Becoming a 'Category of One' Instead of the Best

This conversation means a lot to me, and it feels right to share it the day before Christmas 🎄🌟
I’m joined by my fiancé, Lucas Ferrer-Cardona, a vascular surgeon, academic, and co-host of the Life of Flow Podcast, for a conversation about leverage, ownership, and why building a personal brand matters no matter what field you’re in.
After nearly two decades of medical training, Lucas reached a realization many high performers quietly arrive at: he was trading time for money, with very little control over what he’d built. In this episode, we talk about how discovering Naval Ravikant’s ideas on leverage reshaped the way he thought about work, opportunity, and long-term security, and how that shift led him to build a strong, monetized personal brand without managing his own social media 👀
We get into why media creates optionality in a way jobs never will, how delegation and trust make scale possible, and why “keeping your head down and working hard” is no longer enough to protect you. Lucas shares what surprised him most once he started building visibility, how his podcast opened doors he never could have accessed otherwise, and why ownership matters more than titles.
If you’ve ever felt resistant to social media, overwhelmed by the idea of putting yourself out there, or uneasy relying solely on your job for stability, this conversation offers a different lens, one grounded in autonomy, leverage, and long-term thinking.
05:30 Discovering Naval Ravikant and rethinking work
09:15 Media, money, and people as leverage
13:40 Why being “the best” isn’t the goal
17:05 The Category of One idea
21:30 Building visibility without managing social media
26:10 Trusting a team and delegating creatively
31:45 What institutions really own
36:20 Personal brand as long-term optionality
41:50 Podcasting as access and relationship capital
46:30 Creating momentum and new opportunities
51:10 Risk, fear, and intuition
About Dr. Lucas Ferrer-Cardona
Lucas M. Ferrer Cardona, MD is a board-certified vascular surgeon in the Institute for Cardiovascular Health, a clinical partnership between Ascension Seton and UT Health Austin. He specializes in the vascular treatment of both arterial and venous disorders. Additionally, Dr. Ferrer Cardona is an assistant professor in the Dell Medical School Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Ferrer Cardona earned his medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He completed both an internship and residency in surgery at Temple University Hospital – Main Campus and a fellowship in vascular surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Ferrer Cardona’s clinical interests include preventing diabetic foot amputations and performing limb salvage, particularly using foot vein arterialization for patients who have few options, as well as minimally invasive treatments for carotid disease, dialysis access, and aortic aneurysms.
Connect with Lucas:

💼 LinkedIn: Lucas (Lucas Ferrer - Cardona) Ferrer🎙️Podcast: Life of Flow Podcast
Stay connected with me
📧 Contact: courtney@smoothmedia.co
👍 Instagram: @slaythegatekeeper
👍 Instagram: @courtlynnjohnson 
💼 LinkedIn: Courtney Johnson
🎶 TikTok: @courtney..johnson