The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis
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  • Self-Improvement
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Chase Jarvis is a visionary photographer, artist and entrepreneur. Cited as one of the most influential photographers of the past decade, he is the founder & CEO of CreativeLive. In this show, Chase and some of the world's top creative entrepreneurs, artists, and celebrities share stories designed to help you gain actionable insights to recognize your passions and achieve your goals.

  1. Austin Kleon: Don't Call It Art

    5d ago

    Austin Kleon: Don't Call It Art

    Hey friends, Chase here Austin Kleon is back on the show, and this conversation is exactly the kind of reminder every creative person needs. You probably know Austin from Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going, the books that have helped millions of people rethink creativity, sharing, influence, originality, and what it actually means to make things in public. But Austin's new book, Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again, goes somewhere even more fundamental. It asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, photographers, parents, and anyone trying to make meaningful work in a world that wants to turn everything into content: What if the way back to your best creative work is not becoming more serious, but becoming more playful? That question matters because most of us have made creativity too heavy. We have wrapped it in identity, pressure, productivity, platforms, metrics, perfectionism, and the fear of being judged. We get stuck asking whether we are real artists, serious writers, successful creators, or legitimate professionals. We worry about the noun before we do the verb. Austin's message is simpler, deeper, and more freeing: "Don't call it art. Don't worry about being an artist. Forget the nouns. Do the verbs. Just make stuff." That idea is the center of this episode. We talk about what kids can teach us about creativity, why play is not frivolous, how to build the conditions for your best work, why attention is your most valuable resource, and why some of the most important ideas in your life might come from goofing off. This conversation is about loosening the grip. It is about getting back to the part of you that makes before it judges, explores before it explains, and follows the energy before it knows exactly where the work is going. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for creative people. On one hand, there has never been more opportunity. An individual with a laptop, a camera, a newsletter, a sketchbook, a phone, a point of view, or a weird little idea can reach people directly. That is extraordinary. But it also comes with a cost. The pressure to turn every interest into a brand, every hobby into content, every project into a product, and every creative impulse into a strategy has never been stronger. We are constantly being asked to define ourselves: What do you do? What is your niche? What is your platform? What are you building? How are you monetizing it? What is the plan? Those questions can be useful at the right time. But when they show up too early, they can suffocate the very thing they are trying to organize. Austin's work reminds us that creativity begins before identity. Before "artist." Before "writer." Before "photographer." Before "entrepreneur." Before "content creator." Before the nouns, there are verbs. Drawing. Writing. Walking. Noticing. Building. Playing. Collecting. Tinkering. Making. Sharing. Kids understand this instinctively. They do not sit down and ask whether what they are making fits the market. They do not wonder whether they are allowed to call themselves artists. They do not freeze because the thing in front of them might not be good enough. They simply begin. And in that beginning, there is a kind of wisdom most adults have forgotten. What We Explore in This Episode Why kids can be some of the best creativity teachers because they make before they judge, label, or perform. How to reconnect with the feeling you wanted as a kid, not necessarily the exact childhood you had. Why play is not the opposite of serious work, but a form of creative research and development. How to create the conditions for creativity through time, space, materials, and permission. Why tools should feel more like toys if you want to stay curious and experimental. How phones fracture attention and why protecting the edges of your day can change the texture of your life. Why hobbies matter and how bikes, music, golf, drawing, and other forms of play can return us to ourselves. Why "don't call it art" can be liberating for anyone who feels trapped by labels or legitimacy. How to use jealousy, disgust, and frustration as creative information instead of letting them turn into bitterness. Why people pay attention when someone truly believes in what they are doing. The Core Idea: Forget the Nouns. Do the Verbs. The fastest way to get unstuck is often to stop asking what you are and start paying attention to what you do. That sounds simple, but it is one of the biggest traps in creative work. We get obsessed with identity. Am I an artist? Am I a real writer? Am I a serious photographer? Am I a professional? Am I successful enough to call myself this thing? Am I allowed? That kind of thinking can freeze you before you even start. Kids do not have that problem. They are not trying to become "artists." They are drawing. They are building. They are making noise. They are inventing stories. They are throwing materials around and seeing what happens. Austin's point is not that craft does not matter. It is not that ambition does not matter. It is not that we should abandon discipline. It is that the living center of creativity is action. The verb comes first. Make the thing. Move the pencil. Open the notebook. Pick up the guitar. Ride the bike. Take the walk. Make the zine. Shoot the photo. Write the sentence. Start the weird little project that begins with, "Wouldn't it be funny if…" That is where the energy is. Play Is Creative R&D One of the big tensions in this conversation is the voice many of us carry around that says play is not practical. That voice says: You have responsibilities. You need to make money. You need to be serious. You need to have a plan. You need to stop messing around. Austin's response is that play is not the opposite of serious work. Play is often what makes serious work possible. He talks about play as research and development. Any healthy company needs R&D. It needs space to explore, test, wander, fail, and discover things that cannot be found through pure efficiency. The same is true for a creative life. A lot of us start in explore mode. We are curious. We are trying things. We are learning. We are following our taste. We are discovering our voice. Then, if something works, we shift into exploit mode. We repeat the thing. We build a career around it. We systematize it. We professionalize it. We optimize it. That can be useful. But if you stay there forever, you eventually run out of juice. You need space to explore again. That is what play gives you. It returns you to the part of the process where you are not just producing, but discovering. And in creative work, discovery is everything. Create the Conditions, Then Get Out of the Way One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Austin's simple equation: Play = time + space + materials. That may sound almost too simple, but it is profound. When I look back at the most creative seasons of my life, the pattern is obvious. I had uninterrupted time. I had a place to go. I had the right materials around me. I had enough structure to begin and enough freedom to be surprised. That is what we often give kids when we want them to create. We give them a table, some paper, some markers, a chunk of time, and permission to make a mess. Then we grow up and deny ourselves the same basic conditions. We say we are blocked, stuck, confused, or uninspired, but often we have not created an environment where anything could actually emerge. No time. No space. No materials. No quiet. No room to tinker. The lesson is not complicated, but it is easy to forget: Set the conditions. Allow the work to happen. Get out of the way. That is not laziness. That is not indulgence. That is how the good stuff gets a chance to show up. The Best Ideas Often Come From Goofing Off I have said this before, and I mean it: so many of the best ideas in my life have come from goofing off. Not from trying to optimize. Not from grinding. Not from forcing. Not from staring at a blank screen and demanding genius. They came when I was tinkering. Playing. Walking. Talking with friends. Making something that had no obvious point. Trying something because it felt fun, strange, or impossible to explain. Austin and I talk about this because it is one of the hardest things for ambitious people to accept. We want the path to be linear. We want effort to equal outcome. We want the best ideas to come from the most serious hours. But creativity often does not work that way. The mind needs room. The body needs movement. The soul needs a little nonsense. Goofing off is not always avoidance. Sometimes it is how the deeper intelligence gets a chance to speak. Tools Should Be Toys Austin says something in this episode that every creator should sit with: Tools should be toys. That does not mean your tools are unimportant. It means the best tools invite you into a state of play. They make you want to touch them, try them, misuse them, combine them, push them, and see what happens. A sketchbook can be a toy. A camera can be a toy. A guitar pedal can be a toy. A bicycle can be a toy. A cheap notebook, a box of crayons, a microphone, a drum machine, a kitchen table, a phone in airplane mode, a pile of index cards — all of it can become part of the creative playground. The danger is when tools become only professional instruments. When every object in your creative life carries the pressure of output, performance, monetization, or proof, it becomes harder to begin. A toy invites curiosity. And curiosity is one of the most reliable doors back into making. Attention Is the Beginning of Everything Another major theme in this episode is attention. Austin shares a simple practice: start and end the day without your phone. Not as a moral performance. Not as some extreme digital detox. Just as a way to prot

    1h 12m
  2. Eric Ries: How to Build Something Success Can't Corrupt

    May 27

    Eric Ries: How to Build Something Success Can't Corrupt

    Hey friends, Chase here Eric Ries is back on the show, and this conversation goes far beyond startups, venture capital, or the mechanics of building a company. You probably know Eric as the author of The Lean Startup, the book that changed how founders, creators, entrepreneurs, and teams think about building something new. His work helped popularize ideas like continuous innovation, validated learning, experimentation, and staying close to the customer instead of getting lost in theory, ego, or endless planning. But this episode is not just about how to start something. It's about how to protect the thing you've built once it starts working. Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great, asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders right now: How do you build something that can grow without being captured, corrupted, or hollowed out? That question matters whether you're running a company, building a personal brand, growing a creative practice, launching a product, choosing clients, working with sponsors, or trying to do work that actually reflects your values. Because success is not neutral. Success brings attention, opportunity, money, investors, partners, platforms, algorithms, expectations, incentives, shortcuts, and people who may not share the reason you started in the first place. One of Eric's most powerful lines in this conversation is this: "Success is not a source of strength. It is a liability, because success attracts predators." That idea is the center of this episode. If you've ever built something that started to work, you know exactly what he means. The thing that made your work powerful can become the thing other people want to capture. The trust you built can become something others want to monetize. The values that made your community believe in you can suddenly feel inconvenient when there's more money on the table. This conversation is about how to stay awake in the middle of that pressure. We talk about defining what you stand for, making decisions before the pressure arrives, treating trust as an asset, saying no to misaligned opportunities, and building something that can grow without losing its soul. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for creators and entrepreneurs. On one hand, there has never been more opportunity. An individual with a laptop, a camera, a newsletter, a product, an idea, or a point of view can reach people directly. You can build an audience, launch a business, compete with massive companies, and create a brand around your name, your work, your taste, your values, and your trust. That is extraordinary, but it also comes with a real cost. The forces shaping our work have never been more intense. Platforms reward outrage. Algorithms reward simplification. Investors reward speed. Markets reward extraction. The pressure to be louder, faster, more polarizing, more optimized, and more "growth-minded" is everywhere. Eric describes this pressure as a kind of gravity. It is the gravity of platforms, incentives, success, and other people's definitions of winning. If we are not conscious of those forces, they shape us without our permission. That is one of the biggest themes in this episode: you are always being shaped by the systems you participate in. The question is whether you are awake enough to notice, honest enough to name it, and disciplined enough to choose a different path when the incentives start pulling you away from who you actually want to be. What We Explore in This Episode Why success can become a liability when it attracts people, money, platforms, and incentives that want to capture what you've built. How creators get shaped by platforms and why the algorithm can quietly tune your voice, values, and identity toward whatever gets the most engagement. Why trust may be the most valuable asset in business and why it is so easy to destroy with one short-term decision. How to define an ethos before outside pressure, money, growth, or status starts making decisions for you. Why "harder is easier" when your principles are clear enough to remove debate from the moments that matter. How companies, creators, and brands slowly trade away their soul through small compromises that seem harmless in the moment. Why alignment matters more than scale when choosing clients, customers, sponsors, platforms, partners, and investors. How to build something durable without losing the trust, purpose, and values that made it worth building in the first place. The Core Idea: Growth Without Betrayal The real test of success is whether you can grow without betraying what made you worth trusting. It is easy to talk about values when nothing is on the line. It is easy to say you care about quality, access, creativity, service, truth, community, or long-term thinking when the stakes are low. But values only become real when they cost you something. That might happen when there is a big check on the table from a misaligned sponsor. It might happen when an investor wants a different path than the one you set out to build. It might happen when the algorithm rewards a version of you that is more inflammatory, less nuanced, and less honest. It might happen when you can quietly take the shortcut, ship something you don't believe in, or make a decision that no one will notice in the short term. Those are the moments that reveal the truth. Not the words on the wall, not the mission statement, not the brand deck, and not the beautifully written values page. The decision is the proof. Eric's argument is that if you want to build something incorruptible, you have to know what you stand for before those moments arrive. Once the pressure is here, it becomes much harder to think clearly. Success Attracts Predators One of the most powerful parts of this conversation is Eric's warning about success. Most of us are trained to think of success as pure upside: more customers, more revenue, more attention, more leverage, more opportunity, and more proof that the thing is working. Eric flips that idea on its head. Success is not only a source of strength. It is also a liability, because the more valuable your work becomes, the more attractive it becomes to people and systems that want to use it for their own ends. That can look like: Investors who want growth at any cost. Platforms that reward you for becoming a more extreme version of yourself. Partners who want access to your audience but do not share your values. A company acquiring a beloved brand and slowly stripping away what people trusted about it. Your own internal pressure to keep the numbers moving up and to the right, even when the work starts to feel misaligned. This is where corruption often begins. Not with one giant evil decision, but with tiny tradeoffs. A small compromise here, a slightly misaligned deal there, a decision that seems harmless because "no one will notice," or a shortcut taken because the quarter is tight. Over time, the thing that made you trusted starts to erode. The work still looks successful from the outside, but inside the machine, something essential has been traded away. The Gravity of Platforms Eric and I also talk about the pressure creators face from platforms. This part is especially relevant if you make anything for the internet. The promise of platforms is access. You can reach people, publish instantly, build a community, and grow a business without asking for permission from traditional gatekeepers. That is powerful, and I don't want to minimize how much opportunity that has created. But platforms also have values. Not values in the human sense, but values in the incentive sense. They reward certain behaviors and punish others. They reward what keeps people clicking, watching, reacting, arguing, and coming back. Over time, creators start to adapt. You post something thoughtful and nuanced, and almost nobody sees it. You post something sharper, more polarizing, more emotionally charged, and suddenly the platform lights up. That teaches you something, whether you want it to or not. The danger is that you start to confuse what the algorithm rewards with what people actually need. You begin making tiny adjustments: a stronger hook, a more controversial angle, less complexity, more certainty, more outrage, less truth. Eventually, you may not even notice that your voice has changed. That is the gravity Eric is talking about. It is not a force that announces itself. It is a force that quietly pulls until one day you realize you have been shaped by something you never consciously chose. Trust Is a Bank Account One of my favorite ideas from Eric's book is what he calls the culture bank. The idea is simple: trust is an asset. Every time you make a sacrifice for the sake of a principle, you make a deposit. Every time you betray a principle for short-term gain, you make a withdrawal. Eric's rule is almost painfully simple: Only make deposits. Never make withdrawals. Of course, we are human. We make mistakes. Sometimes we think we are doing the right thing and we get it wrong. Sometimes something breaks, a customer gets disappointed, or a decision does not land the way we intended. That is not the point. The point is not perfection. The point is to avoid intentional withdrawals. Don't knowingly trade trust for a quick hit. Don't knowingly betray the values that made people believe in you. Don't knowingly cash out your reputation for something that will not matter a year from now. Because trust takes a long time to build and almost no time to destroy. When you are a creator, founder, or entrepreneur, trust is not a soft idea. It is the business, the brand, the relationship, and the reason people come back. Harder Is Easier Another principle Eric shares is this: harder is easier. At first, that sounds backwards, but the more you sit with it, t

    53 min
  3. Play It As It Lies

    May 20

    Play It As It Lies

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about golf. And before you check out because you're not a golfer, hang with me for a minute — because this episode isn't really about golf. It's about life. It's about what happens when things don't go according to plan. When the ball lands somewhere ugly. When you're stuck behind a tree, buried in the sand, sitting in a divot, or staring down a shot you didn't want and didn't ask for. In golf, there's a phrase: play it as it lies. You don't get to move the ball just because the situation is inconvenient. You don't get to pretend the shot is easier than it is. You don't get to rewrite reality so it matches the version you had in your head. You look at what's in front of you. You accept the lie. And then you play the next shot. That idea has become one of the most useful metaphors in my life. Because life, like golf, rarely unfolds exactly the way we imagined. Even our best-laid plans run into rough patches. The course changes. The weather shifts. The terrain surprises us. Sometimes the thing we thought would be straightforward turns into the hardest shot of the day. And the question becomes: Can you stop fighting reality long enough to respond to it? That's what this episode is about. Not golf tips. Not swing mechanics. Not how to lower your handicap. It's about resilience. Presence. Ego. Preparation. Adaptability. Learning from mistakes. And remembering that the little things — the short putts, the quiet choices, the small daily actions — often matter just as much as the big dramatic swings. Here's the thing golf teaches you fast: You can do almost everything "right" and still end up in a bad spot. You can prepare. Practice. Visualize. Get coaching. Set goals. Build routines. Show up with the best intentions. And still, eventually, you're going to hit one sideways. That's not failure. That's the game. And more importantly, that's life. The people who keep growing aren't the ones who never hit bad shots. They're the ones who learn how to recover. They're the ones who don't let one ugly moment become the story of the whole round. They're the ones who can take a breath, look at what's real, and ask: What's the best next move from here? The Core Idea You don't get to choose every lie. But you do get to choose how you play it. That's the heart of this episode. In golf, the course is full of imperfections. A root here. A bunker there. A weird patch of grass. A branch that grew out at exactly the wrong angle. A divot you didn't create but now have to deal with. You don't get to pretend those things aren't there. You have to confront the reality of the shot. Life works the same way. Sometimes you get the clean fairway lie. Sometimes you're in the rough. Sometimes you're blocked. Sometimes the conditions change overnight. Sometimes you did everything you could and still landed somewhere difficult. The mistake most of us make is wasting energy wishing the lie were different. But the power move is acceptance. Not passive acceptance. Not resignation. Not pretending you like the situation. Acceptance as in: This is what's true. Now what? That mindset builds resilience because it pulls you out of fantasy and back into agency. It reminds you that while you may not control the terrain, you still control your next swing. What You'll Hear in This Episode This episode is built around a set of lessons golf has taught me — lessons that reach far beyond the course. Why "play it as it lies" is one of the best life philosophies for dealing with reality, setbacks, and uncertainty How to stay present after a bad shot instead of letting one mistake define everything that follows Why your best shot might come right after your worst one — and what Tiger Woods can teach us about staying neutral The hidden value of playing with someone new and staying open to unfamiliar people, personalities, and situations How ego quietly ruins the game — in golf, creativity, business, relationships, and life Why mistakes are feedback when you're willing to study them without shame What it means to play against the course instead of obsessing over comparison Why preparation matters even when you can't control the outcome How the little things add up — the one-inch putts, the daily habits, the small choices that shape the final score Play It Like It Is The first lesson is simple: play it like it is. In golf, the traditional phrase is "play it as it lies." Wherever the ball lands, that's where you play from. You don't get to deny the circumstances. You don't get to pretend you have a perfect lie when you don't. You don't get to spend the whole round frustrated because the course has imperfections. You adapt. That's such a powerful life lesson because so much of our suffering comes from arguing with what's already true. We think, This shouldn't be happening. Maybe it shouldn't. But it is. And the faster we can stop resisting reality, the faster we can begin responding to it. This doesn't mean you don't have emotions. It doesn't mean you don't get frustrated. It doesn't mean you don't acknowledge that something is hard or unfair or disappointing. It means you don't stay stuck there. You look at the lie. You study the conditions. You adjust. You play the next shot. That's resilience. That's adaptability. That's life. Your Best Shot Can Follow Your Worst One One of the most iconic moments in golf came from Tiger Woods at the Masters. The shot itself was extraordinary — the ball rolling slowly, almost impossibly, toward the hole, pausing for a split second, then taking one final turn and dropping in. But what makes that moment even more powerful is what came before it. That incredible shot followed one of his most disappointing shots of the tournament. That's the lesson. Your best shot can come right after your worst one. But only if you stay present enough to take it. Most of us do the opposite. We make one mistake and immediately leave the moment. We replay what went wrong. We narrate the failure. We spiral. We decide the round is ruined, the project is doomed, the day is shot, the dream is over. But the next shot doesn't care about the last one. It only asks whether you're here. That's the discipline: staying neutral. Staying composed. Staying available to the possibility that something beautiful can happen next. Not because you're pretending the bad shot didn't happen. Because you're refusing to let it own the rest of the round. Play With Somebody New Golf has this funny thing built into it: sometimes you show up and get paired with people you don't know. That can feel awkward. It can feel inconvenient. It can feel like a curveball. But if you stay open, it can also be a gift. You might play with someone who's been at it for nine months or nineteen years. You might learn something from a beginner. You might learn something from a veteran. You might meet someone you never would have crossed paths with otherwise. You also might get paired with someone who doesn't exactly light you up. And that's part of the lesson too. The point isn't that every stranger becomes a lifelong friend. The point is that there's value in staying open. There's value in learning how to share the course. There's value in practicing patience, kindness, curiosity, and connection over a few hours. Life works this way all the time. We get paired with coworkers, collaborators, clients, neighbors, strangers, and people whose rhythms are different from ours. Sometimes it's magic. Sometimes it's friction. But either way, there's something to learn if we're not closed off before the first shot. Disconnect From the Ego Golf will expose your ego fast. It's hard to hit a tiny white ball with a club toward a hole hundreds of yards away. It's hard to do it consistently. It's hard to make the body, mind, mechanics, course, weather, and emotions all cooperate at the same time. And because it's hard, the ego wants to jump in. It wants to explain every bad shot. It wants to justify every mistake. It wants to narrate every swing so nobody thinks less of you. I used to do this all the time. Good shot, bad shot — I had a comment. An explanation. A little story about what happened or why it happened. Eventually, I realized: it doesn't matter. That was all ego. The shot is the shot. The score is the score. The work is the work. When you can detach from constantly judging yourself — good or bad — you free up so much energy. You can laugh. Learn. Keep going. Try again. You can be in the experience instead of performing an identity around the experience. That's true in golf. It's true in creativity. It's true in leadership. It's true in life. The ego wants protection. The game requires presence. Learn From the Mistakes Golf is endlessly humbling because no two rounds are exactly alike. The course changes. The grass changes. The greens change. The wind changes. The pin placement changes. The conditions you played yesterday may not be the conditions you face today. That means mistakes are inevitable. But mistakes are also information. When a shot doesn't go as planned, you have a chance to study what happened. Was it your setup? Your focus? The wind? The club selection? The lie? The speed of the green? Your emotional state? The point isn't to shame yourself. The point is to learn. This is one of the biggest differences between people who keep improving and people who stay stuck. Stuck people turn mistakes into identity. Growing people turn mistakes into feedback. Nobody plays a flawless round. Nobody lives a flawless life. The goal isn't to avoid every mistake. The goal is to build the capacity for error recovery. To adapt. Improve. Persist. Keep moving. That's where growth happens. You're Playing Against the Course Yes, golf can be competitive. You can play against other people. You can compare scores. You can enter tournaments. You can measure yoursel

    22 min
  4. You Don't Need More Hustle. You Need More Capacity.

    May 13

    You Don't Need More Hustle. You Need More Capacity.

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about hustle. Not the old-school definition of hustle — as in working hard, caring deeply, staying committed, and doing the reps. That kind of effort still matters. It always will. I'm talking about what hustle has become. The kind of hustle that glorifies exhaustion. The kind that mistakes motion for progress. The kind that tells you if you're not burning the candle at both ends, you're not serious enough about your dreams. And I want to say this clearly: You don't need more hustle. You need more capacity. Because without focus, vision, rest, and self-awareness, working harder doesn't necessarily move you closer to the life you want. It can just leave you burnt out, disconnected, and unable to do the work that actually matters. For years, I bought into the myth. I slept five or six hours a night. I worked ridiculous days — sometimes up to 20 hours. I thought that was what commitment looked like. I thought grinding myself down was the price of building something meaningful. And then I hit a point where my body and mind gave me a wake-up call. On a vacation in Hawaii, with nothing on my schedule for the first time in what felt like forever, I slept 14 hours a night for nearly a week. Not because I was lazy. Not because I lacked ambition. Because I was empty. And once I finally rested, everything changed. I was nicer. More creative. More self-aware. More connected to what I actually wanted and needed. I felt more alive. That experience changed the way I think about work, creativity, ambition, success, and fulfillment. This episode is about that shift. It's about why rest is not the enemy of ambition. It's about why capacity beats constant motion. It's about why the most fulfilled people I know aren't the ones who grind themselves into dust — they're the ones who learn how to stay in the game. Here's the thing most high performers eventually learn: You can't build a meaningful life on depletion. You might be able to push through for a season. You might be able to sprint through a launch, a deadline, a hard chapter, a creative breakthrough. There are absolutely moments when the work requires intensity. But intensity is not the same as sustainability. And if your only strategy is to keep pushing harder, eventually the cost shows up. In your body. In your relationships. In your creativity. In your sense of meaning. In your ability to actually enjoy the thing you've worked so hard to build. That's why the question isn't, "How do I hustle more?" The better question is: How do I build the capacity to do great work for a long time? Capacity includes energy. It includes sleep. It includes focus. It includes emotional bandwidth. It includes self-awareness. It includes the ability to know when to push, when to pause, when to recover, and when to come back stronger. This is not about doing less with your life. It's about doing the right things with more presence, more power, and more longevity. The Core Idea Rest is not a reward for finishing the work. Rest is part of how the work gets done. That idea can feel uncomfortable if you were raised on a steady diet of "work harder," "sleep when you're dead," and "no days off." But here's what I've seen again and again — in my own life, in the lives of people I've worked with, hired, interviewed, coached, and admired: The most fulfilled people are not striving toward some impossible standard for the sake of the standard. They work hard. But they also recover hard. They have intention around their effort. They know what matters. They know when their body needs sleep, when their mind needs space, and when their spirit needs something other than another task on the list. They understand that life is long. And if life is long, then the goal is not to flame out in one heroic burst of productivity. The goal is to stay in the game. You have to learn to rest rather than quit. That's the real shift. Because quitting often comes after we ignore the signals for too long. We push through fatigue. We override our own needs. We treat burnout like proof that we care. Then one day, we're not just tired — we're resentful, creatively numb, and disconnected from the very thing we once loved. Rest interrupts that cycle. Sleep interrupts that cycle. Self-awareness interrupts that cycle. And when you build those things into your life before everything breaks, you create a different kind of ambition. One that is not weaker. One that is not softer. One that is actually more powerful because it can last. What You'll Hear in This Episode This is a short micro show, but it cuts right into a pattern so many creative people, entrepreneurs, and high achievers struggle with. Here are the ideas worth listening for: Why hustle has become confused with progress — and why movement without focus can leave you burned out instead of fulfilled The wake-up call that changed my relationship with sleep after years of working extreme hours and running on too little rest Why recovery can catapult your creativity instead of slowing you down The difference between dumb hustle and smart hustle — and why working hard still matters when it's done with awareness Why "life is long" changes everything about how we pursue success, creativity, and fulfillment How to replace balance with harmony by learning to move with the seasons of your life Why short-term urgency and long-term patience might be the new pattern for sustainable success Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) If you're not listening straight through, here are a few landmarks to help you find the part that speaks to where you are right now: 01:50 – Why the old idea of hustle needs an update 02:35 – The wake-up call: working 20-hour days and finally crashing into real rest 03:31 – What changed after sleeping 14 hours a night for nearly a week 04:46 – How sleep became a catapult for creativity, awareness, and aliveness 05:12 – The secret hack to a long, productive, creative life 06:28 – Learning to rest rather than quit 08:16 – Why life is long, and why chasing one flash of success is the wrong game 08:45 – Working smarter, not just harder 09:35 – The difference between dumb hustle and smart hustle 10:26 – "Sometimes you're not blocked. You're just empty." 11:31 – Why harmony beats balance 12:37 – Short-term urgency, long-term patience Read This If You're Burned Out If you're tired right now, I want you to consider something: Maybe you don't need more discipline. Maybe you need more restoration. That doesn't mean discipline is irrelevant. It doesn't mean hard work doesn't matter. It doesn't mean you should abandon your standards or stop caring about the quality of what you create. It means your system might be running at a deficit. And when you're running at a deficit, everything gets distorted. Your work feels heavier than it is. Your relationships feel more difficult. Your creativity feels harder to access. Your patience shrinks. Your sense of possibility gets smaller. You start making decisions from survival mode instead of vision. That's not a character flaw. That's biology. That's capacity. And capacity can be rebuilt. Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is sleep. Take a walk. Eat real food. Put the phone down. Get outside. Stop trying to squeeze one more thing out of a system that is asking to recover. Again, this is not an argument against ambition. This is an argument for ambition that doesn't destroy the person carrying it. The Trap of Success at All Costs There's an old model of success that says you have one shot. One opportunity. One window. One big break. One viral moment. One chance to prove yourself. And when you believe that, panic becomes the operating system. You chase. You grip. You overwork. You try to force every project to become the thing that saves you. You look at every opportunity through the lens of scarcity. But that world is fading. The one-hit wonder model is not the goal. The flash-in-the-pan version of success is not the goal. Achieving something at all costs and then clinging to it with your fingernails is not the goal. The new pattern is different. It's about building many things that matter over time. It's about pursuing curiosity. It's about understanding the seasons of your life. It's about knowing when to go hard and when to recover. It's about becoming wiser about your own needs and wants. The goal is not to burn bright once. The goal is to keep becoming. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take five minutes and sit with these: Where am I mistaking motion for progress? What am I calling "hustle" that might actually be avoidance, fear, or lack of focus? Am I giving my body, mind, and spirit what they need to stay in the game? Where am I depleted and pretending I'm just undisciplined? What would smart hustle look like in this season of my life? What is one thing I could stop doing that would immediately create more capacity? What is one recovery habit I could treat as seriously as my work? Am I chasing short-term validation at the expense of long-term fulfillment? A Simple Practice for Building Capacity Here's something you can do immediately — especially if you've been grinding, overworking, or feeling like you're always behind. For the next seven days, don't start by asking, "How can I do more?" Start by asking: "What would give me more capacity today?" Then choose one small action. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. Not perfectly. Just earlier than usual. Take a walk without your phone. Let your mind breathe. Do one focused block of work instead of bouncing between ten tasks. Eat something that actually supports your energy. Cancel or postpone one nonessential commitment that is draining you. Spend ten minutes reflecting on what you need instead of what everyone else expects. The point isn't to overhaul your entire life overn

    15 min
  5. How to Find Your Creative Voice

    May 6

    How to Find Your Creative Voice

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about one of the most important questions every creator eventually asks: How do I find my creative voice? Or maybe you've heard it framed another way: How do I develop a personal style? How do I make work that actually feels like mine? How do I stop copying what everyone else is doing and start creating from a place that is uniquely my own? This question comes up all the time because it sits at the center of the creative life. Whether you're a photographer, designer, writer, filmmaker, musician, entrepreneur, or someone who simply feels called to make things, there comes a point where technical ability is not enough. You can know how to use the tools. You can understand the software. You can study the masters. You can follow the trends. You can learn the settings, the systems, the formulas, the workflows. But eventually, you hit a deeper question: What makes this mine? That is what this episode is about. And I want to be clear from the start: finding your creative voice is not about inventing some perfect brand identity overnight. It's not about locking yourself into one narrow lane forever. It's not about deciding, intellectually, "This is my style now," and then forcing every piece of work to fit inside that box. Your creative voice is much more organic than that. It is your fingerprint. Your point of view. Your taste. Your history. Your instincts. Your lived experience. Your way of seeing the world, translated through the things you make. And the only way to find it is to make. Not once. Not occasionally. Not only when you feel inspired. Again and again and again. The Big Question: What Is Personal Style? Personal style can sound like one of those vague creative phrases that floats around in the universe without ever becoming useful. People say things like, "You need to find your style," or "You need to develop your voice," but what does that actually mean? At its simplest, personal style is the thing that makes your work recognizable. It's the equivalent of your handwriting. You don't have to think about your handwriting every time you write your name. It's not something you consciously construct letter by letter. It just comes out of you because it has been shaped by repetition, history, muscle memory, and identity. Your creative style works the same way. It is the unique aesthetic fingerprint that you unconsciously put on everything you make. Think about music. You can hear a Prince song for just a few measures and know it's Prince before his voice even enters. There's a signature there. A rhythm. A tone. A sensibility. A way the work announces itself. Think about photography. You can look at an Ansel Adams landscape and recognize the scale, the drama, the tonality, the reverence for nature. It has a point of view. That's personal style. It's not just what you make. It's how you see. It's what you notice. It's what you repeat without realizing you're repeating it. It's the pattern behind the work. And that matters because without some kind of recognizable point of view, you're just bouncing around. You might be technically capable. You might be able to make a good photograph, a good song, a good design, a good film, a good essay. But if there's nothing distinctive about the way you make it, people have a harder time connecting that work back to you. Personal style is what helps the work become yours. Why Your Creative Voice Matters There are two big reasons personal style matters. The first is personal. If you spend your life chasing everyone else's style, you're going to end up miserable. Now, let's be honest: early in the creative journey, imitation is part of the process. That's normal. That's healthy. That's how we learn. You see someone whose work you admire and you try to understand how they did it. You copy a lighting setup. You study a sentence structure. You recreate a beat. You reverse-engineer a design. You try to make something that looks or sounds or feels like the thing that inspired you. There's nothing wrong with that. In the beginning, imitation helps you learn how to move the tools around. It helps you close the gap between what you see in your mind and what you're actually capable of making. But imitation is not the destination. If all you ever do is copy what's trendy, or borrow someone else's point of view, or chase whatever style is getting attention right now, you are not expressing yourself. You are expressing the culture around you. And that is a direct path to burnout. Because the reason we make things, at the deepest level, is expression. We make because something inside wants to come out. We make because it feels good to turn an internal experience into something real in the world. We make because creativity is one of the ways we become more fully ourselves. If your work is always a response to someone else's style, you lose that connection. You become a mirror instead of a source. The second reason personal style matters is practical. If you want to do creative work professionally, you do not want to be paid merely for your time. There is nothing wrong with getting paid for your time. That can be part of the path. But the ultimate goal is not to be treated like a pair of hands. The ultimate goal is to be paid for your vision. You don't want someone to hire you because you own a camera. You want them to hire you because only you see the assignment that way. You don't want someone to hire you because you can operate software. You want them to hire you because your taste, your judgment, and your perspective create value. You don't want to be interchangeable. The most recognized creatives in the world are not valuable because they can execute a task. They are valuable because they bring a specific point of view to the table. That's what separates craft from commodity. When people can recognize your fingerprints on the work, when they can say, "That feels like you," you begin to move into a different category. You're no longer just competing on speed, price, or availability. You're competing on vision. And that is where the upside is. The Creative Gap One of the most important parts of this conversation is what Ira Glass famously called the creative gap. The creative gap is the distance between what you can see in your mind and what you're actually capable of making right now. Every creator knows this feeling. You have a vision. You can feel what you want the work to be. You can almost see it, hear it, taste it. But when you sit down to make the thing, the result falls short. The photograph doesn't look the way it looked in your head. The song doesn't hit the way you imagined. The essay feels clumsy. The design feels flat. The film doesn't carry the emotion you hoped it would. That gap is frustrating. But it is also the path. Craft is how you close the gap. You make, you study, you adjust, you learn, you make again. Over time, your ability catches up to your taste. You get better at translating the thing in your mind into the thing in the world. But here's the trap: If you spend that entire process only copying other people, you might improve technically without ever developing a voice of your own. You might become skilled at imitation. But mastery is not just being able to reproduce what already exists. Mastery is being able to make what only you can make. Personal Style Is Your Point of View Your creative voice is not just an aesthetic. It's not just black and white photography, clean typography, heavy brushstrokes, fast sketches, cinematic lighting, sparse production, or bold color. Those things can be part of a style, but they are not the whole thing. Your style is the point of view underneath those choices. It is the reason you reach for certain tools. The reason you frame things a certain way. The reason you simplify here and exaggerate there. The reason you are drawn to certain subjects, moods, colors, rhythms, textures, or stories. The episode uses a great example from the world of design: imagine trying to design a tennis shoe inspired by a glass bottle of gin. Suddenly, the bottle becomes a filter. You might notice the transparency, the edges, the shape, the weight, the way light moves through it. Those qualities start informing the shoe. That is a useful way to think about style. Your personal style is the filter your work passes through. It's not limited to one medium. If you are a photographer, designer, musician, writer, or multidisciplinary creator, your style should still carry across what you make. The medium may change, but the point of view travels. That's when people can look at a piece and say: That feels like you. Not because you repeated yourself mechanically, but because your way of seeing is present. How Do You Find Your Creative Voice? Here's the part people don't always want to hear: It takes time. There is no shortcut that replaces making the work. You can think about your style. You can journal about it. You can moodboard it. You can study other artists. You can talk about your influences. You can define your values. All of that can be useful. But none of it replaces the act of making. The best way to find your personal style is to make as much as you can, at a regular cadence, ideally as quickly and consistently as possible. Because your style is not something you force into existence. It is something you discover through repetition. You make one thing. Then ten things. Then a hundred things. At first, it may feel random. You may feel like you're all over the place. You may try on other people's approaches. You may borrow. You may experiment. You may make things that don't feel like you at all. That's okay. The making is the sorting mechanism. Over time, patterns start to appear. You notice what you keep returning to. You notice what feels alive. You notice what feels false. You notice the ch

    20 min
  6. Stop Asking Permission to Create Your Life

    Apr 29

    Stop Asking Permission to Create Your Life

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about reality. Not the abstract, philosophical version. Not the version you argue about over coffee or read about in some dusty book. I mean the reality you wake up inside every day. The job. The schedule. The obligations. The story you tell yourself about what is "practical." The version of your life that everyone around you seems to agree is reasonable. And then there's the other thing. The thing you can see in your mind that does not exist yet. The book. The business. The body of work. The new way of living. The creative practice. The conversation. The project. The identity. The version of your life that keeps tapping you on the shoulder, quietly asking, "Are we ever going to build this?" This episode is about that tension. It started with a Nietzsche quote I love: No artist tolerates reality. But the point is not Nietzsche. The point is you. Because too many of us spend years — sometimes decades — living inside somebody else's plan for our one precious life. We inherit the well-worn path. We internalize the "shoulds." We mistake convention for truth. We tell ourselves that creativity is indulgent, impractical, selfish, lofty, or naive. And the more we repeat that story, the more it starts to feel like reality. But here's the thing I want you to hear clearly: Reality is not fixed. Reality is shaped. And one of the most powerful ways you shape it is by creating. This is the heart of the episode: You are not here to simply accept the world as it has been handed to you. You are not here to blindly follow the plan someone else wrote. You are not here to wait until the world gives you permission to make something, become something, or live in a way that feels more true. You are here to create. And I don't mean that in a soft, decorative way. I mean it in the most practical way possible. Creativity is not just painting, writing, photography, music, or design. Creativity is the foundation underneath every act of making anything in the world. A conversation is co-created. A relationship is co-created. A business is co-created. A life is co-created. You cannot build anything meaningful without creativity. Which means creativity is not extra. Creativity is your birthright. The Core Idea Stop asking permission to create your life. That's the message. Not because you should abandon responsibility. Not because every idea you have will work. Not because the path is easy, obvious, or guaranteed. But because waiting for permission is one of the most common ways we avoid our own agency. We wait for someone to tell us it's okay. We wait until the timing is better. We wait until we have more money, more confidence, more clarity, more proof. We wait until the world gives us a clean, logical reason to begin. But most meaningful creative acts do not start with certainty. They start with a pull. A nudge. A frustration. A vision. A refusal to accept that the current version of reality is the only version available. That is what artists do. That is what entrepreneurs do. That is what builders do. That is what every person who has ever changed anything does. They look at reality and say, "This is not the whole story." Why Creativity Is Practical as Hell One of the biggest lies our culture tells is that creativity is impractical. You've probably heard some version of it. Be realistic. Have a backup plan. Don't waste your time. That's not how the world works. Do something more responsible. And to be clear, I'm not arguing against responsibility. I'm arguing against the idea that suppressing your creative agency is responsible. Because the truth is, every useful thing around you was once imagined by someone. The chair you're sitting in. The phone in your hand. The building you're inside. The app you use. The song that changed your mood. The book that changed your mind. The business that changed your life. All of it was invented, dreamed up, shaped, built, and brought into the world by people who were no more inherently magical than you. They saw something that did not yet exist, and they acted. That is creativity. And the more you practice creating in small ways, the more you build the muscle to create in bigger ways. It's only by creating something that you learn you can create anything. And eventually, you start to understand that you can create not just objects, projects, or art — but change. Change in your work. Change in your habits. Change in your relationships. Change in your identity. Change in the way you experience your own life. What You'll Hear in This Episode This is a short micro show, but it goes straight at the heart of creative agency. Here are the ideas worth listening for — and coming back to when you need a reminder that you are allowed to build the thing you see in your mind. Why so many of us live inside someone else's plan without realizing it How culture trains us to see creativity as impractical when it is actually foundational Why creativity is your birthright and not a luxury reserved for a special few How creating in small daily ways builds the capacity for bigger change Why the current version of reality is not the final version What it means to stop tolerating reality and start shaping it How to identify the thing inside you that is asking to be built Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) If you're not listening straight through, here are a few landmarks to help you find the part that speaks to where you are right now: 01:50 – The Nietzsche quote that sparked this episode: "No artist tolerates reality" 02:24 – Why the trap of someone else's plan is an illusion 03:16 – Creativity as your birthright 04:16 – Why creativity is practical, generous, and life-changing 05:35 – Reality is shaped by us 06:32 – Bringing new ideas into the world, from books to platforms 07:26 – What happens when people tell you your idea is stupid 08:16 – Steve Jobs, reality distortion, and refusing the status quo 09:05 – Why it is your job to stop tolerating the reality you live in 09:50 – A direct call to action: what can you build right now? Read This If You Feel Trapped If you feel like you're living a life that doesn't quite fit, I want you to be careful with the story you tell yourself. Because the first story is usually, "I can't." I can't change careers. I can't make the thing. I can't start over. I can't say what I really want. I can't build something new. I can't disappoint people. I can't afford to be creative. I can't risk being wrong. But underneath "I can't" there is often something else: I'm scared. I don't know where to begin. I'm waiting for permission. I don't want to be judged. I don't want to fail publicly. I don't want to discover that the dream matters more to me than I admitted. That's human. But it is not the end of the story. Because the question is not whether you can transform your entire life overnight. The question is whether you can take one creative action that proves to you that the current reality is not absolute. Can you write the first page? Can you make the first call? Can you sketch the idea? Can you block the hour? Can you start the conversation? Can you make the prototype? Can you tell the truth? Can you take one step toward the life you keep imagining? That is where agency begins. The World Wants You to Be Reasonable The world has a narrative it wants you to fit comfortably inside. It wants you to do what is practical, measurable, explainable, and familiar. It wants you to make choices that are easy to defend at dinner parties. It wants you to stay on the well-trodden path. And again, there is nothing wrong with practicality. There is nothing wrong with stability. There is nothing wrong with being thoughtful, strategic, and grounded. But there is a problem when "being realistic" becomes a disguise for abandoning yourself. There is a problem when you use other people's expectations as evidence against your own intuition. There is a problem when you confuse safety with aliveness. Your creative life does not need to make sense to everyone at the beginning. Most new realities don't. The thing you see might not exist yet. That does not make it impossible. It makes it yours to explore. What Are You Here to Make? One of the questions I ask in this episode is simple: What are you doing to shift reality? Not someday. Not when the market is perfect. Not when everyone understands. Not when you finally feel completely ready. Now. And I don't necessarily mean some giant, world-changing, billion-dollar idea. Yes, some changes are massive. Some ideas become companies, movements, inventions, platforms, or bodies of work that reach millions of people. But not all meaningful change looks like that. Sometimes changing reality means changing the way you spend your mornings. Sometimes it means making art again after years away. Sometimes it means building a healthier body. Sometimes it means leaving a role that no longer fits. Sometimes it means saying yes to the project that scares you. Sometimes it means refusing to let the most honest part of you stay buried. Even if the only reality you change at first is your own, that matters. Because your life is not separate from the world. When you become more alive, more honest, more creative, and more engaged, that ripples outward. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take five minutes and sit with these: Where in my life am I waiting for permission? What part of my current reality have I mistaken for something permanent? What is the thing I keep imagining but keep postponing? Who told me this path was impractical — and do I actually believe them? What small creative act would remind me that I have agency? What would I build if I stopped needing everyone to understand first? What is one part of my life that I am no longer willing

    12 min
  7. Don't Wait for Inspiration

    Apr 22

    Don't Wait for Inspiration

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about something that gets romanticized way too much in the creative world: inspiration. We've been taught to wait for it. To trust it. To believe that the best work comes when lightning strikes, when the muse shows up, when the feeling is right. And while inspiration is real — and beautiful when it arrives — it's also wildly unreliable. That's the trap. If you build your creative life around inspiration, you build it around something you cannot control. And anything you can't control is a dangerous foundation for a meaningful body of work. This episode is about a better way. A steadier way. A more durable way. It's about why creativity doesn't really grow from waiting for a feeling — it grows from compounding action. Small acts. Repeated over time. Daily deposits into the account of your craft. Tiny efforts that don't seem like much in the moment, but eventually become impossible to ignore. Because the truth is simple: you do not need to feel inspired to make something meaningful. You need to begin. And then begin again tomorrow. The Real Problem With Waiting for Inspiration At the start of the episode, I ask a question that's worth sitting with for a minute: When was the last time you made something just for the sake of making it? Not for a client. Not for social media. Not because someone was expecting it. Not because it was due. Just because you felt a pull to create. For a lot of people, that question lands hard. Not because the desire to create is gone — but because somewhere along the way, the conditions got heavy. The pressure increased. The stakes changed. Creation stopped being play and started becoming performance. And once that happens, inspiration starts to feel like a requirement. Like you need the right mood, the right window of time, the right environment, the right burst of confidence before you can begin. But that's backwards. Inspiration is not the engine. It's the byproduct. The people who make meaningful work consistently are rarely sitting around waiting to feel magical. They're working. They're practicing. They're trying things. They're showing up on ordinary days. They're making imperfect things and learning from the process. They understand that action creates momentum — and momentum often creates the feeling we mistakenly thought had to come first. The Core Idea: Creativity Compounds Most people understand compounding in the context of money. You invest a little. That investment earns returns. Then those returns start earning returns of their own. If you stick with it long enough, the early effort starts to multiply in ways that seem almost disproportionate to the original input. That same principle applies to creativity. Every day you make something, you are making a deposit into your creative future. You're not just producing one photo, one page, one sketch, one draft, one conversation, one attempt. You're building skill. You're building confidence. You're building pattern recognition. You're building stamina. You're building trust with yourself. That one photograph teaches you how to see a little better tomorrow. That paragraph in your journal makes the next paragraph easier to write. That rough idea you abandon still shapes the way your brain approaches the next one. None of it is wasted. That's important, because a lot of creative people dismiss the small efforts. They only count the big breakthroughs. They only respect the obvious wins. They think the work "counts" once it becomes polished, public, profitable, or impressive. But real creative growth doesn't work that way. The invisible reps are where the change is happening. Why the Early Returns Feel So Small One reason people stop too soon is because the beginning is incredibly deceptive. You show up. You try. You make the thing. And at first? Not much seems to happen. You don't feel transformed. You don't suddenly become excellent. You don't necessarily get recognition. You may not even like what you made. That's normal. It's a lot like going to the gym. The first handful of workouts don't make you feel powerful. Usually they make you feel sore. Awkward. Behind. You don't see visible results yet, so your brain starts questioning whether the effort is worth it. That's exactly where most people quit. Not because the process isn't working — but because the results are still compounding beneath the surface. The habit is the investment. The work is the interest. And in the background, whether you notice it or not, something is building. What Compounding Looks Like in Real Life If you commit to a creative practice, the shifts usually happen in phases. Day one: you make something and it feels mediocre. Maybe embarrassing, even. You put it out there anyway. Or maybe you keep it private. Either way, you made something. That matters. Day 30: you've stayed with it long enough to feel a difference. You might not be able to articulate exactly how you're better, but something is changing. You're a little less hesitant. A little more practiced. A little more willing to hit publish, or share, or trust your instincts. Day 90: now the changes are harder to deny. You're solving problems faster. You're making decisions with more confidence. The work has a different quality to it — one that may be difficult to name but easy to feel. Day 365: this is where it gets almost shocking. You look back at who you were when you started, and it's hard to believe that version of you made the early work. Your skills have evolved. Your identity has evolved. The way you think has evolved. Not because inspiration struck once in a dramatic breakthrough — but because repeated practice changed you. That's the magic most people miss. The transformation doesn't come from a single moment. It comes from stacking enough ordinary moments that they eventually become extraordinary. Inspiration Follows Habit This may be the most important idea in the entire episode: Inspiration follows the habit. It does not precede it. Read that again. We tend to imagine that creative people feel inspired first, and then they make. But most of the time, the opposite is true. They make first. They enter the work first. They return to the practice first. And somewhere along the way, inspiration catches up to them. The muse is far more likely to visit the person already working than the person waiting for certainty on the couch. This matters because it gives you your power back. If you believe inspiration has to arrive before you begin, you are helpless every time it doesn't show up. If you understand that inspiration often arrives after action begins, then you're no longer blocked by your feelings. You can move anyway. That doesn't make the process robotic. It makes it resilient. Why Daily Practice Changes More Than Skill When people hear "practice," they often think only about technical improvement. Better camera work. Better writing. Better editing. Better design. Better speaking. Better execution. And yes — practice absolutely improves craft. But that's only part of the story. Practice also changes your mindset. It changes your tolerance for uncertainty. It changes your willingness to be seen before you feel ready. It changes your ability to recover from a rough day or a bad draft or a failed attempt. It changes your relationship to discomfort. Over time, you become tougher. Not harsher. Not more closed. Just sturdier. You stop interpreting every hard day as a sign you've lost your way. You start recognizing resistance as part of the process rather than proof that you should stop. That's a deep kind of growth. And it's only available through repetition. What Most People Get Wrong About Creative Success A lot of people think the biggest differentiator is talent. Sometimes they think it's access. Or timing. Or luck. Or confidence. And while all of those things may play a role, one of the most underrated advantages in any creative life is much simpler: The willingness to keep going. Most people quit. They stop when the returns are still invisible. They stop when it gets repetitive. They stop when they feel embarrassed. They stop when the novelty wears off. They stop when they don't get immediate validation. They stop when they confuse discomfort with misalignment. But if you stay in the game — if you continue stacking daily habits, continuing to invest, continuing to return to the work — you start benefiting from a force that only rewards consistency. You begin to outlast the people who were relying only on excitement. You begin to build a body of work that couldn't have been created any other way. You begin to trust yourself not because everything feels easy, but because you've proven that you can continue when it doesn't. What You'll Hear in This Episode This is a short micro show, but it carries a big message. Here's what to listen for: Why making something for play matters — and how easy it is to drift away from that instinct when everything becomes about output, audience, or obligation How the concept of compounding interest applies directly to creativity — and why small repeated actions build more than we realize Why the early phase of practice feels unrewarding — even when it's working exactly as it should What happens at day 1, day 30, day 90, and day 365 when you commit to daily creative action Why inspiration is a result of the habit, not the prerequisite for it How persistence quietly becomes one of the greatest creative advantages you can have Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) 01:47 – The opening question: when was the last time you made something just for play? 02:32 – Why we shouldn't lean on inspiration — and what to lean on instead 03:01 – The compounding interest metaphor and why it matters for creativity 03:57 – The realization that creativity compounds just like money does 05:07 – Why the early return

    13 min
  8. The Hidden Cost of Overplanning

    Apr 15

    The Hidden Cost of Overplanning

    Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about something that looks responsible on the surface — but quietly steals momentum from your life underneath it. I'm talking about overplanning. Not thoughtful preparation. Not healthy strategy. I mean the kind of planning that masquerades as progress. The kind that lets you feel productive without actually moving. The kind that sounds smart, looks disciplined, and gets praised by the world… but keeps you from starting the thing that matters most. That's what this episode is about. Because there's a hidden cost to overplanning, and most people don't notice they're paying it until years have gone by. It shows up in the projects you never started. The ideas you softened so they'd be easier to explain. The creative risks you talked yourself out of because the timing wasn't quite right, the plan wasn't complete, or the path wasn't clear enough yet. And here's the truth I want to put on the table right away: clarity is not a prerequisite for action. It is a reward for action. That's the heartbeat of this episode. If you've been waiting until you know more, until you feel more confident, until the uncertainty settles down… this one is for you. What This Episode Is Really About This micro show starts with an idea I've been thinking about a lot lately: there's a kind of tax we pay in life, and it doesn't come out of our paycheck. It comes out of our potential. It's the tax of sensible decisions. The choices that seem wise from the outside. The decisions other people approve of. The instincts that keep you safe, polished, prepared, and socially acceptable — but also slightly removed from your own real life. That tax compounds quietly. And one of the biggest ways it shows up is through overplanning. Because overplanning gives us the emotional comfort of movement without the actual vulnerability of motion. It lets us say, "I'm working on it," while avoiding the part that actually asks something of us. It keeps us in research mode, optimization mode, comparison mode, information-gathering mode — anything except the one mode that changes our life: doing. The hidden cost of overplanning is not just wasted time. It's delayed becoming. It's the version of you that only appears once you start — and never gets a chance to exist if you stay in your head too long. The Core Idea Research can become a very convincing form of avoidance. That doesn't mean research is bad. Planning matters. Preparation matters. Reflection matters. But there's a line — and once you cross it, planning stops serving the work and starts replacing it. That's the dangerous part. Because when planning becomes a substitute for action, it starts to feel noble. It feels mature. Responsible. Strategic. It gives you a reason to postpone the scary part while telling yourself you're still being productive. But in reality, what's often happening is much simpler: fear is dressing up as wisdom. And fear is clever. It doesn't always say, "Don't do the thing." Sometimes it says, "Do a little more research first." Sometimes it says, "Wait until you can see the whole plan." Sometimes it says, "You just need one more conversation, one more framework, one more round of prep, one more sign that this is the right path." But so much of the creative process — and honestly, so much of life — only reveals itself once you're in motion. You cannot think your way into the wisdom that only action creates. Why We Overplan in the First Place Most of us don't overplan because we're lazy. We overplan because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Action creates exposure. It creates the possibility of embarrassment, failure, imperfection, missteps, and outcomes you can't control. Planning, on the other hand, gives the illusion of control. It lets you stay in a world where everything is still theoretical — and therefore still safe. That's why overplanning can feel so seductive. It soothes the nervous system. It makes you feel like you're reducing risk. It helps you avoid the messy, irreversible, identity-shaping moment where you stop talking about the thing and actually begin. But beginning is where the information lives. The real information. Not the abstract kind. Not the clean, organized, secondhand kind. I mean the lived information you only get by stepping onto the trail, making the call, hitting publish, building the draft, having the conversation, taking the first rep. You do not find your way by staring harder at the map. You find your way by moving. The Story at the Center of This Episode In this episode, I share a simple story about researching a hike. I spent weeks getting ready. Trail maps. Elevation charts. Reviews. Recommendations. All the inputs. All the signals. All the ingredients of feeling prepared. And then Kate and I got to the trailhead, stepped out of the car, and I confidently led us in the wrong direction. That's the joke, of course. All that preparation — and I still got it wrong. But the deeper lesson is what matters. Because despite all that, we ended up discovering a hike that became one of our favorites. Not because I had the perfect plan. Not because I knew exactly where I was going. But because we started walking. That's how creativity works too. That's how growth works. That's how so many meaningful things in life actually happen: not through perfect foresight, but through imperfect movement. You stumble. You adjust. You notice. You learn. You refine. And somewhere in that process, the path reveals itself. What You'll Hear in This Episode This one is short, but it lands hard. Here are a few of the big ideas inside it: Why "more research" is often just more delay — especially when the decision has already been made and the next real step is action How planning can become fear masquerading as wisdom — convincing, articulate, socially approved fear Why preparation doesn't always change what actually happens once reality enters the chat How creativity actually works — by starting now and figuring it out as you go Why clarity comes from motion rather than waiting on the sidelines for certainty to arrive Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) If you want to skip straight to the parts that speak most to where you are right now, here are a few landmarks from the episode: 01:52 – The "tax" of sensible decisions and the cost of staying safe 02:38 – The hidden cost of planning and how research can become avoidance 03:31 – The hiking story: weeks of preparation, wrong direction anyway 04:22 – What that story reveals about how creativity actually works 05:06 – Why planning is often fear masquerading as wisdom 05:19 – The central takeaway: clarity is a reward for action 05:36 – How a wrong turn can still lead you somewhere better 06:22 – Final charge: stop planning and start moving toward your dreams Read This If You've Been Waiting to Feel Ready There's a trap a lot of smart, capable, ambitious people fall into. We think readiness comes first. We think confidence comes first. We think certainty comes first. Then we act. But more often than not, life works in the opposite order. You act first. Then confidence grows. Then data arrives. Then discernment sharpens. Then clarity begins to form. This matters because a lot of people are not actually stuck because they lack talent, opportunity, or ideas. They're stuck because they're trying to solve a moving problem while standing still. And stillness, when it goes on too long, starts to feel like identity. You become the person who is "thinking about it." "Working on it." "Researching options." "Getting clear." Meanwhile, the only thing that would truly help is the very thing you're postponing: motion. Action is not what you do after clarity. Action is how clarity gets built. The Deeper Cost Nobody Talks About The hidden cost of overplanning is not just that it wastes energy. It's that it disconnects you from your own instincts. When you spend too long looking outward for answers, you start forgetting that some answers can only be found inward — and then tested through lived experience. You begin trusting frameworks more than your own body. Advice more than your own curiosity. Consensus more than your own direct encounter with reality. And while outside input has its place, there comes a moment when no one can tell you the next right move with more authority than the part of you that is willing to begin. That's the part overplanning muffles. It creates noise where there should be contact. It creates endless preamble where there should be practice. It creates the illusion that wisdom lives somewhere "out there," when in fact some of the most important wisdom arrives through participation. Questions to Ask Yourself If this episode hit a nerve, sit with these for a few minutes: Where in my life am I calling something "planning" that is actually avoidance? What decision have I already made — but keep surrounding with more research? What am I hoping more preparation will protect me from? What would change if I believed clarity comes after the first step, not before it? What is one action I could take today that would teach me more than another week of thinking? A Simple Practice for Breaking the Cycle If you've been circling something important, here's a simple way to interrupt the pattern: Name the thing. What is the project, conversation, decision, or step you keep postponing? Write down the next visible action. Not the whole plan. Just the next move. Do it before you optimize it. Let action generate information. Reflect only after motion. Use feedback from reality, not just theory. Repeat. That is how paths appear. The goal here is not recklessness. It's not abandoning thoughtfulness. It's not pretending strategy doesn't matter. The goal is to put planning back in its proper place: in service of action, not in place of it. One Last Thought You may not get it rig

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About

Chase Jarvis is a visionary photographer, artist and entrepreneur. Cited as one of the most influential photographers of the past decade, he is the founder & CEO of CreativeLive. In this show, Chase and some of the world's top creative entrepreneurs, artists, and celebrities share stories designed to help you gain actionable insights to recognize your passions and achieve your goals.

Information

  • Creator
    Chase Jarvis
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    744
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Chase Jarvis
  • Show Website
    The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

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