What Is Humans?

Today we are joined by Ema Rajic as our first guest on the What Is Humans? Podcast. While Ema is our friend she just so happens to also be a national record holder, and Olympian. She sat down with us to discuss what brought her to such high performance levels at such a young age, her dreams being muted due to a global pandemic, and life after sports. 

Her candid conversation and stories surrounding new highs is grounded by her vulnerability in expressing the lows that came with that success. Her family laid the groundwork for her strong willpower and dedication to her craft. Listen to Ema reveal the pain of coming back to swimming after achieving her biggest dream. 

Today, Ema works in the pharmaceutical industry researching ways to help be a part of the cure for cancer. Her swimming career taught herself and both of us many things about high performance, vulnerability and what it means to be human. Enjoy.

We create habits and routines in our lives because it is comfortable. We find things that work for us, and takes the fuss out of mornings, nights, work and play. We are all different but in some way shape or form we all have routines and habits that dictate a majority of our time on earth. What if routines can be a bad thing though? Surely we can become stiff and unable to adapt to change, but what if we don’t understand or know why we do the things that we do? Whether that is sitting in front of the television at the end of the night to wind down, or checking our email first thing in the morning when we wake up we must have a why behind this…right? 

The minute that we do things without a thought behind them we are disengaged from what we are doing. We are simply going through the motions. You’ll know if you are going through the motions if you were to ask why I do that and your first response is…”I don’t know”. Analyzing our every move can seem daunting…but don’t think of it as an audit rather…having purpose behind our actions. If we have purpose and intention with our daily routines and habits we are able to trace back where we are at today…to where we are going in the future. 

Nothing is routine, be willing to introduce new things into the mix, not only to adapt and find better ways to perform, but also to keep asking yourself why things are the way they are. Have a reason to your rhyme and a rhyme to your reason even if that reason is simply to be mindless. It’s ok to take time for yourself and be spontaneous but just be intentional with it! 

There is a massive difference between, 0 and 1 and not that big of a difference between 1 and 10 or 1 and 1000, let us explain why. Whether you are getting off the couch and on your journey to running a marathon, or you are looking for  a job, but you just need to write the first line of your new resume…the first step is the hardest. This step is also the one that catapults you into an exponential amount of work and success once achieved! Many of us are plagued by perfection. We think that because things aren’t perfect, we can’t post it or we can’t start the application for a new business, because everything isn’t in line yet. 

The truth of the matter is you’re never going to be ready, so you have to do things before that point. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. In a data set of 1000 nobody is paying attention to one entry. They are looking at the average of the whole, the improvement overall. This is like one piece of the puzzle but arguably the most important piece of the puzzle. You can start anywhere but you have to start. 

This week think about the ways that you can tangibly start putting a foot in the right direction. Don’t give yourself time to think about the outcomes, rather just focus on putting in the work and letting the rest go. Use your hindsight to recognize that if this is something I am passionate about there will be plenty more of where this came from and one singular piece won’t rock the boat one way or the other. Get from 0-1 today and the rest will be cake.

What comes first…do we start talking about things and then we become thought leaders, or do we do a lot and then talk about them later after we believe that we have accomplished enough to finally share it? We would like to argue for the latter. In order to become a subject matter expert on anything you must do before you are ready. You must immerse yourself in it, teach before you’ve done anything, while you’re doing it and afterwards as well because it is all valuable. If we convince ourselves that nobody will listen to us or care because we haven’t accomplished enough yet then I think there is a fair chance we never will reach that non existent level in real life. 

By being a part of the community in which we seek to contribute to we are acting as just that contributors. All of the heroes that you can think of in your mind…they were once novices who probably were talking out of their ass most of the time until magically one day after talking and doing and tweaking and repeating over and over again, you believed that was enough time to start listening. Nobody is going to listen in the begin but you have to start speaking in order for people to listen in the end, or even to have something valuable to be heard. 

There will never be a perfect time to get started, but by speaking it into existence and consistently being involved in the hobbies, industries and communities that we love naturally we will become ingrained in them. Don’t wait until you know enough, or you have experienced every single twist and turn in the book…speak about your little experiences, theories you have, things you would like to try and explore and those spoken curiosities will lead you places you never thought possible. Your expertise, however limited, is most likely more than at least one other person who wishes they were in your shoes…how can you help them today and not some imaginary time in the future? 

As the year of 2023 comes to a close, we look back on some of the highs and some of the lows as well as takeaways. This episode as always will be a reflection of our year here at the What Is Humans? Podcast, in our personal lives and for what we have accomplished during the podcast as well. Hopefully this will be a good time for you at home to reflect as well while you ring in the new year with loved ones wherever you are. 

As we just recently finished with the episode on feedback loops, make sure to continue to look back and reflect on what is working for you and what isn’t. What things are making you happiest and what things are bringing you grief. These will be a north star for you throughout the year of 2024 and ourselves as well. 

While we have each other to assess from an outside perspective, it is important to talk to others when reflecting to see if they noticed a change in you or your behavior. This is necessary when looking at feedback, your past year and the things you want to improve upon and change! Make it a great year in 2024 and keep doing the work day in and day out to create the life that you want to live every day. Thanks so much for listening and we will see you in 2024!

It’s the end of the year and whether it is our yearly review with our bosses or Santa who is checking to see if we were naughty or nice it seems like we are always receiving feedback. Feedback in both of these cases is often given without our request and has some consequences associated with it. We have an emotional response built up around feedback cycles, maybe its a pat on the back that leads to a raise or maybe it’s the fear that we have done something wrong, and a weakness in our skillset will be brought to life. Regardless what the feedback is there is a high stakes connotation that surrounds feedback and the faults that we perceive within ourselves. 

Exposing weaknesses and bringing them into the light feels like one of the most vulnerable things that we can do. Allowing others to judge our performance from superiors to peers to people that rely on us is terrifying…or is it? When we receive feedback infrequently we put undue pressure on ourselves because it feels like the stakes are higher than they are. If we only do promotions once a year then you’re damn right your yearly review is going to be an important one. On the other hand if we constantly ask for feedback we begin to flex that muscle, and become immune to some of the fear of vulnerability. 

By asking for feedback consistently we aren’t hiding behind things we already know rather we are putting it out there in the light and asking for help. When we ask for help we not only improve our own performance but we improve the lives of others around us. That means our relationships and lives of our coworkers, customers, family and friends. By hiding behind our vulnerabilities we not only hurt ourselves but we create a less than great version of ourselves for those around us as well. During this year’s feedback session, think about ways that you can work on asking more frequently for feedback throughout the year in order to implement change all year long rather than a nail biting end of the year meeting! 

When we have big lofty goals it can be easy to consistently take on more, believing that we are impervious to mortal capacities. It’s interesting and abundantly true that the most important things to becoming a high achiever are still the most basic ones. Getting enough sleep, eating right and carving out time for rest and relaxation become monumental in achieving what you have set out to. Personal insecurities can inhibit us from communicating what is most important to us to those around us…like people we work with, people we work for, and people that we live with. 

We have an ability to hold things in to create the illusion that we are “ok” when in reality the only way to maintain peace as we take on more is to ask for help and create healthy boundaries around us. Growth seems like the only meaningful thing when we are forecasting the next day, but don’t discount time for sleep, rest and the small things that keep us functioning as healthy human beings. We can push ourselves to the edge without assuming that is what others around us need or want instead of admitting that we aren’t mindless robots…we have to have our basic needs met before we can reach for the stars. 

Protect your inner peace and recognize that is what is most important to helping those around you. There will be times when our opportunity cost sways…but if we don’t communicate what we need we can become balls of anxiety with the weight of the world on our shoulders that grows and grows everyday. The minute we let others in and accept some time and responsibility for our own peace is the minute that weight gets a little lighter. Think about what you need this week, as we embark on the holiday season, one where often times the last person we are thinking about is ourselves. 

Prosperity can be a poison. Typically when we are prospering this is seen as a good thing most of the time, and I would agree that most of the time this is a benefit to us. On the other hand though too much prosperity can cause us to lose sight of the bigger picture and pick and prod at smaller more insignificant issues just because we can. We can become bogged down in issues that take away from our life’s purpose when we aren’t forced to focus on being the best versions of ourselves that we can be. We can become thrown off track so easily when we allow small inconveniences the energy to take over our lives and deter from the main objective. 

I think we have all been victim to small things throwing off our day whether that be traffic or stubbing our toe. The difference between a person at peace is understanding that those isolated instances are just that isolated instances. If we can control our thoughts and emotions we can quickly regain focus and recognize how insignificant those moments are instead of letting them ruin the rest of our day. In the same vein it can be easy for us to try and solve things that are out of our control or not central to our purpose…this in turn takes our energy away and gives it to something like means very little to us. 

Complaining has become a habit of evolution. One that is central to the human experience, but often not necessary. The people who don’t complain often are just busy trying to figure out how to solve the problems that mean the most to them and the ones they don’t care about they don’t let bother them. Focus more our your energy on the problems that you seek to solve and the rest will become meaningless in the grand scheme of things. 

Excuses are always present and so is doubt. It can be so easy for us to make excuses to try and protect ourselves from rejection or perceived failure. We let our egos come first and convince ourselves that things have to be perfect before we ever start. This inferiority complex acts as a crutch to make sure that if we ever try and fail we can lean on that crutch to hold our egos up. The reality is that we are scared to even start because what happens if we aren’t good at the start or people don’t like what we have to offer the world. The irony lies in the fact that anytime someone starts something they are almost always going to be bad at it. 

The things and the people that we aspire to be are just like us except at some point they actually decided to just start. The minute that we understand that we have to first step into the arena and put our internal doubts aside is the first step towards any semblance of success. At the beginning we won’t be any good but by showing up day in and day out we begin to get better slowly becoming less afraid of what others might think. Having the courage to be bad and sometimes even disliked is the only way we can overcome the inferiority complex. 

By being vulnerable and opening ourselves up to feedback and criticism and putting our thoughts and ideas out into the world we are taking the first step towards success. Our inferiority complex can feel personal and emotional like we are being attacked, but most of the time it’s all in our heads. You have all the tools available to you to be successful, but most often times we are the ones that are holding ourselves back. 

As we attempt to learn something new there is a learning curve that exists. I’m not sure where the term originated, but over time it has become an established saying that refers to the amount of time that it takes to become knowledgeable or apt with a topic or new skill. As we go through life this learning curve can become more daunting and scary to us. When we are kids learning is everywhere and often times we meet it head on, but as we get older we let society and external forces dictate our idea of the learning curve and what it will take to achieve success. 

Today, we discuss our own lives and some of the frustrations that have come with taking on new tasks and challenges. There lies a want and need to be able to figure things out much quicker than we normally think they should take. We underestimate what it will take to achieve something in the short term and we overestimate what we can achieve over a long period of time. These ideas aren’t new or novel, but if we can begin to analyze and notice the struggles and the why behind the learning curve it can make it a little more tolerable while we are in it, until we embark on the next learning curve. 

As we assess where we are at in our learning journey it can become easier to cope with our position if we remember why we started in the first place. The why behind our starting point is often forgotten in the day to day operations of a big goal or dream. Try to zoom out and look at the big picture when things are looking insurmountable. The learning curve is only daunting until you come out on the other side and become a master. Then it starts all over again. Happy Holidays!