Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
you do get bored of your bullshit and that's the point where you're like i'm ready to change that's the coolest part like that's empowering when you have to repeat the sad story one more time and you just can't be bothered you're like oh how many more times
Hey there, I'm Matt D'Avella and welcome to my short form podcast, Three Rules. Each episode, I ask a guest to share three rules that help them find success and happiness. Today, I'm joined by Sorrel Amor, a creator and entrepreneur who's amassed more than 120 million views on YouTube. From creating courses to teaching photography and building a career that blends creativity and financial freedom, Sorrel has become a leader in helping others achieve their own independence.
Sorel, so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Glass from the past. We haven't seen each other for years. I know. We, I think, did we meet for the first time in Sydney many years ago? Very connected in like the creator space. Like, how does it feel to be now an OG YouTuber? How?
How cool is that? Yeah. I don't know if you feel it. I love it. Because I remember looking at OG YouTubers and I was like, man, they're cool. I'm not going to... I can't speak about myself here, but I look at OG YouTubers and I look at them with respect. You guys have been doing it for so long. To know that there's YouTubers out there that have been doing it for years and years and years and they're still...
people still love them. Like that's something special. And I'm not, I know that my audience has gone up and down because I've switched angles so many times. And sometimes audiences are like, what is she doing now? But there's still so many people that are sticking on the journey. And I'm just proud beyond belief of what I've created. I cannot believe like 10 years. Wow.
And I am proud as punch of the world and my life that I've created. Let's get into these three rules. What's your first rule? My first rule is understanding the inner world. The biggest success I'm now facing for myself is my inner compass and my inner world because it was so damaging to myself and people around me. So my driver of success and how I view success now is the quality of my life. So understanding your inner world and how you function is
is pivotal to take the hard look at yourself and realize you're really damaging aspects of how you don't communicate properly, how you people please, how you don't have strong enough boundaries.
Why you react a certain way if someone gives you feedback for example a lot of people including myself I used to hate feedback from the closest people to me and even my sister the other day She was like yeah, I didn't want to give you feedback because you were kind of scary and I defended my negative characteristics as much as I possibly could and
thinking that they were attacking me, but they were just trying to do better for me. These are the people that love you and care for you and want to be closer to you and make sure that you're not an ass. So listening to feedback is really important. So for me, I had to look at why did I think that I didn't, people couldn't give me feedback. Did I think that I was better than everybody? Why was I scared to let go of the sides of me that were damaging? And why was I protecting the bad sides of myself?
So letting go of that ego and just realizing that I'm part of the problem is really, really cool. That's also an empowering spot because it just gives you the ground base to realize you can do a lot of work on yourself. How could somebody go about understanding their inner world? Like what's step one of starting to accomplish that? First of all, I don't think you want to do this by yourself.
That's really hard. So having someone to be able to look outside of you is really helpful. Just observe. I think observing your life first as a separate entity might be a good thing. Like, where do you want to improve it? What aspects are just subpar?
And then taking action like, okay, my finances suck. How many times have you read a finance book? Like, have you read up anything about finances? So many people think that finances are just going to be worked out. There's actually solutions out there, but way too many people have traumas around money, first of all. So you do have to look into that. Why do you spend money instead of saving it? That's a good one. Yeah, but having wild curiosity around your own finances
and treating it like a movie. And if there's way too much drama, like let's assess the drama and get rid of it.
Can I push back against one thing that you said? So you said that if somebody wants to start kind of understanding their inner world better, they should probably do it with somebody else. I think in my experience, I've often found myself too much seeking approval from other people and wanting other people to kind of give me the answers when I'm
I need to find them myself. And it's almost like a crutch where just recently I've started to like, be like, you know what? I'm not going to listen to anybody else's opinion about my business. I'm going to run it myself. I'm going to make my own decisions. I'm going to make my own mistakes and I'm going to live with the consequences. Do you think that could be true as well? Yes. I actually, okay. I'm glad you brought that up actually, because the only time that I found it beneficial for me to
move on from some damaging parts of myself is when someone was waiting for me to get the answer but they were they were poking at me to get the answer that I know so it wasn't this is what you should do and this these are the mantras and nothing I actually I'm kind of in the same boat now I used to try to get external opinions a lot and therapy I was like waiting for someone to give me like what's wrong with me am I broken I must be broken and then
Even I was reading these guide cards and the angel cards or whatever. And at some point my body rejected them. It was like, girl, no, because it just felt so fluffy and fake and not sincere. It wasn't in my body. Like, no, it wasn't.
internalized knowledge, which is wisdom. Man, we're all broken, aren't we? I think that's what I realized too. And like, you know, we also get broken over and over again. Like we're not done being broken. Like, you know, there's going to be future challenges that we face that will be hopefully not as hard as what we've been through, but like... No, they're going to be harder. They're going to be... Nah, nah. No, they actually will. Well, do you think that maybe the fact that like when you've faced hardship in the past,
It makes you better equipped to deal with future setbacks. And that's why your challenges get harder because you're more, you have to be challenged. Humans don't want to admit that we love challenges. We actually do. It sucks in the moment, but if you were the same person you were when you were 15, you'd be bored out of your brain. So these challenges, I think they're given to us. Um, slowly they get harder and harder and harder. Um,
Because you do end up having all these tools under your belt that you get to utilize in the next time. You're like, ah, I've gone through this again. I'm not going to make the same mistake. And you are able to
hang on to bigger challenges and master them. Yeah, let's move on to rule number two. Rule number two for me is radical self-responsibility. I have recently fallen in love with this concept. If you can take full responsibility for everything that's going on in your life, like everything, and it's very confronting at times, it is this empowerment tool that stops anything externally
affecting you. If you are in a situation that's not great, business, romantic, whatever it is, and you are blaming and you're hating on the other person, the only person that's really suffering is you in the end. So all that blame, all that energy that you're putting outwards is just affecting you. So if you can take radical self-responsibility with whatever situation you're in and take the
make your life as epic as you want, like you have an end goal of what you want to create and you do everything necessary, no blame, no victim mentality, your life is going to transform. When did you start really kind of embracing this rule for yourself? Only about a month ago. And that's literally when I snapped out of my misery victim self that I've been in for about four years. I was so dark. It was like a really dark cloud of my life for such a long time. And now I'm
I feel like everything is possible. I don't care if someone steps in my way and is trying to do something, affect me in any way. Business things mess up. I can see exactly where I've messed up. Like this is you have to be really honest with yourself as well to see,
Where you've messed up and where you've given your power away or where you've done something wrong and it is painful to do because in today's world, I think it's a very victim world that we live in right now. Like everything's everybody else's fault. The system's fault. Everything is everybody's fault. But it's the world we live in and you can just continue blaming, which is not a great space to be or you can get your butt into gear and just make your reality happen.
given the constraints that you've been born under because everybody's got huge challenges. That's like a unanimous thing that humans, no matter what, no one gets out of life without hectic challenges. I think a lot of people have the problem where they
beat themselves up too much. And so, like, how do you have that delicate balance where you're taking responsibility without just like being hard on yourself for mistakes that you made in the past? True. I'm currently in the headspace of the brain is such a fast mechanism and we don't give it credit for what it can do. So it's like, okay, man, I messed up. I'm not going to do that again. And that's it.
Just make a choice. It's like, don't beat yourself up. That's also not going to help you at all. It's going to keep you again in the victim spot. You don't want to be in a victim spot. Like how are you going to feel empowered to be the best version of yourself? Because you know, at the end of the day, you're going to die. So how do you want your life to look? We're not going to be around that long. So make it like a wicked story. Don't sit there in...
And I know a lot of people are like, but you don't understand. You're really privileged. Yeah, I am. I'm privileged in many freaking ways. And I still have challenges and I still have to let go of pain. But yeah, I just think that brain is way more powerful. So it's like if you're feeling really crappy about yourself, my sister would hate me for saying this because she's all about emotions and understanding yourself and really diving in and feeling sadness and all that, which I also agree with. But there are also points in time where you just have to be like, I've had enough.
And I think sometimes when you go through like self-reflection and healing, you do get bored of your bullshit. And that's the point where you're like, I'm ready to change. That's the coolest part. Like that's empowering. When you have to repeat the sad story one more time and you just can't be bothered. You're like...
- Oh, how many more times? - I'm gonna be back with the third and final rule in a moment. But first, one of the ways I'm supporting this podcast is through Patreon. By becoming a patron, you get access to the full unedited episodes of the show. - Being a minimalist is the best.
It's so awesome simplifying your finances. It allows you to take on the challenges that life's going to throw at you and you don't crumble under them as easily. As a patron, you'll also get additional unused footage from my YouTube videos and access to a members only area where you can ask me questions for my Patreon exclusive AMA podcast. And most importantly, you'll feel good knowing that you're supporting a creator you like. And really, what other incentive do you need?
Simply go to patreon.com/mattdavella to support the show. That's patreon.com/mattdavella. There's a link down in the description below. Thanks for considering. Rule number three for me is embracing the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows of life, of career, success, happiness, actually, even that. So I think in today's world, we'd like to be told productivity and output is everything, always be on your A game.
You make it happen. Everything's great. Oh man, if I could tell myself for the last four years, if I could have just forced myself to be at my A game, it's not that easy. And I now am so grateful for that time that it wasn't going well. It wasn't, I wasn't happy. I wasn't chirpy. I wasn't like, I had to do a lot of inner work on myself and, and overcome the inner world to get me on the other side.
Because I'm a much better person for it now, for one. Life moving forward will be a lot more balanced and authentic and aligned with who I want to be. But you can't... If there's a lull, you can't force it. You can't force the creativity. And you have to be... You have to allow your ego to be damaged a little bit when you see people around you that are just killing it at life. And they've got everything that you want. You want that. You're jealous. But if you just acknowledge...
that it's just not your time right now and take a bit of a reality pill as to maybe why you can't have it right now, why your life isn't in that, you're not in that lane, you haven't dedicated enough time to that. - That's part of the problem of being surrounded by people who are very successful. Like everybody always says that you are the five people that you surround yourself with and that can help to elevate you and push you forward, whether that's people that you're just
online and look up to or people that are genuinely like connected to you in the real world. But then there's this element where you have to define success for yourself. And if you're looking at somebody else's metrics and somebody else's goals and saying, oh, wow, like I really need to do more of that, then that could lead you away from your own happiness. Even looking at my own life,
If some people were comparing like, oh, I wish I had Sorrel's life. There's aspects you do not wish you had. But you're not going to see that. You're not going to see how many amazingly important family events I've missed because I was traveling. You're not going to see how much I miss my family and interacting with them. You're not going to see this is an open and honest thing. Like I'm 35 now.
almost 36, I believe. I don't have a family yet. And what if it's too late for me? That's also an aspect that a lot of people aren't talking about, that this is something I yearn for now. And I might not be able to have that. And that's a sacrifice. And, you know, so trading someone's life because they might have a flashy car or whatever the heck else that I've promoted is
you probably don't want the whole thing. I'm glad that you brought up the fact that we have ebbs and flows because, you know, a big part of this podcast is trying to help people find success and happiness. And I think because of that, some people might misinterpret that as the fact that there is a destination that all these people I'm interviewing have arrived when in fact,
some people may be just surviving temporarily to then becoming, you know, going into a period of their life where they're not as happy or they're not as successful or not as fulfilled. And that's okay. Like being okay with the fact that life sometimes can throw a curveball and we're not always where we want to be. To your point, it's embracing those challenges and embracing the fact that life is often filled with setbacks. I think that's why living day to day, moment to moment and trying to fill your now
as much with joy instead of trying to reach too far. Have goals, but also this is it. And you might never be able to reach that destination. And people get really disappointed in themselves if they didn't become an actress or they didn't make a million dollars or they didn't do X, Y, Z. But if your day-to-day is filled up, that's okay. So the minor things, how are you feeling now? How are your relationships right now? This is what really matters because you could be wiped out with a bus tomorrow.
That kind of sucks. But so for now, living every moment fully and still aspiring to go somewhere and have some sort of life direction. I think both are important. Sorrel, thanks so much for doing this. So glad we had the chance. Thank you. If you want to get these rules summarized into a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe at mattdiavella.com slash three rules.
Thanks so much to Sorrel for taking the time to come on the podcast. Check out the description of this episode to learn more about her work.