321 Chase Jarvis on Creativity and The Art of Entrepreneurship

"The things that make you weird and quirky are your biggest strengths as an artist." - Chase Jarvis If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/321 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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 321 with Chase Jarvis.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm so glad that you're here today. If this is your first time, make sure to check out the rest of our episodes as well by subscribing to the podcast over on iTunes. And if you are a regular listener, thank you so much for checking out this episode. And make sure to share the love at lewishouse.com/321 to get the message out about this interview. I've got my good buddy on, Chase Jarvis, and Chase is well-known as a visionary photographer, director, and fine artist. And as a photographic master, Chase has won numerous awards. He's been called one of the top 30 most influential photographers of the past decade.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  He is a widely sought-after presenter and has been a keynote speaker at Fortune 500 companies, top universities, TEDx conferences, and much more. He's also an extremely successful entrepreneur, having recently started one of the world's fastest-growing online education companies, creativelive.com. I'm super pumped to introduce you guys to him. And here are some of the main things that we're going to be talking about and covering in this interview. First off, we talk about some of the insecurities that Chase has had his entire life and how they actually helped cultivate creativity for him. Then we talk about how to overcome a creative block and the things you can do to move forward when you feel like you're in that creative block space.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  Next, Chase talks about the importance of taking care of your health if you want to be a successful creative. Then we cover the three things that are hugely important to make great art and how to get into the zone to create awesome work consistently. All this and so much more on episode number 321 with the one and only Chase Jarvis.

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

  What's up everyone, welcome to the School of Greenness Podcast. I'm here with my man Chase Jarvis, good to see you man.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Super happy to be here, thank you.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm pumped to be here, we're in your studio, this is a different setup, we're in LA downtown.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:37Lewis Howes?

  You're filming for something right now called 30 Day Genius?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  30 Days of Genius, yeah, it's a series of videos on CreativeLive. We're gonna make sure this comes out at the right time, because I haven't even announced this stuff yet.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  This is like-

• 2:47Lewis Howes?

  What's the link gonna be, just so we're aware?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  CreativeLive.com/30daysofgenius, the number 3, 0, days of genius.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool, we'll time it up and-

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  Make sure it's out there.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  You go there and you click a button and then you get a badass interview every day for 30 days.

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  From game changing, creative.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  Awesome, awesome. We just did one, which was fun, so thanks for having me on.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  You're in the club, man.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, I appreciate it.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  It's a tight club.

• 3:12Lewis Howes?

  Now, I'm curious, for those that don't know who you are, I just told them a bio about you just before this, but for those that don't know who you are and your backstory, I'm curious, who was the most influential person of your childhood? And what was the biggest lesson they taught you?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  The most influential person from my childhood?

• 3:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  I'm gonna just, I'm gonna cop out and say I got two people and it's my parents, I'm an only child.

• 3:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  And I think for a lot of people that means spoiled, but-

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  Entitled?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, entitled, spoiled. I can pretty much demonstrably say that wasn't the case for me. I mean, I had upside down Nikes, Adidas with four stripes.

• 3:56Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I came from humble, middle-class upbringing. But my parents were of the type of people who were very, very supportive. And in particular, they encouraged me to do, to pursue what I wanted to pursue. That's not without a bunch of social pressure.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  I feel like that social pressure was less about family and more about culturally for me. I was, we can talk about that a little bit later. But my parents played a huge impact in helping me create the life that I wanted. And I think they- They, there's a lot of heat, like they unintentionally put heat on me to pursue those dreams. I'm super grateful for that heat now, looking back. So it was a very small, you know, I have no cousins, I have no brothers and sisters. I'm an only child and so there's nobody to carry on the Jarvis name after me. And so that's why they were so influential, because they're very small, like a little baby wolf pack.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, I like it. And who was, who would you say is more influential?

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  Who was more influential and then which one taught you the most important lesson?

• 5:02Speaker 02

  I think that they have taken turns at different times. I think when I was younger, so my dad was a cop.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  And my mom worked in admin at a biotech company. My mom stayed home a lot when I was younger and so she was very, very impactful for me. She's a neat freak, she's very, I'd say, organized and she's very much a doer.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  And so early in my career, early in my life, at a youngin', she was very, very influential. And then a little bit later, when I think, and this is also probably biological as well. I started connecting more with my father because he was working, basically. You know, he was building houses for us to live in during the day. And then he would work the night shift from literally, gosh, I think 11 till 11, not 2:00 in the morning, until 11. So he was basically gone.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  And maybe, or actually really, I think I got that screwed up. So he was gone during a lot of my childhood, working as a cop. And then when I started, you know, graduating or getting further along in school and sports started to become a real big thing, my dad was always there.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  At the game.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, at the game, you know, being very supportive. My mom was as well. But I think there's some correlation to biology as well.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the biggest lesson then?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Wow, I think the lesson from my From like five to eighteen, was there a big lesson that stands out? I think there is a certain stubbornness and you know that cuts both ways of things like I like double edged swords. But I think the lack of or a desire for greatness, a desire to achieve. I've come to find out later in life that that's also a little bit of a crutch. You know, it's a it's sort of a substitute for intimacy and a substitute for connection. If you are destroying, we were talking about this at dinner last night with some of the crew who's sitting here in the room.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  If you are so great that if you get first place, it's really hard to argue with that person's ability or qualities or whatever. And so that was a defense mechanism, but the the good side of that double edged sword is I think my parents instilled that into me, which is you know, success is often directly proportion proportional to hard work and I I always put in the work. What did you think was the biggest fear for you growing up? Did you have a big fears? I think the biggest fear for me and like just total transparency, we're going, we're going there in this interview, I can tell already. But was it was a specific question? The biggest fear growing up?

• 7:48Speaker 02

  I think obscurity, just like not being present in the conversation, whether that conversation is about greatness or just like being being nothing. Not being in the conversation. Yeah, being being nothing, being vanilla, being being obscure. Was that like the teen years or was that in college or? I think that was a pretty, that was a theme, you know, I'm an extroverted person, generally speaking, although I feel like I'm getting inside in touch with my introverted self in this sort of second arc of my life, but early it was very much about. Achievement, greatness, being successful. And again, you have the book and the podcast, The School of Greatness.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Being great and lifting others up around you. And it's a very complex thing, being great, being a great leader, being a great, just being a great doer, isn't the whole picture.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  And so I think there was a fear about, the fear around being obscure and not being noticed or relevant. And then dramatically overcompensating by, you know, being the captain of the football team, the captain of the soccer team, and hanging out with the skate punks. And, you know, getting academic scholarship and getting athletic scholarship. And how can you try and be great at everything so that you can silence all the haters? And ultimately, like, that's a, that's kind of a not-so-awesome existence. Trying to not achieve for the sake of achievement or sort of self-fulfillment and actualization, but achieve to shut up people who might criticize you.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  It's a different, it's the same result of greatness, but I believe deeply in the mentality of how you got somewhere.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  You know, I had a lot of insecurities when I was in middle school, high school, even before then. I feel like I was very insecure and unsure of myself. What were your biggest insecurities?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  One of the things that I have learned about myself is that I'm rarely aware of insecurities in the moment. I'm just living that, that sort of fear cycle or that conversation that goes on inside you. And then I'm only able to identify them by looking backwards. I think that's a saying, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. So as I try and connect the dots looking backwards, I think I was very insecure as a very young person. I wore glasses.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  Did you need them?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I needed them because my, one of my, my right eye was developing much faster than my left eye.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Doc says this is a problem. So in first grade, I think at the end of first grade, I got glasses, big. Like foghorn, Leghorn glasses, like, you know, it's like the cartoons would be fantastic if someone could see these pictures and draw them. So big, like tortoiseshell, thick glasses from second to, I think, fifth grade, second or fifth or sixth. And I remember, like, oh, wow, you know, I had a little line of defense mechanisms, like someone would say, hey, four eyes. I would say, well, four eyes is better than two, and just like little childish thing, but I could tell, looking backwards, that that had an impact on me. And I was really attuned to it when, in either fifth or early, I think, fifth grade, I got them off.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  And all of a sudden, the curls came back into my life as a fifth grader. But I was like, I was very aware of that. But, so that would be one thing that I was very insecure about was my, my big ass glasses. And I was a jock, I was a high performer, even as a little tyke, I didn't know that I was good, but I would score more goals than anybody else. And it was weird to have big ass glasses and be playing basketball.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  You had to wear them playing, given the context then.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know, I think it was probably literally before context or that thing.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  So those are, those are some key, key, very young developmental insecurities that I really didn't, wasn't aware of at the time.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  Right. Do you have any insecurities right now?

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, absolutely.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Well, first of all.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest, first thing that comes to your mind?

• 11:45Speaker 02

  First thing that's come to mind is how to, uh, how to sound like I'm a professional speaker, basically. So how do you come off as authentic and, and have answers not be polished in podcasts like this?

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Like, my goal is connection, I've tried to connect with people through my art for my whole entire artistic career. I've built a platform called CreativeLive, whose sole goal is trying to connect people with their dreams and career hobby in life. We have millions of students all over the world. I, I think I'm really good at connecting with you, but I also don't want to come off as too heavy. My background is in philosophy, I went to school, I was in a PhD program in philosophy, so I can talk a lot and, like... I'm in my head a lot. So, and how do I sort of deliver value to your listeners? That's in the moment, so that's. That's the current insecurities, what you're saying. Yeah, well, you said current. I'm trying to think like right now, like I want to add. I mean, in your life in general.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. Right now, like I want to add as much value as possible in the next, in the next forty-five minutes to your audience. Personally, right now, like larger life. In life, yes. Do you have any securities in your life right now? Uh, yeah, it's, um, I think I stopped, um, let me rephrase that. About eighteen months ago, or twenty-four months ago now, or five years ago, I founded a company called CreativeLive. And built it up very, very quickly, very successful. How many employees do you guys have now? About a hundred and twenty employees. Yeah. And then about a year, eighteen months in, I hired a CEO, a guy named Mika Solomon. He came in, did a great job. He was the former president of Viacom.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Billion-dollar business. He'd had a two-hundred-million-dollar exit, where then he came in and I learned a lot from Mika. But about twenty-four months ago, came time to raise a Series B, so I got really involved in the company again. And, uh, and it became clear that I needed to come back and be the CEO of the company. So I moved Mika to the board very amicably. And I had always been a, uh, a leader, a natural leader. I was the captain of every team I've ever played on.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  And when, uh, there was an employee that shortly after I came on, he'd been frustrated for a little while. I was in the product team, and he left the company. He's like, okay, I just want to let you know, I'm giving my notice. And move on, do something different. And I was like, I asked him for a piece of feedback. What's a, what's a piece of feedback? For you? Yeah, for me personally. And, you know, it's something that I'm, I'm, I try and be really open and, and accessible.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  And the feedback is, he said, "You've made a career out of leading people who are naturally prone to follow you because of what you've achieved. And in this new role as a CEO, you're leading other leaders." And those are different.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  And that was like a gong right on my forehead. That was like a wow. And it's a very different sort of role to be in. And I still consider, you know, my work as a photographer and a director still, you know, very alive and well. But my primary focus is very clearly on creative life and taking that to the next level. And so the ability or the requirement to step in and lead, there's a natural skill set there for me, but to lead in a different way, lead other leaders.

• 15:17Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to followers?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, fans or followers. And, boy, it's a phenomenal challenge. And I think it's my biggest challenge and it's something that I love. I'm putting a ton of energy into that. That's what's taking up my time outside of all the day-to-day decisions of, you know, running a hundred-person, you know, venture-backed company, so.

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  What have you learned about yourself since that feedback? You know, what have you applied or tried that you learned something new about yourself?

• 15:45Speaker 02

  That I'm capable of it. And I see glimpses of it, but I don't yet have it mastered.

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  And it's, it's...

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the club.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it's so fine, you know, I go back to the earlier thing, confession about like a desire for mastery as a life. Like in everything, like you just, if you're just crushing everything and you work super, super hard, then you can silence all the haters. And so for me, going to town and doing the work to be a different kind of leader than I've been before at this, you know, at this point in my career is just a phenomenal challenge. I think I, honest, like, total transparency, I think I was resisting it early on.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, sure.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  And just the opportunity to be open to new things. I think ultimately, it's not ironic that one of my A, biggest skills, but B, biggest passions is lifelong learning. It's not a surprise that I created a company around lifelong learning.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  So this has been my biggest challenge.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay, I love it. Let's step back one step and talk about insecurity, not with you. But I'm, this is just coming up from where as we're talking about this, because you are known for creativity, you're extremely talented artist, photographer, world-class. A lot of people know about your work. How does insecurity cultivate creativity?

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Love this question.

• 17:06Lewis Howes?

  And hold artists back from being successful at the same time?

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  As I'm thinking about it right now, insecurity actually drives a lot of

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  people to being super creative, whether it be a musician, or an artist, or photographer. But also, I can see it holding them back.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  No, I love the question.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  I'm gonna think for just a second.

• 17:31Lewis Howes?

  And, do you need insecurity to be a great artist?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  I'll start with that one, because that's easy. First of all, the things that made you weird as a kid, those perspectives that you were afraid of. Like, that actually makes you great. That, like, going there is part of the, that's the sauce that people can connect with. And you being bulletproof, and perfect, and all these other things that we try and be, and obviously, there's no chance at that, but we posture, and those are all the things that sort of alienate and disenfranchise, and create a division between you and your fans or followers, and people who might love your work. So, what made you weird and quirky, those are your biggest strengths, as an artist. So, you said, "There are artists for whom insecurities drive success." Those are the artists that are willing and able to capture that and go there.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  And then there are artists who have the insecurities, and the folks that, when they stand off from those things, they are unable to connect with their audience. And I don't mean to say that some artists have it mastered, and other artists are still on that journey. I mean to say, even within one career, there are things where we are able to go there and tap into that, that weirdness that we have as a kid, or that unique perspective. And then there are other times in the same life, or same arc, or maybe even the same album for a musician, where you weren't able to really go there, and you can tell, it has this sort of veneer to it. So ultimately, those things are so core to creativity. There's a designer, a friend of mine, named James Victoria, who I often quote. He says, "In the particular, lies the universal."

• 19:03Speaker 02

  So what is it about your particular situation right now, that is a story that you could tell through a piece of art, through creating something, that seems super, super focused, and finite, and very you-centric?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  But ultimately, those are the things that there's millions of people who have experienced that in some way, shape, or form, and that allows the connection.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So would you say that if you've achieved your success as an artist, everything you touch turns into millions or impacts people, that in order to continue doing that and being successful as an artist, and whatever success means to you, that you need to still be insecure? Or can you be completely secure in yourself?

• 19:41Speaker 02

  No, no one's, I know a lot of super, super famous people that are crazy insecure. I think there's the belief that you've achieved success and success is overnight. It's the classic 10-year overnight success. I really don't know an artist who's ever made it, in the classic sense of whatever it is, but I'll just go, the cliche, made it.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Where there wasn't 10 years' hard work underneath that. I've often used the artist Macklemore, he's a friend, Seattle guy. He was living in his basement when he sort of got, sorry, living in his parents' basement early on in his career. He'd just got out of rehab and had been making music for 10 years before he was an overnight success. He and Ryan Lewis got together, made an album, the album, through singles, and the album had, was a 15X platinum album as their freshman album, the first album ever. And the belief is that, oh wow, that just happened. And there's always all kinds of hard work that's happening underneath the surface that

• 20:43Speaker 02

  people don't look, it's sort of like a swan, right? It looks calm on top, but underneath you're kicking like hell. And even that sort of level, again, keep pulling on this Macklemore thread, his next album is very much about exploring the insecurities that he had at the Grammys, winning four Grammys your first year.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Performing, you know, Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Rap Album of the Year.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  Being friends with every big celebrity overnight.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and still just like want to crawl out of your skin when you're, you know, alone with yourself. So there's this dichotomy, and I don't think anyone's ever mastered, and if they have, I just, I don't, I don't know them, I haven't experienced them myself. It's more like, right, I mean, it's like waves, like waves come and go, and waves are different sizes, and you catch some waves and you don't catch others.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm really interested in this sort of arc of my life around exploring our shadow selves, which is that side of us that we don't really want to look at or pay attention to. Because it's like in there lies, I think, a lot of the answers to what we're dealing with right now.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Biggest opportunities.

• 21:43Lewis Howes?

  Now, did you ever have a corporate job, starting out? Were you ever?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  The job that I have right now, sitting on this couch, is the most corporate thing I've ever had.

• 21:51Lewis Howes?

  You went right into finishing school and being a photographer, pretty much right away.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I should say that I felt, I think this may or may not, but may resonate with your listeners or watchers, because we're recording this here.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  I guess the reason I ask, because I'm curious, is I was gonna ask you, what did you do to transition from corporate life to being an artist? And so, there's probably a lot of people listening who want to be more creative, who want to do something on their own, or like jump out into their art.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  I get it.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  What type of feedback or thought would you give them?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Let me tell a little story.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  So, I was, I cited my parents earlier as big inspirations. Neither one of them completed college, they both started in some way, shape, or form. And, you know, ended up just putting food on the table and paying rent and raising a little tyke like me instead. But, at some point, you know, I believe that there is pressure from our parents, sort of endemic in the relationship between an offspring and a parent, that they want things for you. And then there's the cultural things, like what does success mean culturally? Is it monetary? Is it you're on TV? Is it you can provide for yourself and your family? Like, there's all kinds of different things.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  But certainly, not being a drug addict on the street, you know, whatever the opposite of that is. Some sort of like, when you're able to provide for yourself and the people you care for. And then there's what like greatness, you have the school of greatness, there's a lot of pressure to be great in your culture. And what ultimately ended up happening for me was I got stuck in this loop of what I was supposed to be. So I was very creative as a kid, go back to my childhood, very creative. Since I didn't have any brothers or sisters and we live in the suburbs, I was like, I was, you know, in the backyard. I'd ride my bike, doing stuff pretty much solo, had to come in, there was no kids table, there was only one table, so I had to sit with the adults.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  But very creative and yet the kids in my school who were creative, it was like always talked about with that with air quotes, like, oh, he's so creative. I was like, I don't want to be creative, but it's like, oh, there's, you know, Sally in the corner, she's so creative. Right, right, right. So I basically went the opposite direction. I said, okay, well, what's the opposite of that? Oh, it's the jock or the captain of the football team or the whatever. And so I ran to that with everything. Oh, great, I can do that. This is this earlier sort of defense mechanism. And yet I had been sort of repressing this part of myself, this very creative expressive part. And this continued on till, I mean, like well into high school. The thing that saved me, I feel like, was skate culture, skate, surf, sort of.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Because in that world, it was the first time I'd seen creativity and athleticism fused. Where there's a lot of self-expression, I mean, we spray painted, we like music, music were the things, shot videos, expressed yourself through movement. Because I Broke the rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a little bit of a rebellious sort of anarchist element to it, even if it was just playararchy, but that that gave me insight that, you know what, wait a minute, this is the subculture that's come up, that's made its own rules. And it was like a light switch went off, like, wait a minute, the rules were made by nobody smarter than us. Right. And they're as random as which way the wind's blowing.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  And wow, so there's a paradigm for me to do the things that I want to do in life. But it's certainly, there is a grain and you do have to go against it. Yeah. Even with that knowledge, I still, so I went to college on a soccer scholarship. Not December 2008, it's like, okay, I obviously am gonna become a professional soccer player because who wouldn't wanna do that? Right. Four and a half years into my, my college soccer career, I went to the team that, that, you know, the year I was recruited, we lost in the national championship, division one, like, top of the top. I was on Olympic development team. Wow. And yet, four years in, I'm like, I don't wanna do this. Not for you. And it's very hard when something like you, and you have the opportunity to go do it.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And everyone in the world would think you'd be not, who wouldn't wanna go play pro soccer? You're kidding me? Right. And I had pathways to Europe, and that's where soccer was huge. It was still, you know, developing here in the US. And I had to say no to that. And I had to say no to it from inside first, and then breaking that news to my team, my coach, my parents, my family that was close to me, it was a very big deal. Follow on to the next thing is, well, then what else is, oh, great, well, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get a degree, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do pre-med, because that's literally like, how can you make it so that there's no haters? Right, right. Just become a doctor. So I pursued this path of, of pre-medicine, got good grades,

• 26:45Speaker 02

  took the MCATs, was doing the interviews, and Wow. At the last second, not December 2008, I was like, this is totally not for me. Wow. I had brought myself to the doorstep of that, and was just ready to step, step over the threshold, oh, no. And, and so I, I bailed on medical school. And then I said, wow, my parents, you know, my poor parents, right? They're like, pro athlete, oh, doctor, oh, yeah, that's cool. And then, how about a different kinda doctor? I'll be a, I'll be a, I'll get a PhD in philosophy, because I got really interested in the ability to think critically. And I think there's a little bit of a brooding side to philosophy and to young artists. And so I was tapping into that, like, oh, I'll be a philosopher, that's, I'll get a PhD in philosophy, because it's a doctor, it's a different kinda doctor.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Well, I'm two years into that, no, gotta quit. And what I wanted to quit to do was to go back to that creative roots, the stuff that I saw and tapped into through skate culture, and that I had lived my whole life internally, but never really expressed. And so I stopped everything, and I said, I'm going to become a photographer. Wow. And that was a like mind exploder for most of the people in my, in my world, in my community, my family. What year was this? Gosh, that would have been nineteen ninety six. Young punk and realized a handful of things happened to coincide.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  One, right at my college graduation, my grandfather, who was a hobbyist photographer, my, my father was as well. I was inspired by photography because as, as an athlete, I was often in the newspaper. And I was articulate enough that I would be able to speak to the press for my team. And we were top, you know, top ten team in the country. So there's always, we were on television every, every week. And, and I got to interface with the press. That gave me a sense of like, wow, photography isn't like just pictures. It's about stories and about moments. And there's this like, you can, oh, it's a beautiful story and this thing. So I started getting obsessed with that. And I mentioned both my father and grandfather were, were hobbyists. And my grandfather died about four or five days before my college graduation.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Drop dead of a heart attack, completely out of the blue. And well, obviously that was traumatic as hell. However, the silver lining is that I was given all his cameras.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  And Perfect timing. It was incredible timing. And I packed my bags with my then girlfriend, now wife, Kate. And set off to Europe and I walked the earth for six months. Wow. In a, on a, on a journey, trying to find my will to say that I didn't want to do all of these other things at life that I had prepared for in life, to become a doctor, to become a professional athlete, to, and I, I came back and basically quit everything that everybody else wanted me to do. I flirted with graduate school and that PhD program. With philosophy. Yeah, with philosophy. And then said, F it, like, I've got one life. And I don't, I don't remember the actual moment. I think it was, uh, during those travels that I had convinced myself that. Wow.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Like you, if you don't write your own script, someone else will write it for you. And I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't want someone else to write my script.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Was there a moment before then where you realized what you were born to do? Do you remember like a day or moment in your life where you're like, you learned like, this is why I was born?

• 30:12Speaker 02

  I didn't, but I did have, I don't remember a particular moment, but I remember recurring visions. And the recurring visions were, I was on stage.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  This is young. I mean, this is like, single digits. And it was a very, when I was that age, I did not understand that. I understand, like, I was always, my parents were sharing this just the other day. My dad turns 70 tomorrow, so we're talking about what we're gonna do for his birthday. And we were joking around, we went on a family vacation to Ibiza, Spain, the club he joined. This is a long time ago, but I was into breakdancing as a young, young punk. And I just, we were at this, in front of 2,000 people at this performance, and they said, anyone can get up on stage and dance.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  For just in the intermission zone up there and just started throwing down a windmill.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  And.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool. You still do a windmill?

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I still got it.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  I do.

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  I wanna see it afterwards.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  I do. I have, you have to get married or some big life event, and then I will throw down.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

  Or you have to get on the School of Greatness podcast.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  There you go. Or, yeah. But I still got it. It's rusty, but I still got it. And so there was always a little bit of a performance thing on stage. And I thought of it more about leadership than I did about, like, acting or performing. But I didn't understand it then. I was just, it was just a thing that I was, and again, I was only able to connect it out, looking backwards, looking back, like, wow. That was always a piece. That was a thing. So.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Present, yeah, yeah.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Let's talk about health and wellness. Why is health and wellness so important for creatives? Obviously, it's, I think it's important for everyone, but.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Talk about specifically for creatives.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Well, there's a story that our culture has manifested about how creatives are, they're these brooding souls and if, like, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, if you live this tormented life that your art is so real and so pure and so, and that's just, that's just fiction. That's a terrible, it's a terrible thing that we've painted for our culture. And that's not to say that, that artists as a bunch don't draw inspiration from many places. And sometimes our struggles are a key place. Like we talked about earlier, the things that made us weird and quirky and the things that were hard for us. That's a great place to draw inspiration and.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Universality and the message of the art. But the fact that that is required to create great art is absolutely a myth. The reality is, in fact, longevity and stamina and presence and all these things that are certainly not requirements, but increased in their level of manifestation. When you're most alive, when you're most in tune with yourself, with the world around you.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  And it turns out that health is required for all those things, for that stamina. So that's, you know, I'm glad you asked the question. It's a, it's a mission for me in particular to try and shed light on that. I think it does come out of the sort of the taking care of oneself, the sports background that we have in common. We've talked about a lot. You talked about it on your podcast a lot. We've shared those stories together.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  I just, I realized that sort of physical and emotional wellness. Has this sort of creates a propulsion, an energy of vitality. That is, you know, that, that at least for me is.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  It allows me, it becomes a vessel through which my art can move. And when I'm not living in those truths or with that sort of amount of integrity towards my health. I'm less creative. And I would love for our culture to, to not to sort of usurp that traditional vision of what it means to be. A, I hate the term starving artist, I hate troubled artist, all those kinds of things. I don't think, we can't escape that, that's a thing and that does produce great art. Because it's real emotions that are coming out. But I just hope, hopefully we can sort of usurp and stomp out that that's required. In fact, I know so many, so many artists that come from.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  I'll just use the example, the cliched example of middle America suburban.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  White came from relative privilege and I think there's a belief that, well, they don't have anything to say. And to me, being aware of your privilege is absolutely important. But that you don't have a message which is human and that your own life can't be a blueprint. From which great art can spring. To me, that's, that's a, it's a really dangerous thing for us to sort of believe as a culture. Awareness of your privileges absolutely, especially, you know, relative to other social, and I would say to other. People in the world, that's, that's awareness, it's not a requirement.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, sure.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  So, let's stomp that out. I think Liz Gilbert, I don't know if you know Liz, she talks about having created her life's best work. I think, I think she says best. She may have well created her best work when, when she wrote Eat, Pray, Love, which is. X million books sold, you know, Oprah, she's on all that stuff and her, her. I think she did a great TED Talk following that and certainly her next book around. Wow, now what do I do?

• 35:43Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Because it's quite likely.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  Your best work is behind you.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  It's quite likely I've created the best work of my life.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  And now I have forty more years potentially to live or whatever.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've got a lot of vitality. I still have stories to tell. And so I identify with that and I hope that,

• 35:59Speaker 02

  like the way we talk about it at CreativeLive is one of our sort of core visions is that creativity is the new literacy. And creative qualities are at an all-time high with, you know, we were just talking about there's a robot camera we have here in the room shooting, but it's not as good as what Tiff's capturing on the outside of that lens right there, that lens over there. And that, I don't know, just that creativity is so, so valuable. We talk about innovation. We're hungry for all these things. Not just new products, but new way of unlocking human potential. And that, those mechanisms are going to come from humans. And what if we could put as much energy into creativity and supporting that as a concept? That we did put into literacy back in the post-Gutenberg press, fourteen hundreds.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  I mean, before that, it was called the Dark Ages for a reason. Like literacy provided, like life expectancy, all these things increased dramatically. The infant mortality rate went down. All these things changed when you could communicate ideas. What if we put that same amount of energy culturally into creativity? So I would prefer we shift towards that mindset culturally than that, A, there's not a creator of all of us and artists are this weird disenfranchised bunch. And I think it's bearing true right now as all these things are at an all-time high.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure. When people say that they're in a creativity block or they feel stuck as an artist or they're not able to put out the next best thing or whatever, what would you say is a good place to come from to facilitate creative ideas? Like if I feel like I'm a writer's block or artist's block, whatever it may be, I just can't take the right photos anymore.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  I have no idea what you're talking about. Never happened to me.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  What's something that someone could do, or in their business, you know, entrepreneurs, to... Is there a process that you do?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Let's get into this.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  Do it, man. I want to know the process.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  So I think having many solutions is the answer. And not, there's not one go-to thing that solves all things. So having a couple tools in your toolkit. Maybe, I don't know how many there's going to be. We're going to list them out, though. There's probably a few. One of them is to have many things. So if you're a writer, you have a novel that you're working on, you have a short story, you have an essay, and then you have some poetry, and then you have a journal. So you're not putting it all in one basket, is what you're saying? Yeah, and the reality is that on deadlines and things, you need to focus on the thing that you're trying to get it across. But even in those moments, having other activities within that same sphere of writing, say if you're a writer.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  We have many friends who are writers, and I think this works for many of those folks. I just read some study about the ideal number of creative projects to have if you're a designer. I think it was the lens through which the study was given. That five is the magic number. You need to have five things. I wish I was smart enough to... Working on it one time. Yeah, and of course, there are different levels of development, different levels of intensity. Writing in your journal is a lot less than... Writing a book. Yeah, than writing a book, or a piece for The New Yorker or something. But having multiple things. So if you're blocked on one thing, shift gears, go to something else. Interesting. That's one tool. I like that. Another tool that I frequently embrace is get away from it.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Like, there's this desire, especially when you're a stubborn jackass like I am, to just like, nope, I don't care if it's two in the morning, I said I was gonna finish this thing, I'm gonna finish it, I'm gonna push, push, push, push, push. And then you wake up, or you decide, alright, I'm done, I'm like gibberish is coming out or my photographs, I'm editing them, and it's not turning out the way I want. You walk away and you come back with fresh eyes, just unlock. So like, literally walking away from the thing that has you blocked. I would prescribe something in particular when you walked away. Sometimes it's just going to bed, like, just giving up. But in particular, the way I talk about it is... We're gonna do something playful or fun, right? Yeah, is get into adventures. Yeah, that's cool. Like, do something that's very, very, very different. Often, the act of play...

• 40:01Speaker 02

  It has many sort of solutions. I don't know if you're familiar with Charlie Hohn. Do you know Charlie?

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah, he's got a book called Play.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Play It Away.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  Play It Away, yes.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's very much around sort of relieving anxiety and stress. And that it's just a huge missed opportunity and a manifestation for for sort of human potential to play. We do it really well. It reduces stress. And it gets in touch with that most simple sort of crocodile human side of us of just joy.

• 40:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  So what gives you joy? Go and do that thing. And sometimes that's and I think a lot of people, when I say get into adventures, they translate that into like, "All right, I gotta go backpack through Europe for six months." Well, certainly, that's a thing.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  Go play some frisbee for an hour.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, like literally, go play some frisbee for an hour. Exercise, do something, get into an adventure, even if it's to go people watch. So to me, that's another thing is get away and get into adventures. God, I could probably keep on trucking, but there's just a handful of these, and they're very simple. That's the thing that the twisted irony is actually in the awareness that you're in that state. It's less about what you're gonna go do to get out of it. So take up something else more creative. You know, you're gonna do all these different things, but the key thing is actually recognizing that you're blocked. And when you're really aware you're blocked, you're like, "That means you're super blocked." Because it's not like, "Ah, the worst." You're just like, blank page.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Should you push through it? Like you said, should you ever, is there ever a point where you're like, "No, I'm just gonna push through this even if I can."

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Well, when you're on deadline and when you're a professional, let's pretend you're Phil Mickelson, the professional golfer. Random example, I'm sorry, I'm using golf. Nobody on the PGA or his sponsors really care how he's feeling today.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. He's just gotta do it.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  As a pro, you are paid to step up and hit the ball out of the park. Or hit the ball down the middle of the fairway, or whatever your analogy is. And as a professional creative, very much the same is true. Like, the people who are showing up on set to shoot a Nike commercial, for example, if you're not feeling it, you know, it's like, "Oh, I'm not feeling it today." Because there's hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent all around you. You're actually paid to deliver. And so I do take a certain amount of pride in being able to produce creativity on demand. But that in and of itself is exhausting. It's not always there. So sometimes you have to, you do have to push through. But I think most of the folks in your community here, for whom like being a professional creative at that level is not really the, I think, the point that you're trying to make.

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  So pushing through, not, I think it's contextual. If you're a professional and you're on deadline, that's what you're paid to do. If you're not, then I would advocate one of those other things. Step away, get some other perspective. Involve, you know, we talk a lot about community too. That's one of the things that whether you have a mentor, a friend, a partner in business, a team that you work with. The idea of bouncing ideas off one another and getting away and sort of getting unstuck is a very, it's very powerful. The, the exchange of ideas, for me at least, and the people that I, I run around with, it's a powerful, it's a powerful mechanism.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  When you are, I mean, like, behind the camera and everything you shoot is like award-winning. Like every photo is just like, wow, this is a masterpiece, which is probably all the time for you. But when that happens, when you're just in the zone, you're just like, man, this shoot, nothing, anything I click, it turns into magic. Like they could use any one of these photos and it would be on a billboard. What is, how do you get in that zone? Like what is that? How do you facilitate that for yourself? Or is it just, it just happens when it happens for you?

• 43:41Speaker 02

  I think it's pretty intentional. And, you know, go back to the life of, this is an area where I think I want to split hairs for your audience because let's talk about like, you're asking the question to me on your podcast. So for me, who is a professional creative and has spent their whole life creating many times on demand in very pressured situations where hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on that particular day. And if you don't get the job, you don't, not only do you not succeed at this job, but no one calls you.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Your reputation is gone.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the, the, the people, the level of people who do that work is very small and that circle is, is a small circle. So you have made a career out of delivering.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  I believe that there's, you're certainly hotter and colder, but Roger Federer is hotter and colder, but Roger Federer is still Roger Federer.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  Still the top.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's very much about going to what you know.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  And that has to do with sort of routines and beliefs and self-talk, I think is very important. What do you say yourself to yourself before every shoot or project or? I visualize success for everything. I can, I see, I think Ira Glass talks about this thing called the creative gap, which when you're first starting out at something, what you see in your mind like, oh, man, I want to make this particular photograph. Or even to build a business, I want to build a business that looks like this. And then you set out, you invest a year of your life to create this business, or a week of your life or a day of your life to create this particular picture. And the gap between what you see in your mind and what you're actually able to create is the creative gap.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  And through repetition, practice, skill, self-talk, visualization, you, the goal is to move those things closer and closer, that what you saw in your mind and what you're actually able to produce. And as a professional who is paid to hit the ball down the middle, is paid to create great things for, whether for inspirational companies or for, for myself. Right. When that gets to zero, and that the creative gap is zero, I believe that I can make the things that I see in my mind now. I have the tools, I have the resources. Experience. Yeah, the experiences and, and being like, that is the zone that you get in over the course of a decade. Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Certainly, certainly years, but you know, I think it was probably a decade before that was zero for me. And then there's a new game that starts all over again, which what is the thing that you will be building? Yeah. Cause it used to be, I want to be able to make a picture. And for me now, it's like, what is the most compound thing? I want to make a picture and I want to tell a story about making the picture. And then I'm on both sides of the camera, I'm shooting and I'm like in the campaign. Producing. Yeah, yeah. It's like, I try and sort of build up a level of complexity and how do you manifest that? Or how do you build companies? Like, like CreativeLive is a, it's a project for me, so. What does visualization look like for you then on a daily basis? Is it a daily basis thing? Absolutely. What is it? Yeah, absolutely. Visualization for me started as an athlete.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  I, as I mentioned, went to college on a soccer scholarship and colleges are basically laboratories. You know, we had trainers that were, you know, taking care of us and they're in school, but they're taping our ankles every day. And, you know, the training staff that's learning to be trainers is actually taking care of the student athletes.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  And one of the vehicles that we were exposed to was sports psychology. The act of sort of visualizing the outcomes that you wanted.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  I dabbled in it in high school and I had one experience that was a life changer for me. Really? And that was, I had, I knew that going to college and getting a soccer scholarship was important to me. I also, I had the same option for football. And visualizing the outcome that I wanted at the end of the season. And where I went to school, soccer, football was in the fall and soccer was in the spring. So you could actually do both, which is very different than most other places in the country. Sure, it's the same time. It's the same time, but for me, I started dabbling with this visualization in football. And I, I saw myself, you know, scoring touchdowns and intercepting, you know, passes and things that, that were prudent to the positions that I was playing.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  And I sort of was a little bit lazy about the practice, but I was, I realized that I was manifesting these things. I actually, I, I realized that I didn't score the number of touchdowns that I wanted, but actually intercepted the same number of passes that I saw at the beginning of the season at the end. Wow, that's, wow, that's interesting and powerful. So you declared a number that you wanted to intercept and then. Yeah, and, you know, and all state or whatever, then I need to hit these numbers to be able to have colleges interested in offering me a football scholarship. And that worked. But I saw it, I saw it very sort of nebulously and I was, and it was so powerful and then I was like, wow, what if I really apply this?

• 48:42Speaker 02

  So I spent the time between my football season and soccer season, like reading about visualization, going to workshops, anything I could find and get my hands on. The literature was pretty lean at that time. This is literally pre-internet. Right. And it was so powerful. I scored exactly, you know, the number of goals. I actually sadly don't even remember what it was. I remember just being, holy crap, I scored exactly the amount of goals I thought. And I ended up choosing to go to college on a soccer scholarship instead of football. That was very powerful. And then when we got the opportunity to apply that at the collegiate level with trained professional psychologists. Yeah. I was like this visual, there's something here, this sort of putting it out there in the universe,

• 49:25Speaker 02

  creating a narrative around what you have achieved. And you talk about this a lot in your book, in School of Greatness, and certainly on the podcast. Building things with the end in mind, setting goals is the way you talk about it.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  And so visualizing now the outcome of a shoot, or the outcome of building a company, or success milestones with CreativeLive. Very much intentionally sit down and do that every day. In fact, I have Really? I have 10 things that I do every day. And I track them with an app called Habit List. Oh. And one of those is I put these, it's really two things that I smoosh together. Gratitude and visualization. And I do it immediately following meditation in the morning. I meditate 20 minutes every morning and every evening. And just immediately following transcendental meditation, I spend somewhere around five minutes with a gratitude practice,

• 50:22Speaker 02

  and then visualizing the things that I want to happen in the world. And some of those are around the outcomes of shoots and making things. Some of them are around relationships and personal development. It's just a powerful tool. I love that, man. What's the app called? It's called Habit List. Habit List. You have 10 things on there? Yeah, I just have 10 things on there and I track this behavior. I track 10 behaviors. And I do that instead of actually saying like, I want to be able to bench press 250 pounds, or run a 440, or whatever the thing is. It's if I do these things every day at the level that I've written here, it's, there's almost no chance of not achieving that goal. Yeah, yeah. And the way, for me, that's a different thing than just being outcome focused,

• 51:07Speaker 02

  because then it's sort of like you can ring the bell, but then you go back to being,

• 51:12Speaker 02

  you know, your slovenly self or your, just, I seek to create habits. That's great. Because habits stick, I feel like. That's great. Final few questions.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  What's something that's non-negotiable for you that you do every day? Besides those ten things, I guess.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Hmm, besides those ten things, wow.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Dip into number eleven, twelve?

• 51:34Lewis Howes?

  What's a non-negotiable for you, though, that's like really important, you must do it every single day? It could be, you know, one thing, a few things, but it's like every day I have to do this, no matter what.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  I think meditation.

• 51:44Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Meditation for me has become, it's the single biggest game changer for me in my adult life.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Gave me the ability to sort of tap into the oneness. I'm looking at you and you're Lewis Howes and I'm sitting over here. But the way I think about it when I'm in that still place is that we're, you know, we're absolutely 100% connected. And whether it's it's energy or there's there's all kinds of different ways that we're, we are the same. There is no other. And that sort of, the unifying feeling that that creates is a very powerful way to start the day. It makes things like intention and

• 52:33Speaker 02

  the best analogy for me is, I don't know if you've ever heard interviews with Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan talks very clearly about playing the game of basketball and it appears in slow motion for him.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  And so he's able to very easily see what the right choices to make are, where to pass the ball, whether to shoot or not shoot. And meditation has that experience for me. There's this sort of a calming, unifying, a simplifying, such that when challenging things come to you, you're presented with a very clear path, a clear decision.

• 53:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  For, for what you should do. And I feel like this, you know, I've shared this with, you know, other friends that we have in common. And there's a real paradigm there of it being a powerful thing. So that's something that I can't, I can't not do. I think maybe there's five days in the last two years that I haven't meditated. Wow. Two or three years, it's very, I'm freakish about it. Sometimes it's not always 20 minutes, sometimes it's not always in the morning and the evening. That's my, it's my target. Sure. But, and I got 20 minutes this morning. That's good. I only got 10 minutes yesterday morning and I was okay with it because something's better than nothing. Sure, sure. So meditation will be that without a doubt. I love that, okay. But I don't want to be preachy and weird, like, like, you don't got to meditate.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  It's fine, I just think it's singularly, yeah, it's just for me singularly the most powerful device that I have experienced in my adult life. And what made you want to try it out, or? I think it had very much to do with the, the spiritual side of what I experienced in visualization. To me those things were very tied together. Did you just start at the practice three years, two, three years ago? I think I'm about, between four and five years. Okay, got you. Four years in, five years in. But again, as I mentioned earlier, I'd flirted with the, the visualization concept through sports. Meditation's very similar to just visualization, in a way it is. For sure, and there's many different types of visualization, meditation.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  I've tried several and one in particular, several didn't stick and one did stick and that was the transcendental meditation. That's great. And, uh, what was the question? You had another question, there was a follow on to that. What made you want to start it? Oh yeah, I think it very much was the. The visualization stuff? Yeah, I experienced power, like fundamental human sort of genesis power, like wow, the power to create the life that you want to live. And we talked about creativity and like what you're going to make and you're going to take pictures and you're going to build businesses, but also there's the power to create your own life. I feel also, I'm personally not religious in the classic sense, but I'm very spiritual.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  And trying to reconcile those two things when I'm walking, move through the world and I don't identify with any one particular religion, but I see the synthesis of all of the religions and how there's, there are basically many different angles on the same, same topic. And craving something to tap into. And that, you know, is the underlying sort of the, the energy of the world. And this gave me access to that in a way that felt really natural and, and in touch with myself.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  Cool. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 55:49Speaker 02

  My wife Kate. She's, uh, she has been my sort of spiritual guide. She's helped me sort of understand a lot of these things. Uh, I think I'm a classic extroverted type A male. And for a long time, I believed that everything I had came from that. And so why would I want to give that up? And actually, she was the one who, uh, really moved me into meditating, to, to trying this meditation with her around transcendental meditation. And that unlocked so many things to me that made me in part realize that the thing that I thought was my edge that had got me all of this success, or any success that I'd had in my life, shouldn't have caught me, caused me a lot of pain,

• 56:31Speaker 02

  but success came from being this sort of aggro, intense dude. And what I've come to find out since then is that actually that, that level of intensity and, and aggro was an anchor. And in this, in sort of finding this sort of balance and this peace, that everything in my world accelerated. And that was an aha moment and, or aha, five years worth of moments. And I, I attribute, uh, there's personal work involved for sure, but I attribute the desire to embrace that personal journey to my wife Kate, who's, she's awesome. I, I know she'll listen to this because she's, she's, she's always tapping into these things. But Kate, Kate, Kate's great.

• 57:16Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Uh, what's something small that you've done or something that people don't know about you? You've done that you're really proud of?

• 57:25Speaker 02

  When I move through the world on a daily basis, a very small, I help strangers. I seek helping strangers and these are things that nobody knows about, acts of, acts of kindness.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  And it, it almost feels weird talking about it right this second. I just realized I had a little bit of a pang of anxiety right there because is it somehow tarnishing? Those things, but I, I think I come across, you know, I've always got my headphones on. I'm always on my phone and, and there's sort of an intensity and I preach the hustle.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  But, ooh, do I, I'm anxious talking about it, but I

• 58:04Lewis Howes?

  Why do you help strangers?

• 58:05Speaker 02

  I help strangers put their bags in the overhead compartments.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  On the airplane, I fly like three or four times a week. I help.

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  Why do you do these things?

• 58:14Speaker 02

  When I see someone who's in trouble, I go to help. I've caught burglars breaking into other people's houses.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  I don't know, I feel a sense of connection. And I think there's probably something in there that when I'm doing it to strangers, it's a little bit of an avoidance of intimacy with like the people that are really real and close to me.

• 58:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  And this is the way to sort of check a, check a, still, still doing good things for the world box, you know, in, in total transparency and openness. Maybe, maybe that's going on. But I delight in small, small gifts to strangers.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. I like that. Okay, this is the question I told you about before. Most people, most people I don't tell this question to, but if everything's erased from time, that you've ever created, any photo, book, creative life is gone, this is 50 years from now, it's all erased, and you have a piece of paper to write down three truths that you know to be true about what you've learned in life, you would pass on to people, what would you write down?

• 59:20Speaker 02

  I had an awesome answer earlier, and I'm not gonna lie to you, I like, it's gone, but I think, I think I'm gonna be able to get there. So the first is love. I think that love is a solution to every human problem. Integrity is, to me, a foundation of how to move through the world. And these are all things we all come in and out of, for sure, but I think this is a, these are truths. Love, integrity, and creativity. I think the human spirit is very, very, very powerful.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  And there is a creator in all of us. And using that power for good would be something that I would want anyone who's left on this planet in a post-Chase Jarvis world to take to heart to create, to create great things. I think the answer that I had before might have been a little bit better, but that's what's upon me right now. Love, integrity, and creativity.

• 1:00:33Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Okay. Before I ask the final question.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  That wasn't the final question?

• 1:00:38Lewis Howes?

  No, no, no.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I was like, ah, I passed.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  Where can we connect with you online?

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Not dissimilar to Mr. Lewis Howes. I'm basically sort of Chase Jarvis everywhere.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  I'm super passionate about Snapchat right now. I'm having a lot of fun. It's relatively a new platform for me. I have a longstanding YouTube channel. It's got more than 250 videos there, tens of millions of views. CreativeLive is, I think, the single most powerful thing that I've ever been a part of creating. I get to go to work with 120 super talented, hardworking people who are dedicated to creativity and helping other people live their hopes, dreams, and fears and manifest great things for themselves. CreativeLive is, I'd put that before my personal stuff, but I feel like I just had the connection with it. We have the Chase Jarvis moniker for everything.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you can find me online at the Chase Jarvis handle. But please, if you do one thing, go to CreativeLive.

• 1:01:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's a great site.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  And there's 1,500 classes from the world's top creatives and entrepreneurs.

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  People like yourself, Tim Ferriss, a lot of people who've been on this podcast have classes at CreativeLive. It's a place to get creative inspiration and help unlock your creative potential.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love it. Okay, before I ask the final question.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  Oh my god, they keep coming. You know this, don't you?

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Christine is sitting across from me, she edits Lewis's podcast, and she knows all this is coming. I'm just falling right into your trap.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  There's one more question, before I ask it, I want to acknowledge you, Chase, for your friendship. I want to acknowledge you for the incredible friend that you are to me, but to so many people. And you open up possibilities in everyone you interact with. You open up creativity, you open up love in so many people. And I want to acknowledge you for your consistent dedication to bringing education to the world in the format you're doing it. It's really expanding and allowing so many people that weren't able to create the lives they want to now have it because of what you're doing. So, I acknowledge you for all those gifts.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  I am grateful for your acknowledgement, thank you buddy. I don't take it lightly.

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes, and the final question is...

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Final, final.

• 1:02:57Lewis Howes?

  Is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Lewis Howes. My definition of greatness is living the life that you desire. I feel very wary of putting particular milestones out there. To me, there's so much subjectivity in the world that the life that you envision for yourself and the people near you, if you are on that path, then that is great. I hope it's got love in there. I'll just throw it in there.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Love in your heart and living the life that you imagine for yourself.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Chase Jarvis, nice man, appreciate it.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  Thank you very much, buddy. Bye, people.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  There you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with my good buddy Chase. If you did, make sure to share this out and give him some love over on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, all @chasejarvis over on Twitter and Facebook. Tag him, let him know what you think, and again, you can watch the full video interview over on YouTube or go to lewishouse.com/321. And if you're not a subscriber of our YouTube channel yet, we just hit over 50,000 subscribers, so thanks to those who are. And again, if you're not, make sure to subscribe because we do weekly videos, either interviews or inspiring videos, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So make sure to subscribe there and get inspired every single week.

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  That's it for this week guys, thank you so much for your generosity, your love, your warmth, and your sharing of this information. It means the world to me, we're getting over 1.2 million downloads a month and it's because of people like you. So make sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, share it out with your friends if you found this valuable, and let me know what you think over on social media. I love you guys, thank you so much for being here, and you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something great.