The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 103: Chase Jarvis – 28 Ways To Be More Creative

Episode Date: March 3, 2016

Episode 103: Chase Jarvis – 28 Ways To Be More Creative Chase Jarvis is one of my favorite leaders in the world.  I love his attitude and his approach to his life and business.  Sometimes you have a conversation where it just clicks and this is one of those.  Between being a world class photographer and running perhaps the greatest learning platform in the world (Creative Live), Chase is successful in multiple life categories.  I absolutely loved this conversation. Chase Jarvis is an award winning photographer, director, and media maven.  He co-founded CreativeLive in 2010 to share free creative education with aspiring artists and entrepreneurs worldwide. In addition to his work creating campaigns for Nike, Apple, RedBull, Starbucks and other Fortune 100 companies Chase is widely recognized for creating Best Camera - the world's first photo app to share images to social networks - which kicked off the mobile photography/sharing craze. Episode 103: Chase Jarvis – 28 Ways To Be More Creative Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “Creativity is a habit.  It’s a way of thinking.  It’s not a skill.” In This Episode, You Will Learn: Having great stamina is the key to sustaining excellence over an extended period of time.  “We’re all a bunch of hyphens.  We do multiple things in life.” The future of work is people being freelancers with five different jobs Creative Live helps people live their dreams.  It’s the world’s largest online live stream company.  The world’s best place to learn. Why working your 10,000 hours is so important and how it lead to Chase’s success The process of “learning how to learn” – the best leaders understand this The importance of self-awareness Setting up your day in 90 minute blocks The commonality amongst great leaders is the fact that they have a morning routine Schools are set up to make you a replaceable cog Creativity is a habit.  It’s a way of thinking Go to www.creativelive.com and search “28 To Make” to learn actionable tips to be more creative Build in “Strategic Renewal” times.  This helps to get into “flow” states  “Busy Is A Lack Of Priority” Continue Learning: Go To: ChaseJarvis.com   See why over 330,000 people follow Chase on Twitter: @chasejarvis Read: Chase Jarvis: How He Became The Photographer Everyone Wants To Work With To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector W/ Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 082: Dan Pink – The Science of Motivation, Legendary Writer & Ted Talk Episode 086: Seth Godin – How To Become Indispensable & Build Your Tribe Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Chase Jarvis on the show, please don’t hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From CreativeLive.com Chase Jarvis is an award winning photographer, director, and media maven.  He co-founded CreativeLive in 2010 to share free creative education with aspiring artists and entrepreneurs worldwide. In addition to his work creating campaigns for Nike, Apple, RedBull, Starbucks and other Fortune 100 companies Chase is widely recognized for creating Best Camera - the world's first photo app to share images to social networks - which kicked off the mobile photography/sharing craze.

I feel like why I was excited to go on your podcast, why we've had so much success from some of the people that we've named here, is they've gone on and they've followed something that they're very, very curious about, that they're very, very passionate about, and for something they have an itch, they're scratching their own itch, they want to solve a problem, they want to become great at a thing. So they go super deep on that thing. And in the process, not only do they learn that thing, but they learn how to learn. And it's that process of learning how to learn that to me was the aha, that now I can then apply that process and that basically that plan to other things. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders.

Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey guys, before we get to this great conversation, I want to let you know that this episode was brought to you by Mizan and Maine. You'll probably remember from episode 64, I spoke with a CEO of Mizna and Maine, Kevin Lavelle, and we promised to continue that dialogue as we both progressed on our journeys. And we certainly have, and we formed a partnership.

and Kevin and his great companies and support and people that he works with have agreed to sponsor my podcast. But for me, I'm very picky when it comes to this. I only wanted to work with people who I truly believed in their products. So this is not just a sponsor to me. This is an endorsement. I absolutely believe in everything that Kevin and his company stands for. I love who they partner with, whether it's Tony Shea's Vegas Tech Fund or the lone survivor, and Marcos Littrell's Fund or Chris Kyle Frog Foundation.

I love that, but I also most importantly love the product. Their shirts are my absolute favorite shirts. They feel very similar to the clothes that I wear when I go and work out. And I didn't really believe that was possible until I tried one. But the four-way stretch fabric is literally like nothing I've ever felt before. And so originally I bought one just to try them out to see if this is really true. A button-down shirt that looks great with a. suit or in business casual. I'm like, there's no way this thing is going to feel like people

tell me it will. Well, it felt even better than that. And so after I bought that first shirt, I ended up buying six more shirts and two Henleys. And so we've set up a deal for you guys to go to Ryan.misen and main.com. So that's Ryan.com.misen and mane.com. Pick your favorite shirts. I love the button downs. You'll see on that site my favorite shirts. And when you're checking out, use the code Ryan Hawk to get free shipping if you're only buying one shirt. If you happen to want to buy three button downs like I've done a couple times, use the code Ryan Hawk 3 and you'll get $50 off. Again, I love Miz and Maine.

I love everything they stand for. And I promise when you try the search, you will too. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Man, I'm so excited for tonight's featured leader. It's with the great Chase Jarvis. I love Chase and all that he stands for and what he produces. He is an award-winning photographer, director, and Media Maven.

He has created media campaigns for Nike, Apple, Red Bull, Starbucks, and other Fortune 100 companies. He also is the CEO of Creative Live, which is a company where they create live online workshops for free, where you can interact with instructors in real time. They've had billions of students from all over the world. I usually don't say this, but Chase is one of my all-time favorite people that I've met through this podcast, and I love this conversation. A few of the things that we got into. Specific tackle ways to boost your creativity. And then why people who say they are busy actually don't understand how to prioritize their lives?

I love this part of the talk. And then structuring your day into 90-minute blocks, starting with a fantastic regular morning routine. All the greats have this in common. Ladies and gentlemen, I love this one with Chase Jarvis. Chase, man, I am so pumped to have this conversation. So first of all, thank you for being here on the Learning Leader Show. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, man, of course. I got a quick question to get us rolling. And that's around sustained excellence, people who have done big things in their lives, people who have sustained excellence over a number of years. I'm curious from your perspective, what do those types of people all seem to have in common? You're just coming right out of the gates hot, okay? Stamina. Really?

Stamina is, I think it's the least sexy, but in my opinion, the most real thing that everybody that I know who's achieved any degree of success has had. I think there are all kinds of beliefs that, oh man, this person happened overnight, this person, they work kind of hard. But I don't know a single person, even the stuff that seems like it was overnight, I know often the backstores. from some of my friends who, Maclemore is a great example. Like, oh my God, that guy came out of nowhere. That guy had been making beats in his parents' basement for 10 years before anyone had ever heard his name. So I think stamina is the most underrated thing.

And I'm sure there's a lot of sexier answers that you've got from your other guests. But just the ability to be there to show up. That's half the game. I think you've probably heard that from some sports analogies. But I don't know. Unsexy, but that's what I believe in my heart, man. I love it. And the honesty as well as the,

the McClmore video you recorded. I believe it was in 2009. If I'm not mistaken with him reading off the piece of paper, and that was one of the videos that potentially helped you and him. It was really a really neat video. I encourage people to go check it out on YouTube, the video of Chase, you recording him. I think he didn't even go by McClmore at that point.

Is that correct? He went by McClmore, but it was Professor McClmore, the twist is that that was a dinner party basically it's a there's a series of dinners I was hosting called songs for eating and drinking with my friend Michael Hubb and we were inviting musicians to come in and I got this petition from a buddy mine who's a really talented guy said we've got to let my friend Ben in McClure Professor McLemore and I was like all right well you know dinner's basically full he's like no no he's a showstop where he's a great guy and he performed basically it was a hybrid of what we're going to be what would soon become his two of his most popular songs on the album The Heist, which was 15X platinum. And he was reading him off a piece of paper. It was the first time he performed them in public. And it was just, I mean, I guess public is a stretch because it was a dinner party. But first time he'd ever read them aloud, I guess.

It was, yeah, it was stunning and I feel lucky to be a part of that. That guy's achieved a lot of success in the last few years, man. Kudos. Five Grammys or something like that. It's a really well-put-to-the-other video, and it's just cool to see some of the origin and stories of people, or at least some of the videos and documentaries, documentaries, so to speak, of people before they kind of made it big time. And I think a lot of people think they're overnight successes.

And like you just mentioned before, they need the stamina to be able to withstand and have that overnight success, which usually takes a decade worth of work or more. For sure, you do the 10,000 hours thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know anybody who really has usurped that and actually had any sort of staying power. Maybe you dipped into it for just a year or a season or something like that. But lasting greatness is the product of a lot of hard work and stamina. Even sticking with musicians, if you haven't grinded it out in clubs in front of 10 to 20 people for time and time again, you're probably, that just,

it just doesn't happen any other way for the most part. And even the Beatles, obviously we've all read Malcolm Gladwell's work talking about them and how they've had to do that. It's really inspirational, I think, for people to see and hear those stories. So it's neat that you documented that one from a video perspective. And so, Chase, I'd love to dive into you and your story now and what's you all about. So when people walk up to you and they say, Chase, what do you do? How do you respond?

Well, I usually say I'm a photographer and an entrepreneur. And then if the conversation goes any longer than that, I like to bring up the fact that we're all a bunch of hyphens. We used to, you know, we were told to specialize and just do one thing. But the reality is that we've all, just the way the world is moving. And I think it really relates actually the title of your podcast. But the way the world's moving is that we all have to become great at so many things. and that's sort of the expectation. And so I now think of myself as a photographer, a director, an entrepreneur,

and so many other things that I've had to, you know, skills that I've had to learn, or I guess personas or personality traits or things that have come together to make me a thing at one particular time and then something else shortly thereafter. And I think, you know, the whole idea of work that you're going to go to work and, you know, work somewhere for 40 years and get the gold wall. watch and then collect a check for the rest of life. That's obviously total fiction. So I think the future of work looks a lot more like more people being freelance and creating jobs for themselves. And that's, you know, the way that I think of myself. I think that if our parents had one job,

we will have five and the next generation will have five jobs at the same time. And so the descriptors that we use for ourselves, you know, they tend to parallel that. I don't know. Let me flip this. what do you call yourself? Well, what do you do, Ryan Hawk? So I believe there is the ability for all people to be a leader, and I work hard to help them find that. And I think that's what this show is all about, the fact that I am trying really hard to not create followers, but to create a ton of great learning leaders. And so that's the purpose behind me reaching out to some of these incredibly inspiring people like Chase Jarvis.

They come on the show to say, dude, like I am so juiced with the stuff, the work that you do between multiple life categories, which I think is a definition of success to me is being able to have success in multiple life categories. whether for me it's, okay, going from the athletic fields of playing the sport of football to then utilizing some of those leadership skills and ability I built and developed on the field, but now doing it, you know, not in the sports arena. And there's some overlap there. Obviously, I learned some great things, but I've learned I've 100xed that by being able to reach out and have incredible conversations with people who are world class and what they do.

and that's what really makes me so excited to get up every day. When I woke up this morning, I was like, I said, I got Chase Jarvis on my podcast say, this is sick. Like, this is really cool. And so I could go all day talking about how I get so excited about this stuff. But that's why I do it, man. I love it. Absolutely am more than passionate about it.

And I love getting the feedback from people, the emails. I'm sure you get a lot of this too, where the feedback that people say, dude, I was reading your blog or I was watching some of your vlogs, videos that you produce, and it really motivated me. It inspired me to, you know, chunk my days into 90-minute blocks or to change, or to change my morning routine, things like that. You know what I mean? I do, man, I do. And I love your sports analogy. I grew up and went to college on a soccer scholarship and it was a huge part of my life. Football, football was a big part of my life as well. But let's just, you know, this whole idea that we've had to become hyphens or that we have to sort of be much more dynamic than the old

just look at the modern quarterback for example you used to like if you could drop back and if you could throw well that was important and now it's not just you know throw well you have to be able scramble well you have to be able to read defensive you have to be able to call audibles you have to be able to I mean even on and off the field like you know the best quarterbacks you know are members of their community and and successful in many sort of life categories as you put But, you know, I think we can use quarterbacks as an example or whether I'm a photographer, a director, an entrepreneur, or whether you are a football player or, you know, incredibly talented at bringing out, you know, the best in people and helping share that with others.

I love that about where the world is headed, obviously, super in line with your podcast because all that requires learning. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your company as well. I mean, Creative Live, you know, this is actually how I first, you know, heard about you. And this is one of the, I don't know, parts of my brain that is naturally just really curious. When I see really neat companies or things or products, I immediately want to meet the person who created it or the person who's running it or both. And so Creative Live is that for me.

And once I saw that, I'm really appreciative that Ryan Holiday connected us because I love the work that you guys are doing at Creative Live. And I'd love to hear your purpose behind why it was created and why it's continuously growing at such a great rate. Sure. Well, the purpose behind Creative Live is to help people live their dreams in career, in hobby, and in life. And what that looks like is it looks like learning from the world's top experts. So Creative Live is the world's largest live streaming online education company. and it's focused specifically on creativity and entrepreneurship, so photography, design, starting your own business, website, podcasts, all those things.

And it's learning not just from someone who knows a lot about the subject, but it's literally learning from the world's best. So a lot of the people that have been in your podcast, for example, Michael Porte teaches public speaking on creative live, Ryan Holiday teaches marketing. And, you know, Tim Ferriss, when Tim launches a new book, he launched it on Creative Live. You want to learn about entrepreneurship? How about from Reed Hoffman, who's the, you know, billionaire founder of LinkedIn.

These are the people that are on the creative life platform. And not to disparage your local community college instructor who might have a lot of knowledge about a subject. But these are from the real people who have done it. And Pulitzer Prize winners, New York Times bestsellers. So it's been a labor of love. It was originally started, as I said, to help people live the dream. I felt like my life was coming together in a really fortunate and lucky way. Certainly through a lot of hard work.

but, you know, I was just sharing the content that I was putting out there. And I noticed that there's a lot of people sort of sticking to that. And wow, what if we could create a platform myself and my co-founder, Craig, to be able to enable so many other people to do that. And that was whatever, five years ago. And now there's millions of people all over the planet. We serve every country in the world every month. And we've had more than two billion minutes consumed on the platform.

So it's a great place to learn, man. Yeah. Wow. How do you get those huge names to, like when Tim Ferriss comes out with a new book, why and how did you get him to choose your platform as being one of the places? Or Reed Hoffman or Ryan Holiday. I mean, these massive titans of their industries to say, I'm going to do it on Creative Live. Well, first of all, I love the practicality in your question. And I think to approach the answer in that same sort of practical sense, it's, you know, look at what those folks are trying to do with their lives. They want to go to a place where they can reach a lot of people, where people's values are aligned. And one of the things that is typically true of people who have achieved that sort of success

is there's a pension for quality. They require sort of, you know, they don't want second-tier stuff. And so we've built this thing from the ground up to honor that and to focus on a really, really high-quality product and a community, basically, first and foremost of people who, you know, aspire toward those same values and want something that's a really, really high quality place to get together. So, you know, if you're Tim Ferriss, for example, there's a lot of places you could go to Pimp Your Wairs. You could do it on just, you know, on YouTube, for example, but then it wouldn't be recorded with, you know, between

four and eight cameras, all in HD, you know, professional, everything from bottom of the top. or you could go on some of the other learning platforms that are out there, but you wouldn't have a whole production staff who's there at your fingertips to help you realize your dreams, you know, what the perfect class could be like for you. And if you, you know, didn't have those things, you're probably not going to be producing a product that you love. So we just want to take the heavy lifting out of the way of all those people.

And my background in, you know, commercials and shooting ad campaigns as a photographer for the world's top brands that put me in a, a place, I think uniquely in a place to be able to create that environment for those folks. So there's a trust too, for sure. You know, it's like once you do create, you know, great things for great people, then word of mouth takes over. And, you know, people, though, that's a very, very powerful mechanism, obviously, word of mouth, so getting recommendations, you know, Tim bringing in and Ryan

and Ryan bringing in Lewis Howes. and, you know, these are the names that I think are familiar with folks, your listeners. And, you know, I think that's, it has its basis in quality and, you know, aspirational. And if we don't, you know, we don't have a sort of second tier of product. It's just A grade, baby. What about the very beginning? Because this is, I remember this being a tough moment for me to get my podcast launched. And I was probably got a little lucky.

And I think I have a knack for writing. somewhat decent, compelling cold emails, which was able to kind of land some big guests when I didn't even have a show that was on iTunes yet. But what about for you guys at the very beginning? Because like you mentioned, these guys, these Titans can go anywhere. And at the beginning, I don't know if you guys, from the financial perspective, I'm not certain of how that was for you to have, you know, eight different cameras in HD and all set of, maybe you did.

But it takes time and effort. and maybe at times a little bit of luck at the beginning of something in order to get some of those first early adopters. And then those guys are willing to tell their friends, as you mentioned before. And that's, I've experienced that. And so how was it the very beginning? The reason I ask this is because I'm trying to relate it to somebody who isn't there yet. And somebody who can say, how can I get there? Because, yeah, Chase is crushing it and they're, you know, billions of people are watching.

But what about at the very beginning when he was trying to get? the Reed Hoffman's of the world? Why would Reed even listen to him if they had anything going yet? Sure. So there's the simple answer and the complicated one, and I think they're both, they've both got merit. I'm going to go for the simple one first, which is literally how I did it. And the recipe, you know, point number one was that I put 10 years to building a world-class photography career in the top one-half of 1% of earners. I built an audience of a million people, completely incidentally never set out to build an audience, but it was from creating content around the world of photography and sharing that with the world for free. So I had a large social

following. And when you're at the top of an industry, you, you know, you tend to be whether, you know, just by default, peers with other people who are at the top of your industry. And so there's a certain amount of benefit there. And that's literally how Creative Live got started. We had a, you know, I had a large endemic audience who'd been a part of my personal community for a long time. And I had 10 years of producing television commercials and ad campaigns for the apples, the Nikes, and whatnot. So we're able to put out a really high quality product quite early on. So that's the short version. The long version is like, okay, yeah, but for that guy or gal who's on the other end of, you know, on the headphones right now,

listen to like, yeah, but how do I do that? I think there's a path that is a very, it might be a little bit. bit longer than most people want, but that's where I, you know, we opened with the conversation on stamina that this is how I feel like why you're, why I was excited to go on your podcast, why, you know, we've had so much success from some of the people that we've named here is they've gone on and they've followed something that they're very, very curious about, that they're very, very passionate about and for something they have an itch, they're scratching their own inch, they want to solve a problem, they want to become great at a thing. So they go super deep

on that thing and in the process not only do they learn that thing but they learn how to learn and and it's that process of learning how to learn that to me was the aha that now i can then apply that process and that um basically that plan to other things i love that you said that you love people who are good a handful of different things like the rise of the polymath And what, you know, someone like Tim, for example, what he did first and foremost was learn how to learn. And then he went and applied it to salsa dancing. You know, he's like a world champion salsa dancer or some shit like that. I don't know it.

And then he applied it to language and then he applied it to writing books. And then he applied, you know, he basically created a system around something he was super passionate about first. So I did that in photography. and then I looked at the characteristics like, oh, well, what are some things that help me be successful in photography? Well, certainly hard work, but being really, really disciplined. Here's how I would seek clients. Here's how I would build community. Here's how I'd build community physically or here's how I'd do it digitally.

And then what are the common characteristics that if I'm going to go try and start a venture-backed, you know, game-changing education company, how would I think about that? And I'm basically using that same playbook. To me, that's the part where if you're sitting at home right now, God, where do I start? You literally start at the beginning. Every, you know, whatever journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. But it's toward that thing for which you have relentless, curiosity, passion that you believe you can make, you know, make a go of it in the world.

And as you start to achieve success, you're creating what amounts to a blueprint. And then you can stamp that into other areas as you sort of want to grow and thrive into new new disciplines. So, you know, and then that goes back to the stamina bit, right? Like, all that sounds hard. I think everybody wants a quick fix and there really isn't one, but it's also, it's less magic and more process. That's one of the things I loved about your conversation with Ryan Holiday. His, he traces, his research says that the people who have achieved disproportionate success is very much about process. What do they do every day? They get up and they make work. They do work. They ship stuff. They, you know, make

something and share it. And in your case, for example, what did you do? You had to start doing the podcast. Yes, you got one. You probably didn't go from zero to Richard Branson, but you, you know, you had a buddy who was the bestselling author, and then that buddy had a person who was a Pulitzer Prize winner. And then, you know, and you quickly swam upstream, but it was from starting with what you knew. I don't know. I might be putting words in your mouth, man, but you're right. That's what I think, that's how I think about this stuff. And that's how creative live started out and I think that's what success in a lot of different areas can look like. And it hits on the importance of building and developing great quality relationships along the way.

You're not going to get referrals from friends if you are not a good guy. I mean, some people try to make this more complex too. I mean, there's a ton of grind and hustle and obviously, as you're talking about, you have to have stamina. but being a decent human who tries to help others can really get you a long way. And I'm not trying to dumb this down, but it's just a fact. And I think that's part of how this has helped me and it's certainly how it's helped you get people to refer you to others is being a good quality human who tries to help and deliver great, great things to other people. Even in the face of sort of adversity or I'm putting a lens on my own experience around photography. I started that exact thing was true.

Ryan, I wanted to try and add value to my industry beyond just taking pictures. And a lot of that was around sharing what I was learning. Back then it was, you know, there wasn't even YouTube, it was a Google video. And I was making videos about, oh, here's what it feels like to shoot Tiger Woods. And here's the things I did right. And here's what I screwed up. and that what was first, I was literally vilified around that because I was giving away trade secrets, but ultimately, I think the good that you're doing for a community, and you know, you can call it leadership,

you know, you probably have a lot of great words for this, but it is very much about adding value, honestly, humbly, with, you know, certainly with a lot of hustle, that's, you know, that sort of goes without saying, but like literally adding value, to me, those things. things always, they always went out. They always trump sort of narrow, myopic, um, protectional or protectionist sort of mentalities. Vilified for sharing, really? Literally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was, you know, I think it was thought, it was thought, it was thought that photography was a zero-sum game. And for the people who were at the tippy top of the

industry, if you're sharing, you know, I'm sharing my lighting secrets or how I, you know, work with whether it's swimsuit models or action sports heroes. You know, this is the way I talked to them and think about it. And I think the belief was that, oh, if you had those trade secrets that you could somehow go out and just replicate that picture. But you and I know, and it's obvious it's, you know, the universe has played out is it's so much more than just the ability to get the settings right on the camera. It's the whole package, you know, in the same way that we used a quarterback analogy earlier.

Like a great quarterback can't just throw the ball. far. It's so much more. There's leadership and so many, there's 25 characteristics. And so in giving away everything that I could, I didn't feel like I was putting any individual photographer at risk, if anything, just trying to add value, make the industry better, make the industry more, certainly more competitive, but, you know, rising tide floats all the boats is my hope. And I think that's borne out true. And you mentioned just a little bit ago, Tim Ferriss and others you have had to learn how to learn and not trying to get too mad out of here. It makes me think of Josh Waitskin's book, The Art of Learning, where if you want to become great in those multiple life categories, part of the way to do that is to have an understanding about how to learn new things.

And you really have to have a great self-awareness about what type of learner you are so that you can digest whatever material or whatever it is. is that you're seeking in a better, more concise way so that you do understand how to learn. And I think for some people, it would be confusing, so confusing that they just stop or they don't do it or they just kind of glide through each day. And that's, for me, is just simply the opposite way of how I want to live. So true. And I really, like, that was one of the reasons that I was familiar with your podcast was because I'm a freak about learning new things. I think we opened up with the conversation around stamina, but there's also certainly a characteristic of a lifelong learner is certainly curious.

And curious to find out not just the answer to the next problem, but questions about yourself, like how do I learn best, what kind of environment keeps me excited and what kind of problems do I have a lot of energy and passion around? And I think that the art of learning, that's really what Tim Ferriss's last book about. It's called The Four Hour Chef. but it was you know the metaphor was

Tim's journey to try and become a chef as just his applying a set of rules to learning a new thing a new skill and you know for him it was cooking but it was it's really about something much much larger and you know I think that's what your podcast is about that's why I was intrigued and it's excited to be on the show so thank you man that's that's that's a that's pretty a great thing to hear and let's talk a little bit now about from a creativity perspective. I think, you know, I had a great conversation with Seth Godin about this, and he's obviously

talks about how the fact that he is committed to writing every day, and what that has done is it forces him to notice things, which then drives the creativity and the artist, as he calls it, in him. And from your perspective, an extremely creative guy, when there, I would imagine you get this question a lot, but I still want to ask it, and that's around how can we develop creativity if people listening maybe they don't think of themselves as being very creative. So one, can it

I know the answer is yes, but can this can be taught or learned and how do we develop it even more from a, what I mean by that is creativity? Sure. Great question. Absolutely, you know, flat yes, can

it be learned? And in fact, what we see is if you ask a room full of like fourth graders, hey, all right, anybody want to sing a song, like literally every person will raise their hand or anybody want to come up here and draw me a picture, all of them will ask, you know, it has to be the person who draws the picture. And then you ask that same question to a, you know, a room full of seniors in high school or 18 year olds and like two people will probably raise your hand. So the reality is that we are creative as beings as part of our DNA. It's one of the things that differentiates us from other speech. on the planet is our ability to sort of put unlikely things together to make something new and valuable. And yet we have a system and by and large this is a school system that I've indicted rather earnestly on stages all of the world. But we have a system that sort of systematically trains that out of you because we need it to be an efficient system. And it's really built on the

on the paradig of the factory. You know, the to be a cog, right? Yeah, literally to be a cog and a machine. Everyone learns the same way, learns the same material at the same time, and we know that that's not how human beings learn best. So we have this archaic education system that's built on 20th century, even 19th century ideals. So it's in there, and it's just been trained out of you. So first of all, you have to get your head around that, whether you're an accountant or an auditor or something you don't feel like as creative. There is absolutely 100% of creative, a creative core to your being. Now, it's what you choose to do with that, to me, that makes all the difference,

and whether you incurred, you know, you foster that. And I think summarily the way to think about creativity is creativity is a habit. It is a way of thinking. It is not a skill. So there's all kinds of science, I think, Mark Runcoe from the University of Georgia. I think to summarize his research, it's that creativity literally begets creativity. So you can become a better brain surgeon by taking pictures with your, iPhone and you know you'd say well what's the connection there creativity is a matter of

solving problems it's making something that didn't exist bringing it in you know from nothing into something whether that's a picture a sketch or or whatever so there's creativity with the small C which is let's call that art so photography and design and things like that then there's creativity with the capital C that is the solution to every problem that we will ever know has creativity as its core. I mean, even the wheel is, that is like mechanical engineering plus creativity made the wheel. Same thing with the light bulb. That is electrical engineering plus creativity. Theoretical science equals MC squared. That's, you know, theoretical science plus creativity coming together to

understand that E equals MC squared describes the energy in the universe. So that's creativity with a capital C. And the beautiful thing is that we have this inside us and it's whether we choose to foster it or not. I'm, you know, I've created a learning platform whose goal is to, you know, make creativity the new literacy. Imagine, you know, we throw words around like innovation and we like all these, you know, great gadgets and solutions to human health and to, you know, trying to bring more water to the billion people who don't have it. At the foundation of the solution of all those problems is creativity, and that's creativity with a capital C. And imagine if we put the kind of energy into making a school system or prising that sort of creativity that we did literacy

back in the era of the printing press. We saw that change the trajectory of human existence on the planet. I think the same is true for creativity. And frankly, it's having its day in the sun. Creativity is at an all-time high right now. And it's growing. 1,500 CEOs surveyed said that creativity was the number one trait that they were, filtering for in hiring executives at Fortune 500 companies. So there you go. I don't, it's like a,

sorry about that. I can go off. Well, I know. It elicits another question. And you've probably heard me say this before, but this is around practical tips to tease out. So for the person who doesn't think they're creative right now, even though we know it's in there and they need to foster that. What are a couple things they could implement or do practically, like actionable tips, they could do in their life to maybe get some of that out of them that they didn't realize is there? Sure. Beautiful question. I love practical solutions.

I'm going to turn you on to one thing that will help you, and it's more than just one thing every day. It's basically a system on Creative Live. It's a project called 28 to make. If you go to creative live.com and you type in 28 to make, it is a challenge. It is a program that will email you a five-minute exercise every morning really early. And at some point during the day, literally take five minutes and do this thing. And it's very, very simple. It's like, you know, sketch the coffee cup in front of you or, you know, whatever beverage you're drinking,

look around you and find, you know, what are six things in the room and how can you combine those into a new phrase or something that's interesting. And literally the act of doing that, they say it takes 28 days to make or break a habit. And after 28 days, your brain literally will start to put things together in a way that you haven't experienced before. That's one way.

It's called 28 to Make on creative live.com. I think Tim is a huge advocate since we've already talked about. Tim Ferriss here, our mutual, I don't know if he, has he been on the show yet? No, not yet. Got to get him on the show. That'd be great. I'd love to.

Tim's a big advocate of the morning journal, basically taking five minutes every day and writing. The five minute journal, yeah. Yeah, even if you're not a writer. The goal isn't to write something poetic. The goal is to write something. And because that's, again, that is creating and that's that habit. For me, literally taking a picture every day with my iPhone,

I a long time ago created the first iPhone app that shared photos to social networks. And it was really around, you know, I have huge ad cam. campaigns and all kinds of camera gear and fancy studios and all that stuff. But where I got a lot of joy, I was just trying to walk around and, you know, within a minute or so, take a picture with my iPhone that I wouldn't have thought I could take. And that's moving your feet just a little bit. And that simple act of doing something every day instead of nothing is a game changer. I love it. And the practical tip of I just wanted to creative live.com and search 28 to make.

So it's definitely something I'm going to be signing up for. Please do. There's 20,000 people. I think the counter on their system, like 18,000 people are doing that on a daily basis now all over the world. Wow. We just launched that about 17 days ago now. I think we're recording this on the 17th of February. I don't know when it's going to drop, but it's going to continue to go forever. But it's a really simple system. It doesn't cost anything. And it's a great way to cultivate very, very simple creativity. Yeah, I got a question that's a little bit different. scope, but it's because I feel like this happens to me from time to time or actually more than I'd like.

And I'd love to hear how you respond to it. So when you're passing by somebody, whether it's a colleague or you're on the phone or you're texting and you say, so, hey, Johnny, how are you doing? And they respond and they say, Chase, man, I'm just so busy. What are the thoughts that I have a feeling, but what are the thoughts that are going through your mind when you hear the phrase, man, I'm just so busy? My first thought is empathy. It really is.

It's like, man, I'm sorry, that sucks. And it's not right. What I'm saying in my head, this is where there's a little bit of a twist, I think. I see your answer, but I'm not empathetic necessarily around, oh, you have too many things to do. Right. Because we've all got too many things to do. You know, there's really, there's, there's, um, I think my empathy towards that person is not around their to-do list, but more around their mental and emotional state.

Because it tells me that they're not in a great spot. If your wrote answer is busy, what busy is, is busy is a lack of priority. And so you haven't defined for yourself what matters to you, whether you want to prioritize your kids or work or this particular aspect. of your life or losing 10 pounds or gaining 10 IQ points, whatever your thing is, that if you can crystallize that thing that's important for you, aka prioritize it, the concept of busy, sure, there's always a, you know, we've all got a laundry list a mile long, but it just crystallizes that meaning, because I think that's what we're all chasing, right? It's sort of meaning and direction and fulfillment and having some things that you're applying

yourself to always takes that idea of busy and puts it on the backseat relative to the priority. And so it's empathy, man. And it's not because there's to-do list. It's because, oh, man, it's clear that there's a part of them that's in conflict and they haven't figured out what matters to them. Exactly. I almost, when I read that quote of yours, so that was a question, I had an idea what you're going to say, but you did put a little twist on it.

I almost want to respond with that. I don't know if that's the right way to respond. because you're passing somebody in the hall like how's it going oh just so busy with you know and they'll name three or four things and I want to be like dude that's such a lack of priority I know I'm punching the gut as you're walking by in the hall here no so I for me it's a pet peeve to hear that to hear that that word and so it's something that's almost like a word that is not allowed to be used in my home with with my wife and our daughters is that's not something we're ever going to say while we have a ton of things going on obviously obviously like everybody does. We're never going to be busy. That means that we've got some issues that we need to get worked out. And I think that's a message that a lot of people need to hear. Hey, can I hijack that for one thought further?

Yes. Yeah. So I also want to be clear that that, like my answer or my position on that question is really about, I had to go through all that to learn it. Yep. You know, it's, I don't want to appear to be out. Beyond defray or that, you know, there was so many times in my life. In fact, you know, I remember when I started pursuing my passion and photography, you know,

I dropped out of pursuing a career in professional soccer and dropped out of medical school to become a photographer, which is really strange, but I didn't know anything. I just knew that I was deeply passionate about it. And I found myself for the first time really, really busy. Like, oh, my God, there's too much to know. And I started using that, like, oh, I'm so busy. and what it caused people around me that was ask questions like, oh, that's interesting,

you're so busy, what are you busy doing? And it became sort of an ego trip and ultimately I think that's it's sort of this poison that our society has created is that busy is somehow signifier for important or achieving or something like that. And I was absolutely in that for years and years and years. So I don't want anyone, you know, who's listening at home to think like, oh, man, this guy's a dick.

I'm busy because I got three kids and I got, you know, hey, we've all been there. But if you take the job that, you know, the work that you just did, Ryan, and reframing that concept for yourself and for your family. And if, you know, the listeners at home did that same thing, it's just such, it just changes that feeling of being in the backseat or even worse being in the trunk. And it turns it into sort of a positive, like if you love. look at the things that actually matter to you and you don't use this default answer of being busy, it becomes less of an ego thing and more about what are your priorities in life. So very much to learn behavior. Yeah.

To be only 10 years to figure that one out. Definitely agreed. But I'm thinking from your perspective, a guy who's leading a company, a bunch of employees, you could be in a meeting nine hours a day every day, I have to imagine. For sure. And so you have to prioritize to not be in those meetings all day. every day. How do you do that? How do you manage that? How could how could a person who's maybe not the CEO of the company, but works at a big corporation and people are trying to get them to go to

meetings that maybe they don't need to be in? How do you? So it's a two-part question. One, how do you do it? How do you think others could do it? Well, I think they're ultimately the same answer. And one is it has to do with like a militant focus on your time, right? That's the one thing that we all have the same amount of and we don't ever get back. So it is the, you know, it's the sort of the governing commodity of life. And the way that I treat that time very preciously, and by precious, I don't mean like, I'm never going to do something I don't want. I'm just going to be intentional. Like there are plenty of things that I choose to do because it's going to maybe make the world a better place and it's not necessarily after my own agenda, but it's intentional. So I think creating

intention around your time and how you spend it, whether you're the CEO or you just join the company and you're at an entry-level position, the goal would be just to be, to care about how you spend your time. For me personally, I have learned that chunking like things together is a critical piece of me having time to do the things I want, because if you just let your calendar fill up with all these random things on other people's schedules, then that schedule, put it this way, if you don't make plans for yourself, someone else will make plans for you. And so prioritize the things, carving space out for the big things that you want to do, whether that's in life or career or even on a project basis at work.

Like, I need X amount of time to be able to do this really, really well, and I need to make that time sacred. And I realize that if you're new to a company, you can't always protect. your time as if, you know, there's a lot of things to learn you to get up to speed. But that's also, like, to say that you have no control of your schedule is a total cop-out. We know that. And so it's very much about being intentional. And I group my things and I group like items together, so I'll sit down and I'll make six phone calls, you know, back to back to back.

And I'll, you know, usually lead off with like, hey, man, I just want to find out the answer to that one thing. Super good to connect with you. have that conversation and move on to the next one, as opposed to having a bunch of 30-minute conversations dotted throughout the day or even throughout the week. And I found that that's the only way I can get the big things done in life is to basically work. I work in some of 90-minute chunks.

And there's all kinds of specific. I actually got a great blog post about this. I just watched it, yeah. Yeah. And a vlog about habits. And actually, I don't remember the time. title of it. If you just watched recently, maybe you can, maybe you can tell me or tell your readers, but I think

it's, uh, it is, uh, I'm on your blog right now. Well, go to your blog. Just go to your job. Just go to chase jarvis. com and then slash blog and you'll see you, the most recent one is, are you crushing your creativity, but that's not. I don't think it was that one. It's how I get S-H-I-T done.

Oh, okay. I wasn't, I knew there was, yeah. Join me then time for some change. I thought it might have been time for some changes, but whatever, yeah. Maybe that is too. Maybe change time for. No, I think it's how busy in success, busy is a lack of priority. Oh, there it is.

Yeah, yeah. That's where I saw the quote. Okay. Yeah, that's really practical. That's, you know, again, one of the things I love about your show, Ryan, is that it's a super practical advice. So you go to my blog or you type in my name plus priority. It's just a very, very simple system that I've built over the course of a bunch of years

for getting stuff done being really effective. And I think the reality is that, you know, even as the CEO, I'm, I might be the boss of the company, but there are other people like my board. for example, they manage me. And I happen to have chosen the board, so it's favorable. But it doesn't really matter where you are at any given time in the food chain of any given organization. I think just being intentional with your time.

You can't always choose everything, but you certainly can choose something and choosing to block out time for the big things that matter. And I also do those things in the morning. I have a morning routine that I always kick off with, which all those videos are also on my blog. again, I think that helps set me up for a great day. And part of structuring your day, you use the phrase strategic renewal. Can you expand on that how we can strategically renew? Yeah. The principle behind strategic renewal is that you, there's sort of a, there's a sweet spot in like a work cycle.

And if you sit down and just grind for like 10 hours, you know, I think the science behind it says that, There certainly is flow. There are flow states where you get in and everything's working. But as soon as you start to feel out of flow, and that usually is around a 90-minute increment, that's what science says, that if you just take a small break and that sort of stepping away from something is very, very, very valuable. That's one of the reasons I chunk my day into 90-minute bricks. Like, our conversation is going to be an hour, but I allocated 90 minutes here because

I can come in, I can flip my computer up. We can, you know, I can prepare a little bit, and then I've got a little bit of time to, you know, go use a restroom, take, you know, step outside on it. We've got a great rooftop deck here at Creative Blonde in San Francisco. I can go out there, get some fresh air for, you know, three, four minutes and step back into it. I do like to take some time in the middle of the day occasionally to get away, and that's like literally, go for a walk or, you know, leave, leave the building in which Creative Live is in. but I tend to work in 90-minute chunks and these little 30-minute slots between 90-minute chunks, those are little bits of strategic renewal for me. So sometimes I'll take a whole 90 minutes and go use that to get away.

But I'm not to say I don't work a lot too. I don't keep necessarily normal 9 to 5 hours. But the strategic renewal, the science and my personal experience says that finding little windows for which you can grab some sanity. And again, this is true whether you're self-employed or you're working for somebody else. How can you find those bits of time where you can step away from the grind, so to speak?

And they can be doing even less mentally taxing tasks. So, yeah, creativity requires, you know, there's sort of the, there's research and there's sort of gathering, but then there's the synthesis, where you're putting new ideas together. that takes a different amount of energy. So finding the time.

And for me, that's earlier in the morning. I try and tackle the most important things in my day early on. And again, I'm talking like I'm perfect at this, and it's not the case. You know, the world is an imperfect place. But I think that's a good way of thinking about strategic renewal and how I, you know, prioritize and get the biggest things done, the things that, you know, create 80% of my successes are things that I focus on. You mentioned a morning routine.

What is it specifically? The short version is I wake up. I start off with a bunch of water. I definitely get 64 ounces of water every day. I try and drink about 32 ounces of water right when I get up. I meditate. I meditate twice a day every day. And that's been one of the biggest game changers in my life.

I started doing that about four years ago. And there's lots of different kinds of meditation. But I get some water. I meditate. I eat 30 grams. a protein and I move my body. And that move my body could be riding my bike, you know, beach cruiser one mile to work, or it can be, you know, a brisk walk up to the coffee shop.

I get outside and I move my body. And that sort of, I can't say, I left that one thing too, which is gratitude and visualization. And usually that only takes, like, that's like a five-minute thing on the backside of my my meditation practice. But I just find that if I give myself, you know, 90 minutes in the morning to do all of those things, that I'm way disproportionately more successful throughout the day. I mean, it's not even the same sport, man. If I don't do those things and if I do those things, it's like, it's just incredible

jumpstart. And I'm to the point now where I can certainly survive and I'd say thrive might be a strong word, but I can get by if, you know, the perfect morning doesn't happen every morning. you know, I don't have any kids, but if you do, I know that that's a, it's a tough time for a lot of people to get that much time for themselves. But clearly you can get up a little bit earlier to do that. And my morning routine doesn't need to be yours. Yeah. But just, you know, there are a handful of things.

If you did them every day, you couldn't help but have this outcome. The morning routine, actually, as being someone who does have kids, is the best, it's better for people who have kids than ones who, who don't actually because I can, I personally can have a solid 90 minutes to myself with every, when everybody else is asleep, seven days a week to get whatever it is I need to get done. And you don't feel guilty about missing any family time or anything because you're not. Now, the only thing you're missing is sometimes sleep time if you don't. That's why you have to go to bed at a decent hour.

And so I think it's even better. But Chase, a lot of people ask me, what are some of the common themes amongst these, you know, 100 plus really incredible leaders that you've recorded. with. And I'll tell you, man, the difference between the great ones and the ones that that aren't great is that everyone I talk to has some sort of morning routine. They really do. And they're not all the same, certainly. But they have something that they get up and do in the morning. And usually it does involve some sort of gratitude. Usually it involves some sort of way to keep your body healthy. And it's amazing that when you go and talk to somebody who maybe they're not doing very well or they

haven't maybe accomplished the things they want to accomplish and they wake up at the last second they're scrambling to get their kids on the school bus and they're rushing into work late every day and and that's their routine and that's that's not a way to go about life man you know it's and what I think it's fair to say that we all have dipped into that time oh for sure you know we're not always good to learn the beautiful thing about a morning routine is that I have found that when I'm at a low point and I take stock of my life, I'm like, what's different here? What's not working? 100% of the time, one of the things that has fallen out is my morning routine.

And so, you know, there's just this act of doing something instead of doing nothing. And if I prioritize doing my morning routine, invariably, as in there is an example where I've done my morning routine for a month in a row and I haven't gotten good. results. That's how powerful that is. It's a very simple thing. And I'm talking about carving out 90 minutes, but certainly you can carve out 30. Again, like you said, getting up early, that's where even parents to young children, they can find 30 minutes themselves. And whatever that thing is, gratitude practice, plus moving your body. And it has invariably been an anchor in my life and certainly to my success. Absolutely. Chase, just a couple more questions. one of them is what are some of the best books you would tell people to read if they're looking

to boost their creativity or just live a better life in general? Well, on the creativity thing, there's a book called The War of Art. Oh, yeah, Pressfield. Yeah, Stephen Pressfield. Yeah. I feel like that is a huge book for anyone who is a creator. creator by trade because it helps us go through that we all we all go through these like periods of funk for example i think the war of art uh art and fear is another one again these are for people

who are makers by trade or want to be more like that uh i think creativity ink is a great one creativity ink oh gosh let me think about that one that's by annie oh ed cap mall yeah right Pixar. Pixar. Yeah, and I think she had a co-author there, Amy, Amy Wallace. Gosh, what else? Daring greatly. I don't know if you know Bray Brown. Oh, yeah.

Become a good friend and obviously a huge leader in thinking about, you know, vulnerability and what it means to put yourself out there to be the man in the arena, to take the Roosevelt quote. Steal like an artist is great. From Austin, Cleon, right? Yeah, awesome. Also, a good guy, great guy from Lerbush. Austin living in Austin, Texas. And that's basically that there are no original ideas.

Everything is basically a remix. So when you're sitting around thinking of yourself is not brilliant, realize that, you know, what is it, good artists imitate, great artists steal. And that's just if you get all of your ideas from one person, that's called stealing. If you get your ideas from everywhere in the marketplace, that's called research. So look at what people are doing out there in the world. and I think, man, so, yeah, those are a handful on creativity. I really like Ryan Hollidays.

The obstacle is the way. I don't know if you, you know, you've certainly had Ryan on the show. Oh, yeah. That's around stoicism and there's, you know, practical ways of living. What's Twyla? What's that? What is that one? The creative, what is it?

The creative habit, that's right. Great book. You know, it underscores that point I made earlier. creativity isn't a character trait. It's sort of this balance of effort and desire. You know, it's process driven. So those are some that I think are potent and powerful for me around, around creativity. Yeah.

And I'm sure if you, if you Google me plus books, I think I'd probably answer this question a few times. Yeah. A few times. Those are good. I appreciate it. No, that's really good. I'm a big fan of a number of those people certainly press few. Austin Cleon and obviously a great great Ryan holiday I think is the man.

So Chase, one more question. The show is solely, as we talked about before I hit record, about the art and science of leadership, about developing those skills, about only comparing yourself versus your former self. So being better today than you were yesterday and being better tomorrow than you are today. And I'm curious, when you hear the phrase learning leader, what's the first thing that you think of? I think that learning is a key to life.

I don't understand how, yeah, I don't understand the concept of a leader who isn't a great learner. And, you know, the people who have, you know, been inspirational to me or mentors, they are all fantastic at doing that thing that we talked about earlier in the show about they became great at one thing. And then they looked at the, like, what is the makeup of this thing that I became grand out? What was my process? And then they can apply that to other things. And to me, that is, you know, that the ability to learn in so many ways equals leadership, certainly by demonstrating, you know, there are lots of different kinds of leaders.

But some of the most powerful ones are the ones that sort of lead by doing in my mind. And that is, they're synonymous to me. I don't know how you become a great leadership changes, right? It's so dynamic because people have different learning styles and whether you're managing people or projects. The characteristics of a great leader is that they are so myriad. And that's one of the reasons that sort of learning is a requisite for being a great leader, I feel like. And there are people who are more natural about it than others,

but for certain, these are skills that can be acquired. I don't think that I knew how to learn. Certainly didn't from school. I went through school. I went to college. I was in a PhD program in philosophy. And I didn't learn how to learn until I got out of school. And to me, there's this beautiful tie-in with leadership

and specifically the people that I am inspired by. They're all great learners. Again, that's why I've been a fan of the show of your show, is like because it's so so spot on with learning at its core. Well, it means a lot to me that you'd say that. So thank you very much, Jason. Thanks so much for investing your time with me today. And I mean that because this is an investment for you.

And I know time is the most important thing that we possess. And it's our decision, how we decide to invest it. So thank you very much. And I absolutely want to continue this dialogue as we both progress. Where would you send people to read or to learn more about you online? I would send them, well, first and foremost, the thing that I'm most excited about in my life right now is Creative Live, which is where you can go to learn any skill from these top entrepreneurs and creative types,

and that's photography, design, entrepreneurship. So that'd be my first ask of the audience is to go there and register and take some classes. Again, there's free programming on 24 hours a day, seven days a week from all these people, and only if you see some classes that either aren't on the schedule that you'd like to watch on your own time that you have to buy. But otherwise, you know, there's a whole bunch of free stuff. So that'd be thing one. And thing two is I'm basically at Chase Jarvis on everything. And I'm prolific in the amount of content that I put out and share with the world and the ideas and things that I like to do and make.

So following me on any of those things is a simple ask. But your audience knows that stuff already. So I'll quit why I'm behind. I appreciate you. Again, super, super grateful to get time on the show and to be able to connect with you in person. I know we've had a handful of friends that have been trying to connect us for a while. So you love what you're doing, man. Keep putting out your shows.

It's great inspiration. Keep putting out the content. Thank you so much, man. Thanks again for being here, Chase. It means a lot to me. And like I said, I look forward to continue this dialogue, man. Right on. Thanks, bye-bye.

Thanks, bye-bye. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.