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

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June 10, 202647 min

Eric Zimmer: How A Little Becomes A Lot

Hey friends, Chase here Eric Zimmer is on the show today, and this conversation is exactly the kind of reminder we all need when we are trying to change something real. You probably know Eric from The One You Feed, his award-winning podcast about wisdom, behavior change, mental health, spirituality, and what it means to live well. But Eric's new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life, goes somewhere even more fundamental. It asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, leaders, parents, and anyone trying to build a meaningful life in a world that constantly tells us to optimize everything: What if lasting change is not about becoming more disciplined, but about learning how to stop fighting yourself? That question matters because most of us have made change too heavy. We wrap it in shame, pressure, perfectionism, identity, ambition, self-criticism, and the fantasy of the big breakthrough. We get stuck waiting for the epiphany, the watershed moment, the dramatic turn where everything finally becomes clear. Eric's message is simpler, deeper, and more freeing: "There are moments that stand out because we pull them out and we pluck them out and we make them important, but they don't make sense without the moments before and after. There's all these little, deeply uninteresting moments where I made a small choice to move towards my recovery and away from my addiction again and again. And that's the way change really works." That idea is the center of this episode. We talk about Eric's journey from homelessness and heroin addiction to recovery, coaching, teaching, and writing; why your mind has a mind of its own; how to work with competing desires instead of pretending they are not there; and why small choices compound into a completely different life. This conversation is about loosening the grip. It is about getting back to the part of you that knows what matters, even when another part of you wants comfort, distraction, escape, or relief right now. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for anyone who wants to grow. On one hand, there has never been more access to tools, ideas, books, podcasts, teachers, frameworks, research, and practices that can help us change. That is extraordinary. But it also comes with a cost. The pressure to optimize every corner of our lives has never been stronger. Every scroll seems to bring another routine, another system, another habit, another rule, another version of the person we are supposed to become. We are constantly being asked to improve ourselves: What is your morning routine? What habit are you tracking? What are you optimizing? What are you building? What are you eliminating? What is the plan? Those questions can be useful at the right time. But when they show up too early, or too often, they can turn growth into another way of beating ourselves up. Eric's work reminds us that change begins with honesty. Before the perfect habit. Before the flawless system. Before the heroic reinvention. Before the new identity. Before the transformation story, there is a person being pulled in different directions. Wanting to change. Wanting to stay comfortable. Wanting what matters most. Wanting what feels good right now. Wanting freedom. Wanting safety. Wanting growth. Wanting acceptance. That does not mean something is wrong with you. It means you are human. And in that understanding, there is a kind of wisdom most self-improvement advice forgets. What We Explore in This Episode Eric's low point at 24 and how homelessness, heroin addiction, illness, and the threat of prison became the beginning of his recovery journey. Why the big turning point is not the whole story and why change actually happens in the small choices that come after. How to understand the "off-camera moments" of transformation that never make the montage but make all the difference. Why your mind has a mind of its own and what it means to be a motivationally complex person. How to work with what you want now and what you want most without shaming yourself for having competing desires. Why "playing the tape all the way through" can help you see past the first scene your mind wants to show you. How structure and story both shape change, and why systems alone are not always enough. How to hold change and acceptance at the same time when life refuses to fit into simple categories. Why trying smaller can create momentum when trying harder is not working. The Core Idea: Little by Little, a Little Becomes a Lot The fastest way to get unstuck is often to stop waiting for the big transformation and start paying attention to the next small choice. We get obsessed with the dramatic moment. The rock bottom. The epiphany. The vow. The clean break. The day everything changed. We want the music to swell. We want the story to make sense. Eric's story has one of those moments. At 24, he was homeless, addicted to heroin, physically depleted, and facing the possibility of decades in prison. Going into long-term treatment mattered. But Eric is careful not to confuse the turning point with the transformation. The transformation was not one decision. It was thousands. The decision to move toward recovery again. The decision to not use again. The decision to show up again. The decision to do the next small thing again. The decision to choose what mattered most over what felt urgent right now. The on-camera moment gets the attention. The off-camera moments create the life. Eric's point is not that ambition does not matter. It is not that insight does not matter. It is not that we should abandon goals, systems, or discipline. It is that the living center of change is choice. The small one comes first. Your Mind Has a Mind of Its Own One of the big tensions in this conversation is the voice many of us carry around that says, "If I really wanted to change, this would be easier." That voice says: You should have more discipline. You should be more consistent. You should know better by now. You should not still struggle with this. You should be able to just decide. Eric's response is that we are not simple creatures. We are motivationally complex. We do not want one thing. We want lots of things. We want what we value most, and we want what feels good right now. We want to grow, and we want to be comfortable. We want to change, and we want to be accepted exactly as we are. That is why the phrase "your mind has a mind of its own" is so useful. It gives language to something we all experience. You decide you are going to do one thing, and then you watch yourself do another. You know what would help, and still you avoid it. You care deeply about the future, and still the present moment feels more real. The work is not to shame that complexity out of yourself. The work is to understand it. Play the Tape All the Way Through One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Eric's explanation of a recovery practice called "playing the tape all the way through." When we want something in the moment, our mind often shows us only the first scene. The first scene is relief. The first scene is escape. The first scene is pleasure, comfort, avoidance, or release. In Eric's addiction, that first scene was all the reasons getting high would feel amazing. But recovery taught him not to stop there. He had to keep the tape running. Then what? The shame comes back. The fear comes back. The despair comes back. The consequences come back. The craving comes back, often stronger than before. This is such a powerful tool because it makes the future less abstract. Before you avoid the work, play the tape through. Before you send the angry email, play the tape through. Before you break the promise to yourself, play the tape through. Not to punish yourself. To see clearly. Structure Matters, But It Is Not the Whole Story Eric makes an important distinction in this episode between the external architecture of change and the internal moments of choice. A lot of personal growth advice focuses on structure. Set the goal. Build the system. Make the habit obvious. Make the habit easy. Design the environment. Remove friction. Put the right reminders in place. That matters. But structure is not the whole story. Because even when you know exactly what to do, and even when you have made it as easy as possible, the moment still comes. You and the choice. Do you write? Do you walk? Do you call? Do you tell the truth? Do you choose what you want most over what you want now? When we do not make the choice we wanted to make, Eric says there is usually something happening inside us. A feeling. A thought pattern. A story. A fear. A form of self-doubt we have not learned how to work with yet. That is why real change needs both. The structure and the story. Try It Smaller Eric says something in this episode that every ambitious person should sit with: Try it smaller. That does not mean the goal does not matter. It means the path has to be walkable. When a change plan is not working, many of us assume we need more discipline. More pressure. More intensity. More accountability. But often, the better move is to make the action smaller. If you cannot write for two hours, write for ten minutes. If you cannot meditate for 30 minutes, sit for three breaths. If you cannot change your whole health routine, put on your shoes and walk around the block. If you cannot face the entire project, open the document. Small does not mean meaningless. Small means repeatable. And repeatable is where momentum comes from. Change and Acceptance Are Not Opposites Another major theme in this episode is the tension between growth and acceptance. One of the best parts of us wants to change. We want to grow, improve, heal, create, recover, repair, and build better lives. And yet, so many wisdom traditions point us toward acceptance. Presence. Contentment. Allowing things to be as they are. So which is it? Do we change, or do we accept? Eric's answer is that very often we have to do both about the exact same thing. He talks about depression in his own life. Is that something he has changed, or something he has accepted? Both. There are things he does that make depression less likely. There are practices, supports, behaviors, and choices that help. And sometimes the cycle comes around anyway, and the most skillful thing he can do is say, "Oh, this is what's here." That is not resignation. That is honesty. Wise Habits Create Momentum With Compassion The title of Eric's book is not just a catchy phrase. It is a worldview. A little becomes a lot. Not because one tiny action changes everything overnight, but because small choices compound. They build identity. They build trust. They build momentum. They begin to align our daily actions with our deeper values. Eric calls these Wise Habits. They are not just outer behaviors designed to make us more efficient. They also include inner attitudes that bring more peace, clarity, and self-compassion to everyday life. That matters because self-criticism is often mistaken for seriousness. We think if we are hard enough on ourselves, we will finally change. But harshness usually creates more resistance. More shame. More hiding. More all-or-nothing thinking. A Wise Habit does something different. It helps us move forward without declaring war on ourselves. Ask What Problem You Are Solving Near the end of the conversation, Eric offers a simple question that I love: What problem are you solving? That question is a filter. Because we are surrounded by advice. Every day, someone is telling us to start a new routine, stop eating at a certain time, wake up earlier, track something, optimize something, remove something, add something, become something. Some of those ideas might be useful. But not every good idea is your idea. Not every habit belongs in your life. Before you collect another self-improvement assignment, ask what problem you are actually trying to solve. That question brings you back to values. It brings you back to clarity. It brings you back to the life you are actually living. About Eric Zimmer Eric Zimmer is an author, teacher, speaker, behavior coach, and the creator of The One You Feed, an award-winning podcast about wisdom, behavior change, mental health, spirituality, and what it means to live well. At 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing the possibility of decades in prison. His recovery sparked a lifelong exploration of human transformation, resilience, meaning, and the small daily choices that shape a life. His new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life, brings together behavioral science, Zen Buddhism, modern psychology, and timeless wisdom to show how lasting transformation happens through small, repeatable choices. Timecodes 00:00 – Eric on why change happens in the small off-camera moments 02:11 – Chase introduces Eric Zimmer and How a Little Becomes a Lot 05:25 – Eric shares the low point that became the beginning of his recovery journey 06:17 – Why Eric's extreme story contains something universal 09:34 – How treatment, recovery, and the question "why do we change?" shaped Eric's work 11:19 – The tension between wanting to grow and learning to accept where we are 13:48 – Why the big turning point only matters because of the choices that follow 15:12 – The difference between external architecture and internal moments of choice 18:29 – What it means that your mind has a mind of its own 19:07 – Why we are motivationally complex creatures 20:20 – The dilemma between what we want now and what we want most 22:00 – Why small changes require trust in the process 23:19 – Playing the tape all the way through 24:52 – The rider and the elephant as a model for change 26:30 – Why "you are the average of the five people around you" is incomplete 28:29 – Emergence, friendship, and why relationships are more than instruments for success 30:44 – How to seek growth while allowing life to be as it is 33:04 – Eric reflects on grief, Alzheimer's, and the practice of allowing 35:08 – Why some things must be both changed and accepted 38:31 – Two types of change: change that happens to us and change we cause to happen 39:01 – Getting clear on why you want to change 39:25 – Asking "what problem are you solving?" before chasing another tactic 40:42 – The SPA method and why specificity matters 41:53 – Planning for what will go wrong 42:14 – Deconstructing the choice point when you do not follow through 43:01 – Working with self-doubt skillfully enough to begin 43:50 – Why trying smaller can help you build consistency 44:21 – Chase reflects on the hope, kindness, and practicality of Eric's work 45:37 – Where to find Eric's book, podcast, and work Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes with these questions: What change am I trying to make right now, and why does it actually matter to me? Where am I waiting for a dramatic breakthrough instead of making the next small choice? What am I trying to force that I might need to understand first? What do I want now, and what do I want most? What first scene is my mind showing me, and what happens if I play the tape all the way through? What would it look like to try smaller instead of trying harder? Where is self-criticism pretending to be discipline? What part of my life needs more structure? What part of my life needs more compassion? What am I trying to change that I may also need to accept? A Simple Practice for Making Real Change Here's something practical you can do this week. Choose one change you care about. Not ten. Not your whole life. One. Ask yourself: What problem am I solving? Then make the next action smaller than your ambition wants it to be. Open the document. Walk for five minutes. Sit for three breaths. Send the text. Put the shoes by the door. Write one paragraph. Make the call. Tell the truth in one sentence. Do not evaluate it too early. Do not turn it into a full identity. Do not decide that it only counts if it is dramatic. Do not use one missed day as proof that you cannot change. Just make the next small choice. Then notice what happens. Notice what gets in the way. Notice what story shows up. Notice whether something in you begins to trust that change does not have to arrive all at once. That is enough. Final Thought The longer I do this work, the more I believe that transformation is not something we can force. It is something we practice. It happens after the decision. After the insight. After the moment we wish would change everything. It happens in the quiet, ordinary, off-camera choices that do not look like much at first. Eric's invitation in this conversation is simple, generous, and quietly radical: Stop making change so dramatic that you cannot touch it. Get clear on what matters. Understand the parts of you that are pulling in different directions. Build the structure. Work with the story. Play the tape all the way through. Try it smaller. Return when you stumble. Little by little, a little becomes a lot. Until next time: make the next small choice, and keep feeding what matters most.

June 3, 20261 hr 11 min

Austin Kleon: Don't Call It Art

Hey friends, Chase here Austin Kleon is back on the show, and this conversation is exactly the kind of reminder every creative person needs. You probably know Austin from Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going, the books that have helped millions of people rethink creativity, sharing, influence, originality, and what it actually means to make things in public. But Austin's new book, Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again, goes somewhere even more fundamental. It asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, photographers, parents, and anyone trying to make meaningful work in a world that wants to turn everything into content: What if the way back to your best creative work is not becoming more serious, but becoming more playful? That question matters because most of us have made creativity too heavy. We have wrapped it in identity, pressure, productivity, platforms, metrics, perfectionism, and the fear of being judged. We get stuck asking whether we are real artists, serious writers, successful creators, or legitimate professionals. We worry about the noun before we do the verb. Austin's message is simpler, deeper, and more freeing: "Don't call it art. Don't worry about being an artist. Forget the nouns. Do the verbs. Just make stuff." That idea is the center of this episode. We talk about what kids can teach us about creativity, why play is not frivolous, how to build the conditions for your best work, why attention is your most valuable resource, and why some of the most important ideas in your life might come from goofing off. This conversation is about loosening the grip. It is about getting back to the part of you that makes before it judges, explores before it explains, and follows the energy before it knows exactly where the work is going. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for creative people. On one hand, there has never been more opportunity. An individual with a laptop, a camera, a newsletter, a sketchbook, a phone, a point of view, or a weird little idea can reach people directly. That is extraordinary. But it also comes with a cost. The pressure to turn every interest into a brand, every hobby into content, every project into a product, and every creative impulse into a strategy has never been stronger. We are constantly being asked to define ourselves: What do you do? What is your niche? What is your platform? What are you building? How are you monetizing it? What is the plan? Those questions can be useful at the right time. But when they show up too early, they can suffocate the very thing they are trying to organize. Austin's work reminds us that creativity begins before identity. Before "artist." Before "writer." Before "photographer." Before "entrepreneur." Before "content creator." Before the nouns, there are verbs. Drawing. Writing. Walking. Noticing. Building. Playing. Collecting. Tinkering. Making. Sharing. Kids understand this instinctively. They do not sit down and ask whether what they are making fits the market. They do not wonder whether they are allowed to call themselves artists. They do not freeze because the thing in front of them might not be good enough. They simply begin. And in that beginning, there is a kind of wisdom most adults have forgotten. What We Explore in This Episode Why kids can be some of the best creativity teachers because they make before they judge, label, or perform. How to reconnect with the feeling you wanted as a kid, not necessarily the exact childhood you had. Why play is not the opposite of serious work, but a form of creative research and development. How to create the conditions for creativity through time, space, materials, and permission. Why tools should feel more like toys if you want to stay curious and experimental. How phones fracture attention and why protecting the edges of your day can change the texture of your life. Why hobbies matter and how bikes, music, golf, drawing, and other forms of play can return us to ourselves. Why "don't call it art" can be liberating for anyone who feels trapped by labels or legitimacy. How to use jealousy, disgust, and frustration as creative information instead of letting them turn into bitterness. Why people pay attention when someone truly believes in what they are doing. The Core Idea: Forget the Nouns. Do the Verbs. The fastest way to get unstuck is often to stop asking what you are and start paying attention to what you do. That sounds simple, but it is one of the biggest traps in creative work. We get obsessed with identity. Am I an artist? Am I a real writer? Am I a serious photographer? Am I a professional? Am I successful enough to call myself this thing? Am I allowed? That kind of thinking can freeze you before you even start. Kids do not have that problem. They are not trying to become "artists." They are drawing. They are building. They are making noise. They are inventing stories. They are throwing materials around and seeing what happens. Austin's point is not that craft does not matter. It is not that ambition does not matter. It is not that we should abandon discipline. It is that the living center of creativity is action. The verb comes first. Make the thing. Move the pencil. Open the notebook. Pick up the guitar. Ride the bike. Take the walk. Make the zine. Shoot the photo. Write the sentence. Start the weird little project that begins with, "Wouldn't it be funny if…" That is where the energy is. Play Is Creative R&D One of the big tensions in this conversation is the voice many of us carry around that says play is not practical. That voice says: You have responsibilities. You need to make money. You need to be serious. You need to have a plan. You need to stop messing around. Austin's response is that play is not the opposite of serious work. Play is often what makes serious work possible. He talks about play as research and development. Any healthy company needs R&D. It needs space to explore, test, wander, fail, and discover things that cannot be found through pure efficiency. The same is true for a creative life. A lot of us start in explore mode. We are curious. We are trying things. We are learning. We are following our taste. We are discovering our voice. Then, if something works, we shift into exploit mode. We repeat the thing. We build a career around it. We systematize it. We professionalize it. We optimize it. That can be useful. But if you stay there forever, you eventually run out of juice. You need space to explore again. That is what play gives you. It returns you to the part of the process where you are not just producing, but discovering. And in creative work, discovery is everything. Create the Conditions, Then Get Out of the Way One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Austin's simple equation: Play = time + space + materials. That may sound almost too simple, but it is profound. When I look back at the most creative seasons of my life, the pattern is obvious. I had uninterrupted time. I had a place to go. I had the right materials around me. I had enough structure to begin and enough freedom to be surprised. That is what we often give kids when we want them to create. We give them a table, some paper, some markers, a chunk of time, and permission to make a mess. Then we grow up and deny ourselves the same basic conditions. We say we are blocked, stuck, confused, or uninspired, but often we have not created an environment where anything could actually emerge. No time. No space. No materials. No quiet. No room to tinker. The lesson is not complicated, but it is easy to forget: Set the conditions. Allow the work to happen. Get out of the way. That is not laziness. That is not indulgence. That is how the good stuff gets a chance to show up. The Best Ideas Often Come From Goofing Off I have said this before, and I mean it: so many of the best ideas in my life have come from goofing off. Not from trying to optimize. Not from grinding. Not from forcing. Not from staring at a blank screen and demanding genius. They came when I was tinkering. Playing. Walking. Talking with friends. Making something that had no obvious point. Trying something because it felt fun, strange, or impossible to explain. Austin and I talk about this because it is one of the hardest things for ambitious people to accept. We want the path to be linear. We want effort to equal outcome. We want the best ideas to come from the most serious hours. But creativity often does not work that way. The mind needs room. The body needs movement. The soul needs a little nonsense. Goofing off is not always avoidance. Sometimes it is how the deeper intelligence gets a chance to speak. Tools Should Be Toys Austin says something in this episode that every creator should sit with: Tools should be toys. That does not mean your tools are unimportant. It means the best tools invite you into a state of play. They make you want to touch them, try them, misuse them, combine them, push them, and see what happens. A sketchbook can be a toy. A camera can be a toy. A guitar pedal can be a toy. A bicycle can be a toy. A cheap notebook, a box of crayons, a microphone, a drum machine, a kitchen table, a phone in airplane mode, a pile of index cards — all of it can become part of the creative playground. The danger is when tools become only professional instruments. When every object in your creative life carries the pressure of output, performance, monetization, or proof, it becomes harder to begin. A toy invites curiosity. And curiosity is one of the most reliable doors back into making. Attention Is the Beginning of Everything Another major theme in this episode is attention. Austin shares a simple practice: start and end the day without your phone. Not as a moral performance. Not as some extreme digital detox. Just as a way to protect the edges of the day from people and companies that do not care about you, but desperately want your attention. That hit me hard. Because attention is not just another resource. In many ways, it is the resource. What you give your attention to shapes your thoughts, your desires, your mood, your relationships, your sense of possibility, and your work. If the first thing you do every morning is hand your mind to the internet, you are letting someone else set the tone for your day. Austin's practice is simple. Coffee. Breakfast. Journal. Kids. Life. Then the phone. At night, the phone charges in the kitchen. Small boundary. Huge impact. Creativity requires attention. And attention has to be protected. Return to Who You Were Before All This There is a beautiful thread in this conversation about returning to the things that made you feel alive before life got complicated. For Austin, that includes riding a bike and playing in a band. For me, golf has become one of those things. Not because it is productive in the traditional sense, but because it gets me outside, off my phone, walking with friends, and fully present for hours. That matters. A lot of people feel lost because they are trying to think their way back into aliveness. But sometimes the way back is physical. Pick up the instrument. Ride the bike. Throw the baseball. Walk the dog. Draw badly. Make noise. Get outside. Do the thing you used to love before you thought it had to mean something. Austin brings up the question: Who were you before all this? Before the career. Before the metrics. Before the audience. Before the obligations. Before the identity got heavy. There may be clues there. Not because you need to go backward, but because some part of you may have been waiting to be invited forward again. Don't Call It Art The title of Austin's book is not a dismissal of art. It is a liberation from the weight we put on the word. For a lot of people, "art" has become intimidating. Sacred. Serious. Something that belongs to museums, geniuses, experts, critics, galleries, and people who have permission. But making is older and deeper than all of that. Kids understand this. They do not call it art. They just do things. And when we stop obsessing over whether something is art, we create more room to actually make. We get less precious. Less frozen. Less performative. Less worried about the label and more connected to the act. That is the invitation: Don't call it art. Don't worry about being an artist. Forget the nouns. Do the verbs. Just make stuff. It sounds almost too simple. That is why it works. Use What Bothers You Austin also offers a surprising creative tactic: pay attention to what you hate. Not publicly. Not performatively. Not as a way to become bitter or cynical. But privately, as information. Disgust can point toward values. Frustration can reveal desire. Jealousy can show you something you want. The things that bother you can become clues, if you are willing to ask what the opposite would look like. Instead of turning your irritation into a rant, turn it into a project. What would you rather see in the world? What is the opposite of the thing you cannot stand? What would it look like to make that? That shift is powerful because it transforms complaint into creation. It turns "I hate this" into "What if we made something different?" People Pay Attention to Belief Near the end of the conversation, Austin shares a line from Kim Gordon that I love: "People will pay to watch other people believe in themselves." That is true in art. It is true in music. It is true in entrepreneurship. It is true in leadership. It is true in life. We are drawn to people who are alive in what they are doing. Not perfect. Not polished beyond recognition. Not optimized into sameness. Alive. When someone believes in what they are making, that belief travels. This does not mean you will always feel confident. It does not mean you will never doubt yourself. It does not mean every idea will work. It means you keep returning to the work. You keep paying attention to what matters to you. You keep making the thing only you can make in the way only you can make it. That is where the signal comes from. About Austin Kleon Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a series of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, and Don't Call It Art. He is also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have sold over two million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages. Austin's work has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work "brilliant," The Atlantic called him "positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet," and The New Yorker said his poems "resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead." He has spoken for organizations including Pixar, Google, Netflix, SXSW, TEDx, Dropbox, Adobe, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons. Follow Austin Kleon Website Don't Call It Art Newsletter Instagram X YouTube Timecodes 04:24 – Austin returns to the show and talks about the new book 06:17 – How Austin's kids became his best creativity teachers 07:04 – What it means to take care of a creative person 10:43 – The childhood question that reveals what makes time disappear 18:34 – Why play is creative research and development 21:43 – Finding what you were not looking for 23:06 – How a fixed vision can blind you to what is actually in front of you 28:13 – Chase reflects on creating the right conditions for creative work 31:37 – Austin's equation: play equals time plus space plus materials 32:48 – Why tools should feel more like toys 35:25 – Reconnecting with the activities that made you feel alive as a kid 38:53 – Who were you before all this? 43:08 – Protecting attention from companies that want to take it 44:17 – Starting and ending the day without your phone 47:08 – Why friendship, hobbies, and shared activities matter 57:17 – Where the title Don't Call It Art came from 58:32 – Forget the nouns, do the verbs, just make stuff 01:00:01 – Why "wouldn't it be funny if…" is a clue worth following 01:03:15 – Finding your creative family tree 01:06:36 – How to use frustration and disgust as creative information 01:08:31 – Why people pay attention when you believe in what you are doing 01:09:44 – Austin's newsletter, book tour, and where to find his work Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes with these questions: What did I do as a kid that made hours pass like minutes? Where am I making creativity heavier than it needs to be? What noun am I clinging to that might be keeping me from doing the verb? What conditions do I need in order to make more freely? Do I have time, space, and materials available on a regular basis? What tool in my life could become more like a toy? Where is my attention being stolen before I have a chance to choose? What hobby, activity, or form of play would help me return to myself? What bothers me enough that it might contain a creative clue? What would I make this week if I stopped worrying whether it counted as art? A Simple Practice for Making Like a Kid Again Here's something practical you can do this week. Set aside one uninterrupted hour. No phone. No audience. No outcome. No need to make something good. Choose a space. Put a few materials in front of you. Paper and markers. A camera. A guitar. A notebook. Clay. Index cards. A laptop with the internet off. Whatever feels inviting. Then begin with this prompt: Wouldn't it be funny if… Follow whatever comes next. Do not evaluate it too early. Do not ask what it is for. Do not decide whether it is art. Do not turn it into a brand, a strategy, or a pitch deck. Just make stuff. Then notice how you feel. Notice what surprised you. Notice whether something small wants to keep going. That is enough. Final Thought The longer I do this work, the more I believe that creativity is not something we need to earn. It is something we need to return to. It was there before the labels. Before the pressure. Before the metrics. Before the platforms. Before the fear of being judged. Before we learned to ask whether we were allowed. Austin's invitation in this conversation is simple, generous, and quietly radical: Stop making creativity so precious that you cannot touch it. Give yourself time. Give yourself space. Give yourself materials. Protect your attention. Find your friends. Pick up the toy. Follow the weird little idea. Let yourself begin before you know what it means. Until next time: forget the nouns, do the verbs, and just make stuff.

May 27, 202653 min

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

Hey friends, Chase here Eric Ries is back on the show, and this conversation goes far beyond startups, venture capital, or the mechanics of building a company. You probably know Eric as the author of The Lean Startup, the book that changed how founders, creators, entrepreneurs, and teams think about building something new. His work helped popularize ideas like continuous innovation, validated learning, experimentation, and staying close to the customer instead of getting lost in theory, ego, or endless planning. But this episode is not just about how to start something. It's about how to protect the thing you've built once it starts working. Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great, asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders right now: How do you build something that can grow without being captured, corrupted, or hollowed out? That question matters whether you're running a company, building a personal brand, growing a creative practice, launching a product, choosing clients, working with sponsors, or trying to do work that actually reflects your values. Because success is not neutral. Success brings attention, opportunity, money, investors, partners, platforms, algorithms, expectations, incentives, shortcuts, and people who may not share the reason you started in the first place. One of Eric's most powerful lines in this conversation is this: "Success is not a source of strength. It is a liability, because success attracts predators." That idea is the center of this episode. If you've ever built something that started to work, you know exactly what he means. The thing that made your work powerful can become the thing other people want to capture. The trust you built can become something others want to monetize. The values that made your community believe in you can suddenly feel inconvenient when there's more money on the table. This conversation is about how to stay awake in the middle of that pressure. We talk about defining what you stand for, making decisions before the pressure arrives, treating trust as an asset, saying no to misaligned opportunities, and building something that can grow without losing its soul. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for creators and entrepreneurs. On one hand, there has never been more opportunity. An individual with a laptop, a camera, a newsletter, a product, an idea, or a point of view can reach people directly. You can build an audience, launch a business, compete with massive companies, and create a brand around your name, your work, your taste, your values, and your trust. That is extraordinary, but it also comes with a real cost. The forces shaping our work have never been more intense. Platforms reward outrage. Algorithms reward simplification. Investors reward speed. Markets reward extraction. The pressure to be louder, faster, more polarizing, more optimized, and more "growth-minded" is everywhere. Eric describes this pressure as a kind of gravity. It is the gravity of platforms, incentives, success, and other people's definitions of winning. If we are not conscious of those forces, they shape us without our permission. That is one of the biggest themes in this episode: you are always being shaped by the systems you participate in. The question is whether you are awake enough to notice, honest enough to name it, and disciplined enough to choose a different path when the incentives start pulling you away from who you actually want to be. What We Explore in This Episode Why success can become a liability when it attracts people, money, platforms, and incentives that want to capture what you've built. How creators get shaped by platforms and why the algorithm can quietly tune your voice, values, and identity toward whatever gets the most engagement. Why trust may be the most valuable asset in business and why it is so easy to destroy with one short-term decision. How to define an ethos before outside pressure, money, growth, or status starts making decisions for you. Why "harder is easier" when your principles are clear enough to remove debate from the moments that matter. How companies, creators, and brands slowly trade away their soul through small compromises that seem harmless in the moment. Why alignment matters more than scale when choosing clients, customers, sponsors, platforms, partners, and investors. How to build something durable without losing the trust, purpose, and values that made it worth building in the first place. The Core Idea: Growth Without Betrayal The real test of success is whether you can grow without betraying what made you worth trusting. It is easy to talk about values when nothing is on the line. It is easy to say you care about quality, access, creativity, service, truth, community, or long-term thinking when the stakes are low. But values only become real when they cost you something. That might happen when there is a big check on the table from a misaligned sponsor. It might happen when an investor wants a different path than the one you set out to build. It might happen when the algorithm rewards a version of you that is more inflammatory, less nuanced, and less honest. It might happen when you can quietly take the shortcut, ship something you don't believe in, or make a decision that no one will notice in the short term. Those are the moments that reveal the truth. Not the words on the wall, not the mission statement, not the brand deck, and not the beautifully written values page. The decision is the proof. Eric's argument is that if you want to build something incorruptible, you have to know what you stand for before those moments arrive. Once the pressure is here, it becomes much harder to think clearly. Success Attracts Predators One of the most powerful parts of this conversation is Eric's warning about success. Most of us are trained to think of success as pure upside: more customers, more revenue, more attention, more leverage, more opportunity, and more proof that the thing is working. Eric flips that idea on its head. Success is not only a source of strength. It is also a liability, because the more valuable your work becomes, the more attractive it becomes to people and systems that want to use it for their own ends. That can look like: Investors who want growth at any cost. Platforms that reward you for becoming a more extreme version of yourself. Partners who want access to your audience but do not share your values. A company acquiring a beloved brand and slowly stripping away what people trusted about it. Your own internal pressure to keep the numbers moving up and to the right, even when the work starts to feel misaligned. This is where corruption often begins. Not with one giant evil decision, but with tiny tradeoffs. A small compromise here, a slightly misaligned deal there, a decision that seems harmless because "no one will notice," or a shortcut taken because the quarter is tight. Over time, the thing that made you trusted starts to erode. The work still looks successful from the outside, but inside the machine, something essential has been traded away. The Gravity of Platforms Eric and I also talk about the pressure creators face from platforms. This part is especially relevant if you make anything for the internet. The promise of platforms is access. You can reach people, publish instantly, build a community, and grow a business without asking for permission from traditional gatekeepers. That is powerful, and I don't want to minimize how much opportunity that has created. But platforms also have values. Not values in the human sense, but values in the incentive sense. They reward certain behaviors and punish others. They reward what keeps people clicking, watching, reacting, arguing, and coming back. Over time, creators start to adapt. You post something thoughtful and nuanced, and almost nobody sees it. You post something sharper, more polarizing, more emotionally charged, and suddenly the platform lights up. That teaches you something, whether you want it to or not. The danger is that you start to confuse what the algorithm rewards with what people actually need. You begin making tiny adjustments: a stronger hook, a more controversial angle, less complexity, more certainty, more outrage, less truth. Eventually, you may not even notice that your voice has changed. That is the gravity Eric is talking about. It is not a force that announces itself. It is a force that quietly pulls until one day you realize you have been shaped by something you never consciously chose. Trust Is a Bank Account One of my favorite ideas from Eric's book is what he calls the culture bank. The idea is simple: trust is an asset. Every time you make a sacrifice for the sake of a principle, you make a deposit. Every time you betray a principle for short-term gain, you make a withdrawal. Eric's rule is almost painfully simple: Only make deposits. Never make withdrawals. Of course, we are human. We make mistakes. Sometimes we think we are doing the right thing and we get it wrong. Sometimes something breaks, a customer gets disappointed, or a decision does not land the way we intended. That is not the point. The point is not perfection. The point is to avoid intentional withdrawals. Don't knowingly trade trust for a quick hit. Don't knowingly betray the values that made people believe in you. Don't knowingly cash out your reputation for something that will not matter a year from now. Because trust takes a long time to build and almost no time to destroy. When you are a creator, founder, or entrepreneur, trust is not a soft idea. It is the business, the brand, the relationship, and the reason people come back. Harder Is Easier Another principle Eric shares is this: harder is easier. At first, that sounds backwards, but the more you sit with it, the more it makes sense. When your principles are unclear, every decision becomes a debate: Should we take this client? Should we work with this sponsor? Should we ship something that is not good enough? Should we raise prices in a way that violates what we promised? Should we optimize for short-term revenue even if it damages long-term trust? If you don't know what you stand for, every one of those moments requires a new meeting, a new justification, a new argument, and a new rationalization. When your principles are clear, many decisions become simpler. Not always easier in the short term, but simpler. You already know what the answer is. You may still have to do the hard work, find another way, absorb some pain, or get more creative, but you don't have to wonder who you are. For a creator, this might mean knowing the kind of clients you will not take. For a founder, it might mean knowing the kind of investors you will not accept. For a leader, it might mean knowing the kind of culture you will not tolerate. For a brand, it might mean knowing which promises are sacred. Values Are Not Decoration We also talk about the difference between values as corporate decoration and values as operating instructions. Most of us have seen the empty version: company values on a wall, mission statements nobody remembers, and nice words that disappear the second the business is under pressure. Real values are different because real values shape decisions. They influence who you hire, who you fire, who you serve, what you build, what you refuse, how you respond when something goes wrong, and what you do when nobody is watching. At CreativeLive, one of our core values was access. That value shaped the business model. It shaped the decision to make live classes available for free while we were creating them. It shaped the way people encountered the brand and the way the community experienced the work. Yes, there were plenty of moments where people looked at that and asked why we were giving so much away. But that was the point. Access wasn't a slogan. It was a decision, and the decision is what made the value real. Alignment Beats Anyone With a Dollar Toward the end of the conversation, we talk about one of the most important lessons for creators: not every customer is your customer. Early on, this can be hard to hear. When you're trying to make a living with your camera, your writing, your design work, your product, your ideas, or your creative practice, the temptation is to say yes to anyone with a dollar and a heartbeat. I get it. I've been there. Over time, though, the goal is not to work with everyone. The goal is to find the right people. The right clients. The right customers. The right sponsors. The right collaborators. The right platforms. The right partners. The right community. When I was making millions of dollars a year as a photographer, I didn't need millions of customers. I needed a small number of deeply aligned clients. That is true for a lot of creative businesses. Scale is seductive, but alignment is durable. When you know your values, it becomes easier to choose who you want to work with and just as importantly, who you don't. About Eric Ries Eric Ries is an entrepreneur, author, and long-term thinker whose ideas have shaped how companies are built and managed over the last two decades. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, as well as The Leader's Guide and The Startup Way. As a founder, Eric has put his ideas into practice through The Long-Term Stock Exchange, Answer.AI, the Lean Startup Co, Virgil, and IMVU, where the ideas that became the Lean Startup method were forged. His new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great, explores why organizations lose their way and how leaders can build companies that endure without losing their soul. Follow Eric Ries LinkedIn X Instagram TikTok Newsletter Incorruptible The Eric Ries Show YouTube Timecodes 04:20 – Why this is an unusually powerful time to be a creator 06:31 – Why Eric says all of his books come from pain 07:29 – How platforms shape creators through algorithmic gravity 10:58 – Eric describes the war for the soul of the economy 13:40 – Chase shares what happened after raising venture capital for CreativeLive 17:17 – Why corruption often looks more like corrosion than scandal 19:52 – Why success attracts predators 21:35 – What Steve Jobs understood about defending principles 23:09 – Why companies need integrity and the ability to keep a promise 25:44 – How real values shape hiring, decisions, and culture 31:35 – Eric explains the "culture bank" and why trust is an asset 33:55 – Why the rule is simple: only make deposits, never withdrawals 36:05 – Chase shares the CreativeLive value of access 38:19 – How to recover when you make a mistake 44:16 – Why creators should choose alignment over anyone with a dollar 46:15 – Why the right audience matters more than the biggest audience 48:41 – Eric's new book, Incorruptible Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes with these questions: What do I actually stand for in my work? Where am I letting outside incentives shape my decisions without realizing it? What kind of success would I not want if it required betraying my values? Where have I confused growth with alignment? Which clients, customers, platforms, sponsors, or partners are pulling me away from the work I want to be known for? What is one trust deposit I could make this week? What is one trust withdrawal I need to stop making? What promise do I want my work to make and keep? A Simple Practice for Staying Incorruptible Here's something practical you can do this week. Write down three lists and be brutally honest with yourself: What I stand for: the values that should guide your work, offers, partnerships, clients, platforms, and decisions. What I will not trade: the principles you are unwilling to sacrifice for money, growth, attention, status, convenience, or approval. What I need to change: the places where your current behavior is not aligned with what you say you believe. This is not a branding exercise, and it is not about coming up with impressive words. It is about making decisions easier before the pressure arrives. Because when the opportunity shows up, when the money is on the table, when the algorithm rewards the wrong thing, when the shortcut looks harmless, you want to already know who you are. Final Thought The longer I build things, the more I believe that trust is everything. Trust is what makes people come back. Trust is what makes a brand durable. Trust is what makes a creative career sustainable. Trust is what allows a company, a community, a body of work, or a reputation to compound over time. But trust is also fragile. It can be spent, traded, and quietly eroded by decisions that seem small in the moment. That is why this conversation with Eric matters. The goal is not just to build something successful. The goal is to build something worthy of the success it earns: something aligned, durable, and trustworthy enough that people can believe in it over the long term. Until next time: know what you stand for, protect the trust you've built, and build something that can grow without being captured.

May 20, 202621 min

Play It As It Lies

Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about golf. And before you check out because you're not a golfer, hang with me for a minute — because this episode isn't really about golf. It's about life. It's about what happens when things don't go according to plan. When the ball lands somewhere ugly. When you're stuck behind a tree, buried in the sand, sitting in a divot, or staring down a shot you didn't want and didn't ask for. In golf, there's a phrase: play it as it lies. You don't get to move the ball just because the situation is inconvenient. You don't get to pretend the shot is easier than it is. You don't get to rewrite reality so it matches the version you had in your head. You look at what's in front of you. You accept the lie. And then you play the next shot. That idea has become one of the most useful metaphors in my life. Because life, like golf, rarely unfolds exactly the way we imagined. Even our best-laid plans run into rough patches. The course changes. The weather shifts. The terrain surprises us. Sometimes the thing we thought would be straightforward turns into the hardest shot of the day. And the question becomes: Can you stop fighting reality long enough to respond to it? That's what this episode is about. Not golf tips. Not swing mechanics. Not how to lower your handicap. It's about resilience. Presence. Ego. Preparation. Adaptability. Learning from mistakes. And remembering that the little things — the short putts, the quiet choices, the small daily actions — often matter just as much as the big dramatic swings. Here's the thing golf teaches you fast: You can do almost everything "right" and still end up in a bad spot. You can prepare. Practice. Visualize. Get coaching. Set goals. Build routines. Show up with the best intentions. And still, eventually, you're going to hit one sideways. That's not failure. That's the game. And more importantly, that's life. The people who keep growing aren't the ones who never hit bad shots. They're the ones who learn how to recover. They're the ones who don't let one ugly moment become the story of the whole round. They're the ones who can take a breath, look at what's real, and ask: What's the best next move from here? The Core Idea You don't get to choose every lie. But you do get to choose how you play it. That's the heart of this episode. In golf, the course is full of imperfections. A root here. A bunker there. A weird patch of grass. A branch that grew out at exactly the wrong angle. A divot you didn't create but now have to deal with. You don't get to pretend those things aren't there. You have to confront the reality of the shot. Life works the same way. Sometimes you get the clean fairway lie. Sometimes you're in the rough. Sometimes you're blocked. Sometimes the conditions change overnight. Sometimes you did everything you could and still landed somewhere difficult. The mistake most of us make is wasting energy wishing the lie were different. But the power move is acceptance. Not passive acceptance. Not resignation. Not pretending you like the situation. Acceptance as in: This is what's true. Now what? That mindset builds resilience because it pulls you out of fantasy and back into agency. It reminds you that while you may not control the terrain, you still control your next swing. What You'll Hear in This Episode This episode is built around a set of lessons golf has taught me — lessons that reach far beyond the course. Why "play it as it lies" is one of the best life philosophies for dealing with reality, setbacks, and uncertainty How to stay present after a bad shot instead of letting one mistake define everything that follows Why your best shot might come right after your worst one — and what Tiger Woods can teach us about staying neutral The hidden value of playing with someone new and staying open to unfamiliar people, personalities, and situations How ego quietly ruins the game — in golf, creativity, business, relationships, and life Why mistakes are feedback when you're willing to study them without shame What it means to play against the course instead of obsessing over comparison Why preparation matters even when you can't control the outcome How the little things add up — the one-inch putts, the daily habits, the small choices that shape the final score Play It Like It Is The first lesson is simple: play it like it is. In golf, the traditional phrase is "play it as it lies." Wherever the ball lands, that's where you play from. You don't get to deny the circumstances. You don't get to pretend you have a perfect lie when you don't. You don't get to spend the whole round frustrated because the course has imperfections. You adapt. That's such a powerful life lesson because so much of our suffering comes from arguing with what's already true. We think, This shouldn't be happening. Maybe it shouldn't. But it is. And the faster we can stop resisting reality, the faster we can begin responding to it. This doesn't mean you don't have emotions. It doesn't mean you don't get frustrated. It doesn't mean you don't acknowledge that something is hard or unfair or disappointing. It means you don't stay stuck there. You look at the lie. You study the conditions. You adjust. You play the next shot. That's resilience. That's adaptability. That's life. Your Best Shot Can Follow Your Worst One One of the most iconic moments in golf came from Tiger Woods at the Masters. The shot itself was extraordinary — the ball rolling slowly, almost impossibly, toward the hole, pausing for a split second, then taking one final turn and dropping in. But what makes that moment even more powerful is what came before it. That incredible shot followed one of his most disappointing shots of the tournament. That's the lesson. Your best shot can come right after your worst one. But only if you stay present enough to take it. Most of us do the opposite. We make one mistake and immediately leave the moment. We replay what went wrong. We narrate the failure. We spiral. We decide the round is ruined, the project is doomed, the day is shot, the dream is over. But the next shot doesn't care about the last one. It only asks whether you're here. That's the discipline: staying neutral. Staying composed. Staying available to the possibility that something beautiful can happen next. Not because you're pretending the bad shot didn't happen. Because you're refusing to let it own the rest of the round. Play With Somebody New Golf has this funny thing built into it: sometimes you show up and get paired with people you don't know. That can feel awkward. It can feel inconvenient. It can feel like a curveball. But if you stay open, it can also be a gift. You might play with someone who's been at it for nine months or nineteen years. You might learn something from a beginner. You might learn something from a veteran. You might meet someone you never would have crossed paths with otherwise. You also might get paired with someone who doesn't exactly light you up. And that's part of the lesson too. The point isn't that every stranger becomes a lifelong friend. The point is that there's value in staying open. There's value in learning how to share the course. There's value in practicing patience, kindness, curiosity, and connection over a few hours. Life works this way all the time. We get paired with coworkers, collaborators, clients, neighbors, strangers, and people whose rhythms are different from ours. Sometimes it's magic. Sometimes it's friction. But either way, there's something to learn if we're not closed off before the first shot. Disconnect From the Ego Golf will expose your ego fast. It's hard to hit a tiny white ball with a club toward a hole hundreds of yards away. It's hard to do it consistently. It's hard to make the body, mind, mechanics, course, weather, and emotions all cooperate at the same time. And because it's hard, the ego wants to jump in. It wants to explain every bad shot. It wants to justify every mistake. It wants to narrate every swing so nobody thinks less of you. I used to do this all the time. Good shot, bad shot — I had a comment. An explanation. A little story about what happened or why it happened. Eventually, I realized: it doesn't matter. That was all ego. The shot is the shot. The score is the score. The work is the work. When you can detach from constantly judging yourself — good or bad — you free up so much energy. You can laugh. Learn. Keep going. Try again. You can be in the experience instead of performing an identity around the experience. That's true in golf. It's true in creativity. It's true in leadership. It's true in life. The ego wants protection. The game requires presence. Learn From the Mistakes Golf is endlessly humbling because no two rounds are exactly alike. The course changes. The grass changes. The greens change. The wind changes. The pin placement changes. The conditions you played yesterday may not be the conditions you face today. That means mistakes are inevitable. But mistakes are also information. When a shot doesn't go as planned, you have a chance to study what happened. Was it your setup? Your focus? The wind? The club selection? The lie? The speed of the green? Your emotional state? The point isn't to shame yourself. The point is to learn. This is one of the biggest differences between people who keep improving and people who stay stuck. Stuck people turn mistakes into identity. Growing people turn mistakes into feedback. Nobody plays a flawless round. Nobody lives a flawless life. The goal isn't to avoid every mistake. The goal is to build the capacity for error recovery. To adapt. Improve. Persist. Keep moving. That's where growth happens. You're Playing Against the Course Yes, golf can be competitive. You can play against other people. You can compare scores. You can enter tournaments. You can measure yourself against the field. But at its core, you're playing the course. You can't hit someone else's ball. You can't control their swing. You can't determine how they handle pressure, luck, weather, mistakes, or momentum. You show up and play your round. That's such a useful way to think about life. We spend so much energy comparing ourselves to other people. Their success. Their timing. Their resources. Their audience. Their path. Their scorecard. But comparison pulls us out of our own game. Your job is to play the course in front of you as well as you can. That doesn't mean you don't care about excellence. It doesn't mean you don't compete. It means you understand where your power actually lives. Your preparation. Your choices. Your attitude. Your recovery. Your next shot. When you focus there, the results have a way of speaking for themselves. Preparation Is Key Preparation matters in golf just like it matters in life. Not everyone can swing like a pro. Not everyone has the same athletic ability, experience, or natural feel for the game. But everyone can prepare. Everyone can stand over the ball with intention. Everyone can build a routine. Everyone can line up carefully. Everyone can take the setup seriously. That's a powerful distinction. You may not control the outcome, but you can control the setup. In life, that might look like how you start your day. How you enter a conversation. How you prepare for a meeting. How you train your body. How you manage your attention. How you create the conditions for better work. No Olympic hurdler goes from the couch to the starting line without warming up. And yet so many of us expect ourselves to perform at a high level without creating the conditions that make performance possible. Preparation isn't glamorous. But it compounds. And when the pressure comes, you'll be grateful you built the habit before you needed it. The Little Things Matter One of the funniest things about golf is that a 390-yard drive and a one-inch tap-in both count as one stroke. The big swing and the tiny putt have the same weight on the scorecard. That's humbling. It's also a perfect metaphor. In life, we tend to overvalue the big moments. The launch. The deal. The breakthrough. The dramatic decision. The visible win. But the small things matter just as much, often more. How you start your day. How you speak to people. How you recover from frustration. How you express gratitude. How you care for your relationships. How you practice when nobody's watching. How you handle the little putts. A successful life isn't only built on big swings. It's built on the accumulation of small, deliberate actions repeated over time. The details count. The short shots count. The quiet moments count. Every stroke matters. Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) If you're not listening straight through, here are a few landmarks to help you find the part that speaks to where you are right now: 01:46 – Why golf became an unexpected obsession again 03:13 – The lessons from the course that go way beyond golf 03:41 – Lesson 1: Play it as it lies 05:58 – Lesson 2: Stay present after a bad shot 07:42 – Lesson 3: Play with somebody new 09:30 – Lesson 4: Disconnect from the ego 11:13 – Lesson 5: Learn from mistakes 14:13 – Lesson 6: You're playing against the course 15:58 – Lesson 7: Preparation is key 17:32 – Why the little things matter as much as the big swings 19:00 – Bringing the lessons together: presence, ego, mistakes, preparation, and playing the lie you're given Read This If Life Has You in the Rough If you're in a season where things aren't going according to plan, I want you to hold onto this: You don't have to like the lie to play it well. You can be frustrated and still be powerful. You can be disappointed and still be capable. You can wish things were different and still take responsibility for the next move. That's the work. So much of life is learning how to stop waiting for perfect conditions. We tell ourselves we'll begin when the timing is better, when the resources are better, when the path is clearer, when the lie is cleaner. But the course rarely offers perfect conditions. And if we wait for them, we miss the game. The question is not, Is this the shot I wanted? The question is, What does this shot require? That shift changes everything. It moves you from complaint to creativity. From resistance to agency. From ego to presence. From helplessness to the next right action. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes and sit with these: Where in my life am I refusing to accept the lie in front of me? What reality am I arguing with that I could be responding to instead? What was my last "bad shot," and what can it teach me? Am I letting ego narrate my mistakes instead of simply learning from them? Where am I comparing my round to someone else's instead of playing my own course? What small habit, detail, or "one-inch putt" deserves more of my attention? How can I better prepare for the challenges I already know are coming? What would it look like to stay present for the next shot? A Simple Practice for Playing It As It Lies Here's something practical you can do this week. Pick one area of your life where the conditions are not ideal. Maybe it's work. A relationship. A creative project. Your health. Your schedule. Your finances. A goal that feels harder than expected. Then write down three things: The lie: What is actually true right now? The resistance: What do I keep wishing were different? The next shot: What is one useful action I can take from here? Keep it simple. Don't solve your whole life. Don't redesign the entire course. Don't wait for clarity to arrive in perfect form. Just play the next shot. Because momentum doesn't come from perfect conditions. It comes from honest action. Final Thought Golf has reminded me that life is not just the big swings. It's the small strokes. The recovery shots. The bad lies. The quiet adjustments. The willingness to laugh, learn, reset, and keep moving. It's playing with new people. It's staying present after disappointment. It's disconnecting from ego. It's preparing well. It's learning from mistakes. It's remembering that you're not really playing against everyone else. You're playing the course in front of you. And some days, the ball is going to land in a divot. Some days, it's going to end up in the bunker. Some days, you're going to look down and think, Really? This is what I have to work with? Yes. That's the lie. Now play it. Until next time: stay present, let go of the ego, prepare well, and remember — play it as it lies.

May 13, 202615 min

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

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

May 6, 202619 min

How to Find Your Creative Voice

Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about one of the most important questions every creator eventually asks: How do I find my creative voice? Or maybe you've heard it framed another way: How do I develop a personal style? How do I make work that actually feels like mine? How do I stop copying what everyone else is doing and start creating from a place that is uniquely my own? This question comes up all the time because it sits at the center of the creative life. Whether you're a photographer, designer, writer, filmmaker, musician, entrepreneur, or someone who simply feels called to make things, there comes a point where technical ability is not enough. You can know how to use the tools. You can understand the software. You can study the masters. You can follow the trends. You can learn the settings, the systems, the formulas, the workflows. But eventually, you hit a deeper question: What makes this mine? That is what this episode is about. And I want to be clear from the start: finding your creative voice is not about inventing some perfect brand identity overnight. It's not about locking yourself into one narrow lane forever. It's not about deciding, intellectually, "This is my style now," and then forcing every piece of work to fit inside that box. Your creative voice is much more organic than that. It is your fingerprint. Your point of view. Your taste. Your history. Your instincts. Your lived experience. Your way of seeing the world, translated through the things you make. And the only way to find it is to make. Not once. Not occasionally. Not only when you feel inspired. Again and again and again. The Big Question: What Is Personal Style? Personal style can sound like one of those vague creative phrases that floats around in the universe without ever becoming useful. People say things like, "You need to find your style," or "You need to develop your voice," but what does that actually mean? At its simplest, personal style is the thing that makes your work recognizable. It's the equivalent of your handwriting. You don't have to think about your handwriting every time you write your name. It's not something you consciously construct letter by letter. It just comes out of you because it has been shaped by repetition, history, muscle memory, and identity. Your creative style works the same way. It is the unique aesthetic fingerprint that you unconsciously put on everything you make. Think about music. You can hear a Prince song for just a few measures and know it's Prince before his voice even enters. There's a signature there. A rhythm. A tone. A sensibility. A way the work announces itself. Think about photography. You can look at an Ansel Adams landscape and recognize the scale, the drama, the tonality, the reverence for nature. It has a point of view. That's personal style. It's not just what you make. It's how you see. It's what you notice. It's what you repeat without realizing you're repeating it. It's the pattern behind the work. And that matters because without some kind of recognizable point of view, you're just bouncing around. You might be technically capable. You might be able to make a good photograph, a good song, a good design, a good film, a good essay. But if there's nothing distinctive about the way you make it, people have a harder time connecting that work back to you. Personal style is what helps the work become yours. Why Your Creative Voice Matters There are two big reasons personal style matters. The first is personal. If you spend your life chasing everyone else's style, you're going to end up miserable. Now, let's be honest: early in the creative journey, imitation is part of the process. That's normal. That's healthy. That's how we learn. You see someone whose work you admire and you try to understand how they did it. You copy a lighting setup. You study a sentence structure. You recreate a beat. You reverse-engineer a design. You try to make something that looks or sounds or feels like the thing that inspired you. There's nothing wrong with that. In the beginning, imitation helps you learn how to move the tools around. It helps you close the gap between what you see in your mind and what you're actually capable of making. But imitation is not the destination. If all you ever do is copy what's trendy, or borrow someone else's point of view, or chase whatever style is getting attention right now, you are not expressing yourself. You are expressing the culture around you. And that is a direct path to burnout. Because the reason we make things, at the deepest level, is expression. We make because something inside wants to come out. We make because it feels good to turn an internal experience into something real in the world. We make because creativity is one of the ways we become more fully ourselves. If your work is always a response to someone else's style, you lose that connection. You become a mirror instead of a source. The second reason personal style matters is practical. If you want to do creative work professionally, you do not want to be paid merely for your time. There is nothing wrong with getting paid for your time. That can be part of the path. But the ultimate goal is not to be treated like a pair of hands. The ultimate goal is to be paid for your vision. You don't want someone to hire you because you own a camera. You want them to hire you because only you see the assignment that way. You don't want someone to hire you because you can operate software. You want them to hire you because your taste, your judgment, and your perspective create value. You don't want to be interchangeable. The most recognized creatives in the world are not valuable because they can execute a task. They are valuable because they bring a specific point of view to the table. That's what separates craft from commodity. When people can recognize your fingerprints on the work, when they can say, "That feels like you," you begin to move into a different category. You're no longer just competing on speed, price, or availability. You're competing on vision. And that is where the upside is. The Creative Gap One of the most important parts of this conversation is what Ira Glass famously called the creative gap. The creative gap is the distance between what you can see in your mind and what you're actually capable of making right now. Every creator knows this feeling. You have a vision. You can feel what you want the work to be. You can almost see it, hear it, taste it. But when you sit down to make the thing, the result falls short. The photograph doesn't look the way it looked in your head. The song doesn't hit the way you imagined. The essay feels clumsy. The design feels flat. The film doesn't carry the emotion you hoped it would. That gap is frustrating. But it is also the path. Craft is how you close the gap. You make, you study, you adjust, you learn, you make again. Over time, your ability catches up to your taste. You get better at translating the thing in your mind into the thing in the world. But here's the trap: If you spend that entire process only copying other people, you might improve technically without ever developing a voice of your own. You might become skilled at imitation. But mastery is not just being able to reproduce what already exists. Mastery is being able to make what only you can make. Personal Style Is Your Point of View Your creative voice is not just an aesthetic. It's not just black and white photography, clean typography, heavy brushstrokes, fast sketches, cinematic lighting, sparse production, or bold color. Those things can be part of a style, but they are not the whole thing. Your style is the point of view underneath those choices. It is the reason you reach for certain tools. The reason you frame things a certain way. The reason you simplify here and exaggerate there. The reason you are drawn to certain subjects, moods, colors, rhythms, textures, or stories. The episode uses a great example from the world of design: imagine trying to design a tennis shoe inspired by a glass bottle of gin. Suddenly, the bottle becomes a filter. You might notice the transparency, the edges, the shape, the weight, the way light moves through it. Those qualities start informing the shoe. That is a useful way to think about style. Your personal style is the filter your work passes through. It's not limited to one medium. If you are a photographer, designer, musician, writer, or multidisciplinary creator, your style should still carry across what you make. The medium may change, but the point of view travels. That's when people can look at a piece and say: That feels like you. Not because you repeated yourself mechanically, but because your way of seeing is present. How Do You Find Your Creative Voice? Here's the part people don't always want to hear: It takes time. There is no shortcut that replaces making the work. You can think about your style. You can journal about it. You can moodboard it. You can study other artists. You can talk about your influences. You can define your values. All of that can be useful. But none of it replaces the act of making. The best way to find your personal style is to make as much as you can, at a regular cadence, ideally as quickly and consistently as possible. Because your style is not something you force into existence. It is something you discover through repetition. You make one thing. Then ten things. Then a hundred things. At first, it may feel random. You may feel like you're all over the place. You may try on other people's approaches. You may borrow. You may experiment. You may make things that don't feel like you at all. That's okay. The making is the sorting mechanism. Over time, patterns start to appear. You notice what you keep returning to. You notice what feels alive. You notice what feels false. You notice the choices you make when nobody is telling you what to do. And eventually, if you put twenty of your pieces on a wall mixed in with other people's work, someone should be able to walk in and pick yours out. That is the litmus test. Not because every piece looks identical, but because there is a through-line. There is a signal. There is a voice. Your Style Might Not Be What You Expected One of the most important reminders in this episode is that your personal style may not be what you thought it would be. You might think you want to be known for clean, minimal design, only to realize that your real energy comes through in fast, expressive, messy sketches. You might think you want to make quiet, polished work, only to discover that your strength is intensity, humor, or chaos. You might think you want to be one kind of artist, but the work keeps revealing that you are someone else. That can be uncomfortable. But it can also be liberating. Your creative voice is not always the version of yourself you imagined. Sometimes it is the version of yourself that keeps showing up when you stop performing. This is why making is so important. You cannot discover your true style by sitting around and thinking about who you wish you were. You discover it by creating enough evidence that you can finally see who you actually are. What You'll Hear in This Episode This episode breaks the question of creative voice into three practical parts: what personal style is, why it matters, and how to actually find it. Here are the ideas worth listening for: Why personal style is like your creative handwriting — the unconscious fingerprint you put on everything you make Why imitation is useful early on, but dangerous if you never move beyond it How the creative gap works — and why craft is what helps you close it Why you don't want to be paid only for your time, but for your point of view How recognizable style builds value, trust, and creative opportunity Why you can't force your personal style — you have to uncover it through making Why making 100 things teaches you more than endlessly thinking about the perfect direction How specialization can actually create more freedom, not less Why trying to be everything to everyone will dilute your work and drain your energy Timecodes So You Can Jump to What You Need If you're not listening straight through, here are a few landmarks to help you find the part that speaks to where you are right now: 01:45 – Welcome and the big question: how do you develop a personal style? 02:04 – The three-part framework: what personal style is, why it matters, and how to find it 02:50 – What personal style actually means for photographers, designers, writers, musicians, and creators 03:18 – Personal style as your creative handwriting or aesthetic fingerprint 04:34 – Why developing a personal style matters 05:25 – Why chasing everyone else's style leads to misery and burnout 06:08 – Ira Glass, the creative gap, and the path toward mastery 07:10 – Why you want to be paid for your point of view, not just your time 09:46 – Edward de Bono, Stefan Sagmeister, and using outside references to understand style 11:31 – The tactical answer: how to actually find your personal style 11:46 – Why there are no shortcuts — and why making is the path 12:32 – Why your unique life experience is the source of your point of view 13:41 – Make one thing, then ten things, then one hundred things 14:00 – The litmus test: can someone identify your work in a crowd? 16:06 – Why you cannot be all things to all people 16:55 – How mastery in one area can help you learn and master many things 18:01 – Why specialization unlocks opportunity instead of limiting it Read This If You Feel Like You Haven't Found Your Voice Yet If you feel like you haven't found your creative voice yet, I want you to hear this: You are not behind. You are in the process. It is easy to look at someone whose style seems fully formed and assume they were born with it. But what you are seeing is usually the result of years of making, failing, repeating, refining, borrowing, rejecting, and returning to the work. Style is not a lightning bolt. It is sediment. It builds layer by layer through practice. Every project teaches you something. Every experiment leaves a trace. Every failed attempt helps you understand what is not yours. Every finished piece gives you more information. So if you feel unclear, the answer is not to wait until you feel certain. The answer is to make. Make the thing. Then make another. Then make another. Then look back and listen for the pattern. Your voice is not hiding from you. It is waiting for enough evidence to reveal itself. The Danger of Chasing Trends There is a difference between research and copying. Looking broadly at culture, studying what's happening, noticing what inspires you, and learning from other artists is part of being creatively alive. But copying one person's style over and over again is not research. It's imitation. And if you spend too much time chasing trends, you train yourself to look outward for permission instead of inward for direction. Trends can teach you what's happening now. They cannot tell you who you are. That doesn't mean you need to ignore the world. It means you need to metabolize what you see. Take in inspiration. Study widely. Notice what moves you. But then ask: What do I have to say about this? What is my relationship to this idea? What part of this connects to my lived experience? How does this become mine? Your work does not become original because it appears out of nowhere. Nothing does. Your work becomes original when your influences pass through your point of view. Don't Overthink It. Make It. There is a line in this episode that matters: Don't overthink it. Just make it. That does not mean thinking has no place in the creative process. Reflection matters. Strategy matters. Taste matters. Intention matters. But thinking cannot replace making. A lot of creators get stuck because they want to understand their style before they create enough work to reveal it. That's backwards. You don't find your voice and then make the work. You make the work and find your voice through it. This is why personal projects are so valuable. They give you a place to create without needing permission. They give you a space to follow curiosity. They let you experiment without the pressure of a client, an audience, or a perfect outcome. Personal projects are where your style gets room to breathe. Not everything has to be monetized. Not everything has to be optimized. Not everything has to be posted. Not everything has to become part of your portfolio. Sometimes the point is simply to learn what happens when you follow the impulse. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes and sit with these questions: What kind of work do I keep returning to, even when nobody asks me to? Whose style am I currently copying, and what am I learning from that imitation? Where have I mistaken trend-chasing for creative growth? What choices show up again and again in my work? What subjects, themes, colors, sounds, rhythms, or ideas keep pulling me back? What would I make if I stopped trying to be impressive? What would I make if I stopped trying to be for everyone? Can someone recognize my work without seeing my name attached to it? What do I need to make 10 more of before I judge whether I have a style? A Simple Practice for Finding Your Creative Voice Here's a simple exercise: Choose one format. A photo series, a set of sketches, a short essay series, a beat tape, a design study, a daily video, whatever fits your craft. Make 10 versions. Not one perfect version. Ten honest attempts. Do them quickly enough that you can't over-polish the life out of them. Put them side by side. Look for what repeats. Ask someone you trust what feels most like you. Then make 10 more. The goal is not to force consistency. The goal is to gather evidence. What do you keep doing naturally? What feels alive? What feels borrowed? What feels like performance? What feels like truth? Your style is hidden in those patterns. Specialization Is Not a Trap A lot of creators resist personal style because they worry it will limit them. They think, "If I become known for one thing, I'll lose my range." But specialization does not have to mean becoming narrow. It means becoming recognizable. You can have range and still have a voice. In fact, range might be part of your style. But if nobody can identify the through-line, if your work feels like a different person made it every time, it becomes harder for people to understand what you stand for creatively. That does not mean you have to lock yourself into black and white portraits forever. It means you have to make enough work that your point of view becomes visible across the range. The goal is not sameness. The goal is coherence. You Cannot Be All Things to All People This is one of the hardest lessons in creative work. You cannot be all things to all people. If you try, your work will suffer. Your energy will suffer. Your sense of self will suffer. When you chase 58 different styles because you want everyone to like you, you dilute the very thing that makes your work valuable. The goal is not to please everyone. The goal is to express something true enough that the right people recognize it. That takes courage because it means letting go of some possibilities. It means not being for every client, every audience, every trend, every platform, every room. But that is also where freedom begins. When you stop trying to be everything, you can finally become something specific. And specific is powerful. The Path Is Create, Share, Sustain The loop is simple, but not easy: Create. Share. Sustain. Get feedback. Make again. That's how you grow. Not by waiting for clarity. Not by endlessly planning. Not by collecting inspiration forever. Not by thinking your way into a fully formed identity. You create. You put work into the world. You pay attention. You learn. You keep going. Over time, that loop builds both style and mastery. And here's the advanced part: once you learn how to master one thing, you start to understand how learning itself works. You begin to recognize the patterns of growth. You understand what deliberate practice feels like. You know how to move through frustration. You know how to close the creative gap. Mastery in one area can become a doorway into mastery in others. But first, you have to do the work in front of you. The Core Idea Your creative voice is not something you find by waiting. It is something you uncover by making. Your personal style is your point of view made visible. It is the creative fingerprint that appears when you have made enough work to stop performing and start revealing. Yes, study the people you admire. Yes, learn the tools. Yes, imitate in the beginning. Yes, experiment broadly. But then return to the work. Make one thing. Then ten. Then a hundred. Look for the patterns. Trust what keeps showing up. Let your lived experience inform the choices. Stop trying to be all things to all people. The world does not need a perfect copy of someone else. It needs the thing only you can make. Until next time: focus on the making, trust your point of view, and remember — your creative voice is already in there. The work is how you bring it out.

April 29, 202611 min

Stop Asking Permission to Create Your Life

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

April 22, 202612 min

Don't Wait for Inspiration

Hey friends, Chase here Let's talk about something that gets romanticized way too much in the creative world: inspiration. We've been taught to wait for it. To trust it. To believe that the best work comes when lightning strikes, when the muse shows up, when the feeling is right. And while inspiration is real — and beautiful when it arrives — it's also wildly unreliable. That's the trap. If you build your creative life around inspiration, you build it around something you cannot control. And anything you can't control is a dangerous foundation for a meaningful body of work. This episode is about a better way. A steadier way. A more durable way. It's about why creativity doesn't really grow from waiting for a feeling — it grows from compounding action. Small acts. Repeated over time. Daily deposits into the account of your craft. Tiny efforts that don't seem like much in the moment, but eventually become impossible to ignore. Because the truth is simple: you do not need to feel inspired to make something meaningful. You need to begin. And then begin again tomorrow. The Real Problem With Waiting for Inspiration At the start of the episode, I ask a question that's worth sitting with for a minute: When was the last time you made something just for the sake of making it? Not for a client. Not for social media. Not because someone was expecting it. Not because it was due. Just because you felt a pull to create. For a lot of people, that question lands hard. Not because the desire to create is gone — but because somewhere along the way, the conditions got heavy. The pressure increased. The stakes changed. Creation stopped being play and started becoming performance. And once that happens, inspiration starts to feel like a requirement. Like you need the right mood, the right window of time, the right environment, the right burst of confidence before you can begin. But that's backwards. Inspiration is not the engine. It's the byproduct. The people who make meaningful work consistently are rarely sitting around waiting to feel magical. They're working. They're practicing. They're trying things. They're showing up on ordinary days. They're making imperfect things and learning from the process. They understand that action creates momentum — and momentum often creates the feeling we mistakenly thought had to come first. The Core Idea: Creativity Compounds Most people understand compounding in the context of money. You invest a little. That investment earns returns. Then those returns start earning returns of their own. If you stick with it long enough, the early effort starts to multiply in ways that seem almost disproportionate to the original input. That same principle applies to creativity. Every day you make something, you are making a deposit into your creative future. You're not just producing one photo, one page, one sketch, one draft, one conversation, one attempt. You're building skill. You're building confidence. You're building pattern recognition. You're building stamina. You're building trust with yourself. That one photograph teaches you how to see a little better tomorrow. That paragraph in your journal makes the next paragraph easier to write. That rough idea you abandon still shapes the way your brain approaches the next one. None of it is wasted. That's important, because a lot of creative people dismiss the small efforts. They only count the big breakthroughs. They only respect the obvious wins. They think the work "counts" once it becomes polished, public, profitable, or impressive. But real creative growth doesn't work that way. The invisible reps are where the change is happening. Why the Early Returns Feel So Small One reason people stop too soon is because the beginning is incredibly deceptive. You show up. You try. You make the thing. And at first? Not much seems to happen. You don't feel transformed. You don't suddenly become excellent. You don't necessarily get recognition. You may not even like what you made. That's normal. It's a lot like going to the gym. The first handful of workouts don't make you feel powerful. Usually they make you feel sore. Awkward. Behind. You don't see visible results yet, so your brain starts questioning whether the effort is worth it. That's exactly where most people quit. Not because the process isn't working — but because the results are still compounding beneath the surface. The habit is the investment. The work is the interest. And in the background, whether you notice it or not, something is building. What Compounding Looks Like in Real Life If you commit to a creative practice, the shifts usually happen in phases. Day one: you make something and it feels mediocre. Maybe embarrassing, even. You put it out there anyway. Or maybe you keep it private. Either way, you made something. That matters. Day 30: you've stayed with it long enough to feel a difference. You might not be able to articulate exactly how you're better, but something is changing. You're a little less hesitant. A little more practiced. A little more willing to hit publish, or share, or trust your instincts. Day 90: now the changes are harder to deny. You're solving problems faster. You're making decisions with more confidence. The work has a different quality to it — one that may be difficult to name but easy to feel. Day 365: this is where it gets almost shocking. You look back at who you were when you started, and it's hard to believe that version of you made the early work. Your skills have evolved. Your identity has evolved. The way you think has evolved. Not because inspiration struck once in a dramatic breakthrough — but because repeated practice changed you. That's the magic most people miss. The transformation doesn't come from a single moment. It comes from stacking enough ordinary moments that they eventually become extraordinary. Inspiration Follows Habit This may be the most important idea in the entire episode: Inspiration follows the habit. It does not precede it. Read that again. We tend to imagine that creative people feel inspired first, and then they make. But most of the time, the opposite is true. They make first. They enter the work first. They return to the practice first. And somewhere along the way, inspiration catches up to them. The muse is far more likely to visit the person already working than the person waiting for certainty on the couch. This matters because it gives you your power back. If you believe inspiration has to arrive before you begin, you are helpless every time it doesn't show up. If you understand that inspiration often arrives after action begins, then you're no longer blocked by your feelings. You can move anyway. That doesn't make the process robotic. It makes it resilient. Why Daily Practice Changes More Than Skill When people hear "practice," they often think only about technical improvement. Better camera work. Better writing. Better editing. Better design. Better speaking. Better execution. And yes — practice absolutely improves craft. But that's only part of the story. Practice also changes your mindset. It changes your tolerance for uncertainty. It changes your willingness to be seen before you feel ready. It changes your ability to recover from a rough day or a bad draft or a failed attempt. It changes your relationship to discomfort. Over time, you become tougher. Not harsher. Not more closed. Just sturdier. You stop interpreting every hard day as a sign you've lost your way. You start recognizing resistance as part of the process rather than proof that you should stop. That's a deep kind of growth. And it's only available through repetition. What Most People Get Wrong About Creative Success A lot of people think the biggest differentiator is talent. Sometimes they think it's access. Or timing. Or luck. Or confidence. And while all of those things may play a role, one of the most underrated advantages in any creative life is much simpler: The willingness to keep going. Most people quit. They stop when the returns are still invisible. They stop when it gets repetitive. They stop when they feel embarrassed. They stop when the novelty wears off. They stop when they don't get immediate validation. They stop when they confuse discomfort with misalignment. But if you stay in the game — if you continue stacking daily habits, continuing to invest, continuing to return to the work — you start benefiting from a force that only rewards consistency. You begin to outlast the people who were relying only on excitement. You begin to build a body of work that couldn't have been created any other way. You begin to trust yourself not because everything feels easy, but because you've proven that you can continue when it doesn't. What You'll Hear in This Episode This is a short micro show, but it carries a big message. Here's what to listen for: Why making something for play matters — and how easy it is to drift away from that instinct when everything becomes about output, audience, or obligation How the concept of compounding interest applies directly to creativity — and why small repeated actions build more than we realize Why the early phase of practice feels unrewarding — even when it's working exactly as it should What happens at day 1, day 30, day 90, and day 365 when you commit to daily creative action Why inspiration is a result of the habit, not the prerequisite for it How persistence quietly becomes one of the greatest creative advantages you can have Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) 01:47 – The opening question: when was the last time you made something just for play? 02:32 – Why we shouldn't lean on inspiration — and what to lean on instead 03:01 – The compounding interest metaphor and why it matters for creativity 03:57 – The realization that creativity compounds just like money does 05:07 – Why the early returns are invisible, and why most people quit too soon 06:12 – What compounding creativity looks like at day 1, 30, 90, and 365 08:32 – The key truth: inspiration follows the habit 09:26 – The reminder that most people quit — and why continuing matters 10:50 – Stacking daily habits and applying financial wisdom to creative life Read This If You've Been Waiting to Feel Ready If you've been telling yourself you'll get back to your craft once the spark returns, once life calms down, once you have more clarity, once you feel more confident — let this be your reminder: You do not have to wait to feel ready. You do not need a perfect plan. You do not need ideal conditions. You do not need a surge of confidence. You need one small act of participation. One honest page. One photograph. One sketch. One idea written down. One imperfect attempt. Because that's how momentum begins. Not with certainty. With movement. And often, once you reenter the practice, the feeling you were waiting for starts to reappear — not as a prerequisite, but as a companion. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, spend a few minutes with these: When was the last time I made something purely for the joy of making it? Have I been waiting for inspiration instead of committing to a habit? What tiny daily action would count as a meaningful creative deposit right now? Where am I quitting too early because the results still feel invisible? What would change if I trusted repetition more than emotion? What kind of creator could I become in 30, 90, or 365 days if I simply kept going? A Simple Practice for Rebuilding Momentum If this episode speaks to where you are right now, here's a simple way to put it into practice: Choose one small creative act you can repeat daily for the next seven days Keep the bar low enough to actually do it Do it whether you feel inspired or not Track your consistency, not your brilliance At the end of the week, notice what changed — in your skill, your mood, your confidence, or your willingness to begin The goal here is not to impress yourself. It's not to prove anything. It's not to manufacture a breakthrough. The goal is to remember that creative momentum is built, not found. And once that momentum starts to compound, you'll realize something powerful: You were never actually waiting for inspiration. You were waiting to trust the process enough to begin. Until next time, make something for play, keep stacking the habit, and remember: don't wait for inspiration.

April 15, 20267 min

The Hidden Cost of Overplanning

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

April 8, 202611 min

Are You Climbing the Wrong Mountain?

Hey friends, Chase here. I want to talk about something that might be uncomfortable — but if you're willing to really look at it, it can change everything. What if you're working incredibly hard… at the wrong thing? This is one of the scariest patterns I've seen — not just in the creators I coach, but in my own life. People are climbing. Grinding. Achieving. But they're climbing a mountain that isn't theirs. What's Really Going On Most people don't realize they're succeeding at the wrong thing. From the outside, it looks like progress: Momentum Validation Money Status But internally? There's a low-grade unease. Something you can't quite name. You tell yourself: "I just need one more win." "One more level." One more external yes." But what if that feeling isn't about not being there yet? What if it's because you're on the wrong mountain entirely? Why This Happens We humans are mimetic creatures. We learn what to want by watching what other people want. In a world optimized for visibility, comparison, and performative success… that instinct goes into overdrive. We chase what's celebrated. We optimize for what's rewarded. We pursue what looks like a "good life" from the outside. And somewhere along the way, we stop asking the most important question: Why am I doing this? Not the polite answer. Not the resume answer. Not the Instagram caption. The honest one. The Core Idea When you're unclear on your why, you default to someone else's. And when that happens, success becomes incredibly easy to misplace. You can chase: 100,000 followers A bigger team More money A certain lifestyle But if you don't know why… You can end up winning a game you never meant to play. What You'll Hear in This Episode Why we unknowingly adopt other people's goals How mimicry shapes our definition of success The danger of chasing external validation without internal clarity Why "one more win" can actually be a trap How to start defining your own version of success Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) 02:00 – The idea of climbing the wrong mountain 03:02 – The feeling of low-grade unease 03:27 – Mimetic behavior: why we want what others want 04:16 – The most important question: why? 05:21 – Why people succeed at the wrong thing 05:47 – The reframe: you might be pursuing the wrong end 06:13 – That restless feeling is actually alignment 07:06 – Clarity over chaos: small shifts, not big resets 07:33 – Interrupting mimicry 08:06 – Trading achievement for energy 08:29 – Choosing one honest action 09:16 – Stop outsourcing your ambition 09:38 – The danger of succeeding at the wrong thing 09:59 – Finding your mountain If You Feel That Unease, Read This That restless feeling you can't shake? It's not dissatisfaction. It's alignment trying to get your attention. And the fix isn't blowing up your life. It's pausing. Pausing long enough to get honest about what you actually want. Not what looks good. Not what's rewarded. Not what other people expect. What's true for you. Three Ways to Reorient Yourself 1. Interrupt the Mimicry If nobody could see what I'm doing, would I still want this? 2. Trade Achievement for Energy Which of your recent wins actually energized you — not just relieved pressure? 3. Choose One Honest Action Do one small thing aligned with what you actually care about — even if no one sees it. The Truth Most People Learn Too Late The fastest way to feel trapped isn't failure. It's succeeding at something that was never yours. I've lived this. I've climbed the wrong mountains. And when I found the right one? Everything changed. Your Assignment This week, get clear. What would you pursue if no one was watching? What actually energizes you? What's your mountain? You don't need a perfect plan. You just need enough clarity to take one honest step. Until next time: Stop chasing someone else's definition of success. Get clear on your mountain. And start climbing the one that's actually yours.