853 How To Find Your Creative Calling with Chase Jarvis

This is episode number 853 with Chase Jarvis. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Pablo Picasso said, Every child is an artist. The problem is staying an artist when you grow up. Welcome today's interview. I've got my man, Chase Jarvis, who I've known for about a decade, who's coming on to talk to us about creativity, how to find your creative calling, how to cultivate creativity in your life already. If you don't think you're an artist or if you don't think you're creative, how to tap into that, and so much more. And if you don't know who Chase is, he's a photographer, a director, an artist, entrepreneur, and the co-founder and CEO of Creative Live, which is an online education platform that empowers creators with powerful new skills and inspirational mentorship. I've done a few courses on Creative Live myself over the years. They do an incredible job. And anyone interested in learning has access to visionaries, leaders, and professionals within the area of expertise they want to learn. Today, Creative Live boosts 1,500 plus curated classes, 650 plus world class instructors, and more than 10 million students. Powerful platform. Creative Live has been featured in Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Mixergy to name a few, and Chase has got a new book out right now. It's super inspiring. It's called Creative Calling, and it's about establishing a creative practice to infuse meaning, vitality and success into your work and life. And in this interview, we talk about how creativity is all around us. It exists in everyone and it's essential for work and life. We talk about the toxicity of the starving artist myth and how to empower yourself as an artist to make money. The power of reframing creativity as a practical habitual practice in everyday life, how to manage a creative craft when it isn't going anywhere, and how to know when to quit your creative craft, how to build powerful relationships as part of your art, as my belief is that's the secret to generating wealth as an artist, and so much more. I am pumped about this one. Get ready. Make sure to share with a friend who you know needs more creativity in their life. or text it to a friend who's a creative artist right now. The link is lewishowes.com/853 or you can just take the link on Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to this on Spotify or any podcast platform and text it to one friend, text it in a WhatsApp group message and post it on your Instagram story and tag me, Lewis Howes and Chase Jarvis so we can know what you're listening to and if you're enjoying while you're listening to this. And without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Chase Jarvis. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast.

We've got my man Chase Jarvis in the house. Good to see you, brother. Super good. Super pumped that you're here. I feel like I've known you. I've known you for almost a decade.

Maybe.

This is true. 2009, 2010, somewhere around there, right?

Where do we meet originally?

Swim team, eighth grade.

I was in the swim team in like fifth grade.

I don't know.

Was it at, I think it was.

At actually Tim Ferriss's event.

Might have been the first time I met you. Open Kimono.

His book launch, like School of Book Launch. Yeah, his kind of secret strategies on.

How to be a bestseller, write a.

Great book and stuff like that.

Something about Kimono.

Yeah, Open the Kimono.

Yeah, something like that.

When was that?

I don't know, long time ago. 2009 or 2010? It had to be 2010.

Maybe 2010. Maybe sooner. Maybe, sorry, later. Later, yeah. Something around nine, 10 years probably, we've been friends. We've connected in a lot of different places. I feel like I see you all over the world. You know, it's true. We're kind of like conference junkies for years, right? Because they're always like networking at events.

Or you're speaking or something. And we've done a great job of bringing one another along to those things. Like, hey, I did a cool thing. Yes. It was fun to be on stage at the Summit of Greatness. Yes.

I could drag you to the Obama White House. Yes. Was that you dragged me there?

Yeah. Yeah, that was fun.

Yeah. We had dinner with Corey Booker afterwards. Was that right?

Yeah. Yeah. So we, I don't know. South by Southwest. We did like video shoot in a car that you were doing something. That's right. With Uber. Creative Live partnered with Uber.

That's right.

That was fun.

It was amazing. That was live, like rolling around live feed in the back of the stadium.

That was crazy.

For three days.

You've had an amazing career. Weren't you a professional, semi-professional soccer player?

Yeah, I did play for the feeder team for some of the, what became the MLS, the Sounders. And I was on the Olympic development team on the years where there weren't Olympics. That's a bummer, right?

That sucks.

Bad timing. But I think we've also connected a lot around sports, sports have played a huge role in my journey and I credit it with a lot of things like discipline and understanding hard work. And it's been a huge part of my life. And if I don't move every day, I just, I start feeling weird even now.

Do you feel like you can be creative without being mobile? Like if you're just sitting around in stillness all day?

It's very hard. I need both extremes. I need like real quiet. and I need real active and active not just in the sports and like physicality sense, but also like travel, adventure. I think about them in two different modes. One is like closed and focused and creating and then the other is like gathering raw information out in life, adventure, connection. And yeah, it can oscillate back and forth.

It's hard to be creative without experiencing life. For sure.

That's like a, isn't it true? Yeah, it's a fundamental piece of, We are social animals and humans, it's fact that if a human baby is born and it's not held or cuddled, it will die. So we're social animals and connection is not a nice to have, it's required. And we'll talk about my new book in a second, that's one of the things I'm putting creativity in that same category, as human connection, as nutrition, as movement. It's absolutely fundamental to who we are, we're creating species. What differentiates us from every other species on the planet. So yeah, it's not an accident that you're talking about these things like quiet and connection and nutrition and exercise. They're fundamental. And for me, creativity is the same thing.

When you were playing soccer growing up, was that kind of your main passion and like your full focus and your dream was to be a, you know, a soccer player?

Yeah, no question. I'm gonna go back one click further. And as a super young kid, I loved performing. I was like, I did magic shows for my neighborhood. I made a film called the Sons of Zorro when I was like six. Made this film on a Super 8, shot it, acted in it, directed it, sold tickets, and made a profit on the film. I think it was a six minute film as a young kid. And I remember just being, oh my God, is there a way that I could just do this? Because this is the most fun thing ever. We washed cars to make money, by the film. And then I remember my second grade teacher saying, going to like the traditional school system, my second grade teacher, I remember her over, I remember overhearing her tell my mom, Chase is just lovely and he's so much better at sports than he is at art.

Wow.

In second grade.

And so you just, Isn't that funny what we remember?

For sure.

You still remember that 30 something years later.

I can tell you exactly where I was standing.

Wow.

And it was weird because I liked being creative. And what that did to me right away was, oh, creative was sort of like, I was bad at it, or it wasn't cool, or in any case, I had to run away from it. And those were different times, of course, but I think there's the cultural paradigm, which it unnecessarily steers us, and largely we have a paradigm in our culture of steering us away from creativity and expression. And I think that's changing now, but that's part of why I wrote the books, because we're creative by nature and we're fundamentally, that is, it's a birthright. It's a piece of who we are. So I ran away from that and I then of course was wildly passionate about, I consider myself an artist trapped in a jock's body. So yeah, I basically played every sport you could possibly play. every season of every nonstop. Nonstop. I was active football, basketball, baseball, soccer, skiing, skateboarding, everything. And it became an identity. And what I realized looking back was I virtually traded that identity for a creator. And it was skateboard culture, actually, that helped me understand that you could be both. It was, skate culture, you know, it was like spray paint and punk rock music. And of course it was a really, you know, athletic endeavor. And, and this was as a young, you know, young teenager, 12. Were you skateboarding? Yeah. Oh, wow. Skateboard, BMX, all that stuff, too. And I was like, wait, this is that thing that I had denied. I mean, even as a, like, 13 year old, I remember going, wait a minute, this is the thing that I was denying as my young, as a young person, this, like, creative part, and. Yet it feels at home here in skateboarding because again, it was like literally spray, you know, you're building vert ramps and you're spray painting your favorite, you know, skate logos and you're listening to punk rock music or skate rock and it was also obviously super physical. And so I started understanding how those things fit together. But to go back to your original point, yeah, I really relied on sports and it was because it was super culturally accepted as a as young people, we just really want to fit in. Right? And I go, oh, what's going to make it so nobody looks at me or the right people look at me? And I just want to like, okay, cool, go over here and stand out or fit in or just not be, quote, weird. And then it was easy for me for sports.

Wow. Did you continue in high school doing creative stuff as well? Were you more focused on sports?

Way more sporty.

So you weren't making the Zorro part two, Sons of Zorro two?

No, I have the film too. It's still easy. I do have it, yeah.

'Cause you should put it out online.

Yeah, it's gonna be a part of the talk that I give around from this book. That's cool.

That'll be exciting.

Yeah, it's pretty fun. And so yeah, very much oriented towards sports. When did you get back into creativity.

Then, if sports was your thing in high school, college?

Yeah, I went to college on a soccer scholarship at D1 school and I mentioned the Olympic development stuff. And it was late in college where I started being really curious about photography. My father was a hobbyist. My grandfather was a hobbyist. And by hobbyist, I mean they bought all the new gadgets and all that kind of stuff.

Garage and just tinkered at it.

Yeah, totally tinkered and new lenses and all this stuff. And they would take photographs of me and my friends. And I remember looking at the photographs and not necessarily like, oh, hey, there's me, I'm awesome. But like, whoa, this is a moment in time. And I could show this to anyone. And they would understand that there's a peak moment of peak action or sorrow or emotion or whatever, usually around sports. and that always intrigued me. And then because our college soccer team was one of the top teams in the nation and there was always, you know, we're on TV for every game and there was always cameras and I started giving the interviews, you know, after the game that like, oh, I can put some sentences together. And it just, it helped me understand that there was a narrative arc and that there was storytelling was important and, and I gravitated towards it, but I never did anything with it until a week before my college graduation, my grandfather, who someone I looked up to and was the hobbyist, he dropped dead of a heart attack. I mean, no warning signs, no nothing, just boom, gone. And it was horrible, obviously. The silver lining was that I was gifted his cameras.

Wow, that's cool.

And it was, you know, I think if you just replay that little history there, like young creative kid, if you walk into any sixth grade classroom or second grade, who wants to come up and draw me a picture? Every single hand goes up. But then we have this culture that sort of trains it out of us. And by creativity, I don't just mean like art, right? Creativity is building a business, wildly creative, that whole concept of the film that I talked about. So, you know, and then culture trains it out of us because you ask the same, you know, ask some high school seniors who wants to come to the front of the room and there's, you know, jaded and all of those things about creative. And sure, there's some people that will do it, but it's just we have a culture that has historically trained that out of us. And then what happened when my grandpa died was it just like cracked me open and the concept of my heart being open, the cameras being there and my curiosity that I've been building. And I decided to, I'd saved up all my money. I got a little bit of money from his, from his passing and. decided to run off to Europe. I got some super, super cheap, like 42 stop discount tickets to get to wherever I could in Europe. And I basically spent six months walking through Europe, trains, planes, automobiles, all that stuff with my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Kate, and taught myself how to take pictures. And that was, you know, the silver lining of my grandfather's passing and that cracking open and realized again that in a really sort of innocent but pure way that this is fundamental. It just felt good to connect with my surroundings and to pursue something, to focus on something, and it activated a piece inside of me that I'd clearly had shut down.

Why do we start to shut down creativity? Is it because in school we need to learn how to make money or get a job or And art or creativity is not a practical way to make money or is that?

That's the irony of this all and that's one of the reasons I wrote the book is we have two things. We have an educational system and then an occupational system. The educational system, it's really hard to educate around creativity and it's much easier to pursue something that looks like a factory, which is you put kids in one end and you try and keep everybody in the same, learning the same stuff at the same time. If you are slow developmentally, they do everything they can to unnaturally drag you through it. We've talked about this before, about your experience and struggling to read, and also being drugged through it all. And that doesn't work. And the reality is that kids develop at different ages and different styles, and we have different strengths. And just, there's not a lot of room for creativity because we were taught to sit down and shut up. And so after 12 years of that, 12 or 15,000 hours later, what have you learned? You've really learned to fit in, to be a cog in a machine. And this is like, again, my wife was a teacher for a long time. I founded and own an online learning company. I value learning deeply, but just the necessity of sort of modern culture created this factory system, and it doesn't actually encourage the kinds of things that we need to be encouraging. And so to me, that's a systemic challenge. And then with the employment universe, right, there's a creativity used to be a nice to have. Oh, yeah, it's like a site, but you know, it's about management and it's about supply chains. But think of today, the most successful people we imagine are wildly creative. whether that's in business or art or film or any discipline, Apple, the most valuable company in the world, once thought it was totally crazy. Why would they make the circuit board beautiful even though you were never gonna see it? Those little details, they matter. And if you look at pop culture today, we see the rise of creativity. It's having its day in the sun. And that's part of the reason I think the book is well timed. It has been true all along, but now it's democratized. We have access to tools that we used to not be able to afford. There are no gatekeepers. You couldn't have this show 20 years ago because there's no way to distribute it. And now that you can go direct and connect to people who love you and the work that you do because of these tools that creativity has ultimately created for us. If you look around, everything in your world, everything was made was created. It was drawn first. It was thought up in the mind of someone else. And it came to life largely as a result of someone who's probably no smarter than you are, no more talented. Again, I go back to creativity. This is this innate thing that we are all born with. That is what defines us as a species. We can put two unlikely things together to form something new and useful. And to me, now we can look back at the school system and look look at the future of employment and you realize that creativity is no longer just a nice to have, that it is absolutely as essential as exercise, as nutrition and connection.

That's so true. And I really believe that the ones that dream the biggest are the ones that are changing the world. If you have a small dream and you're not able to imagine something greater for yourself, then you're probably not going to create that greater thing. So what happens to someone when they start to become more creative in general, whether it be for their work or their relationships or their life, what happens to their life when they break down the chains of creativity and start to express whatever their creative expression is?

Now, it's a beautiful question and the book is sort of founded on a couple of principles. One, it's not a radical idea when you just listen to it, that every human is creative, right? And again, go back to the first grade classroom. The next sort of what follows from that is, that creativity is a habit. It's not a skill. It's something we're born with and it's something we, it's a practice, not a product. And it's like a muscle. And as an athlete, you and I both know that what gets used, you build, right? You, if you need to do bench and you just spend a lot of time under the bar, you're gonna get stronger. The same is true with creativity. Now, if, if, if that logically follows, the third one is, that the same things that we do to create small things in our life, whether it's your first business, washing cars, it's taking photographs every day, creative writing, yeah, creative writing, a morning journal, anything, the muscle that you're using in that moment, that creativity muscle that is innate in everyone, you use it or lose it. that is the same exact muscle that we use to create our lives. So it's literally, when you go back to your question, you ask someone, how does creativity help you? Creativity is literally the key to creating the arc of your life. All you're doing right now is creativity at a larger scale. You go back to where you were on your sister's couch, injured, no longer a football player, and struggling with depression. and you created the lives that you see that you admire, they were created. You don't find secrets, you create them. You don't, I think it's funny they call them founders. We build companies, I didn't find anything.

You created it.

I created it.

Yeah, it's true.

And so to me, the essence of your question is a kernel in the book that I think is emerging right now in popular culture, the things that we do, those acts every day, that eight-year-old kid that made the Zorro film and seeing that product of my work helped shape my understanding that I could actually create the life arc that I wanted for myself. It's just creativity at a different scale.

How much happier or less happy are creative people that are practicing on a daily basis their creativity?

Yeah, we've got this myth in our industry.

They're like the miserable artists, right?

The reality is you do the science that's just a myth, right? So there's two really toxic myths that we talk about in the book. One is the starving artist. Richard Branson, Lewis Howes, Debbie Millman, Brené Brown, Jared Leto, I'm just like, random, like they're some of the most creative people I know. We all have our shadow selves, but I think the power and understanding that you are in charge and you can create the life arc that you wish, To me, that's empowering. The starving artist is a myth that came out of the Paris scene around a cafe called Dumago, where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and these folks, it was a benefit to talk about how you would, I would never trade my art for some money. And usually that meant-- Priceless. But they couldn't actually sell their art. And ultimately, The other myth is that we're tortured.

Only great art or creativity comes from pain, right?

And I think that's another thing that keeps a lot of people from thinking of themselves as a creator. Like, I don't know, I have a 9 to 5 job, I like my job, I come home, I've got a couple of kids, I kiss my partner, we have a nice meal or whatever. I'm trying to paint something that is a little more stereotypical, specifically because Wait a minute, I'm not strung out on heroin and homeless. Doing damage to myself.

Living in someone's attic, right?

Right, right. And that's not required for creativity. There's no berets, there's no, you don't have to speak French, you don't have to go on some mission to find yourself. What you really got to do is you got to just acknowledge that you're a creator. Like words matter, right? Words, and you do a lot of mental and visualization, what you tell yourself, how you think, that matters, mindset matters. And the same is true with a creator. If you acknowledge that you're a creator, you're already 50% ahead of someone who doesn't feel like they are in charge and can control their own life. And again, the parallel between taking a photo every day, making a meal, being intentional about what you don't have to log in. You don't have to go take a class. You can start tomorrow just thinking about, wow, this meal, it's an opportunity to do something different, to create. My morning pages, like, Maybe I'm gonna draw a picture today. I'm just gonna deviate a little bit. The pictures that I take at lunchtime when I walk around my iPhone, that's soothing and that's a muscle that I'm building that will ultimately add value to my life. So, you know, I think it's a pretty simple paradigm and that's part of what people, I think, miss and what our culture has missed, which is one of the reasons I put it all in a book. And I think we're early on in the movement. You can feel it, right? The fact that you can be a YouTuber like that that's a thing. Most of the jobs in the creative economy are not just movie stars and television directors, and they all are wildly creative. Writing code, wildly creative. You know, so again, it's not just art, it's anytime you're putting these new things together. And if you start to clock creativity in that way, you start to, your mind is open to like, wait a minute, this is, it's not whimsical, it's not naive to pursue the things that you love and to pursue creativity. It is the most practical thing on the planet because it teaches you to build not just things in a small way, but whatever you want to do with your life.

What would you say, I mean rough estimate, maybe there's research out there, but people who are working on a job and kind of have that stereotypical life of partner, a kid, a couple of kids, dog, whatever, they've got that lifestyle. How creative are those individuals on a daily basis on a scale of like one to 10? Are they at a two or a five or what are they?

I put them pretty low and I put them pretty low. I put their capacity at a 10. Everyone's capacity is a 10. I put what culture does to us and puts us at a two. And it's really important for me to put a pin in this and say, I'm talking about this like I had it figured out from day one. But the reality is when I was hardworking and young and none of my parents graduated college, I was the first one to go. if you're finding success in that system, I was actually programmed like, oh, oh, you're smart and hard working, you should be a doctor or a lawyer or a, you know, I was given like five things. And my parents are cool, super cool. But culturally, like that is pressure. That is pressure. And to be crystal clear, I'm white, I'm male, I was born in America. I did come from a lower income family, lower middle class family. but I basically had every advantage and acknowledging that I wanted to pursue something other than the stereotypical norm was the hardest thing I'd ever done because I felt like I was abandoning, it was really a confusing time. I was abandoning my parents, abandoning culture. What are my friends gonna say? What are my friends' parents gonna say? What is the person on the street gonna say? And at the same time, I knew that I was passionate about something different. We all have this whisper inside of us. That's the calling that I talk about. And the feelings of not only betraying everybody else by not loving being the list of things that you should do, but the flip side of the same coin, the betrayal of yourself when you're not doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing, I think is a worst regret. It is, it's regret. And it is a equation for pain. It is an equation for suffering, for denial of yourself. and, you know, again, the book, we talk, I talk, we very, very crisply about hearing that call. It's inside every one of us. And even if that call is just a whisper, you'll have the ability to tap into that. Even, and you've all done it before, everyone who's listening right now or watching or whatever, you felt it. You felt that time where everything was like, it was a flow state or whatever. You're doing the things that you loved with the people that made you excited, with the focused on something that brought you joy. that can be every day and it's not a myth or fiction that you can't. And to go back to your question again, like, so everyone's a 10 on the scale of creative capacity. Creative capacity. But our culture, it's not beneficial, especially in the most recent chapter of our culture around the factory and the farm and that you express that. Because again, get in line, sit down, shut up, do your job. and what are we missing as a culture? And I'm not saying everyone should go be a painter. Like that's not at all what I mean. But if you can listen to that thing, exercise in small daily ways, this habit, build this muscle in the same way that you're taught to eat well and exercise as a core piece of what we're talking about, then you will unlock powers that you know not. Like it will rock you and it starts out small. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's like you do this and you're like, oh my gosh, I can do this on the side. Just think of it like something like 50% By 2020, 50% of US employed people will have a side hustle.

50%.

50. By 2020. What? I started this statistic back in 2017. 50% of the working American population, and this is not the whole population, not 300 million, it's of the working population, which is like 150 million or something. 50% of them will make some money on the side by 2020.

Could be 20 bucks on the side. Could be.

Sure. You could have a thousand. Yeah, you could. design wedding cards, wedding invitations for your friend. And that's not going away. That's only increasing. And what that is, is that is this, we're breaking free of these old patterns. We're starting to acknowledge this really, really important piece in every one of us. And we're learning, we're developing tools to break out of this system that is the same reason that you have your own podcast. that you couldn't have had that 15 years ago. And that system is coming along. I'm just asking everyone to grab hold of it and make something, it's not too late, wherever you are in this paradigm, it's not too late to start something tomorrow. And again, it doesn't mean quit your day job, move to Paris, wear a beret, smoke a cigarrette. This is not a requirement.

Go on a drug journey or something if you like.

Yeah, none of these things are requirements. What is, and what I really is important is acknowledge those three things, right? you're a creator, there's creativity inside of every person, that if you use it, it's like a muscle, it will get stronger. And when you use it more often, that what you're really developing is your capacity to grow, change, develop, and shape your life in a way that provides the meaning that you seek. Yeah.

Here's a question. The whisper, the calling that you talked about that's inside all of us, I hear that all the time. and I usually go after those things. And some of the times I'm like, this doesn't make sense for my business or my brand. It's probably against, you know, making me money.

Sure.

So how do we manage the calling when maybe it won't make us any money or won't really make an impact in a bunch of people's lives or no one else is going to care about it, but we care about it.

Sure.

And it's time consuming. There's unknowns and uncertainties to when we put it out there. Are people going to accept it? Are we going to make any side money? Or is it just going to take up a lot of our time? Is it still worth pursuing that creativity if no one else cares?

Yes, pursuing creativity has all of its own merits built in. Because even if you're not doing the thing that lights you up or makes you money or whatever, this simple act of pursuing your own innate creativity will be the best guide that you have in the world to get you there. The combination of your intuition plus your ability to put two things together is the best. Notice it's a compass. It's not a map. Okay, there is no map. There is no thing that says, I start here. And anytime you think you can see the whole path in front of you, you're wrong. What you, all you really need to do is to see a couple of steps because ask anybody if they visualize the whole, and, and I'm, big individualization and meditation, usually what will manifest is the end result, but you'll get it a different way. That's what I mean by you just need to be going in the right direction. And that's why your creativity plus your understanding what you love, you put those two things together and it's the best compass known to humanity.

I like that. So when should we give up on our creativity?

We should never give up on our creativity.

Let's say a certain project. I'm a painter. I love to paint. No one cares. Again, I'm a horrible painter.

Totally. And you're chronicling my life. I've quit so many things. I dropped out of medical school. I thought that was really powerful. I think as a creative craft goes, I'm most well known for photography and building businesses. And I started out painting, painting with oil painting. And it was so slow. I was just, it was driving me crazy. Crazy. And I'm like, what can happen now? Faster, faster. So I actually moved to acrylics. And then acrylics were, even though they dried in a single sitting, I was just like, photography was ultimately like, instant gratification. It's like a thousandth of a second. You're like, got the shot. So it's not about, only about discovering your one creative craft because we all, again, this is the thing when you start to understand the power of creativity, you start to see it everywhere. Whether you're cooking a meal, writing code, even leading a meeting at work, that can be a creative act. And knowing when to quit is if my friend Chris Guillibeau, you know Chris, he has got a really effective way, and I think I cite this in the book, he's got a really effective way of like, is it working? and do you love it? And if it's, if you love it and it's not working, keep doing it because you love it. And what's the end result? Like start reshaping what your goals are because you love it. If you don't love it and it's working, you're like, then you have a decision to make, right? This goes back to like, oh, is it for my brand? If it's not working and you don't.

Love it, why are you doing it?

Why are you doing it? Really? It's just, it's a simple two by two. And I think it's brilliantly simple, but that is part of, I think, what can shed some light on do I keep going? What you have to keep going on with is your creativity. That's the subtitle of the book is establish a daily practice, infuse your world with meaning and succeed in work and life. And the practice part of it is again, you don't have to drag out your canvas and this is not- Oil painting. Yeah, totally. It's not what I'm talking about.

Sit with a nude individual every day practicing.

Right, but just acknowledging that the things that you're doing, that even what you decided to do the first thing you woke up, that you were in charge of that.

Yeah, well, I've got three kids, two dogs, 60 hours a week job, tons of bills, How am I going to create, and I got to work on my health, I got to make my family happy, I've got no time at night, how can I add creativity into my life in a daily practice? What are things I can do?

Sure. You know, you've had Tony on the show, we both know Mr. Robbins, he talks about net time, no extra time, not extra time. So this is not a thing that you have to like, again, go into the closet and drag your craft thing, as I really want to debunk that idea. Sure, it's helpful if you want to do that. It can be relaxing and all that stuff. But what if you just thought about, like we're intentional with creating the meal for the family that night and you did something special, even literally the intention of setting that intention when you start to prepare the meal that you were designing this, that you position it in a way that just the intention behind it setting an intention is enough. And then morning pages, for example, can you get up?

So a journal.

Yeah, journal. Yeah, journal. You know, get up at 5, 15 minutes before you normally would and have that time to write down some things that you're grateful for. When you're, when you do see, like, I would say 90 something percent of the people who are listening or watching right this minute, have taken a picture with their phone in the last week.

Yeah, day.

Day.

Yeah.

Okay. Rather than like, oh, I'm documenting that just like, wow, this is an opportunity to create a moment with my kids home run or with, you know, photographing this food beautifully or the sunset or whatever cliche we want to go to. Like, if you can just pause and be aware that your creative agency is driving right, right at that moment.

Don't just take a photo, be intentional about how you want to do it.

Yeah, yeah, just even for a moment. That it's that, and it's you do that, you put that on repeat, it starts to become a thing for you, and it is like the world opens up.

So it's not actually saying, you know, if you can take an hour a day and paint, great. But if you don't have that specific time, how can you be creative throughout your entire day while you go to work, when you're driving, when you're speaking to someone, when you're presenting, how can you reshape the way you present.

Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yes, it is.

Even if you're an accountant.

Yeah, whatever. Creative accounting, it sounds like an anomaly. The IRS might not love it, but as a coder, there's a beautiful way to write code.

Yeah, I think you can embed this in everything you do in your life. You can make it a game every day where it's like every conversation I have, I'm going to use a new.

Word of the day.

Be playful.

There's a lot of play. There's a lot of what connects you to the things that mattered as you were a kid. And again, it used to be thought that this was naive for pursuing it or even whimsical, but just look around. The most successful people that you know, they created business models that didn't exist. They method acted, they got so into their characters that they were able to transform themselves.

And.

There'S usually this connection, a kindness, a groundedness with the people that I am most attracted to that I think inspire me the most. And you look at them wildly creative. And it's just basically it's a new lens that we're able to see the world with because creativity is sort of, you know, it's finding its day in the sun.

Yeah, it is. Something you do that's really well is you're a master networker. And I think the successful creative artists that can monetize their art, some of them actually, I'm not saying this isn't you, but some of them actually aren't the best artists or creatives, but they're really good at building relationships and branding themselves. How important is it for artists who want to make their living full time as being creative to build powerful relationships as part of their art?

The book, there's a framework for the book and the framework is called idea. And it's just four steps to a process. And this process works if you're trying to do create a meal, or paint a painting or build a business or you're thinking of it in terms of your life. And it's a repeatable creative process. I is for imagine, D is for design, E is for execute and A is for amplify. So I'm going to rip through these real quick because I really want to hang on to amplify, which is the essence of your question. You've said it a couple of times already in this conversation. Like, imagine, like, what do you want for yourself? You get up, what's your perfect day? that's, imagine you're visualizing. I visualize. Yeah, what is possible? And if you're not doing that, you're really missing out on the best stuff in life, right?

I think you're a huge advocate of that. You're getting the scraps of life that.

Are just around as opposed to creating what you want. Totally. You're corking the tide and life is happening to you rather than for you. Exactly. So imagine what's possible. Now you have to design, there's no such, you don't actually get the thing that you imagine without designing a way to get there. if you don't know where you're going, you're never gonna get there.

Yeah, exactly.

So like designing a system, and this is through a set of daily habits, this is through a visualization of what you see for yourself. It's how do I learn the skills or whatever is necessary to reach what I imagine, and then execute, right? You have to actually do the work. That's the part that people don't like. They wanna shortcut that. The reality is if you are not If you're shortcutting, you're not going to be, you know, how many people have said the 10,000 hours, you're talking about Kobe Bryant or anyone who's the best in the world at whatever it is that they do. Melissa Arnette, a friend of mine who's summited and successfully returned from Everest without oxygen, first US woman to do that, like these are executions. They're executing against a plan. And then the last one, which is germane to your point. And that is amplify. So many people do the first three. And if they're not sort of completing this cycle, they don't, they haven't built, there's a huge section in the book about this. It's basically about community. You can call it networking, you can call it whatever you want, but you're building community, you're, and, and something amazing happens when you build community. You know, I like to say be the fan that you wish you had. If you want more likes and, and followers on your Instagram, like, like and follow more people. If you want people to show up to your art show, if you want people to subscribe to your business, if you want, like, then you need to participate in all these other things because that's how it's built on effort.

It's effort.

Yeah, it's effort. It's a lot of work. It's on reciprocity. I talk about it also as the other 50%. This is the 50% of the things that no one, that everyone who's successful does. Yes. And no one, anyone who's not successful in their own definition doesn't understand that 50% of that person's time was built around building community. And it can be built in all kinds of different ways, digitally, physically, relationships with very, very close relationships.

Online events, offline events, whatever it may be.

Meetups, groups. Yeah. And the community part is huge. And we go deep on this. It's like, oh, I'm an introvert. I'm an extrovert. How do I do this? It's going to be okay. There's a path for everybody. And your community is not about having a million people. If you're a blacksmith in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, your community could be the 16 restaurateurs that come to you for their knives.

You're building those relationships with those 16 people.

For sure. So it doesn't need to be a million followers on Instagram. It is whatever it is. There's two types. One is a community that you can join and connect with that exists today. And the other is the one that you build around your own work. and I'm really intentional in the book about this because this is, to me, this is like the, if you go back to the beginning of our conversation and how do you get, you know, it's like, great, we were creative, and then we realized that there was all this shame around that. And so we hit it. And, you know, now we're talking about being successful and building big businesses and, like, oh, here's the black box and no one knows what happens in there. And to me, that's what you know, I try and spell that out really clearly. I'm trying to be both really theoretical and help people understand how important creativity is as a human condition, as a human muscle. And there's a bunch of tactics in there, like building community. I know how you built your community. We've talked about it a lot. It's very intentional. It didn't happen on accident. You just didn't walk through life.

You're like, one person at a time, too. It's building.

And I want to bring people on my journey with me. And you know what? That's contagious. You see someone who's excited about what it is they're doing, what does it feel like? The most you want to be a part of it. For sure. Yeah. Or just connected to that person. Like, that's great energy. I love what he or she is doing. I love what they are building, and I want to be a part of it. Like, those are things that are, again, go back to us being social animals. It's what I'm saying sounds radical, but you look around at the that the day to day and your empirical evidence, it's just it's you can't argue with it.

It's so true.

Yes.

There's two things I wanted to add to this that you just talked about. My brother is a jazz violinist. It's very hard making a full time living doing jazz violin, right? Even the jazz world in general, there's not many people that are making six figures in that world. And he always talks about he creates education for other creative string players and jazz musicians and he builds networks and events and festivals and stuff. And he always says, you know, you're not going to get discovered. You're not just going to be able to master your craft and hope that someone's going to discover you in your garage.

Right?

You've got to be putting yourself out there constantly.

Yeah.

And doing these two things that you said. One is creating the community that you're going to attract people into and then joining other communities.

For sure.

You've got to do both.

You have to. And there is not an example of success. certainly consistent success that hasn't done those things. We're here in LA, right? How many actors moved to LA and they're great at their craft, but they don't know casting agents. Right. And they don't know-- It's all about.

The people you connect with.

For sure. And to me, whether whatever it is you're trying to build in life, this connection that you can make with other people is a huge part of it. Just take a mega super band I write about, Metallica. any just fill in your blank, even if it's a solo performer, the amount of people that have to come together to create the performance that you watch. A lot. Yeah, it's a lot of people. And, you know, I think that's part of just this myth that an artist has a beret, smokes a cigarette, goes into the woods and writes something magical and comes out. No, what happens is they go into the recording studio, they work their ass off, or they have three or four failed products. and then they make one thing and they show it to a small group of people, they get feedback, and it's a very slow process. It's team intensive, and whether your team is one or two or three or 10, it starts to think and feel like a community, right? And then as that community grows over time, human by human, one at a time, or at scale on the internet, that's how success happens. That's the part of succeed not just in work, but in life. I think that the community aspect can't be ignored. And go back to that idea system just for a second. If you're not doing the full system, like imagining, designing, executing against it, and then amplifying it through your community, if you're just doing, say you're imagining and you're designing a plan, but that's all you ever do, you're a dreamer. Yeah. You're a poser. And let's just say you just execute against the plans of others, and then you do the work to build their thing. you're a copier or worse, you're just a cog in a machine that's not able to express yourself. So it's this whole system. And again, whether you're baking a cake or you're trying to define your life, part of my in distilling this was like, wait a minute, every success I've ever had, every success of the hundreds of people that I've had on my podcast, you know, the Branson's, the Brene Brown's, the Damon Johns that we, you know, that have largely been on your show, too. There's this, they have done this thing. They may have had a different name for it, but it's a very simple structure that is proven. If you just deconstruct the work of the best people in any discipline, there's some shape to this system that I've laid out in the book.

You've got a very successful business, Creative Live, which is all about creativity for people and online learning and education. You've got your photography business. You've got your podcast or I guess show, Chase Jarvis Live, you've got a lot of different projects, seems like it happening at the same time. Why create a book right now when you've got so much going on?

Well, two things. I think that we like to choose our projects, but sometimes our projects choose us.

Yes.

And this book has been a factor in my psyche for years and years.

It's been a creative calling for years.

It has. I think it's important for the listeners to know that what good is a book that tells you how to do everything perfect? It's like, oh, if you're going to build a business, always do this, never do this, always do this, never do this. And you're like, okay, I started at A and I go through it. No, this is like littered with my biggest failures, the failures of others, the biggest struggles, the muddy hills that we have to climb up to find who we are and do the things we want to do with our lives. So this particular book for me was, it's basically an aggregate of all these things. And I look at my own arc, I had to figure out that what I wanted to do with my life, I had to become and identify with a creator. I actually had business cards that printed up that said Chase Jarvis Photographer before I even had anything, before I even owned my own camera.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Because that's like you identify.

You envisioned it.

Yeah, for sure. But as I became a creator, and then I started doing things and building communities, and then I did an iPhone app that was basically a tool that was used by millions of people, preceded Instagram by a couple of years, app of the year in 2009. And then that's a tool, so I became a creator, then I started building tools for creators, and then I created a platform for tens of millions of people, tens of millions of people to learn and pursue their creative passions. and to me, what was missing in all this was the why. It's like, why do this? Why is this. What's. Why is this valuable? Why would I care? And so to me, the book, it was an essential piece of this puzzle that I've been building of my life. And, you know, 10 years into creative live, I was just like, wait a minute. Like, what's the. What's the why? And I knew my why. but I felt like I hadn't drawn a circle, put a bow on the things that I'd been creating. And it's because it's the most powerful faculty that we have as humans, creativity and love. Like those things come together. That is, again, that's the human condition at its peak. It is the connection of those two things. So to me, the book had to come out in a very sort of meta way, that's what I was thinking. And then let's get really tactical for a second. I had to get this thing out of me. I was like, it's percolating. It's driving me crazy. I think about it and I do love, I think this is another thing about creativity that we're taught to just grind, just put our head down and grind is the answer. And in reality, some combination of pursuing a couple of different things at the same time. when you get stuck on one, you kind of leaned into another, that's a really effective way to get unstuck.

That's true. Having something in the pipeline as well, something else, right?

For sure. And it's not just always drop something and leave it forever and go on to the next thing. That is probably you're running away from something. It had a couple different functions.

Love it, man. Well, the book is out right now by the time this comes out. It's called Creative Calling. Establish a daily practice, infuse your world with meaning and success in work and life. Make sure you guys get this book. You've got some places they can get it online. I think you might have some bonuses or something extra if they go to where?

Yeah, go to creativecalling.com.

There's probably an experience that you'll put through or some-- For sure. There's add-ons and goodies and a couple.

Of options there for sure. You can get it wherever books are sold. And we're gonna do a special thing for everybody who buys it right away before I'm not quite sure when this is going to drop, but we're going.

To, there's a class at Creative Live.

Really?

Are you leading a class?

I am.

When's the last time you led a class?

I've only led one other class. Was it like the first one or something? No, it wasn't even the first one.

It was like the thousandth and it.

Was a collaboration with Apple. Wow. We then took photography.

Yeah, it was an iPhone photography class. I remember this.

That rolled into all 500 Apple stores. I was with you and you were like, there you go. That was happening or something.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so this, it basically is a digital understanding, an accompaniment that is, there's a bunch of stuff in there that's not in this book. And that's at Creative Live. So, if you buy the book, you preorder it. Week before, I think, yeah, we'll put it out the week before something like this. And even if you don't, I think there'll be some element of it. Great player, something like that. I think we're gonna actually do not a chapter by chapter, section by section read along. where we'll bring the community along to have some discussion around it. So there you go. Wow. Yeah, appreciate that.

Creativecalling.com, you're gonna do a course for a class at Creative Live. Yep. That's pretty special deal. Yeah, there's a lot of people using that.

I mean, I'm not really a hashtag big hashtagger, but there's already, the book just was announced, whatever, two weeks ago, and there's already, I don't know, two or three thousand hashtags. What is it, Creative Calling? Creative Calling. Yeah, and to me it's just really important that the takeaway is that this isn't just about art, that creativity, it infuses meaning in our lives and helps us, it transforms our lives, it gives us personal power in a way that nothing else in our capacity can.

I love it, man. I'm excited. I'm gonna take the class too.

Do it.

Creativecalling.com, check it out. They can also follow you, Chase Jarvis, on social media. On everything.

I'm @chasejarvis or /chasejarvis. The same is true with Creative Live. It's @creative live or /creative live. Right.

And yeah, or you can also just get it wherever books are sold. Yeah. Are you doing any bonuses if people.

Buy bulk and they can get like.

A Creative Live class for free or something?

Who knows? Yeah, it's actually-- Throwing it out there as an idea. No, no, it's a little beefier than that. There's some mentorship.

Wow. There's a series of videos. Yeah, so that's all at creativecalling.com. they can see all that stuff.

I love it.

Love it, man. What's something that people need to know? This final couple of questions.

Sure.

What is something that most people don't know about creativity that they really need to know?

That it's for everyone. And it's not just a thing that's imbued to a lucky few. It's the thing that we're born with that defines us, gives us the agency over our own lives. We've been sold You know, we're suckers who were sold a lie by a machine that didn't, it wasn't intending to do harm. It was, for the times, that was the best way that culture could wrangle, put its arms around humanity, and we're in a different time now and we need different tools. What got us here will not get us there. So creativity is going to underpin the solution to every problem we've ever known. The hunger crisis, any humanitarian crises, like those solutions are all going to have an element of creativity. So it's much bigger than art, which is, it's a good place to start, but it is, again, it's much bigger than that.

Everything, the planet problem, the issues with the ecosystem and everything, the pollution and plastic, all the biggest problems in the world, that's where we have an opportunity to bring out our creativity.

For sure. And you've seen it solve problems before, like electricity. That's just electrical engineering plus creativity. The wheel, mechanical engineering. Let's just talk about some fundamental stuff. Like, someone had a thing around and figure that out.

And they had to draw a picture.

I gotta take a donkey everywhere or what's our faster way? Totally. And they drew a picture of it first. Every spaceship that you see, it was drawn first. Crazy, right? It was drawn by some artist somewhere and everything around you, everything, without exception, was designed. why not you?

Yeah, I like that. Well, I acknowledge you, man. I love you. I appreciate you for being here because you bring a lot of permission for people to express their creativity when maybe they don't feel like they're capable of doing it. And I love that you continue to express it online, doing projects like this to give us tools and information. So make sure you guys get this book.

You do it with so much joy and love.

And that's what I appreciate about you, is you make creativity.

Fun.

Art fun and built with community and people involved. It's not just like, look what I'm doing by myself. You always bring other people involved in the creative process of your work of art. So I really love that about you and I think that's the way art should be created. It's collaborative. Thank you for acknowledging that.

I really appreciate it. It means a ton and you know how I feel about you. We've talked about it all the time. I love you deeply and appreciate all the work that you do in the world. Thanks, brother.

I appreciate it, man. I don't remember if I asked you this question last time. It's called the Three Truths. See, see, I hate the three truths. I don't remember what you said last time, but let's see if there's a-.

God, let's see if you're prepared.

I should have known when I was.

Gonna get attacked by the three truths. So imagine it's your last day on Earth. Okay. You've created every creative project you wanna put out into the world, but for whatever reason, you've gotta take those projects with you. You've taken it all with you when you pass, right? Hypothetically. But you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you know to be true about your life and the lessons you would leave behind. and this is all people had to remember you by. These three lessons or three truths. What would you say are yours?

One, that every person is creative. We are endowed with limitless creativity that can power not just one life, but a billion lives. Second is that this creativity is a process, a practice. It's not an end, it's a journey. And that it is strengthened through use. And so use it as frequently as you can, acknowledge it, embrace it, and train it like a muscle. And then third, that it is through using this muscle and using it regularly and mastering it, understanding it, that it is through this and only through this that you will be able to craft the life that you love, that you seek, and that is in service of others, and nothing else will get you there.

Love it, man. And the final question. And the final question.

This is even worse than the first question.

What's your definition of greatness?

These are just like any, all these superlatives, like I just felt like I just got, pulled through the ringer. I feel like I just passed a test. Barely.

Barely.

Now's the final test.

It's the final test is spending time doing the things that you love with people that you love.

There you go. Make sure you guys get the book. Creative calling. Check it out. Follow Chase Jarvis. Love you, man.

Thank you.

Love you too, bud. Appreciate your support.

And there you have it, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this interview. For me, I've always felt like I wanted to be more creative, and I felt like I've used creativity in different areas of my life. But sometimes it gets held back when we think about other areas of our life that need attention. When we think about the responsibilities of life that need our attention. But the funny thing is, the responsibilities of our life like staying healthy and being responsible for our family and our kids and our partner and our relationship and our career. You can infuse creativity in every area of your life. And a lot of this is just about having fun. You know, being creative is for me about having fun and bringing the joy and bringing the magic to every situation. You don't have to be this unbelievable painter to say you're creative. You can just express in different unique ways every single moment of the day to bring creativity to your life. So if you enjoyed this, please share with a friend, text one person, text a few people, lewishouse.com/853 or you can use the link on the Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and just text one friend who you think this could be helpful to, maybe who's lost some creativity in their life, maybe they're already are a creative or they're an artist and you think this could help them grow and earn more money and bring some more structure to their creative endeavors, wherever it may be, share it with one friend today and spread the message of greatness. You can be that champion in someone's life by sharing this message with them. If this is your first time here, we do this every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We bring you some of the most inspiring people and ideas and topics from around the world. to help you unlock your greatness. That's what this is all about, constantly becoming a better human being. We all fall down, we all make mistakes. We're never going to be perfect. But if we can constantly grow, learn and improve, that, in my opinion, is living a good life. If you enjoyed Chase, make sure to.

Pick up his new book.

Follow him @chasejarvis and tag me on Instagram stories when you're listening @lewis howes. I'd love to hear from you over there. I try to get back to as.

Many people as possible.

As Pablo Picasso said, every child is an artist. The problem is staying an artist when you grow up. Never grow up.

And you can always be an artist in my mind.

I love you so very much. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.