810 Lead with Love

COMMUNICATE YOUR VISION. Being an effective leader is difficult. Some do it through fear. Some do it through understanding. And others lead with love. You could be super demanding and scary and get what you want. But is that the kind of life you want to lead? Probably not. Often, leading in a way where you understand other people’s concerns will be the most beneficial to you. There’s a lot you can learn from others. Ask yourself: how can you bring people together in a way that satisfies their needs as well as your own? For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with the legendary director Jon Chu where he shared how he communicates his vision on set. Jon Chu directed the films Crazy Rich Asians, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Jon graduated from the USC School of Cinema-Television where he won the Princess Grace Award, the Dore Schary Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jack Nicholson directing award, and was recognized as an honoree for the IFP/West program Project: Involve. Learn how to enlist others in your vision and lead with love on Episode 805. In This Episode You Will Learn: The kind of leader Jon wants to be (1:00) The importance of synergy in creativity (1:30) The most important thing Jon has learned about communicating his vision (1:45) How to talk to people who have concerns about your vision (2:30) If you enjoyed this episode check out the show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/810 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the podcast. Very excited about this episode. It's with a buddy of mine named John Chu, who's an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer, best known for directing the movies Step Up 2, The Streets, Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber's Never Say Never, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. He's an alumni of the University of Southern California School of Cinema Television, where he won many awards.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  You look at other leaders and you look at people like our president, or you look at other CEOs of how they run their business. Some people do it through fear, some people do it through communication and love, some people do it through understanding. There's just so many different ways, and all are effective, to be honest. It's sort of what fits your own style, what kind of life you want to live as well, because as a director, I could scare the shit out of people and make big, do big tantrums and leave the room and quit and get what I want. And that would be actually really darn effective, and sometimes I do want to do that to get it wrong. But I don't really want to live that life. I think life is bigger than those things, and you know, that affects your energy anyway, and I just choose not to do that.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  And I do think that, like a computer, like a multi-processor, as a group, as long as you're choosing the right things, there's a lot of great ideas that can be mined, and those things together have a synergy that one person could never create. And so I love that idea. But as I get through, I think the the most important thing I've learned about Communicating the vision or getting a unified vision is literally just one by one. Like, it's too daunting to think like, "Oh, I need to get, I need to make sure everybody, we have that scene in the right place. I need to like send, blast out this email that like cuts down their ideas and gets to the vision." It's literally like

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  It's one by one conversation.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Sitting down, talking to someone, looking them in the eye and saying, "Let me understand your concerns here." Most people have concerns for the right reasons. They may not have the right answer, and you may not have the right answer. But as long as you have the same goal of trying to fix this concern of like, "I'm just not feeling this character." You know, some person could say, "Well, can you cut this scene?" I think you listened more of the note of, "Oh, what does it mean that they don't feel this character?" Which means they actually don't care about what they, or they don't know what they want in this movie. Which means it's not about that scene, it's about two scenes before that. And so by communicating with that actor, it's like, you know what, I think it's actually this point in the scene where you open your diary and we see exactly what you want.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  So by this point later, we'll be rooting for you instead of not knowing why you even want that thing. And I think it goes, it's a much more effective way. It takes a lot more time and a lot more energy and a lot more back and forth. But it's a much more, I think, healthier way.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  But also, that process of finding it makes you connect with that actor, with that producer, with the studio much more. And it is a harder process.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  Much harder than just saying, "Suck it up, do your job, let's go."

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Yes. I always say, I would do, I would make movies for free. If you gave me a camera and actors, like, "Let's go, I'll do it all day long." I can eat ramen all day long, it doesn't matter. What I get paid for is dealing with the politics and doing that job. Which I, you know, which is also part of storytelling, also a part about understanding why you want to tell this story or why, well, why other, someone else wants it. Everyone came to this story for a different reason. And by understanding the purpose that everyone came here for, you may not be able to fulfill that for every single person. But you can find your balance of how you want to fulfill those things. And maybe they have a purpose that is actually bigger than yours that you jump on.