Useful Not Famous | Worry has improved my life

We've found a way to use worry to improve our lives.

Worry, problem solving, attacking constraints, whatever you call it, it's what we do before going all in on an idea. By taking this approach, we've found it's given us a superpower:

Conviction.

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Chapters

(00:00) - Worry Before Betting
(00:27) - Psycho Cybernetics Intro
(01:25) - Mindset Without Gurus
(03:34) - Perspective Shapes Days
(05:46) - Opportunity Looks Like Work
(07:48) - Define Worry As Planning
(10:49) - Business Prep And Runway
(12:40) - Cool Cucumber Confidence
(15:22) - Life Has No Finish Line
(19:42) - Assessing People Risks
(22:04) - Hard Now Easy Later
(25:21) - Run Toward Hard Things
(27:03) - Final Takeaway And Wrap

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Creators and Guests

Host

Amara Andrew

I make local video marketing fun again.

Host

Jeff Sarris

I’m useful to creators who want to make more money. Useful Not Famous.

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If your goal is to make more money, you're in the right place. We've built our careers on being useful to some of your favorite creators, while staying widely unknown to the public.

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Assumptions.

They assume that big fame equals big money.
They assume that big views equals big wallets.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

While everyone else is chasing fame, we're here to show you how being useful is the "shortcut" to build the life of your dreams.

Useful Not Famous is the podcast for people who care more about revenue than ego.

Hosted by Jeff Sarris and Amara Andrew.

Amara Andrew: Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning. Welcome back to Useful Not Famous. We've made careers being useful to people, so we wanna help you do the same. I'm Amara Andrew.

Jeff Sarris: I'm Jeff Sarris.

Amara Andrew: And this week, I finally have a last name.

Jeff Sarris: Good job. So yeah. So what is that? Say it one more time.

Amara Andrew: Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning. So I read that, that's from a book called "Psycho-Cybernetics." It is probably one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life.

Jeff Sarris: Which makes me so happy that it actually did hit that way.

Amara Andrew: I started reading it, and I was just like, "Ooh, I don't know how I feel about it," 'cause it is a little older.

It's from the '60s, and it is a little bit more academically inclined, but I come from an academic background. But it actually, it completely deconstructed how I view myself and how I view everything, and it's been good. It's been like, "Oh, that, like, isn't normal," or, "That isn't what I'm supposed to think." I don't know.

I- Or that you

Jeff Sarris: don't have to. Like- Yeah ... so basically it reframes- I know, I'm being so nebulous. No, no, no, but it reframes how you feel about yourself. I just realized you are so much lower in your frame. I am, like, way up here and you're down here. And I'm just eyelids. But it reframes sort of how we think about ourselves, right?

Amara Andrew: Yeah, 100%. It's basically just, it's how you, yeah, think about yourself, how you act in the world, and how... Essentially, it's mindset without the BS and bullshit of mindset. Like- The BS and

Jeff Sarris: bullshit of mindset? Yeah. I said BS and I was

Amara Andrew: like, "Who is this?" I censor myself on our other platforms, so. But it's all of the whole mindset space is full of charlatans, I will say.

Not exclusively, but the bulk of it, like 99% of it, because mindset is something that you can do for free and it's completely on your own, but people find a way to sort of bastardize it and sell it to other people. And it's not actually in a helpful, useful way. It's to be able to make money off of people and not help them get better, but make them worse.

Jeff Sarris: And that's why we say mindset is what people talk about when they have no actionable advice. Exactly. 'Cause we wanna be useful. It's easy to say, you know, "Just speak it into existence. Look yourself in the mirror every morning and do your affirmations." And like, that's easy. Mm-hmm. It's also very easy to never give, get any results from that.

Exactly. Because it's a promise of something that's immeasurable. Yeah. We can't measure that your mindset has improved your life. But, so we can always say, "Improve your mindset." Uh-huh. So it's easy to sell continuously forever and never actually get someone results But they can always think it's their fault.

Amara Andrew: Exactly. It's like woo-woo kind of stuff. I'm not gonna go down that path 'cause a lot of our dear friends are very into it, and that is perfect and that's fine, but there are just so many different things. So anyway, this book actually looks at the science of your thoughts and more of a practical application to help you overcome why you think a certain way and how to not, and how to be more constructive in your self-image and everything.

So it's incredibly difficult, and some of the things I was like, "Nah." But then rereading it, I don't know. It's a really great book. So I got this quote from there.

Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. And it, it helps reaffirm- Mm-hmm ... that what we think is true. Yes. So like our-- And not like truth with like internet and noise and anger and all these things, but our truth about ourselves.

Mm-hmm. Like, I'm confident. If I-- Like, I'm not, I'm not making this statement. I'm like, in my head, if I'm like, "I'm confident," then I am confident.

Amara Andrew: Exactly.

Jeff Sarris: If I am self-conscious and I am someone who worries about what everyone else thinks about me, then I'm someone who worries and is self-conscious. And like, it is such a cyclical thing because we are our thoughts.

Mm-hmm. It's all it is. Like, our perception of things. Uh, what's the one quote? Um, nothing is neither good nor bad. Only thinking makes it true. Yeah. So if we think it's bad, it's bad. If we think it's good, it's good. Exactly. And there's no in between. There's-- Like, we are just making a binary decision and then running with it, and that's how we live in-- like, operate in the world.

Amara Andrew: And that's the difference between a good day and a bad day. It's just how you view it. So like, you could spill your coffee, miss your bus, uh, drop your laptop and crack the screen. But also on that same day, you got a beautiful haircut. You saw a cute little doggy. You picked a flower. You got free lunch.

Like, it's all how you view it. And typically it's just-- Not typically. It is just a day. It's just how you're viewing all these things. Like, uh, typically people say like, "Oh, it just all happens at the same time." But really it's just your viewpoint. Like, you're just noticing that all these things are happening in succession.

But it goes the opposite way too. Like, "Oh, it all happens at the same time," like all these wonderful, amazing things. And it is hard. I'm, I'm making it sound so much simpler than it is, where you're like, "If I just pick a flower,

Jeff Sarris: I'm gonna be happy." No, it's simple, not easy.

Amara Andrew: Yeah, exactly. It is a very simple idea where it's just like, "Oh, okay."

Like if I find myself going down a more negative rabbit hole, we don't typically, but sometimes I do, and I always try to then flip it to, okay- Why am I focusing on just these things when I should just be focusing on, like, the happy parts, like the good things that have actually happened so far today?

Jeff Sarris: I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said it, but it was, "People miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Amara Andrew: Oh, yeah.

Jeff Sarris: And it's just the perspective on it. Mm-hmm. And like, if we're looking at it like, "Oh, that'd be a lot of work," it's one thing. Like, just talking about, like, making money and just sort of adjusting over there a little bit here. If you're like, "Oh, that's a lot of work and I don't wanna do that," and then you're like, "But why do you get all this opportunity?

Nothing ever comes in my lap." And it's like, no, literally we saw the same thing. Exactly. And that we-- like, you and that person saw the same thing, and that person was like, "

Amara Andrew: Oh, I can do

Jeff Sarris: that. Look at that. That's crazy. That's so cool."

Amara Andrew: And that follows exactly this quote where that person who saw the opportunity has been silently, quietly studying or learning throughout this entire time.

So they, they weren't, they were, uh- Can

Jeff Sarris: you say it one more time?

Amara Andrew: Yeah. "Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning." So they didn't wait until it was like, "Oh, well, this is an opportunity. Now I should learn what the hell this even means." They've been doing the worrying, quote-unquote, meaning the learning and capturing the, the ideas, and then just that frames how you view different opportunities and things that can come up, or you make your own opportunities.

Like, it made me think of Warren Buffett also, where he will spend weeks, months, years, not even weeks. He will spend literal years, maybe sometimes 10 years, thinking about a decision if it's the right way to go before actually acting on it. And it's the exact same thing, where you do all your worrying and your thinking through before, not like, "Well, I'm gonna buy this company and just see what happens."

'Cause I feel like a lot of people who start businesses are just flying by the seats of, seat of their pants. And while that can work, because you do need to be quick with certain things, there are other things that you need to sort of think through before starting such endeavors.

Jeff Sarris: Would you say worry, in this sense, is pursuit, is taking actions?

How would you frame the wor- the term worry? Because I think sometimes- Yeah ... I think it's possible to think about that in very different ways.

Amara Andrew: So yeah, what I was just saying is a very different interpretation of it, 'cause I'm not thinking about... I guess it is sort of the worry that I was just saying. Like, you, you worry through all the things like, "Well, what if I don't make money in the first month?

What if I don't make money in the first six months? What about the first year?" Like, you work through that before instead of in real time when it's incredibly more stressful, 'cause then you're just, like, trying to make your business work and trying to make money and, uh- Especially for like an in-person business, like you really need to have...

I mean, for any business really, you need to have everything sort of figured out a little bit ahead of time. Um, so sorry, what was your question again?

Jeff Sarris: Uh, well, so worry, I think, I think that can be misconstrued a little potentially, especially today context, not 1960 context. Yeah. Where maybe it's more problem-solving, troubleshooting.

You're, you're doing the M&M thing. You're, you're identifying and attacking all the potential pitfalls before your opponent, which is the market, the like actually being out in the world, hits them.

Amara Andrew: Yes. So that was sort of how I read it, not literally worry, but just do all of your planning ahead of time.

Maybe don't plan in the moment. And granted, you will obviously need to plan in the moment and everything with things, like be flexible. But I guess not even having like a hard path, but having an idea, 'cause it's like how we always talk about stepping stones where, uh, or not having a goal, having sort of a framework of what you wanna go for or attack.

But obviously things are gonna shift and change tremendously throughout that. But just at least having some sort of an idea of where you're headed before you're just like, "I'm just gonna jump in and put all my money in this and tell my wife and kids goodbye, like they won't see me." Or you can do that if you want, but

Jeff Sarris: Well, and I think, so this, this goes hand in hand with just starting also and taking action.

But it doesn't sound like it. So starting just flying by the seat of your pants and starting is, is an approach. But when we want people to start, we want people to take the action and not just ruminate on their thoughts. Part of the action is setting this foundation and taking these, pursuing these stepping stones, the worry, the troubleshooting, the problem-solving to start.

So you're moving towards the, the start, the launch of the business, but the first steps, this worry, troubleshooting, problem-solving is starting. Like you, you've started already before you've basically turned the lights on, and every minute those lights are on costs you money.

Amara Andrew: Yes, which is crazy and terrifying.

Well,

Jeff Sarris: yeah, which is how every, every business functions that way to some degree. Different businesses function differently. Like if it's a physical manufacturing a product business, whew. Yeah. Like that makes me anxious. Like thinking about like, okay- Let's line up the factory. Let's build this thing. You know, actually it should be like the...

Let's actually just make all these prototypes for... Okay, well, that's gonna cost some money. Okay, well, then we have to pay the people to, to make... Okay, so we have them now. Now from here, what do we... Okay, I like this one. So what does it take to... That is so much. But if you're not taking those steps initially, and you're just like, "Okay, buy my, um, my brand new blender.

I, I invented a new blender. Like, buy it now." And then it's like you don't have anything lined up 'cause you didn't actually do all of the worry, all the pre-planning to get there. Mm-hmm. There's no way that's gonna work, and you're gonna be burning through money. And like retail too, you turn on the lights without any marketing, without any like, "Hey guys, this is coming.

Get excited. Like, join me on this journey." That's gonna be rough. That's gonna be tough because you're just every second that those lights are now on, you are paying for those seconds. And it just goes across the board in so many businesses. That's why I like digital stuff, because digital- Yeah ... or service-based businesses.

Our service business, having the lights on is literal our home, our like- Yeah ... our lifestyle, like living. But we're already paying for that anyway. It doesn't cost us something to be in business. But not every business can function that way.

Amara Andrew: So going back a little bit, because you've started so many businesses, so many digital businesses, you've worked with so many different people, what would you say your ratio of worry to...

I forgot the word. I had a word.

Would you ever say that you worry versus like worry to plan- plannedness, planning, planningness, plans? What would be your ratio? Like do you ever worry when you're working with someone before, or do you just feel... That's what it was. I just, I, I worked through it. What is your ratio of working with someone beforehand, the ratio of worry to not worry, like learning?

'Cause, okay, I'm asking you a question and I already know the fucking answer. But like you learn all the time. Do you ever worry at the very beginning about anything when you're working with someone?

Jeff Sarris: What do you want my answer to be?

Amara Andrew: Whatever you want it to be. No, I'm just curious because you're very- Like because

Jeff Sarris: you know the answer, so how about you walk through it?

Amara Andrew: I actually, I know the answer from my perspective, but you're very cool as a cucumber. You- Are very good with handling stress. And he's putting on his cool cucumber shades.

Coming out now at Useful Not Famous. I like that you like...

Jeff Sarris: I don't know what that mouth touch was, but it was just like- I felt like I had coffee on my upper lip, so I was trying to do it incognito, but- But it felt like you were just like, "Ha ha ha." I

Amara Andrew: actually have a little mustache. Um, but I know you emote that you don't worry, and I think that's because you're so prepared.

So like, all of your businesses are a step from what you've already done, or maybe two steps sometimes. But it's all things that you already have skills and knowledge in, and it's already the stuff that you're learning at the same time. So like, you do all your worrying beforehand if you have any worry, but you don't emote that ever, which I find interesting.

'Cause even in the thick of it, you're just like, "Well, I'm just gonna figure it out," or, "Oh, that's a new opportunity." Like, that's just how your brain works. So I find that interesting.

Jeff Sarris: Well, it's the psycho-cybernetics. I know I will find the path through. And that's not a, an affirmation. I just know it. And I know it because I always have.

Amara Andrew: And that's so crazy to me.

Jeff Sarris: But I think it's just... Like, think about writing a movie. I know we've talked about this, but I'm just saying it sort of for the show. But think about writing a movie. The what? And this is going to be a story about whatever. Whatever this is. The, the movie "Titanic" started at a point and it ended at a point.

The historical ship of the Titanic did not start at that point of the movie and it did not end at that point of the movie. The story is infinite. Y- we can go back to how did they even ever have a floating vessel? Well, and then what led to even getting to the water to float? Like, how far back do you wanna go?

But then also, where do you wanna go and say this is the end of the story? So in a movie, in a TV show, in a novel, you have to choose- Everyone dies. You have to choose the start- Oh

Amara Andrew: God, that's actually very real.

Jeff Sarris: You have to choose the start and end point. That is a given. We all know that. Like, of course the movie has to end somewhere.

But in life, nothing ends. Like, as long as we're alive and breathing, the story's still going. So like to me, I'm like, I'll always find my way through because if I find it through today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or 10 years from... I'm going to find my way through because I am going to pursue it and make sure it happens.

But I think it's easy to think about it differently I don't fully understand thinking about it differently because I don't think that way. Like, I think because I think in sports. Like, I grew up playing sports, and I am going to do everything I can to win. There will be an endpoint in that, but I'm not deciding the endpoint.

The endpoint happens based on the rules of the sport. So anything that I'm doing now, if I'm starting a new business, helping someone else do something, launching a service, doing whatever, there's nothing that-- There's no finish line that's defined for me, like, by the sport of business. So I'm just gonna keep going and just trying to work.

It's why Hiveway isn't out yet, and it's why what it's evolved into is crazy compared to what it... Each iteration we could have launched, and maybe we probably should have. We probably should have launched an earlier version. "Should" in air quotes, just depends on everyone's perspective, 'cause we could have.

We could have launched months or even a year ago. But what it's getting to now is a completely different version of our vision that's evolved through all of these worries, all of these approaching different limiting constraints into making something great and attacking those and then resolving them and finding more and then finding more.

Amara Andrew: Well, yeah, it's like viewing it as art versus a way to make money. Because if we did want to make money, like, immediately, immediately, we would have already had it out, test running all these different things. But it is sort of more like an art project where, not in, like, the traditional sense of the word, but words.

But it is, yeah, just more like, well, there's more to figure out, and this isn't quite right yet. Like, this can't see the light of day yet. It needs these final little touches.

Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. Now it's everything we do to do our video marketing in a tool so anyone can do video marketing. Like, and that's different than here's what we do for clients, and this is a pseudo client product, so you're not our client, but we're giving you that.

Now it's sort of a soup to nuts version of it, which is so much more rich and robust for us as tools, but also for anyone who wants to build anything valuable and powerful. But the question was, yeah, do I worry? And I don't, just because we're going to get there. My only constraint is who I'm working with.

So will they want to get to where we can go? That's always the, the biggest thing. And it's not a worry. It's just a, I need to make an assessment and Assessments of humans are hard. I think I brought it up on another episode, but the hardest... This was a, from a brain researcher and scientist. The hardest things for our brain are other people.

That's the thing that makes your brain sort of sharp and, like, keeps it always on edge and never complacent, because other people are difficult across the board, 'cause we all have our own truth and world in our head, and we need to interact with that in other people without knowing what's going on in there.

So the assessment of people I've gotten better at, but it's hard. So it's, it's taken a lot of, uh, trial and error, 'cause most people are very emotive in what they say they're gonna do. Like, I'm blabbing away here. Like, I'm saying a lot of words, but none of what I'm saying is meaningful unless you actually see what I'm doing, unless I actually show it.

With people that are very good at talking, most people can... Surprisingly, so many people can sell really well and never sell an- anything of monetary value. They're just good at selling themselves and having you believe in them, which is a skill. It's an amazing skill. But being able to see through the, "Oh, they're good at, they're actually good at selling themselves, not the work," is something that I've run into enough times that I'm better at seeing it now.

So I think that's the big thing. That's the, like, if there's a worry, it's more that. It's trying to assess and identify that before it gets to a point. Again, like if I start something that's gonna take a huge lump of my time, I don't wanna later be like, "Oh, well, I should have seen this before and not wasted all this time."

Amara Andrew: Yeah. Like, that's part of your worry, quote unquote, now. So yeah, I think just taking out the worry from that quote and just putting in planning or something. Like, I think that is part of it. There's a quote by Naval Ravikant, and it was, uh... Oh, shit. It was essentially like you're either gonna spend the time now or spend the time later.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah, you either-- You have two choices in any endeavor: to do the hard thing now- That's it ... or do the hard thing later. But everything has a hard thing. Yes. So do you take the easy path now for a hard path later? Exactly. Or the hard path now for an easy path later?

Amara Andrew: Yeah. Which 100 times out of 100 times, I would take the hard path now, because later on, the- Like,

Jeff Sarris: uh, thinking rationally about it, yes.

Not instinctually, though.

Amara Andrew: You wouldn't say I instinctually do?

Jeff Sarris: Oh, I mean as a human. Oh, yeah. Like, just, just generally. No, I was like, we definitely do that. Yeah. But generally, I mean, it's the easy path is how we're wired. No, everybody...

Amara Andrew: So everybody wants easy money. Everybody wants to not work. Just flat out, I'm putting that out there.

We are the only two fucking psychos where we actually like working. Like, every time I talk to someone, it's like, "Oh yeah, well, we're working or we're working. We're doing this." And they're like, "Really?" But working isn't even remotely what can encapsulate what we do. Like, it's not work, it is what we are doing.

But anyway, I digress. But doing the hard stuff up front is how you set yourself up for success later. Because also, what is hard right now is hard, but not having a solid foundation in the future, it's like, uh, you're on a ship. Let's go back to the fucking Titanic. You put it together, it looks really nice, but you forget a couple screws.

You forget to put in the sealant. Like, you for- I don't know how to build a fucking boat, okay? You forget a propeller, and you're just like, "Well, we'll deal with that later. It's gonna be fine." Then your cute little ship runs into an iceberg. Well, now you're missing a propeller. Now you have a huge gash on the side.

Now you're missing all these things as you're out in the middle of the water because you didn't do the hard things first. You didn't put in two propellers. You didn't make sure all the bolts were tightened. Well, you

Jeff Sarris: didn't do what you needed to do to protect it from an iceberg. Exactly. Like- That'd be hard.

Yeah. So- Well,

Amara Andrew: especially in the 1900s is difficult. Yeah. But yes. But it would

Jeff Sarris: be hard, so then you had to deal with it later. Yeah. And hard later became catastrophic.

Amara Andrew: Exactly. I lost my train of thought. Choo-choo. Um, hmm.

I lost it. It's all good. But essentially doing the harder things now to not have to do even harder things later. Oh, it was

Jeff Sarris: about us. Like, we are crazy and run towards the hard things.

Amara Andrew: Yes.

Eh, maybe it'll come back. Maybe not.

Jeff Sarris: But yeah, just human nature, like a fight or flight sort of internal reaction would be to run from the hard thing and run towards the easy thing. Um, but you tend to have better outcomes when you run towards the hard thing, because then you don't have to deal with future hard things, uh, in the same way.

Amara Andrew: I also feel like if it's something hard and you're putting it off, you shouldn't be doing it. 'Cause, like, the things that are hard that we're doing, I still want to do them, and I wanna do the even harder things, 'cause I don't know, maybe we're sadomasochists and we just enjoy pain. I don't

Jeff Sarris: think that's true Where do you get satisfaction?

Amara Andrew: From doing hard things. Exactly. It gives me dopamine.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah, and I think that's universally true for everyone. It, it makes you feel like I made new connections. Like, not-- You don't think about connections in your brain, but you feel- I'm like, my brain connected. Oh, there it is. My brain's not connecting today.

But you feel there's a reward system for achieving hard things, and I think we all have that.

Amara Andrew: Yeah. It just... Then I have to wonder why people don't wanna do the hard things then.

Jeff Sarris: Why don't people wanna work out?

Amara Andrew: Yeah, 'cause it's hard.

Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And you don't have the reward system from starting to work out. Yeah.

You have the reward system from having worked out.

Amara Andrew: Well, yeah, it's like wanting the results without wanting the work. Yeah. But then- 'Cause like, well, you want a rocking bod, but go to the gym every day. It's, like, it feels good afterward, but in your head you're like, "This fucking blows and this shit is heavy."

Well, and that's the challenge. "I don't wanna be here."

Jeff Sarris: The reward system is only after you've done it. Yeah. So the-- We're avoiding hard because hard is hard, but after you do hard, hard feels good.

Amara Andrew: I know. Even today I was like, "I don't wanna work out," but then I did a little bit and I felt better. Uh-huh.

Jeff Sarris: But yeah, I think that's all, uh, very important.

So if we have anything to leave you with, it is run towards what's hard.

Amara Andrew: Yes, 'cause otherwise it's gonna be way harder later and your ship's gonna sink, and then you're gonna be one of the biggest tragedies in American history.

Iceberg, right ahead.

Jeff Sarris: All right. Well, I think with that we'll wrap, and next week we'll see you from Miami.