’re, we’re not actively trying to shut it down. It’s just I am okay. Because I’m
Amara Andrew: like, I, I don’t. Negativity is tied up in identity and it’s when people are so held to their beliefs, like they can’t see anything past what it is. They’ve always known
Jeff Sarris: I’m right, you’re wrong.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
That’s what it is. So that’s like truly, like I believe that that’s where negativity comes from is the lack of openness of thinking of different things. Now you don’t have to believe anything else but. That is why negativity is so strong because it’s attached to your identity and your belief system. Um,
Jeff Sarris: well, and like we’ve been learning a lot just about like different cultures and uh, sort of how religions operate too.
And there’s sort of, there’s a whole set of religions. I don’t want this to be about religion, so I’m not gonna say which ones or anything, but there’s a set of religions where it is, um, about belief. You cannot question anything. Mm-hmm. And then there’s other religions who are about questioning everything to further your connection with it, which I think is, it’s a fascinating dichotomy of how different those two approaches are and the type of people who come out on the other side from them.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. It’s about learning and constantly growing versus just, well, you do, as I say, and that’s it. Like it’s a very authoritarian. Perspective versus the, well, no. Like you should be growing as a human being on this earth, but yeah, we won’t go down the religion route.
Jeff Sarris: Well, and then nothing is, right.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Like everything is perspective. So what’s your perspective on it is valuable. Mm-hmm. And like, so the negativity, like, we’ll, we’ll let sort of people’s perspectives in, but we’re never refuting them. We’re never like, well now let me tell you and let’s, let’s. Argue back and forth.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Debate is beautiful.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Because debate isn’t positive or negative, it’s merely expressing ideas and diving deeper through another perspective.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And that’s how it should be, which would be amazing. ’cause that kind of conversation I can have all day, every day. Like, I’ll a hundred percent hear your thoughts and. Maybe not agree, maybe be like, oh, that actually is interesting.
Like I didn’t think about it that way. But so many people approach it now as just like, exactly like you said, like I’m right, you’re wrong, and that’s it. And like there won’t be any discourse further. Or if you do ask people, oh, well, why? There is no conversation at all. It’s just like, oh, well, I gotta go.
Like there’s, there’s no,
Jeff Sarris: well,
Amara Andrew: further reasoning why, because like, you haven’t thought about it.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. It’s, I consumed this.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Or this is what I’ve
known
Amara Andrew: forever. This is
what
Jeff Sarris: my
Amara Andrew: family
Jeff Sarris: did. Yeah. Whatever it is. Yeah. And it’s like, I consume this. It’s true. Or.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: And that’s it.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. It’s
Jeff Sarris: like
Amara Andrew: there’s nowhere to go with that.
So that, that’s the type of conversation where I just shut down and I’m like, okay, we’re not gonna have a conversation. It’s me listening to you vent about whatever. And that’s fine. Like we all need to vent. But I dunno, it’s
Jeff Sarris: just, and this is sort of us venting.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: So like, I actually feel like swinging this back around because that is like, we are, we’re actually, it’s so meta, we’re sort of in a negative spot talking about it.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And it doesn’t make you feel good, but
Amara Andrew: No. How, but the book that I’m reading right now is actually really good Uhhuh, which is what I wanted to swing back around to. Uh, it’s about, so I’ve been reading a lot of things about storytelling, which is how we’ve gotten to sort of not teaching in content as much, but being more.
Personal and story driven.
Jeff Sarris: And I just wanna add one more thing.
Amara Andrew: No,
Jeff Sarris: again, to clarify teaching, but not teaching in the way that we innately do. Yeah. Teaching using story.
Amara Andrew: Because I teach fact-based like this is this, that’s that black and white? No. Which is exactly what we were just saying with people where it’s just like, this is this.
That’s that.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And
Amara Andrew: so very meta.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And like this show is Useful Not Famous because we think usefulness above everything. Mm-hmm. Like we don’t. Care how many people are listening are out there. But we want this to be useful. And I think we sort of in a meta way have been doing this on the show lately because we haven’t gone in with a, we’re gonna teach you this.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But I think it’s still useful because we’re exploring these things that are helpful to us.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But we’re gonna get better at it. But keep going with your book.
Amara Andrew: That is interesting though. ’cause that’s how we started the show. On our other channel. It was three parts because also. Behind the scenes, I needed to make it easy for me to edit the clips.
Now we’re not doing clips, which we should. We’re gonna figure that out. But I had a very like systematic approach and it was very like this, this, this, like all teaching. Barely any personality in there. Now this is much more just relaxed and basically how we talk off camera too. Um, so yeah, I dunno. That was an interesting little insight,
Jeff Sarris: but yeah.
And then in the book storytelling.
Amara Andrew: Yes. So the book that I’m reading right now is The Science of Storytelling. I forget what the guy’s name is. I think it’s Will’s store. S-T-O-R-R. Such a great book. It, it combines the. Research of why we love stories and what it is about them and why, like the psychology of our brain, so why certain things stick.
And then just like a deep dive into how the human brain functions. Um, and there are tons of examples. I’m like trying to distill this whole book down, but it’s, it’s difficult for me. Um. What,
Jeff Sarris: what are you taking from it personally? Well,
Amara Andrew: that’s what I was gonna
Jeff Sarris: say. Isn’t that funny though? Because you wanna distill it down.
Yeah. But it’s like, what’s, how are you feeling about it? How does it sort of affect your brain? It’s
Amara Andrew: such a good book because I like having the scientific data in it too, to back up what he’s saying and then now I can sort of take that and use that to look at maybe things that I’m seeing or feeling in a different way.
Um, and then he’s also talking about like. The chapter that I’m in right now is about characters and having the main character, the protagonist, and then you always have the antagonist. So it’s whoever the protagonist is sort of fighting against in a way that’s been so helpful to me to get into like quote unquote main character energy.
’cause I just wanna be the facilitator always of like, here’s the knowledge and like that’s. Sort of what I learned, not sort of, that is what I learned going through grad school and college and everything,
Jeff Sarris: and we’re very good at that.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, because that’s what you’re supposed to do as a historian is be very like, take yourself out of it.
Just present the facts, like I’m just the researcher. This is what I found. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what I spent years doing. That’s what I was very used to. And even as an archivist, like you take, there’s no personality. It’s just da, da da.
Jeff Sarris: Well, for Maven too, like this is what we do is we live behind the scenes and we make people better.
That’s exactly the whole purpose,
Amara Andrew: and this is what we’ve been telling people to do, which is like the most ridiculous thing is. Be yourself on camera, like tell people more things, like some of the questions we would ask are like, would you rather jump off a building or eat a shark? Not that ridiculous, but almost.
Which would you rather do you.
Jeff Sarris: I’m just, that one is, that’s such a weird example to come up with.
Amara Andrew: I don’t even
Jeff Sarris: know what to say on that
Amara Andrew: in my act anyway, moving on. But doing that stuff to be like, no, we need to see what your personality is. And it’s more storytelling and it’s more who this person actually is that you bond with and it is vulnerable being yourself.
Like as soon as the camera turns on for me. I’m not myself, so I’m trying to change that like on my other secret platform. I’m very much myself
Jeff Sarris: on my other secret platform. It was really
Amara Andrew: funny. I have tons of secrets.
Jeff Sarris: Our hyperlocal stuff.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, I’m very much me. I feel so relaxed because it’s stuff that I feel more passionately about, whereas my personal, I’ve always struggled with because.
I don’t know how to be me, which sounds so ridiculous. I’m 32 years old. I should be me by now.
Jeff Sarris: Well,
Amara Andrew: I think,
Jeff Sarris: who’s that?
Amara Andrew: Matt, Maggie.
Jeff Sarris: Boo. Um, but I think it’s, it’s the, because, so this is a little inside baseball. Amara never used social media for the No longest time until
Amara Andrew: I was anti-social media
Jeff Sarris: right before.
Not right before we started Maven, but part of why we started Maven is she started using it and built a big platform on TikTok and built the skillset to do things like that for others. The big platform being all relative in a very specifically for art history. And again, it wasn’t about. Size of the platform, but connecting with people.
Um, but it’s easy to say, built a big platform because it, that is sort of a credibility thing that people like, but it’s not the purpose on our end.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. But that, that does, uh, speak to a lot of people because everybody wants the big platform and it’s like, okay, but what does it do for you? It doesn’t do anything.
Jeff Sarris: And I went a little off topic there, your personal stuff. It was always the, because why am I making this? What am I doing with this?
Amara Andrew: I’m analyzing it too much.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: I’m, I’m, I am shockingly analytical and I didn’t realize it until I met you.
Jeff Sarris: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Amara Andrew: I always thought of myself as very creative, but I do have like,
Jeff Sarris: yes, that’s true.
It’s not a, but it’s an and.
Amara Andrew: With no analytical skills. I never thought of myself as analytical. I fucking hated math. I hated science. Well, I liked the ideas of it.
Jeff Sarris: This was the thing, like we talked about this so much. I’m like, no. You are one of the most analytical, mathematically thinking logical brains.
Maybe the most I’ve ever met. Really? But you’re like, I hate math. And I’m like, no, you hate the idea of being a person who likes math
Amara Andrew: nerd.
Jeff Sarris: I know. And that, but that’s, that’s the thing. That’s what you learned sort of in, in school is like. Smart isn’t cool, but, but
Amara Andrew: when you move 27 times as a child, you’re like, I can’t be with those fucking nerds.
Mm-hmm. Like I have to be with the like cool kids. So fast track.
Jeff Sarris: There’s the two bits of it too though, because then you’re like, oh, math, analytical. That means I’m not creative, which is not true.
Amara Andrew: No, I know. And the more I’ve learned about the world, the more I’ve realized that. Some of the most creative people on this planet are highly analytical.
Like I thought it was just the people that just exist in the fucking ether, and they’re not even on this planet. They’re like so out there. But it’s the people that actually understand the base principles of like analytics. Like not even just analytics, not like Google Analytics, but just know the
Jeff Sarris: The rules so you can break them.
Amara Andrew: Exactly
Jeff Sarris: like art is breaking the rules.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, and like Leonardo da Vinci, I would argue. One of the most brilliant people of all time.
Jeff Sarris: I don’t think you have to argue that.
Amara Andrew: Well, yeah, but like extremely analytical. Like that’s all his art is, is math and science. That’s all it is. And it’s like this beautiful, harmonious.
Marriage between the two disciplines and three disciplines, whatever
Jeff Sarris: I was gonna say, interdisciplinary.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: I, I feel like my emphasis was on a weird spot, but,
Amara Andrew: which is perfect. And we, we need to like, go back to that because that’s how, that’s hard. How you get the people Exactly. Like that’s, uh, like Elon, I would only think of him as being super scientific and analytical and mathematical.
Also though complete creative like you have to be, you can’t have one or the other. ’cause either if you only do math, you’re a Harvard professor. But no, even that, there is beauty in creativity in finding out, I’m just talking myself into a fucking hole.
Jeff Sarris: But
Amara Andrew: like,
Jeff Sarris: so this is the thing though. It’s not, you’re analytical, therefore you’re creative.
I think that’s something important. So if we take the Elon example, he is very analytical. He is an engineer. He is maybe. I don’t know enough about his like practical engineering, even though it sounds like he does a lot of it.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: He could be one of the most brilliant engineers currently today and one of the most outside of the box creative people that you’ll ever encounter.
Like Steve Jobs, highly creative. But again, if you think about how he was creative, he was creative in creating products that people would buy creative in creating and doing the things, it will build a huge business. Well, that’s analytical. That’s, that’s thinking about like the numbers and who’s gonna like this.
Well, but wait, but it’s the art side of Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s both. But then the Harvard professor could be like, I don’t. I think it’s a drive thing. Maybe a competitiveness. There could be a Harvard professor, brilliant math mind. He just wants to teach. Yeah. And I think, I think it’s possible that that person, that there’s a person like that who is not creative.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: I think we’re all creative to a degree, but not in the degree that we’re talking about.
Amara Andrew: Right. I know. I was thinking of my uncle when I said that ’cause he was a Harvard, Harvard professor. And I don’t think he was very creative.
Jeff Sarris: Wait. And he’s much older.
Amara Andrew: Brilliantly smart. Like stupid smart. Um, so anyway, so back to storytelling though.
Jeff Sarris: Uh, I just wanted to say one thing. Yeah. Uh, teller from Penn and Teller
Amara Andrew: mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: His definition of art is whatever we do after the chores are done.
Amara Andrew: Hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Which I think can connect because the chores are the analytical sort of stuff.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: This is the, we have to do this and knowing that we have to do this, we can creatively do this and creatively apply it to our art.
We can, there’s so much more possibility, and I think the challenge becomes when someone says, I’m creative, and then they’re like, that means I’m not doing any of that and I’m not thinking about any of that.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But you’re missing, that’s the full, like arguably you’re not creating art then.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: Maybe if the, if we feel this definition holds that art is what we do, whatever we do after the chores are done, then it’s like, well, if you’re not doing the chores, like the whole starving artist mentality, I’m not doing the things to make money because my art should speak for itself and make money.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Wow. That’s such a loaded quote. Like that’s very interesting. ’cause also I’m thinking about too. A lot of famous artists, they would do commercial work during the day. Exactly. Because that’s how you make your money. And then you would do your like, fine art quote unquote at night. And I don’t know.
That’s, that’s just very interesting. ’cause you can take that so many different ways. Anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
Jeff Sarris: No, you didn’t. This is, this is it. It’s like, are you an artist without. Success. Success being sort of base needs. Yeah. If, if you can’t fulfill your own base needs, can you even be an artist?
I don’t know.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And I would argue actually that you’re not very then not very creative then.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly.
Amara Andrew: Because like part of which I’ve learned from running a business now and like just being in your space, is running a business is an art. Like there is a system to it and. Just trying to figure out like problem solving is an art, and I never would’ve thought of it that way, which I know that’s related to like math and science.
Jeff Sarris: I just wanna say we make systems and that’s creativity. Yeah, but there’s rules.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: So the rules exist and then our systems work within the rules.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. So that’s like the teller quote that you just read is understanding the systems and the science of it, and then putting your own little art on it.
There’s a quote that I have in my, uh. Read Wise app, which I love by the way. You need a read wise app. If you read a lot and you wanna refer to things, um, there’s a quote from, I believe it’s Hitmakers, really great book also, where it’s, if you’re trying to make something unfamiliar and new, make it familiar.
If you’re trying to make something familiar, make it new or unfamiliar. So it’s, if you’re trying to make something that everybody’s done already, add a little spin to it, a little bit of flavor. Gold. If it’s something completely new that none of us have any idea what it is, make it something that’s familiar and like we know we have a touch point of like, oh, okay, so it’s kind of like this, like we need to explain that in our heads.
Jeff Sarris: A thousand songs in your pocket.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: Brilliant. Like the iPod alone wouldn’t work if we had no frame of reference for what it is.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: It’s like, oh, it’s a hard drive that you carry around and plug headphones into. It’s like, that’s weird. Yeah. Why would I do that? But it’s all, it was was a hard drive in your pocket.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: So you didn’t have the computer, so, but what do we understand? We understand music. A Walkman. Mm-hmm. Or a boombox or whatever, you know, like sort of her back in the day. But it’s like, what did you listen to music on? Well, now you have actually just all the songs in your pocket. It’s not even a radio anymore.
You’re in control of it. Yeah. And we understand that even though it’s so beyond anything that anyone had. Experience before.
Amara Andrew: Exactly, and I was just thinking about the Steve Jobs keynote, where he unveiled the iPad and took it out of a manila envelope, like the thing that’s in like every office ever. And he just pulls it out and he had it with him the whole time.
I can’t remember if it was in his pocket or on the desk, I think was just on the desk. So he was on the table. That is so brilliant because it’s like, well, I know how big that envelope is about. It’s like maybe nine by 12 or whatever it is. You know how big that is for scale and you’re like, wow, that’s so cool.
Like we’re in the future and it’s something that’s familiar, yet unfamiliar. I don’t know. I find that endlessly fascinating. That was probably one of my favorite books I’ve ever read in my entire life. Which one? The Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.
Jeff Sarris: Bing Go.
Amara Andrew: Okay, good. I always mess up his name and I dunno why.
Jeff Sarris: Oh yeah. Walter White. You started down the wrong path.
Amara Andrew: Oh wait, it’s not that guy, but that was such an amazing book. Like that’s one that I’ve heard people say that they reread books every single year. That’s one that I’m gonna read every single year. Like that was so good, so, so good. I don’t know if you’re interested in literally anything business related or just want that like creative spark, that book.
It was like every single chapter, I was like, oh, we should try this. Oh, we should do that.
Jeff Sarris: So how did they, uh, teach, how did Walter Isaacson teach you in that book?
Amara Andrew: He didn’t. It was a personal story. Oh my God. It’s like being a human is like rewarding or something,
Jeff Sarris: but you learned from it. And that’s something we’re trying, this is what comes back to like how we’re shifting things is this is how you teach.
Not how we teach.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And we’re like, oh, that is more effective. If it was data, if it was just Steve did this, this, this, so you should do that.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: It’s just not interesting. It doesn’t, it doesn’t mean anything because all of this, all the teaching is really us taking in new knowledge, new information, new whatever.
And reframing it with our creative minds into something new. That’s ours.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: That’s all that we’re learning for,
Amara Andrew: and we love stories like as a human species. That is what I’ve learned from this book, specifically from all of the data, which is helpful. Like literally that is what our mind is wired for.
We’re wired for the story. We’re wired for human connection. Like that’s how we survive and have lived forever. Well, not forever, you know what I mean? But that’s
Jeff Sarris: Well, way longer than any lifetime that we can comprehend.
Amara Andrew: Yes. And I, I don’t know, it’s just been really. Interesting and fascinating to learn so much more about story.
But again, now I’m in my analytical phase where I’m breaking down everything and I’m like, okay, well why does live streaming work so well and why does this work so well? And like just, I’ve also struggled with telling myself that that is the work, because to me, I’m like, I’m just watching fucking YouTube.
Like, how is this work? But I’m actually. Figuring out the mechanisms of why certain things are working and it’s, it’s this perfect little, it is a system. The more you look at how people have built big platforms or become public facing figures, it truly is just a system and knowing which levers to pull, when, what to do, how to be, I don’t wanna like talk so nebulously, but there there is like an exact formula, which is so fascinating.
It just changes with the medium.
Jeff Sarris: Well, and I think it’s rules, again, exactly rules versus a system where rules, the rules are in place and they’re always in place. And you can craft a system within the this rule set and it might be a new thing like. Live streaming was new not that long ago. Mm-hmm. And now it’s just like very grown up.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: It’s very of like, it’s to where it is. AI is new. There’s rules of ai, there’s rules, how you can use it, what you can use it for. But now the art, the creativity is figuring out, okay, I understand these rules. How do I use this? What systems can I create to have this benefit? Benefit me, improve my life, whatever it is.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Or help others. How can I use this to help others?
Amara Andrew: Right.
Jeff Sarris: And like that’s all, all it is.
Amara Andrew: I think what’s important too, it’s hard because I don’t want people to only be talking about themselves because that’s like, that’s a very important distinction to
Jeff Sarris: talk about this For sure.
Amara Andrew: Yes.
Jeff Sarris: So for us, we don’t talk about ourselves in life.
We talk to each other. Mostly our deepest, mostly our, the entirety of our deep conversations are with one another.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Rarely with others, because like, we listen, that’s, we’re wired to listen. And this is why, this is something talking about this is very much an US problem. How do we, how do we inject ourselves more into our teaching rather than data?
For a lot of people, that’s the problem isn’t injecting themselves. The problem is listening. But this show is for us, like this isn’t about anyone else. This is about us. And I think that’s something, I’m glad you said that something very important to make. The distinction is almost like to understand who we are is step one before we decide.
Now we need to talk about myself all the time.
Amara Andrew: Right? And that is something that most people do very well is talk about themselves. But there’s a limit where. I don’t know how to approach this, because now I’m saying, well, no, like I need to talk about myself more. But it is also for a purpose, it’s for storytelling or sharing information.
Like
Jeff Sarris: connection.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, like what I just posted was about synthetic clothing. That’s something that we’ve been whole hog on lately. We’ve just been going like. Hard on it and looking through all of our stuff. So then it was like, okay, how can I share this with people in a way that doesn’t feel like, well, you should do this.
And that’s what I did on my first two takes. Like it took five takes, I think. But that was what I did on the first couple where it was very teachy. And that’s just, that is my mode right now. So if you’re making content about you, we are tuning into your story, but it should. See I’m doing it again. I feel like it should have some sort of benefit though, for the viewer.
’cause like I don’t care that your kid got a medal. Like what the hell do I care? Unless I’m like related to you. But if there’s some story, like I don’t even know, I don’t even have an example, but if it was like, I’m so proud because they worked so hard, like that’s more of a story versus just like, look at this and listen to me.
It’s like. Nobody knows that behind the scenes she was practicing 75 hours a week and doing all this and blah, blah, blah. I don’t know.
Jeff Sarris: Well, because I think, and I don’t know if this is true, but for us it’s true.
Amara Andrew: We sound like aliens also. We’re just like, how do I talk about me?
Jeff Sarris: Uh, um, like, I don’t know if this is true.
But for us, we don’t talk about how we feel. We talk about how we feel to each other since day one.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah. Nobody knows my feelings ever.
Jeff Sarris: We know each other completely, but we don’t convey how we’re feeling about something. Or I the fallibility, like you sort of said that before. What makes something.
Interesting is the story. I wrote this down the other day and I feel like we’ll dive into this specifically on another episode, but we love seeing someone or something achieve something to go from not successful to successful. And this is why sports are so powerful. We see a team, let’s, let’s say the, uh.
1990s New England Patriots, a football team who hasn’t won a Super Bowl in so long. They’ve made it like they played the Bears in 85 and the bears destroyed them. They just, that team just can’t figure it out. And then they get this rookie quarterback, Tom Brady. They go to the Super Bowl and win it in his, I think in his rookie year, which is like, oh, look at that.
That’s fun. Then they win again and again and we start to hate them for succeeding. The problem with how we teach is we we’re like, we’ve learned this. Let me teach you how to do this. But nobody wants, unless you’re a Patriots fan, you didn’t wanna see Tom Brady and the Patriots win again because they’ve done it.
I wanna see someone make it there. That’s what we care about. As soon as they’re good at it and keep going. It’s just like boring. I don’t care. And we live in the, I’ve figured this out. Let me convey to you what you need to know. But really the, the magic is, I just figured this out. Like if I can, and we’ve said this to people like this has been something for a long time.
If I’m one step ahead of you, I can better teach you because I was where you are now yesterday, last month, last year. But if I’m 10 steps ahead of you, I’m telling you what you should do, but there’s no connection there. That’s a challenge.
Amara Andrew: I just read this in my book and I was gonna bring it up to you, but I figured I’d save it for the podcast.
But it’s the whole underdog thing. We all love an underdog, and that is actually an interspecies phenomenon. So there was a study done on chimpanzees where,
Jeff Sarris: I don’t like how you said pansies gym pansies,
Amara Andrew: where. It was very similar with humans where there’s an underdog. We all feel bad for the underdog and we want them to succeed.
But as soon as you succeed too long, which is what you just said, you’re taking down the pecking order like in the chimp world. There will be a leader of the pack or whatever it’s called. I don’t know, I’m not a fucking zoologist, but whoever the leader is, they only have maybe two or three years at the top before they’re taken down by the next chimp.
Because people, people, because the other chimps disdain that chimp by that time. Isn’t that interesting? Or
Jeff Sarris: that’s two or three years.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And that’s the The star
Jeff Sarris: iron law of stardom.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: That. Like you, if you’re gonna have this stardom moment. You have about three years max. Universally every famous successful person throughout history has the, those three years.
And then they taper off down to their just sort of the people that they’ve connected with.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Unless they’re reinventing themselves. Exactly. So that’s, that’s the, that’s the trick and that’s the goal, is you can’t be too successful or you can’t be outwardly too successful. You still need to have the show of like the underdog, the humility.
Jeff Sarris: I actually wanna just sort of push back on that. You can be completely successful, but you still need to be striving and showcase the striving, like Elon trying to get to Mars. Like he many points has been the richest person on the planet. Yet that story of him trying to get like the human species to Mars.
Is that story of striving and it’s like, well this is exciting. I’m gonna dig a hole under uh, LA so we can have a tunnel that you just go at rocket speed to San Francisco. And it’s like, well, that’s exciting. But if it’s the other side. We don’t find it as ing. That’s a good
Amara Andrew: point. Yeah, that’s a really good point.
Because then he would
Jeff Sarris: be So the success isn’t the problem.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. ’cause he would be on his villain arc then if it, if he wasn’t doing anything else and he was just like, nah, I’m good. But yeah, that is an interesting point.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. We like striving, we like story. We can relate to someone striving for something.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: We cannot relate to someone who only wins. We can relate to it depending on sort of how you feel inside. Also, there’s, but you don’t like it, but there something
Amara Andrew: in you where you’re just like, okay, I don’t care. Yeah, there’s no conflict. There’s no, you don’t feel like you wanna cheer that person on anymore.
It’s just like, oh, okay, you did it. Like you could just keep winning. Like, I don’t care, just like Tom Brady. It’s like, well,
Jeff Sarris: and I like to
Amara Andrew: just step it
Jeff Sarris: and I wanna zoom forward then to the Chiefs too, like the Kansas City Chiefs, I don’t know if they won before. Eight, 10 years ago when they started winning, I don’t remember.
I don’t know if they had won a Super Bowl since, like Super Bowl ii, which is now, we’re on 60 many years, and then it’s exciting. Oh, this Patrick Mahomes guy, Andy Reed, all this stuff, and then all of a sudden it’s like. Okay, let’s like not have them in the Super Bowl and this year they’re not even in the, didn’t even make it to the playoffs.
And people are like, yeah, they’re not there this time.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Somebody ambushed them with Matt Naggie and that’s why somebody hated them.
Jeff Sarris: Like, I like, this is the second time Matt N’s come up. So if I, if you don’t watch football, Matt and Aggie was the offensive coordinator. The chiefs became the head coach of the Bears.
Year one with the Bears did very well and his whole thing was, I haven’t even installed my offense yet. Just wait. Well, guess what? He didn’t know what he was doing when he installed his own offense and they were awful. And then he went back to the chiefs. The Chiefs haven’t been as dread since he’s been back.
Now he’s drawn and he might get an ad coaching job, but again, which is weird, but one of his thing was things were bu So whenever we say bu, you’re always like, BU Matt, Maggie.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. Which I like the bu.
Jeff Sarris: Oh, for sure.
Amara Andrew: But yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of his, uh, horrible.
Jeff Sarris: Well, he knew better. Well, also it’s harder.
So this is football. Talk for a second. It was crushing to see his vision of what a quarterback should be.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And he destroyed two careers. Uh, Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields, both of them were very, very talented quarterbacks in their first season, but as soon as he changed everything, like for Justin Fields, he literally was changing.
Which foot goes forward when he’s like having this, which is
Amara Andrew: insane.
Jeff Sarris: And he, this is, these are people who got to the NFL ’cause they’ve played football a certain way. They’ve played football very successfully since they were children all the way through college, which is very competitive, especially Ohio State, where Justin Fields came from.
And now, oh, you know what? You shouldn’t do it that way. Oh, you shouldn’t run around. Like, you need to stand right here because I want you to be. Dan Marino and how he played in 1987, and that’s just not what it is anymore. But that’s why we have a little bit of a disdain for Matt Na, because I feel really bad for Trubisky and especially Justin Fields ’cause he is Caleb Williams if he had the right coach.
Caleb survived season one and now he has the right coach and now people are like, he’s like top 10, top five in the NFL.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. It’s just ironic with the bu and then it’s like, but I’m gonna change everything about you.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly. Except your name. And that was the tough part.
Amara Andrew: Yeah,
Jeff Sarris: it was BU to himself.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
So anyway, on that note, bu
Jeff Sarris: yeah, this is fun. Okay, we’ll see you next week.
Amara Andrew: Bye.