How To Actually Become A Successful Creator In 2026

AI is changing what it means to be authentic online. The more content that's generated without anyone behind it, the more people can sense when something's off. And more importantly, we notice when something feels genuine. Chase Reeves has been on YouTube for 14 years. He co-founded Fizzle, created more than 40 courses, hosted hundreds of podcasts, and designed websites for some of the biggest creators online.

Don't follow your passion, follow your curiosity. Passion is like a thing I'm supposed to be eventually, but curiosity— there's no pressure on curiosity.

Chase has got the full creator his skill stack. He's got writing, design, on-camera presence, videography, editing. Honestly, it's a level of skill and taste that any creator would be jealous of.

Social media is bonkers. You want to be a successful creator, you have to get interested in what they're interested in. If you're building an audience around your persona, it's the same need that you had. And when you're making something, you're the guide in the hero's journey.

So if you've ever built something successful and wondered why it doesn't feel like enough, this one's for you. Were you at WDS in 2012?

I never went to a WDS, but I was always doing like the— you were always the tour guide for like the cool kids, I guess. I didn't know they were the cool kids even.

It was just— it's like, it's just some people who showed up.

Oh, you got to come to this pizza place with me. Yeah, you know, because how—

you were living in Portland then?

I was living in Portland. Okay.

I showed up WDS 2012, knew no one. Actually, the very first event that I went to was the ThinkTraffic meetup.

Okay.

Because the first two people that I met at WDS were James Clear and Caleb Wodrick.

Yeah.

And I registered, went over, like, to talk to two tall bald men. And they're like, you seem friendly, I guess. I don't know.

Perfect.

And so I met them. It was like talking. And then Caleb's like, well, I'm headed to the ThinkTraffic thing. Do you want to— you want to come? And I was like, sure.

Right on.

So then I met Corbett and Steve Kamm and all these people who Like characters in that space. But then it was probably the next year that we met.

Maybe the next year.

I feel like you came onto the scene and were just immediately, like, connecting with everybody, designing everyone's websites. That was the thing. And like, as a designer, I was like, who is this guy? His stuff is really, really good. So I'm going to start by talking about the kind of the skill set of a designer. Because you're like this creator, everyman, like you just take on all the, like, all the projects and you do all the things. But I first noticed you for the design element.

Yeah.

Like, were you professionally trained as a designer? Like, how did that come in?

No, I read a lot of websites, you know, I read a lot of blogs and stuff. But no, but I knew how to use computers. I knew how to use Photoshop from like a pirated version back in college when I needed to make band posters. So I knew how to use the computers. And, and then I had like a sense of, you know, it'd be cool if it was like this. And then I figured it out from there.

I feel like musicians into content creators is like an under-discussed path.

Yeah.

Like, what are the skill sets from music that you've brought in? Because I feel like that's a space where you have to do everything. You have to figure it out.

You have to, yeah.

And you like the hard skills with the, you know, mixing and editing. Like, all this carries over to video. Like, what's the direction there?

Yeah, so I mean, I'd say the through line is taste. Point of view, perspective, like intention.

Yeah, right.

It's like, oh, this is, you know, as a musician I never sat down and go like, okay, I want like a, like a 440 beats per minute love song, something that has like— I— a lot of producers now, like if I was professional, I'd probably be thinking like that. But I was always like, you know, oh man, I miss her, or whatever, like fuck you, Don, like just like, like what, what do I feel and how do I express that feeling? I was in the hardcore scene in the Bay Area, so there was like, um and in the, like, the evangelical, like, the developing evangelical worship scene, there was a premium on, like, the rawest emotion. Actually, not only that, was that, like, moving and touching? It just, it felt cool. Like, it looked cool, and I wanted to be like that. So there was, um, there was an exploration of feeling on purpose, which requires you to get out from like the hair like a little bit to like actually be seen. Yeah, right. So it's this mix of like, look at me, I'm gonna do something that's real at you. And what happened— that's a very tender balance trying to do that, because what happens is you start doing it, you start wanting to do the thing that they want to see more than the thing that you want, or you, you believe that they're not going to want the thing that you want, that you're doing. So you get more insular. With it, right? Those are at least two paths that you can take. But to be a creator, you're like open-hearted and open, authentic, and like, it's okay, you can look at me without getting too like, fucking look at me, dude. Yeah, because you can, you can feel, you can feel it.

There's a line there, and once you cross it, someone's like, oh, you're just showboating, you're just in it for the attention or whatever else. This is no longer authentic.

Ironically, Ironically, for me, I was really good at both of those. Some people are like, really think I'm a douchebag. Anybody who spends time with me is like, oh my God, he's not a douchebag.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm okay with them thinking I'm a douchebag.

My favorite thing is when people talk about someone who has like an online persona and then they talk about hanging out with them in person and they use the word actually.

Yeah.

So it's like, like Nick Huber, right? So you're friends with Nick Huber, you know, or something like that. Or I'll hear some say, yeah, I met Nick Huber at a conference and I actually really like him. You know, like the word actually, you know, like I hung out with James Reeves and I actually really like him. You know, actually it's like this disconnect between how they come across in person.

Yeah.

Or like, and, or like the, the human to human connection that comes through versus the persona.

Yeah, persona. Because that's, it's an, it's like, it's something about our, like something I believe is like our, you know, the way that the internet works is work, the way that the internet works is through nervous systems. Okay. You know, this is what, like, you're designing a website from your billion-year-old nervous system to create an experience in someone else's billion-year-old nervous system on the other side of a screen. It's like, basically, you're like, like, look on two sides of a window, right? And the reality of the, of how this nervous system, in fact, like, you walk by someone in the grocery store, this is all online and and making assumptions and judgments and this, that, and the other, just as much as on the internet and just as much as, as in the show and in the game and, and, and in the, the market, so to speak, you know. So like, the nervous system really matters in business stuff is something that has taken me a long time to, to think about. But even from the beginning, that's why I oriented towards the feeling. When I was designing websites, it was like I just wanted to feel cool. I just wanted to be fucking interesting. Part of my friend, I just want to be like, just like, hey, check this out. And every time I design someone's website, I would do it in Photoshop and I would— and I couldn't use lorem ipsum. I can't be like, well, this headline's going to go here, blah, blah, you know, no filler text. I would— I would write it like, here's what— here's what I would do. And every single time they used my copy throughout, right? So that's where I started to realize many of them were writers. Yeah.

And they're—

all of them were writers. And that's where I realized like, okay, I've got some copywriting. And that came from the like you know, I was trained as a pastor. I'm like a word— I'm a poet. I like the words. I like the depth of things. And that's like, you know, you're studying scripture, that's words, right? It's not pictures. You know, it's, it's interesting that like that ended up pulling through into a marketing sort of point of view. Another thing that's always been challenging for me is like, is we are marketing on the web. We're asking you to pay attention. To a thing. And that took a long time. It's still sort of challenging. Like, I'm doing a men's retreat this, this weekend, and my girlfriend's like, you need to make a video where you just say, come to my men's retreat.

Like, be as direct as possible.

As direct as possible. And it's still a little bit of a challenge to me, but that's what we're doing. We're honestly, we're honestly asking for you to pay attention to this thing, but we're smuggling it, it in also, where it's like, hey, have you ever wondered why this, that, and the other is so important? Like, I'm Chase, I help creators deal with Brum, brum, brum, brum. Here's the— and then, you know, you're like, we've got some nugget that we're trying to smuggle in. You can't just like say, here's the point. You have to like juice it up a bit. And then the reason why you want them to pay attention to that actually is so they'll work with you or buy your product or this, that, and the other. It's another phase of the creators. It's like we just want people to pay attention and then you get some attention and you're like, oh wait, I'm broke.

Like, okay, so taste. Yeah, I feel like there's so many things that are I like learnable. If you said, Nathan, I need you to sit down and learn how to build a house, I'd be like, no problem. Yeah, I can follow. You know, I can, I can do all this. Learn to code.

Yeah.

Learn Photoshop, learn all these skills. That's not a problem. If you said, hey, I need you to learn how to have good taste.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'd be like, I don't have good taste. You know, like, I, I take it personally in some way. But there's all these creators that we talk to or, or admire their work and you're like, oh man, they just have taste. Or musicians, that sort of thing. How do you go about developing taste?

Okay. First answer is that Ira Glass quote, right? You know the one I'm talking about?

Tell me. I've—

it's like there's, there's— it's, it's fascinating to me that there's still a few things from the early days of the internet that are just as relevant.

Yeah.

You know, like Gary Vee at Web 2.0 conference or whatever. It's like you could, you could watch that today and it was like 15, 20 years ago. It's just as relevant, right? This Ira Glass quote of him talking about taste: when you first start making things, it's disappointing because your taste is higher than your capabilities. But as you keep going, you're like, your taste is up here and your capabilities are down here. As you make things, this is what my answer is. As you make things, you build taste. As you become the man in the arena, right? As you're actually not like going like, I would do that differently, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As you're actually making things, that's how it, that's how it gets better. To make things and put them out, you have to confront a lot of psychological material. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, you have to confront a lot, namely your fear of rejection, right? Which is what like wanted to take me out for forever. And then I figured out how to do a personality that was like, I really don't care. And then it's like, you know, it catches up with you over time. But there is a way where you can honestly openhearted step into creating and making things. And even though you're afraid that you're not going to get the views, you're going to feel the rejection and all this other stuff, like that's why we stay out of the game. That's why we stay out. It's also why we sabotage ourselves. So all of this, like, tricky psychological material is very much at play in creator business, even though it sounds like I just make a blog or whatever. It's like all of this is what I realize now and what I've helped some clients with is like, this is— you actually are— you are determined not to be seen. You like want to prove it to your— to yourself that you don't want to— that you're not good enough for it. We got to work through some of that so that you can step out in ways where you can see the risk that's takeable for you, right? You know?

Yeah. I'm thinking about what you're saying about taste and the hourglass quote of you basically put in the reps. Yeah. And, you know, you The frustrating part of creation is the gap between what you think you should be able to create, what you want to create, what you have the skill set for. Something that helped me a lot is just directly copying other people's work. Totally. Like going into— when I was learning Photoshop, I would pull up a website or a graphic designer or somebody else and say, I'm going to recreate this pixel perfect and to try to understand what are the techniques that you literally did that. Oh yeah.

Oh wow.

Because you would go through and I didn't know that was a technique.

Yeah.

Years later, I've heard like Sam Parr and other people talk about copywork where they do that with, uh, great writing where they will actually pull up, you know, Ernest Hemingway or whoever they're trying to start typing along and actually handwrite it to get like the connection to your brain. And so there's one aspect of that where if you don't know what to make, go make something that's an exact copy of someone else's and you'll like internalize those and build those skills.

Let me pause you there. Can you remember what you're about to say? Because the time to copy something and do that right, that is like sacred in today's day and age. The Nathan, the younger Nathan Barry going like, I'm going to, I'm going to actually just make this, I'm going to fuck around with this and make this. That is, that's the element that like, that's how you build taste is have that time built in to try something. So specifically to copy something, but also just that time alone is like I'm putting a pin in that for people to like double I double-clicked this idea that you can— you got to slow down enough, right, to actually start copying someone. And I'm sitting here, and so are you, saying like, oh, I'm glad I did that. Like, right, that's valuable.

Yeah. You know, well, and so basically carving it— like, first the intention of saying, hey, I want to develop taste. And so then I'm going to see, okay, who's— whose taste do I like? Who am I going— like, let me curate all of my inspiration sources. And it could be across a bunch of things, right? There might be or a YouTuber that you love, they're, you know, musicians, whoever else, right? Like some of the best storytellers are musicians. And so you pull from all these different sources and then saying, okay, now I'm going to— I have the intention, I have the inspiration, and now I'm going to set aside the time and protect that and say, okay, for an hour a day, 2 hours a day, I'm gonna learn this thing.

Yeah, well, I mean, think what's so sacred about that is your interest is actually an authentic development of your own voice and your own soul. That's what you're interested in. We want to be seen. We want to make the money, like, doing something that's authentic to us. That would be killer. That was always the dream, right? I was always going to have my career come out of who I am. Why? Because I'm just a very bad employee. Yeah, not good at it. But it's, it's honestly like a kind of a sacred exploration to be a songwriter, to be a writer, to be— and I don't want to like make it sound too highfalutin or whatever, but that pathway of scratching your own itch, discovering what's interesting to you, figuring out how to pull the thought through to completion in a blog post or an email newsletter or a YouTube video, figuring out how to press record, like, and, and ramble and just, you know, improvise, which is how I got started. And like, I was interested in, in, in some sort of a deeper connection to myself, and I wanted to see if anybody wanted to have that kind of connection with me too, right? So for me personally, this was very much like a, a soulful exploration beyond just, can I do it? Because that was in there too. Can I make a website like this? Could I know how to figure out how to like light and do camera stuff? Could I perform to camera like with nobody else in the studio? Could I make a song? And like, and all this goes way, way, way back to like high school where it's like, yeah, could I record something? Could I write something and record it on my laptop, my Gateway, like 6500 or whatever it was, you know?

Something that's so unique about being a creator is the wide range of skills. Like you don't actually get to specialize. You have to do all of these different things, especially, you know, you don't have a team early on, you don't have any of this. And so it's something that I've always admired about you is you're just like, you'll dive in, you'll learn anything, whether it's design, code, on-camera work. Like, how do you think about tackling each one of these? Was it deliberate or you just, you have something you want to make and you're like, I, I just decided to make it, and the first version was terrible, and the second version was a little better.

I'm laughing because I'm like, well, first of all, what you really need is a, is a, is a deep sense of insecurity. Step one is like, be concerned about if you're lovable. But that's like, uh, there was a drive. There was just a drive. There was a sensitivity and attunement. Like, I would watch pastors on stage or watch musicians at shows. I would watch movies. Like, actors in movies, or eventually learn to see the director and the filmmaker and the writer in the movie. And, and I would connect to these people as auteurs, as creators, as like a point of view. It's like, still in the age of AI, the moment you get that sniff that it's like, oh, this feels like it's fucking generated, right? You notice that? It's like that uncanny valley feeling where it's like, oh, it just has to—

this, this author just asked a rhetorical question and then answered it immediately later, or said it's not this, it's that, you know? And you're like, uh-huh, totally.

And even though like chat's pretty fucking good at those little like juxtapositions, I'm like, actually, that's brilliant. I should use that. But there's something about it that just feels impersonable, that feels like it's not coming from an actual person and a point of view. And I don't mean there needs to be a human. I just mean I want someone's perspective, a lived experience and something like that. And because I had those sensitivities and was so curious about those, I guess, forms of media or creativity because I connected with the filmmaker in the film and the musician in the song or the songwriter in the song. I just wanted that. I wanted to be that. Same thing with like when I was designing those websites, like I was with Corbett Bart, who we partnered in Fizzle, and he did ThinkTraffic before that. There was like a personality in the writing. There was a sense of of him in there. And I just wanted to create something where that was like coming through, especially with Pat Flynn. When I did his site, there was like this like real California old license plate kind of vibe that we were going for. And Steve Kamb at Nerd Fitness was just like comic books and, you know, Lego characters and, and stuff like that where it was somehow trying to, trying to take some of these elements because I had to limit myself creatively, but then to pull that through in a way that wasn't cheesy. And then, you know, and there was very specifics in the web design, right, where it's like, okay, golden ratio on my type. And so it's this wide, then my line height needs to be less. And like, you know, and like learning to hand code websites by like percentages and, and ems instead of pixels and stuff so that they're responsive and all that jazz. All of that. I fell in love. I had once one CEO guy tell me when I was, when I was working for him, I was his marketing department and he was like, Chase, you fall in love with the technology. It makes you both the best and worst sales guy ever. You are never going to be my solo sales guy, but like, I like you in the room kind of thing. So I fall in love with the technology. I fall in love with like, I see the beauty in HTML, CSS and trying to make it as concise as possible. I, for some reason, I went from being a musician to also, that's beautiful. Right. I had a drive to learn some of this stuff. So like, if I'm trying to teach someone how to do that, I'm do— I want to help. I want to explore where their interest is right now. It was just, it was an interest. It was a need to be seen. It was a need to be a craftsman. And so for some reason that was up for me. For some reason, you coding that website or like, you know, Photoshopping it just like making it pixel perfect. Like, why? Like, right? How do you explain that? There was just— there's something he wanted to learn how to do.

You know, I feel like right now a lot of people are shying away from learning a skill set because they, they've had their identity around whatever previous job they had before they became a creator or something else.

Right.

I am a filmmaker and editor, so I won't go— I won't go on camera. I am behind, behind the screen, behind the lens type person.

Yeah.

Or Another angle would be like, I'm a developer. And so of course it doesn't look good. Right? Why would you expect me to make it look good? Like, you know, the code behind the scenes is perfect. And what I'm trying to get to with you that you're probably the person who, of my friends, who embodies this the most is the obsession with learning every part of the craft and not even a, you don't seem scared of it at all. You know, I could learn video editing, but I don't want to. It's going to be hard. Like, or something where you just dive in and you just do it. Is that like, is that like a multi-week process? Is that you're spending months? Are you like, what makes you say, hey, I don't have that skill set and I'd like to? And so, yeah, there's— from now I will.

I guess the first thought that comes up is, is there's plenty of stuff that I don't decide to learn. Okay. Not like consciously. I just like, there's no interest. There's no interest. There's like no light over there. Yeah. I can't even see it.

Does anything come to mind that you're like, oh, I've thought about learning that and I—

Great question. Yeah, like, uh, becoming a shaman.

Okay.

Yeah, I was like, I was like, maybe I'm gonna become a shaman. And then I'm like, I don't know if I have the ancestors for this. Like, it was just like, that takes me too far away. It just takes me too far away.

Because there are an endless number of things on this earth to learn.

Yes.

And all of that information is at your fingertips now. But you know, like, maybe 50 years ago, you're like, I want to be— and it's Okay, you're gonna have to move countries, you're going, you know, all the stuff. Now you're like, oh, I can't connect with anyone.

Now you got it right here.

And so you— so being deliberate about here's what I want to pursue and here's what I don't.

Yeah, it's, it's really, it's that Liz Gilbert thing about don't, don't follow your passion, follow your curiosity. Follow your curiosity.

What's the difference to you between those two things?

Okay, passion is like a thing I'm supposed to be eventually, like I like, I'm passionate about this. And it's like, remember, you are so passionate about gymnastics in high school, right? It's like, yeah, but curiosity, there's no pressure on curiosity. There's— it alleviates all of it. It's a subtle— it might be the same exact thing. And all when it's all said and done. But for me, like wayfinding from where I am right now, my passion is like I'm looking backwards to what I've been passionate about. My curiosity is I'm right here looking at like where What's alive right now? So there's something about personal interest that's always been important. Not to say, you know, that person— that interest doesn't dip, right? And sometimes, sometimes I have enough wherewithal that like, this is going to be important sort of past the dip and you just, you stick with it. There's something about your curiosity and your personal interest. There's also something about sensing that there's greatness out there. Like if I was stepping into something where I didn't already— I hadn't sniffed out some of the greats. Like with web design, I kind of— I saw some greats.

Yeah.

Like, wow, they were doing something freaking different. Like, oh, there's artists out here with filmmakers, with, you know, YouTubers, with freaking obviously musicians and, and shamans and things like this. You can sniff out some of the greats. You have an experience with them and you're like, oh, there's something that can be devotional and beautiful about this. Because ultimately, I think that's where I had to get, is it has to be for me. I'm, I'm the one who's going to give me the love that I need, actually, first and foremost. Second of all, like, if I'm in— if I can make this a labor of love because I believe it's important and make my own contribution to the, the field of this thing, meaningful as a gift to myself, as like already meaningful, then all of the views and all of the comments and all the love and all of this, that, and the other is a benefit, you know. Be— but like, burnout is what happens when we need— we're leaning over our skis, we're leaning forward, and we need that more because there— they can come. That's the curse is when it comes, because people don't have any idea of how long this game actually is. And how— what it's like to be a fucking winner for, for like years even. But to watch year 4, like, it's been trickling down for like a year, and you just see it on these people's faces, you know. This just like— it's a real— it's a, it's a real— you're getting squeezed out because you're not aligned in some way, or, or what got you there won't get you— okay, well, I got you here, won't get you there kind of thing. Or it's a longer game to be doing this professionally. So I'm like, I want to make clear distinction between doing this professionally as a living, right, and being an honest, like, in honest pursuit of your craft, your, your exploration, your creativity, your artistry, because you don't need to make any money from any of this stuff, you know.

And it's a hard thing now because you can make money from anything.

Yeah.

Then there's a temptation of like, yeah, oh, I like this, I'm getting traction with it, I should make money from it.

There's some old Buddhist precept: I have promised to abstain from exploiting my passions. You know, it's like, okay, interesting. I promise to abstain from exploiting my passions. It's like, because why? Because there's something beautiful, sacred, holy, and true in there. And like a huckster, we can sell ourselves out on the market and end up 10, 15— you don't know how long life is— you end up 10, 15 years down the road having shucked that, like, sacred stuff out of you. And you're in your kind of— you're kind of a husk. You can build it all back, right? But, but again, to what got you here won't get you there sort of thing. It can feel really devastating. And to be that humbled and to come back to yourself. I've seen it happen again and again. I've experienced it. But like, so there's, there's a way through it. But like, you know, life— it is another Liz Gilbert thing. Life is long and chase is young. There's plenty of time. I'll be saying that when I'm 65, 70. Like, it's this idea that, like, creative work is a very long-term freaking exploration. And to do it in the marketplace of, you know, social media is bonkers. So I'm just, like, letting people know, like, it's bonkers, okay? It takes a lot. It takes a lot. It might take everything, but it's also beautiful. It's also very beautiful. And I'm grateful for it. I'm still surviving, and I was a precious little snowflake, let me just tell you. Okay, is delicate in here, but I have learned. I've learned, and you can too.

I love any time we get a straight-to-camera, like, delivered to watch on YouTube so you can know that that was a speech into your soul.

It's the eye contact that really matters. Let's talk about something I learned on YouTube. You can literally look into the camera. Like, I would do this for hours by myself. Everything I've done on YouTube is by myself with a freaking camera that I'm pushing record on and setting up all the lights. And I would just like feel like there's a human there and I would go from that place. I would connect to that place. Then different words come and I find that that is like a really important part of like when I slow down enough to do that as I'm doing it now. Now I can— I won't look away. And some people are like, this is fucking awkward. And I'm just like, no, this is connection. Like, you don't know, but I know we can do one-to-many like this and like, I see you, you're good, I love you. Everything's going to be okay, but it's going to take a little work. All right.

That's something that I learned from Levi Allen, who's a great filmmaker.

He's awesome. I love Levi.

You know, also a very talented, prolific, like, will learn any skill. But he always starts his video with, hey friend.

Yeah.

Like, right on. Hey friend.

Yeah.

You know, right into the camera. It's not friends. Hey everybody.

So excited to see you all.

Everybody's gathered here. You know, it's just like you and me. We're just, we're just connecting. And it's that same idea of, you know, right to one person. Yeah. And have that, that connection.

Yeah.

Something else that I've heard you say in the past is that the internet rewards performance, not integration.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me about that.

Like a bad dad. We got it in. Like a bad dad. The internet rewards your performance. Okay. So meaning like you're getting this external validation for a performative, like, aspect of yourself.

And this is like me score, you know, as a kid, I score the goal in the soccer game. Yeah. It's like, and you feel celebrated, not the work that to get that.

And you feel like, like there's more love now. It's not just— and, and you didn't score the goal the next day, and there's not that love. It's conditional. The internet is extremely conditional that way.

I had this moment. So, uh, my 14-year-old son is very into pickleball. And so, good job.

I mean, fastest growing sport in America. Great sport. He picked that.

Uh, he can now destroy me at it. There's no— oh, I mean, he's so— how old's your oldest He's 14. Okay, so we, uh, I came home last night from the PPA, so the whatever, the professional pickleball, you know, their big tournament in Arizona. And so he's playing in the 16U division. Wow. And the, this team that they're playing against, so they're playing, um, playing a doubles game, and the, they were winning the game and I could start to see the kids on the other side like struggle and start to fall apart a little bit. And the kid goes to his dad, like I'm standing near his dad because it's just like a small court, you know. And so I'm standing maybe 10, 15 feet away from his dad. And you could just see the frustration on his dad's face build. And the kid actually turns to his dad at this moment. I felt so bad. He's like, hey, like, give me something. I need this. And his dad was so frustrated at the— like you could just watch it deflate and like their performance you know, just continue to do great. And it was like the— like a bad dad, you saw that show up. There was none of the like, hey, yeah, whatever outcome comes from this, like, I'm here for you, right? All that. It was pure disappointment at a time when this poor 14, 15-year-old like needed the exact opposite, which is hard.

It's hard. Like, by the way, I've been that dad. More eye contact. I've been that dad, you know, like, uh, My dad has been that dad at moments, you know, not all the time, but some of the time. Like, we do it, we do it, we get excited, we get— we lose the connection, we lose track of our purpose. So first of all, that. Second of all, the internet isn't a human, but it's made out of humans, right? Back to that nervous system idea. And you will get feedback that you are good and wanted and loved, and it will nourish— it would like feed that part of you.

You use it to fuel, to create the next piece of content or whatever else.

There is always, however, a danger in being externally motivated. Externally validated— external validation is terrific, but unless you learn how to pull that inside and then start to be internally motivated, according to the therapists, right, that— and according to my experience as a creator, right, that is what we're looking for. Because otherwise you're on the cycle of, of boom and bust and boom and bust and boom and bust, which is fine. So it's one way to like squeeze out the dopamine and serotonin from a nervous system and you're going to get all the cortisol and shit flooding.

A lot of great artists whose work we incredibly admire.

Yeah.

Have ridden that cycle.

Yes.

And, you know, it's a lot of times where you say like, oh, I want the outcome. Yeah, I want the outcomes that they created, but you don't want to be them.

Yeah. It's like that Jeff Goins book, like Real Artists Don't Starve, right? What if there's a way to be a real artist that has the longevity of a kind of like neutral growth of, of equanimity, right? Instead of this boom and bust, which I'm a very passionate, romantic person. Like, I still have those booms and busts in, in ways, but like, I can tell when I'm on the depressive side. Like, I can go like, okay, we're in the depressive side. Like, this is— and I can, and I can come at it with less judgment or no judgment. And when I'm on the freaking manic side, I can be like, I'm pretty sure we're a little bit higher than we should be. Like, I, like, I can— like, I'm not used to feeling this good. Like, I don't trust this, right? Upper limits clicking, right? But, um, that external validation from the internet is a real thing, and it's possible, and it takes so much work to get there and just get that fucking little hit back that you've really done something, you've accomplished something. But like, for some reason I'm thinking about this, I'm just gonna say it because it's a weird metaphor. There's this thing in meditative and yoga experience called the Kundalini awakening. Just go with it for a second. Kundalini, Kundalini, strong energy lives at the base of the spine and you want to wake it up so it comes up. One time I had a spontaneous Kundalini awakening and I couldn't sleep for 3 weeks. And my one mentor at the time was like, shut it down. Spend time in large bodies of water, eat red meat, watch daytime television, do anything that will shut down and bring your energy down because a Kundalini meltdown will set you back years. And, uh, it's like that. I couldn't ground it. I got new access to my, like, internal system, but I couldn't ground it. I would lie down and sleep and it would be like fireworks in my body and the most pleasurable, like, amazing— I felt like I had attained something. So to shut it down felt so sad, but I was getting crazy without sleep.

You knew that it was going to crash. What your mentor was basically saying, like, yeah, if you don't regulate this in some way, you're going to crash incredibly So it's—

that's the metaphor that's coming to mind for like the internet. You do work so hard to get that pop. It's like, oh, something went viral. We're starting to grow. We're seeing the results. Okay. If you can't ground it, like literally a tree root, tree roots go down, tree branches going up, reaching for sunlight, reaching down for the water and the soil. If you need both of these, I'm just like, this is the mantra of it. You need both of these because then you're going to be able to sustain the growth.

Growth.

And that's what we want. Again, if we're thinking really long term with this thing, which is, which is what we're going to need to do. I don't know how many creators are going so big that they're, that they're done in a few years and then they can just kind of cash out. Like maybe people who start email marketing companies, but like the rest of us silly little TikTokers and YouTubers and people who are, who are basically hobbyists creating something that now we're professionals in. It's like, how do we do this over a long period of time? There's absolutely a way. And your audience changes with over time and like there's just, there's stages to the game. Also, congratulations, you got that pop. Like you saw some, you saw some traction. I don't know if I ever really saw the traction. My whole thing has been like this the entire time we launched Fizzle. It was like to the, to the Think Traffic audience, we're like right there, 2,000 members. And we just fricking every, we were constantly, right, podcast, 10,000 listeners the whole time.

Yeah.

Little bit of fluctuation. Same with my YouTube channel, just been like— so I'm kind of— I'm being taught this like long-term thing and it feels— if I believe— I believe in it at least now because I'm doing it and I've been successfully paying for like my kids, my life, like all this stuff for like years now, for over a decade, like 15 years almost. I mean, before that, with Fizzle for a long time, but like I've been 10 years on my own with just being a fucking YouTuber.

Yeah.

You know?

So yeah, it's this longevity. What, what contributes to being able to have that longevity and to actually, if you were saying, okay, I am coaching or mentoring a creator who their, their tree as a creator is growing tall and you're, you're starting to worry that maybe their roots aren't matching it.

Yeah.

How would you coach or mentor them on building?

That's a good question. Okay, so the roots, if it's— if I'm really seeing a deficiency in the roots, yeah, then it's like, okay, we're going to go— we're gonna do some deeper work. We're gonna do some actual, like, depth work. We're gonna get into our feelings. We're gonna do, like, do some— do a men's weekend if it's a male, or like, whatever, some sort of— if you're in a relationship, we're gonna get deeper in relationship stuff. We're gonna understand how to tell some truth to each other, understand what we're co-creating in life. Like, there's That, that's the grounding out into our domains of ownership is like where our roots go.

Are there specific questions that you like or that, you know, you'd assign someone to journal on?

The question kind of comes from the person, right? But it, it, like, you— we're probably going to be exploring, you know, stuff around mom and dad, right? This is like, we're probably going to be exploring stuff around where do I feel performative in my life and just kind of getting a little sense of that. And we're going to be definitely doing like somatic, like, sort of stuff in our body, literally down in our body, like our back of our back, down the, down the back of our legs to the back of our heels. That's the thing that opened in me in this kundalini awakening.

Okay.

I never heard it. I was like, I wasn't there. I just didn't have— we'd be building some internal awareness there. Lower belly, right? The bottom of the heart, the bottom of the brain, feeling the weight of the brain, the head actually resting on the neck. All this grounding sort of stuff is like— it sounds goofy, but it really— it starts to open our field of awareness to like to what is, what is good in this thing without me getting all hyped up, without getting taken away and losing myself in the dream of the success of it. Because another thing to like how we're going to be successful over long term is going to be partnerships. And partnerships, in order for those to succeed, you can't be flaky. And you, you're going to have to like, like the fin on the bottom of the surfboard. Is what keeps you like going in the same direction. You have, you have to develop that fin. And so when you, when a potential client comes in or an opportunity comes in and you got a little bit of like a, but it's a good opportunity, like there's an extra zero there, it's like that, like we want to slow down and notice that because it's going to feel like there's momentum and we got to go with it knowing that you're a genius, like your nervous system is literally a genius. And it's— and like, if you step into it, it's going to be learning in that feeling and doing that consciously as opposed to just like, oh, but that's what we got to do. This is what we're about, right? We got to go all the fucking way, turn the hat backwards, click send, right? And then you're going, great, you're on the ride. There's going to be some learning. You're going to get some stuff out of it. But like, long term, what makes these things work is your brand deals, your partnerships on those kinds of sides. They matter a lot. They do. And so not being flaky, but also they can tell, like, like any— like you can tell when someone's coming at you with an opportunity or energy or they're asking you to do something for them. You're like, I don't want to do that, right? You're building an ecosystem of partnership. That's what's going to sustain you over a long period of time.

And I can think of actually quite a few people who I really admire them as humans. I admire their work, all of that. And if they were to pitch me on doing something together, I'd probably say no. Because I feel like they don't have that fin on their surfboard.

Yeah.

That they're going to be on to the next thing or they don't have the stability to follow through. Yeah. Or that sort of thing. And so I like that where you're saying, hey, how reliable are you? We're talking about building skills earlier. Have you built the skill, the muscle, the discipline to stay consistent and to follow through?

Which part of that is the perspective that we're going to be here for a while and these are the other plants in the environment. Like these thrive, we thrive. The, the, like this ecosystem, right? That perspective. And that, that took me a long time to grow that because it was just like me, me, me, my, my, my.

And is that the difference between thinking, you know, 3 to 6 months out versus like 3 to 6 years or something where you're like, look, it's one element of it, it's one element of it, right?

There's other parts of it that are related specifically to you. Like, who am I? You don't know who you're going to be in 3 years. You don't know who you were 3 years ago. You wouldn't recognize yourself in some ways. That Ira Glass quote again, yeah, about taste. Now your taste is at a different level. Um, so it's a mystery, it's an exploration. That's why this is soul work. That's why I like it so much, you know, especially as a creator. Like, God's the creator, right? Like, think about that word. Like, you're making some shit. Um, this, this element of who you're gonna be and what your interests are going to align with and The fact that that's like, we can, we can have some sense of it. And also it's like, as a function of your age, like hormonally, if you're not— if you're a man at like 43, like, I'm like, I know right where you are. If you're 35, it's like, okay, I know, right? Like, like, and you might not have much of a fin yet. You're kind of squirrely because that's what you're supposed to be learning right now. Because pretty soon that fin's gonna develop and you're gonna go like, oh fuck yeah, I want to go this way and I want to take them with me. And yeah, this is what we're doing. And then like other people are like, I want in. And you're like, I don't know, I haven't even thought about you, you know. And you're like, things kind of emerge and develop over time. But developing purpose in someone is, uh, you can't rush it. It's like a function of our hormones. As men, as we age, like the estrogen goes up a little bit more, that like makes us a little more caretaking, you know. But we also got to navigate the testosterone. You know, women with perimenopause and all that, like there's a there's like, our hormones is one of the things that, that like we can be a little bit intelligent about. Because yeah, at 26, young 30s, yeah, you go, go nuts, dude. Go crazy. Try stuff out, right? And, and notice when— if you can slow down enough to notice when the hits kind of hurt, or to like be like, oh, maybe I'm not as invincible as I think I am. There's that line in that Bon Iver song, at once I knew I was not magnificent. Right? It's like, that's 39. Yeah, you know, it's a long game. It's a long game. I had no idea. Now I'm so glad that what I've built is able to, A, be authentic to me. I can roll with it, I can change it, shift it, flow with it. B, I have partnerships and in these brands and other creators and things like that feel like soulful and good to me. I feel aligned and I see— I can— I don't know exactly what the future is, but I can feel the direction of it. That is holy. That's great. Most of my life I have been a fucking scared kid trying to get to the next paycheck, right? Just like not feeling like I have done it yet. Not feeling I have done it yet. And I still haven't done it, but I like— I'm doing it more, right? That is a Fucking awesome place to be. I'm so glad for it.

Yeah. So something that I've watched in your career and, and I've heard you talk about is this idea of becoming known for something on a pretty big scale that's not your deepest work.

Yeah, right.

You're talking about the emotional connection to the work. Yeah. Uh, maybe things that drive depression or like the downs of these cycles. What did that look like for you in your journey, and then how did you come through it?

Yeah, this is great. It's like, yeah, it's, uh, I've always had two skis going. All right? And one of them's the, like, bigger audience, public-facing, uh, figuring out how to make money from that one. This is like the thing that they want, you know. If you know about ikigai— yes, what, what you're great at, what the world needs, and what you can fucking make. I don't know, whatever. I don't remember what the other one is now, but it's like, this is what the world needs and what they're wanting from me. And then there's the other ski, which, which was something more— it's like this I keep using the word soulful, but it's like my authentic flow. It's— it's— I was a— I was— I got really into Christianity. My— none of my family was Christians. I just was like interested and curious. I think I just wanted more hugs, you know, or something. And then it ended up becoming like an identity, and I became professional, and I became like trained as a pastor, was like a successful worship leader pastor guy for a long time. And then my wife at the time and I were like like, you know, after starting church, is like, I think we're not gonna do this anymore. She like— I was literally taking a crap and she leaned in and was like, I don't think I'm gonna go to do this thing with the God who's got the whole health thing anymore. And I was like, all right. But my first thought was, all right, Father, we'll see where this goes. My first thought was a prayer. My first— and, and ever since then, it's still been an authentic exploration of spirituality, the soulful, deeper work, all the things that can't help but come out from me in here about the longevity, the roots going down and up, the sacred connectedness of our nervous systems and the fact that like the more you get aligned with the fact with your nervous system, the more of a chance you can put another nervous system into resonance with you. Because like we're so susceptible to this, like this billions of years old, it's just billions of years old. So that second ski has always been in this like soulful, deeper sort of side of things, this curious, honest, like cosmic explorer, curious, like thing. And I've never quite felt like, uh, like ready to start just offering that until recently. I started making more offerings in and hosting these retreats. Right now it's just men's work and doing— we're doing more client work. I've been training and coaching for like 15 years, like from seminaries. And like Dan, who I was with here yesterday, did his coaching thing. And it's like, off— starting to make those offers into the thing that I've been slow, like, learning passionately over a long period of time, starting to put those things out. I'm surprised how much of me it brought back into my work. Because as a provider and a caretaker, that other ski where the money's already coming in, like, that's where I'm gonna— like, I'm scared. I want to make sure that that's going. And, and, but I was like, a soulful guy, I'm like, dude, I'm scared because I, like, I'm going to burn out. I'm like, I'm becoming a husk. I'm, I'm like—

And is that as you're like diving in and teaching business content and all these courses and like, yeah, what was the thing that you were successful at and not?

Even then I was the pastor of that community.

Okay.

I was a pastor and I was a motivational speaker, right? I would take the— we would develop the content I would perform it into a, into a course. We would do the coaching calls, and it was an energy of like, uh, you know, I live in a van down by the river, like, let's go, it's— I'm getting you fired up, right? Yeah. And take like— because when you're starting something from scratch, you live in freaking Indiana and you don't have that many close friends, but you like started paying attention to some blogs and you took a chance, and like now you're paying $50 a month to be a part of this community. It's like, I want to start a blog this thing, it's like, man, just— you need some firepower. You need, like, you need help. Like, Diana needs a little juice, right? Diana now has this very successful photography blog. But like, um, that motivational speaker plus pastoral element, and then I was just a teacher. I've always been a great teacher. I can synthesize information really quick. I can, I can put stuff together. I can find what's interesting. I can also go off on rabbit trails, as you can see. Me, but like the, but the, the like performance of information is, is not too challenging for me. And also the development of it. Like the first, very first course we did at Fizzle was called Defining Your Audience. And I was just me. Corbett was just like, go make it. Because I was the web designer who, before I would design a website, I would go read every comment on the website, right? I read every single comment because I'm like, who are these people? That's my version of deep research. Because like, I'm just like, who are they? And I'm most of the time see a little avatar and like this, the gist. I didn't read any of the article. I was just like, what's this? Where are they coming from? Because when people are commenting, they're like, look at me, look at me. Like, here's something I realize that's good about you. That's what that's about me, right? Everything's about them. The articles that we're writing is about them, right? The videos that I make, it's like, it's like it's about them actually. They're the ones. It's like back to Donald Miller thing where it's like they're the ones who are the hero. You're the Yoda. You're not the Luke Skywalker. You have to become the Luke Skywalker in your own life to, like, take a chance and do something. The main character energy. But then when you're making something, you're the guide. You're the guide in the hero's journey, right? That was fascinating. And that was like one of the pieces in this defining your audience thing where it's like an, an actual perspective of service to understand who these people are, what they're struggling with, because nobody on the frickin internet is going to love you the way that your mom did, or at least we're supposed to. Okay, like, they don't care. You're still needing that, and that's holy and sacred, and let's talk about it. But like, what they're interested in, if you want to be a successful creator, is you have to get interested in what they're interested in. You have to identify or understand what their need and their journey is. And chances are, if you're building an audience around your persona, it's the same need that you had, right? Where the, the place where you're the most valuable to someone is right on top of the spot that cost you most to learn about, right? I don't know. Does that answer questions? Yeah.

I mean, there's a quote that came to mind, um, I think it's from Phil McKernan, where he says, your greatest gift is next to your deepest wound. And, uh, I always think about that, you know, that's in like a very soulful, like, do all the work through your pain and trauma and use that to impact the world. But you could also apply it in a way going back to the curiosity of in a very tactical, skill-based way where you can say, hey, what's the thing that I struggled with the most, you know, as I was learning these skills or learning business or learning these other things? And they'll be like, oh, maybe that's what I can teach.

Yeah.

You know, or they say if you're teaching something like go back to the painful time that you learned that lesson.

Yeah.

And if you share that, people will automatically trust you more. They're in because they're like, oh, that's okay. When even if it's a simple thing that ultimately doesn't matter, like the time that you were learning to write client proposals and you did it wrong and it cost you a $5,000 web design gig.

Right.

You know, and so now you learn to do it this way and now I'm teaching you the same thing, right?

It's so—

I trust you because—

It's so authoritative, actually. Ironically, again, these are billion-year-old nervous systems. It's stuff like that that makes so much sense on that level, but might not, might not make sense from like the things we've been trained to to try to do.

The thing that makes me think of is you going back to the, the musician and the songwriter, and like, then it was like almost what gets status in that world of like with the authentic connection and saying like, oh, here's what I'm actually truly feeling.

Yeah.

And I think that's true now in the creator world.

Yeah.

Of like, not only do people see, oh, you're being real and they connect with you, but the— and they're more likely to know, like, and trust you, but they'll share it more too, where they're like, oh, this is someone who is sharing from like a, like something that's deeply personal to them.

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of videos that I've done where I just had a little extra energy. Yeah. And I did these like songs as intros. Some are incredible, Nathan Barry.

Imagining you with extra energy.

Dude, there was some like little vlog I did, uh, for a trip to Bozeman when I was with a, uh, working with a company up there. Packed. And, uh, I did an intro about Boseman because I fell in love with Boseman. Yeah, I was just like, oh my God, I love— this is before I saw Yellowstone and all that other stuff, okay? Now I'm a huge Taylor Sheridan fan, as you can see from my Western shirt. But like, I'm just trying to get— I'm just trying to get like extra status in some Sheridan production, Lion Man season 3. But the, the intro that I made for that video is so fucking good. I still to this day have a buddy, Jesse Elder, who introduces me— when he introduces me to somebody, he's like, here, watch this. And he pulls up that video.

Like you're in person together.

We're in person.

This is Chase.

I mean, actually, no, it's so— a lot of Chase to introduce. Anybody knows someone at the, at the Bozeman freaking travel sort of world, uh, please, we need to, we need to hit that up. One of those partners I'm, I'm trying to build. One of those for sure. But I've built a lot a lot of songs with raps and lyrics that like are so much fun. It's so much fun to do, to just like pull that out. And I kind of crush, and then I just drop it and walk away over here to this ski that's like, it's just making, making the money. But I— it's one of those questions I have at the back of my head. If I could just go off and do music thing, would I? Could I?

Should I?

Kind of thing. Because that's the most vulnerable place for me to go. And I still, like, I'll— I play my drum and I play— I, you know, pray. I pray with music by myself and I improvise and I make stuff up, and it's still very much alive. But like, to, to take that and put it and like in the look-at-me kind of place is something I've, I've been much slower to do, you know.

I've learned so much either directly from you or from watching you in our friendship over the years Um, I'll rattle off a couple of them and then go to the thing that I'm like, that I see you doing that I want to learn from you. So first, uh, I still edit the way you taught me, like edit videos, which as a quick aside, that is to hit record on the camera, deliver straight to camera. Every time you make a mistake, just do a clap and then do the take again and then edit backwards. And so you see in your timeline all these spikes of the snap or the clap or whatever. And then you can go through and edit. Hit all of that. Um, before I dive into the other things, any— anything to add? Anything I didn't get right about the way—

that's perfect. Yeah, and I actually would always, you know, I would just make those, like 3 or 4 of those. Okay, like my daughter and I, we play— like, we just watched all the Jurassic Parks, and so we play raptors, and she's like, how do you do it so fast? I'm like, honey, that was 20 years of fucking up on camera. Pardon my French. Right. But yeah, you see the audio waveform and you can just go backwards and it makes it really easy to flow. Once you, once you've edited a few times, it helps you to do it. And I'm always encouraging, like we were talking before, to people to edit their own stuff because it makes you better on camera. And that is, that's a lifelong skill. Once you get good at that sort of like being on camera because you understand what you're going to be editing later, I mean, I still edit all my own stuff. I've worked with editors in the past and they've been helpful, but like, I just put a little— I just got a little different. It's that taste thing where it just comes off a little bit better. And, you know, I'm whatever, 15 or 20 years into a professional YouTube and video maker career, and I'm still editing my own stuff and I still use Final Cut instead of like all the things I should be using, you know? Yeah, because it's just like I am so— it's just so fast.

But yeah, that's going backwards because then you might do a take 3 times and you're just getting the last one of it because the last one was where when you were in front of the camera, it was the take you're happy with. Yeah, you moved on.

You moved on from there because you're, you're literally editing in front of the camera.

Yeah.

What else?

So another one is, unless I hear differently, this is a bias towards action. So this is something that you put together actually with Chris Johnson.

Yeah.

Where you talked about something you learned from him.

It was in Fizzle. We did an interview inside of Fizzle, which was my previous business with Corbett Barr and Caleb Wojcik. And, and we did an interview with Chris Johnson, who's sort of like this, like he's a little bit like Rain Man about business type stuff. And he's like, another thing that I, that I optimize for with my employees is, is a bias for action. So I say, if you're going to write me an email, what I want you to do is make a decision and say, unless I hear differently, this is what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

Then I'll tell you if I want you to change it. But if I don't say anything, you go ahead and do that.

It's like the train is going by.

Yeah.

And if I'm like, oh no, switch directions, otherwise I know where you're going.

Totally. That's what bias for action means. And so I took that, I don't know when, however long ago that was, and I just grabbed a web URL, unlessiheardifferently.com and or different should be unless I hear otherwise. This is internet like history. But and you know, I just loved making all these little one-off websites. Sites. It's another thing. I think, uh, I don't think it's still there, but smeagling.biz was an inside joke from the Fizzle Show forever ago. Uh, tinyceramicunicorns.com, another one. I'll just make these one-page websites. Uh, moneystress.biz. I just make these little one-page websites. One idea, just one idea. Yeah, like the money stress was just like you're just scrolling down and there's all these little bits of text that you like to stop and read and stop. And then at the end of it's just this dog gif. It's like, what are you so sad about? But unless I hear differently,.com is just like some sample emails, the video footage. Yeah, here's how to do it. It's just like real simple. And that ended up getting on— oh gosh, who was that guy on the W3C? Some old— the guy who wrote like all these HTML books, Jeffrey Zeldman. Zeldman.

Yeah.

Zeldman. And like, that was my— that little moment. Yeah.

The version of you who is like coding responsive websites was like, yes, I made it. I made it.

The version of me in Mexico with my co-founder with a mustache and a pink shirt on video is a little embarrassing for sure. Yeah.

There's, there's so many other things there, but one other one is is this obsession and learning skills and just saying, like, follow your curiosity and just say, oh, I'll learn that thing. The thing that you do that you've always done that I feel like I don't do is holding things loosely and playing, right? Like, uh, you'll do this thing where you're like, should the intro to this vlog about Bozeman be a song?

Yeah, absolutely.

And like, I think I care way too much what people think. And so the like freeform all of that. Like, there's too much of an editing process from even what's in my brain to what comes out.

There is a deep care, like wanting to be seen and connected to as me, but there's also like a fierce, like, I will fucking leave and go be fine somewhere, you know? Like, I will be like, people who need to see this will see this and understand it, and it's not for everybody. I remember hearing— I used to listen religiously to Maren's WTF show Um, and he had this, uh, was it Stuart Smith, an English like sort of alt comic guy on there? And he has just brilliant but dry shit. And, and Mark was talking to him about like, what, like, what have you learned about doing— he's like, I— it's not for everybody. I can spot them. Like, I'll like early on I'll spot the ones that it's like, and I'll call them out. I'll be like, sir, this is not for you. It's just gonna have to hang in for a little bit. That, you know?

And there's something in a comedy show—

in a comedy show, he— because, because it's just— this guy's like, what the— he doesn't get it. But I'm looking at it going like, this is fucking brilliant, you know? And this guy's over here just completely dead to it, like, this is not interesting at all. The reality of something that is actually really well put together going completely over or under somebody's radar— first of all, that that's true and that can happen one. Second of all, the thick enough skin to be able to, to take it. Third of all, the open heart enough to keep going and doing it. So it's, it's not easy. It's not easy. But there's also like— the first thing I was thinking about when you're like, you know, be more playful, I'm like, well, listen, Nathan Barry, I'm already covered by the blood of Jesus. I mean, like, we all get in, you know. So, uh, but And it's like there is a, there's like a, there is a strong sense of, you know, and Jesus and I sort of have an open relationship, but there's just a strong sense of, of like, I'm in, I'm in my flow, I'm doing my, I'm doing my direction in life as authentically as I know how to do right now. And I'm sure I'm making mistakes, and I— the mistakes used to feel like I would die. Like I've, like, not just I made, I did something wrong, like I'm wrong. I'm bad, right? Um, and now it's a little bit more like, you know, we all make mistakes. What I learned about mistakes is we get to, we get to say sorry and we get to try better next time. And I guess I, that wasn't like a— I, I, for some reason, that like was true about me is that I'm not good, you know?

Right.

But, um, I love hearing that you want more of that playfulness. If I was designing sort of a route for that with you, it would be I want you to do two things. I want you to take some risks, but I want you to enjoy to notice if you're enjoying. So it's not just taking risk even if you don't like it. It's taking risk for sure. But to find the thing that you actually enjoy, right? Like to try to start normalizing that experience in your nervous system of like, oh, sometimes a little bit of out of control, a little bit of, of unstructured narrative, and I'm kind of enjoying myself and I get to be a little— because I've identified with the— I was a, I was a funny guy. I was like, I was gonna use humor to try to get people to like me. And I— that eventually became very authentic. I don't remember being all that young and trying it on, but, um, I, I'm always a little chaotic. I've always had a little chaotic. And the, uh, the, the interesting thing, like, is most people don't think I'm as smart as I am, you know. That might sound like, you know, there's this line the Bible that apparently Moses wrote, where he's like, Moses was the most humble man on the planet, which is a very unhumble thing to say, Moses, right? But like, you know, like to say like, I'm very intelligent, like my mind will get— it get— I, I, I believe I'll get what I need to get when I'm talking about financial investments and this, that, and the other. There's stuff that I'm like, wow, I just don't get, I just really can't get it, and I'm okay with that. But other things, like I can sense like, no, no, I know something. Like, you come with me down into the— we go down into soul-deep sort of places, and I will be there in a way that surprises you. I'm like, I know that, I know that. I don't need you to know that or see that or believe that about me. Like, I'll— like, I know that, but I hold myself there. Um, so there's a confidence, there's like a— there's something that's confident. The irony is that came from insecurity. That came from like, I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel okay. I didn't feel loved or wanted or connected to. I just felt unsure. I just felt a lot of unsure. And so I would perform and do stuff to get those, you know, external validations and the dopamine. And it was never— it never was satisfying. But I like made a whole personality out of it. And it took years for the hormones to start correcting to the point where it's like, I'm ready to feel my feelings now. It's like, oh, there you are, Peter. You know, you're starting to feel the thing that you wanted all along. It's just on the— it's just like you had to go through grief and things that I really didn't want to feel to get there. Um, now how that connects to play, if I'm really smart, like, like, how am I gonna connect that? But like, those two things of you taking risks and then you actually like learning, noticing if you like it or not to say, to sense how— because chaos is the mother of us all, actually. You know, chaos is like where it comes from. Chaos is— we, we prefer order, especially like you, you prefer order. High conscientiousness Nathan Barry is what I call you to all our friends, right? High conscientiousness Nathan Barry. Control, directed, disciplined, going in the same direction for a long period of time. Chaos is— would be, yeah, would be a little bit of the antidote to all of that. But it's where that play comes from. It's where, it's where innovation comes from. And so to, to try to get some of that into your system, the quickest route would be just through taking some risks, right? Taking some, some risks and then slowing down or noticing enough what that felt— what that feels like. Because when you start to feel safer with a little more risk-taking, not like, not like, oh, I don't or not like you're, you're risking your fucking life or something, you know, just like, I'm gonna say this thing, I'm gonna perform this song in karaoke sober, you know, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna try that. Like, karaoke is great. Actually, that's what I would do, you know. I was the karaoke whisperer of Portland. I taught many people how to, how to do karaoke, and I gave many their golden song. And it is like, it's a holy thing figuring out where your holy song is, because with the karaoke, you want to— you got to be able to sing it like, because it means something to right? You got to be able to— like, you want people— you want people to hear it because they're having their own moment with it, right? That's like a good enough song. And it also can't be something that someone already did, you know? It can't be freaking Don't Stop Believing, but it can be Faithfully by Journey, which is mine. I will fucking— I'll make the place cry and fall out, and everybody's arm in arm doing the big chorus at the end. Uh, but finding that song For You is one of those, like, risks that I, I would explore, because then you get to sense through— ironically, through the meaning of this song, and then the, the potential embarrassment of performing it in a karaoke place where people are drunk anyways, right? It's like, it does— none of this matters, none of this matters, but it's all the ingredients are there to play with that little bit of chaos and how you find yourself in And that's what's so good about it. And that's like, that's what creating on, on, in the, in the midst of a public marketplace is like, because we really notice when someone's showing up as themselves. And I think that's what we're going to crave more and more and more over time. It's what we've always craved, but like even more so in the age of AI.

Because it's so different. Like, one thing that stood out to me was you talking about speaking directly to the person and imagining the person on the other side of the lens watching that and like sitting there and forming an emotional connection to Not a direct person, but you can, you can imagine you can create them. You can have that persona there. And that being so different from reading from the AI-edited, generated script off the teleprompter to hit that before you go to the next thing.

Totally. You know, your, your key phrase in that to me was, here's what this means to me. Like, that's the name of the field notes.

Yeah.

Like, right. It's like, or the segment on the YouTube channel or whatever. Like, here's what this means to me because what I'm sensing and what you're saying is like actually wanting to be seen a little deeper, right? So that's, that's a little different than play. It's like wanting to be seen a little deeper and wanting to be a little more, um, a little more show your work, right? And that's awesome. That's right. I think that, you know, from my perspective and from my experience, that only grows things, right? And it doesn't grow things with everybody. Yeah, like it grows things with like The right people, just a certain— and it's like, again, that Stuart Smith, like, this isn't for you, sir, right? To put yourself out there in a way that the, the— you call it rigid, and some would call it control, but maybe a better word is even just structured. The structured or architecture approach to things makes so much sense, like a developer, like just like putting it out. What I'm hearing is just what I'm feeling from you is more your in it, right? And like, you have an amazing big heart. You have a huge heart, family man, built— like, I see you with the employees. I see it's like, you know, it— you've got a lot that's golden and glowy about you. And I would like— I would like to see more of that. I would tune in for that. And, you know, being, you know, here's what this means to me, like, as a way to connect to a little more of that. And and also as a way for you to have something to explore in that, because it's like a thread. You start pulling it and it, it's a little different over time, and you're gonna have a dip with it where it's like some are gonna be great and some are like just— that's why I do them at the end of my videos.

Because talk about this idea of bag reviews. Yeah, because at first we haven't even talked about that, of like that you do the bag reviews. Yeah, but then the philosophy, right? Bringing philosophy into that.

Yeah, well, we get into those two skis I've got my own personal interests and I do geek out about bags, or at least I have.

I mean, I have— it's sitting under the desk, but I have a bag right here that you recommended for me.

Or Apex, bro.

That's a great bag.

I love it. Yeah, it's awesome. They're like, that's a perfect bag for you. Yeah, it's a perfect bag for you. So yeah, I, I first of all, I find all these soulful brands that are interesting, like Troubadour, who are making elevated, elevated products. How do you notice that it's elevated? The shape and the structure and the silhouette of it, the, the, the materials, especially. On the inside, especially on that handle and the straps, all these little design elements. And the same thing we were doing with websites, right? Whereas like, how do we make this a little different? All these physical soft goods designers are doing the same thing. I don't notice a difference between those two designing on a digital surface versus, you know, it's the same exact thing. And so first of all, it's finding all these brands and relating to them and seeing these products. And all that came from personal interest and curiosity. All of that came from one company that, you know, Corbett knew the guys of Manal forever ago because they used to come to like bloggy conferencey internetty things. And I negotiated to get a bag for them from them, and I'll do a little video. And, you know, anyways, the rest is, the rest is history. I still get most of the things in my life for free, including my sauna and cold plunge. Thank you, Redwood Outdoor Sauna. Make the best sauna out there. A little bit thicker thermal wood. Okay, I went for I went for the, the more expensive 10,000 unit fucking heater. Also, don't sleep on thecoldplunge.com because they're actually still making one of the best ones out there. I never got paid from those guys, but I did get stuff and I do love— I love that stuff. But there's philosophy that I keep dropping through talking about a product like that or the sauna or the cold plunge or WANDRD bags or Peak Design or Pact, one of my favorites of all time, which is like, in order for me to express why this is just as interesting interesting to me is that, like, nomadic, super techie, cool-looking one. Like, to, you know, like, like, that one, look, you all the techie, the Star Wars dudes are like, yeah, I love that already, just without even talking about it. This one, they're like, what do you mean? Like, what's up? I'm like, let me tell you, right? It opens clamshell. Look at these straps. Here's this waterproof pocket here. Look at all this stuff that, like, there's a— there's things that only start to speak to you when you're on a journey with it, right? The journey itself is what you have a travel bag for. That's like, that's the metaphor. When you're really— when I really started to take off, it was all these what are called one-bag travel backpacks where you travel without a roller bag. Everything's on your back. It can fit under the seat in front of you, best case scenario, so you can be the last person on the plane. Um, and you know, you get that international flight and you're— you wake up in freaking Prague or Denmark or Milano or something and you're just like, I guess I'm, I guess I'm doing this now. Like the day just begins.

But also I have everything that I need.

And you have everything that you need. You're walking through cobblestone streets, which is a real bitch with a roller bag. You're in Barcelona. We're like, I didn't know there was a beach here. I'm going to take this roller bag out to the, out to the sand, right? It was such a different vibe of doing things. And I was always a traveler. I met my, my wife, who now we're separated, but like, uh, on a trip in Europe right after college, you know, several months trip. And then I got a visa and went and lived out in Dublin and, and did the whole thing. I was always like a— like, once, once I started traveling, I was like, oh, this is a part of me. Different old places like Europe felt great. The point being, I'm dropping philosophy of that second ski in that first— it's a second ski strategy in a first ski context. Oh man.

But you said something about that that stood out to me when we were talking earlier about the bag, like it being what you carry with you on the journey.

Yeah. My favorite, my favorite thing to review these days is the everyday carry backpack like that Troubadour. And because, you know, some of my favorites are the simplest in the world, but they got like a YKK injection molded zipper and it just, and the shape of it just feels so fucking good. And then it's just a 3D molded pocket, like basic old school Jansport school bag, right? God, I love that.

I love that.

But it's a little elevated because I'm talking about like the Brown Buffalo Conceal, right? Or, um, or something that like, you know, Wandered has a new thing that I haven't even played with yet, but I got it and I was like, it starts with an N, I can't remember what. And it was like, okay, Wandered, all right. Because they've been making the Provoke for like a billion years and it's amazing bag. I know this is a little inside baseball, just go with it because like 5 dudes are like, yep, yep. That one. Yeah, I know, I know. Right. But there's that everyday carry product is so interesting because as creatives and entrepreneurs, we live out of our bags. We're going back. We're like a laptop culture. I really like— I'm always trying to carry as minimal as possible, but there's some things that I need. Like I have these, these Focal Bethys headphones, which are the best. Like, just spend the extra $100. And get these because they're the best of the best, okay? They just feel incredible. They sound amazing. The noise canceling's freaking great, but they're spacey. They're big, you know? So I gotta— I know I'm carrying those because I've already, I've already got a relationship with that product. I have a relationship with my brother's old, uh, battery that has like the USB-C and the USB Mini and the Lightning, even though I don't use— I only use USB-C, right? Uh, I have— it just has a Keep Tahoe Blue sticker on it. It's always in my bag. I use my Studio Neat PanoBook notebook, which is a different form factor, and I just, I love it. I can't get enough of it. Why?

What was that? So the thing that, that stood out to me when you said that, of you're going on a journey and it's what you carry with you that I think shapes the journey, and I think about that from a, from an emotional perspective, not about the gear at all.

Totally.

But like, yeah, uh, you know, say imagine that Barcelona, there's opportunity to go, there's a beach here, all of that. But you've got your suitcase with you.

Yeah.

Oh, I guess we're not going to— we're not going to go spend 2 hours on the beach enjoying the sun.

Yeah, because we got 2 hours to kill before the train or whatever.

You know, everything has to—

I don't want to get sand in my wheels because you don't. It would suck.

And so what, like the emotional baggage that you carry with you on this journey of your life and business and relationships and everything else, like if you can be thoughtful about each thing.

Yeah.

Whether it's like, oh, my, my dad was disappointed in me for this thing. And so now I have to always do it this way. And now I'm going to carry this with me. And so I can't go have this experience. I can't pursue this dream.

Right. Or even like, like, what am I looking for? Right? Like, what am I still searching for and seeking? Am I going to find it in Milan? Am I going to find it in Prague? Is it— was it her? Is it that meetup, the WordPress freaking meetup at some pub in Berlin, right? Where— what am I looking for? And travel was so great to be like, oh, there's this, and oh, there's that, and oh, there's this. And now again, 43, hormonally it's a little more like, okay, the compass is turning inside. And it's like— and also all of the psychotherapy is very clear on this, like, you're going to generate your own meaning. You're going to generate your— they call it reparenting. Right? You're going to reparent yourself and give yourself the love that you needed and didn't get, because that ache is controlling your life, and it's not teaching you how to fulfill it. It's just getting— it's like, more, maybe this, maybe that, maybe this, maybe that, maybe over here. Because you don't actually— that doesn't— it doesn't even want to be fulfilled. It doesn't know. You don't know how to get into the texture of fulfillment. So baggage— what do we carry with us? I carry that Pano book from Studio Neat because that's where those kinds of notes go, where I'm using their Mark One pen because it's juicy and there's no freaking label on it or anything, and it's got an all-metal click mechanism. Nathan Barry, okay? And their kids are going to fight over it when you're dead. And it uses my favorite pen refill, and I'm writing in there in this weird-shaped paper because it's slowing me down enough to maybe notice that I'm satisfied.

Satisfied?

That like fucking gelato in Italy was absolutely worth the price of admission, or, um, you know, a freaking croissant at it, like the wicker chairs at the cafes in Paris, and this, and just like the vibe of the city, or the, the road trip through the countryside in France. It's like, am I satisfied now? Am I satisfied now? What do I need? What in this moment is lacking? And slowly over time, like the bag gets lighter. Yeah, do you know what I mean? You need less. It's like, oh, I didn't have— you know, I didn't— I forgot my fucking toothpaste. I can't believe it. Well, good news is there's the equivalent of a CVS everywhere you go. Everywhere, right? Yeah. That mode of travel starts to be less about what I carry with me and more about how I am in the journey, right? How's that for a metaphor?

I like it. I like it.

Yeah.

The last thing, yeah, that I want to touch on is I've seen you go from this focus on big audiences and reaching lots and lots of people to small groups and being in person, being intentional with people, and going so much deeper in relationships. Like, tell me about that journey and how are you spending your time? Yeah, these men's groups.

Well, it's the best, dude, because we don't know how to— we don't know how to one-to-many. Most of us don't know how to one-to-many. Everyone's like, you meet people who are like professional stage people and they know how to one-to-many, and you're a little bit like, oh, okay, like, you know, you're not even you until you're up there. Got it. Like, and you don't even really have access to them here. They're like, no, no, I have a family, dude, I don't need you. You're like, okay, got it, do your thing. But most of us, that back to that idea of like, what am I seeking? What, what is, what in this moment is lacking? It is exactly to your point on, you know, what did we, what did we call that keyword for you? This is what, why this matters to me. What was the field notes called? I can't remember now. I'm not sure, but like, what it's like— what I think of this exactly to the same point on that, Nathan, where it's like, I want to be seen a little bit more. I want to be witness. Here's one thing I've realized in these small groups is healing requires a witness. It doesn't require it necessarily. I mean, might not, but I found that, um, like in the men's groups that I'm hosting, man shows up, we create a space of security, safety, and, and it starts to deepen. Space starts to deepen, which happens really naturally. Vulnerability starts to be expressed. And just the witnessing— this guy is not my responsibility. He's not yours either. None of us are responsible for his life. It's his life, right? He's not responsible for mine. It's my life. When I'm sharing, it's like, you're not responsible for my life. It's, it's mine. Witnessing where I'm at was— started to become like this, like, thing where it was actual intimacy I guess, for lack of a better term, it's, it's intimacy. I'm being seen and it's fine. And it's not like, oh my God, I love you and you're the best, right? And it's not like, uh, what a fucking piece of crap, right? It's neutral. That space is more scary. I'm less reactive. I want to find some place to bounce off from. What I'm doing just the same point of like the being in a little bit more of the chaos and the karaoke and normalizing that in our system. What I'm doing, normalizing reality. That's what we need. I, from a young age, was alone in my room like creating my own little world, and it was like interfacing with reality was like dodgy. It was like, it was, I don't know, it was, it was suspect at best, you know. And I want to be in reality in my relationship with, with my lover. I want to be in reality in my relationship with my kids. I want to be in reality reality, my relationship with my customers and clients and, and the internet at large. I want to be in reality and I want to help people get into reality. So I find that in smaller groups— and yeah, I do one-on-one work too, but like the group dynamic itself becomes this like sort of energetic, uh, spaceship that like we can go places with, we can do stuff with. And ultimately I think of it like a car wash. You come in one end and you go out the other, because what matters is not what what this is. What matters is you're, you're going back to your wife, your kids, your business, your career. You're like, like this— let me talk to the men for a second. You know, men have gotten a lot of shit. It's like a lot of the roles have changed, a lot of the, the experiences and expectations have shifted. We're all still trying to figure that out, but we will absolutely be holding the world together, or a part of holding the world together. And we carry a lot on our backs, and we've got to connect with each other in ways where it's not just sports and booze, where it's also like, I see what you're carrying. Yeah, that's cool. It's a good job. Like, yeah, I hope you keep going. You know, if you don't, no worries, right? It's like there's something that we can do with each other. And so like on Instagram, I have this like trend on stories where it's just join a men's group, J-A-M-G, and it's just these funny videos that I find. And it's just J-A-M-G, join a men's group. And it's either reasons why you should or reasons why, why this guy needed it, or like whatever. Whatever. Um, because I just want to normalize the idea that, like, guys can get together in smaller groups, bring a little intention, which is not necessarily comfortable, but like, once you get into it, then it starts to get kind of lame when someone's coming and being a performative little turkey, you know? You're just like, all right, settle down, fucking Charles, you know? I can't feel your heart at all in what you're staring, by the way, you know? Good performance. Because, like, these guys in my men's groups that I'm just a part of, like, they walk me through divorce. I walk them through finding the woman that they asked to marry. Our kids have all grown up together. Like, there's just so much life you end up walking each other through accidentally once every 3 weeks, right? But that amortized over 3+ years ends up being super valuable. Um, so that's why I'm like, join a men's group. Like, join a men's group. And if you don't have one, like, come to one of my retreats. I work with a guy named David Sutcliffe right now who is the best group facilitator I've ever seen. He was the— he was the dad on Gilmore Girls, by the way. He's like an actor in LA for a long time and just the one of the best I've seen in the, in the room. My buddy Dan Takini, who I was with yesterday, who lives here in Boise, I was telling you about, does like all this negotiation Nathan Barry, another one of those guys that was just like the best in the room. So I'm hosting things at my house that are, that are deep, um, and then I'm also starting to host like kind of a 101, like a men's activation where it's just like, all right, here's the basics of the nervous system, we're gonna do some sauna cold plunge, we're gonna talk about our fucking feelings, and I'm gonna show you that could be cool. We're also going to do these experiences where you're gonna, you're gonna see yourself reflected back from someone else who doesn't you. It's another thing about this where it's like, especially when you don't— you— there's a, like, a debate. Do I go, like, with my buddies, or do I go where I don't know anybody, right? And there's so much value. I think you were talking about this at the— when you were talking with your coach about the reboot thing as well, maybe it's something like it, but just that, like, that walk down back.

Yeah.

You know, with somebody you don't really know about, like, this place in your life that you're in, right? right? They're gonna be wildly effective at getting us to come to terms with where we are. Because I noticed in myself, I just didn't want to see it. Made me feel like a failure. That made me feel like something's wrong with me. And it was being witnessed again and again over time. Like, I could still feel the feeling of it, like the scared in me.

Well, you said the word intimacy, and, uh, someone explained it to me once as into me you see. And I like that, of just like being with people who can see what you're going through, who— yeah, who can truly, um, I just bring it to another, like, another layer of depth.

Yeah, Terry Real is this great therapist, uh, guy. Like, when, uh, Esther Perel needs relationship coaching, she goes to Terry Real.

Okay, okay, that's a good marketing line.

Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of when like this Dr. Jack Cruz was on Tetragrammaton, which is Rick Rubin's podcast. The only— it's Jack Kruze, Andrew Huberman, and Rick Rubin. And the only thing Rick Rubin does to open the conversation is he asks Jack Kruze, how many brain surgeries have you done? And he goes, over 10,000. And the conversation off. And Jack Kruze is yelling at Andrew Huberman the entire time. And Huberman's like, okay, no, I get it. I can see what you're saying. Who's fucking punk? Fuckers. This dickhead Jack. Anyways, completely, completely separate. But like, yeah, when Esther Perel needs coaching in a relationship, it comes to Terry Real, and he says, for those of us who are— have like addictive tendencies or addicts of some kind, um, the cure to addiction is intimacy. And that's a fascinating idea. The cure to the striving and the never-enoughness and all of that is intimacy. And I will say from my experience Initial experiences with intimacy where this was actually the feeling of disappointment. Like Trungpa Rinpoche says, uh, enlightenment is the last great disappointment. And I just think that's a fascinating idea, right? Sometimes it doesn't look how we expect it or want it to. We hear the word intimacy, we think it looks like melting into, but it might have more more actually I'm standing here individuated, but I'm in relationship than we expected. It might be different than we expected, right? So that's why over time with a group, that kind of experience can get a little bit more normalized. And then you can start to feel that with your partner, because Nathan Barry, back of the napkin math, you want to change the fucking world, you affect the relationship between a committed monogamous couple of whatever sex and gender that are raising kids. Because what that's doing is that's creating an environment that those kids are living in. It's shaping the worldview and the reality for those kids. Within one gen— within like, you know, 40 years, you've changed multiple generations. If you can, if you make aliveness, which comes from being able to tell the truth and it being okay to be me here with you, and it's okay for you to be you here, because then we can figure this out over time. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, bro.

I like it.

I like it.

Maybe a final thing that maybe wrapping all of this together, I'm very curious of what success looks like to you.

What I used to imagine for success was just people paying attention to me and liking me and fitting in. Yeah. Now it's like me liking me. And ironically, It's so classic. What I needed for that was integrity. I didn't need to be a better artist. I didn't need to be more creative or take more risks or whatever. I just need to know what I was committed to. And that is like a vibe. Integrity is a fucking vibe. Success is like liking me for sure. And Uh, you know, a huge, a huge part of that is, is like, um, touching into and feeling the, the feelings that I didn't know how to feel, like I just turned myself off of. Like, there was a whole, whole parts of my inner experience that I was— even though I was deep meditator, very experienced in lots of modalities, all the psychedelics, all the things like that, it's like inner child work and touching into relating to this 4-year-old, 7-year-old, 11-year-old, 22-year-old, all these different experiences with Kimmy in Austin, Texas at Kuya. Go see Kimmy. Where something started to happen where I started to love this young me. I started to love this guy because every time I connected to him and I'd sense into like, what is he wanting? He just wanted somebody there to attune to him and just like for him to be okay, to sense like he was, he was okay. And I'll be damned if I don't see that in just about everybody I see out there. You know, ironically, the integrity and then the, like, loving into myself, those were available this entire time. Nathan Barry, like those— I read those books 15, 20 years ago. You know, it didn't click. It didn't click. But now there's such a richness in those that the emotional texture of that, that is, oh God, it's nourishing. And it feels great. I'm still scared, you know. I'm scared of— I'm scared of, of going into relationship again and being, being hurt, you know. Um, but I'm like, I'm with that fear of abandonment in a way that I, that I wasn't before. I would have just bounced right off of it and gone done big performance guy and try to like get her to like me and still be like, you know, I'm a bamboozler. You know, it takes about 2 hours. I don't know how you've been in here to— like, a therapist needs to talk to me for about 2 hours before I'm like down in the substrate, like, okay, we can just fucking hang out from here. So that's my definition of success, I think, is just liking me. And yeah, because for me, liking me, uh, it— because I put myself on a, on a, both on a pedestal and I beat the shit out of myself, right?

Like, I expect the highest standards.

I expect very great things of myself. I, I've worked with with the— some of the best coaches, mentors, and shamans and guides and artists out there. I've paid attention to and studied, like, like legit studied the best comedians and artists and auteurs and filmmakers and all this stuff, like in a way where I'm like, no, I see what they're doing, like I get it, like I get it. And, um, and so like the expectations are really high for myself in the face of all of that to just go like, oh yeah, but you know, it's, you know, it's even better This is just liking me.

It's a very simple answer and it's like a very deep answer simultaneously.

Yeah. It's so strange how, how that's exactly the depth I was looking for and I was looking everywhere.

Yeah.

Oh man.

There's so many things I'm taking away from this conversation. I'm just thinking about bringing an element of play in, uh, the karaoke, you guys sang karaoke, that, that terrifies me a little bit, you know, which points to for me be like an aspect of, um, like wanting to seem put together, not wanting to fail on a public stage, that sort of thing. And so everything—

which is so relatable, by the way, of course. Yeah.

And so everything that I put out there goes through an editor in some way, right? If I'm like, oh, that was garbage, you know, clap, make my Velociraptor sound, you know, whatever, cut it out. Um, and so, you know, you do things in a public stage, um, or like the entertainment side, I'm like, oh, that, what if it's not entertaining? What if I fail? You know, that sort of thing. So finding, like chasing my curiosity, finding things that, uh, challenge me. I don't think I've sat down to like learn a new skill in quite a while. And so that was interesting. I'm like, oh, what if I were to do that?

What would you learn if you were going to learn something right now?

I'd be singing.

That was so quick. Yeah.

So a question that I like is, uh, you know, if you could like snap your fingers or wave a magic wand and like acquire a new skill, Um, that would be something where I think of it fully. I tend to think of, I think as humans we, we bucket things in terms of, um, like what you can only be, you can only be great at with like natural ability versus what, uh, you could acquire with deliberate practice. So for me, like, um, design, video editing, all this is like deliberate practice, like show up, put in the reps, all of that.

Yeah.

I get it. Um, math, any of those things fall into that bucket for me. I think like, uh, playing an instrument probably in that bucket, but like singing and vocals and all of that would be like, oh, you got to be, has to be innate talent. My wife is the other, she's like, what are you talking about? That is absolutely a skill you can learn. You know, like she has different life experience. One thing that I believe as a parent, your job is to help your kids give them a taste of as many things as possible. So they move it from the bucket of like, oh, I could only do that if I had innate talent. Into the mental bucket of if I wanted to, I could acquire that skill and I could do it over time. Yeah. But yeah, like I think music and singing would be the—

That was so quick, Nathan.

Yeah.

You know, you kind of owe it to yourself. And also there's nothing more like connected and holy than the actual experience of your own voice.

Yeah.

Right.

And for me, it'd be that like it's something that's so important to my wife. Like she loves music and she loves, you know, she's in jazz choir. She's, you know, all that stuff.

Singing harmony is a vibe, dude.

Yeah, it's a vibe. 5.

It's great. Okay, I'm gonna hold you to that a little bit. There you go.

Now I gotta—

there's good— there's like— there's great coaches out there. Yeah, there's great vocal coaches, and they have you do good warm-ups and exercises and things just to get you a sense of it. Like, this is a well-known thing about how to teach this.

But I think for me, if I think about personal development, right, there's the skills that are— would be interesting to acquire next of like— maybe it's like You know, you're like, oh, I'm going to learn to be great at AI with this thing. And there's a bunch of skills there. Or for me, another one would be art, right? Like I'm at one point was okay at drawing, like to be great at that. My friend, um, Kevin Espiritu, uh, who runs a, uh, a blog and YouTube channel called Epic Gardening. He took the last 9 months and he's like, look, I'm just going to become good at drawing. And he went from being like not good to do very, very good in 9 months. I documented it. But like, that's a very achievable thing to do. Like, I have enough of that that I'm like, okay, I know I could do that if I set aside the time. But something like, I would say like dance or singing is like, oh, that's actually a little— like, the curiosity is here and the fear is here.

I'll guarantee you that you do the— you do like, you hire a coach trainer on the voice thing and do the like like the, uh, notebook sort of— some of that notebook content, um, you're gonna, you're gonna feel more expressed, right? Right. You're gonna feel a lot more expressed, which is— I think it's just something that we all want, especially like you're living at the top of, of like, like of at such a high level, right? And you're not feeling fully expressed, you're not feeling fully alive in some ways. Like you can feel the, like, the itch or like the interest in not, like, follow some of that. And that's the best thing about, like, you could just hire a coach to do that, right? You could just, like, tell some of your people, like, this is important to me. I want you to keep me on task with this. So now I have to keep a Field Notes in my pocket, right? You know, although the Studio Neat one's a little bit better. Or a tote book mini.

Okay, we'll get that in there. Well, there's been so many good things in here. Thanks for the— I think, yeah, thanks for the most chaotic conversation I've ever had on this podcast.

My favorite part was it's a two-ski approach in a single ski. It's a second ski approach in a single ski context.

So if people want this level of chaos from you on a more regular basis, where should they go on the internet to get more Chase Reeves in their lives?

Um, you know, most of it, it used to be my whole internet presence was very chaotic and now it's very cultured and curated. So, but like my YouTube channel and my Instagram, that's where, that's, that's where I live.

Why should people search? Just your name?

Chase Reeves? Yeah. Chase Reeves. Chase W. Reeves on everything, basically.

That sounds good.

Yeah.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks, Nathan.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show. Then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.