← The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast With Steve Chou
The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast With Steve Chou
559: The Brutal Truth About Playing It Safe And Why It’s Holding You Back With Chase Jarvis
00:48:33
Today I'm thrilled to have my friend Chase Jarvis on the show. Chase is an acclaimed photographer, director, and entrepreneur who has worked for top-tier brands like Apple, Nike, and Redbull. - His work has been featured in prominent publications such...
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- [00:00]
Steve Chou
You're listening to the My Wife Quitter Job Podcast, the show where I cover all the latest strategies and current events related to e commerce and online business. Now today, I'm thrilled to have my friend Chase Jarvis on the show. Chase is an acclaimed photographer, director and entrepreneur who has worked for top tier brands like Apple, Nike and Red Bull and his work has been featured in prominent publications such as the New York Times and Wired magazine. And I know for a fact that many of you listening are not happy at your job or or you're looking to take control of your life. In this episode, Chase and I discuss the levers you can pull to make money doing what you love and to finally stop playing it safe. But before we begin, I wanted to let you know that tickets are now on sale for Sellersummit 2025 over@sellersummit.com the Seller Summit is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high level bs, mine is a curriculum based event where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e commerce business. Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their business entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods and not some high level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000ft. Now I personally hate large events, so the Seller Summit is always small and intimate. Every year we cut off ticket sales at around 200 people, so tickets sell out fast and we've sold out every single year for the past eight years. Now if you're an e commerce entrepreneur making over 250k or $1 million per year, we also offer an exclusive Mastermind experience with other top sellers. The Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 6th to May 8th and right now this is the cheapest the tickets will ever be. And finally, if you haven't picked up my Wall Street Journal best selling book the Family First Entrepreneur yet, it's actually available on Amazon at 38% off right now. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom by starting a business that doesn't require you to work yourself to death. Plus, you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube and podcasting. When you grab the book over@mywifequitterjob.com book so go over to mywifequitterjob.com book, fill out the form and I'll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show welcome to the My wifequitterjob podcast. Today I'm thrilled to have Chase Jarvis on the show. Chase is an acclaimed photographer, director and entrepreneur best known for his approach to visual storytelling and innovation. He's worked for top tier brands like Apple, Nike and Red Bull. And his work has been featured in prominent publications like the New York Times and Wired magazine. But what I know Chase for is Creative Live, which is an online education platform that has transformed how people learn and connect. And through this platform, he's inspired millions of students globally, offering masterclasses in a bunch of different things like photography, design, business and more, taught by some of the world's most renowned experts. He's also an author of many books, including his latest creation, Never Played Safe. And he's also the host of the Chase Jarvis Live show, where I was on not too long ago. Now, there's a lot that we can learn from Chase, but today we're going to be talking about how to take control of your life and why playing it safe is preventing you from achieving your full potential. And with that, welcome to show Chase. How you doing?
- [03:17]
Chase Jarvis
Great, Steve, thanks so much for saying all those kind words.
- [03:20]
Steve Chou
Only tell the truth.
- [03:22]
Chase Jarvis
You making all that stuff up on the fly, that's great.
- [03:25]
Steve Chou
So, Chase, I know your work well, but for the audience who may be hearing from you for the very first time, how did you go from world class photographer to bestselling author to entrepreneur?
- [03:36]
Chase Jarvis
Mm, wow.
- [03:39]
Steve Chou
Pretty random. I was looking at history because.
- [03:41]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah, yeah, I guess that is part of the punchline of the book. Again, thanks for giving a teaser. It's called Never play it Safe and it's a two part answer. The first part of that is one of the things this is part of why doing what you're called to do or what really interests you, where your curiosity goes, is extra valuable because it's in that curiosity and that interest that you are willing to go super deep and figure things out where someone who only might be, you know, temperately interested in something isn't willing to do the work. And whether we like it or not, we are, you know, competing for attention in the marketplace, whether as a photographer or your online business or your store, or whether you're making, you know, scarves or handkerchiefs or anything else on the planet, doing what you love matters. And so I realized about somewhere in my mid-20s that I kept getting talked out of living my dreams, usually by people who had given up on theirs. And I realized that I did not want to pursue a career in professional soccer, despite how seductive that sounds to many. And I wasn't interested in the pats on the backs that becoming a doctor was going to get me. And those are things that my family and career counselors and even my peers were like, yeah, you have to do this. And what really made me come alive and I knew this was photography. So when you love something, you are willing, as I just mentioned, to go super deep on it. And it's in the going crazy deep on something that you not only learn the skills of that thing, but you actually learn what it's like to learn. You learn how you learn. You learn how to deconstruct any, like any endeavor, any job, any career and find out what greatness looks like. And it's in that process of what I call mastery where you truly, if you do something for years, you know, the 10,000 hour rule, there's all kinds of constructs that we can sort of abstract for that. But if you really go deep on something, you really master it. The thing that's fascinating to me is that you learn a lot more about mastery. You learn essentially the 80, 20 principles. What are things that are disproportionately valuable that you can spend more of your time and you can learn really, really quickly. And I think that's an interesting piece of our future is the rise of the polymath, people who are good and interested in a lot of things. And for me it was taking what I had learned in the learning the mastery of photography over 10 years that allowed me to then lift and stamp some of that wisdom again. Learning how I learned best, learning how to deconstruct a marketplace and figure out what works and what doesn't, that I was able to apply that to things like entrepreneurship, for example. So to me that's a really, it's a key piece of the puzzle. And if I zoom back out again, that our interests change over the arc of our lives is fascinating to me. And yet we often pretend it doesn't. And that leaves us feeling stuck and playing it safe. And you know, your story is super similar. You kind of wake up and you say, wait a minute, this is truly where I want to, you know, explore my interests. And it's in exploring those interests, getting good at that, and going where your interests go and trusting that it's going to work out. That's where you end up feeling most alive, getting the most out of your one precious life versus what society, your culture and well meaning. You know, no one says that going to school is a horrible thing, and yet it's not for everybody. Or if your parents are telling you you need to be a doctor or a lawyer, they care about you. But it's not just the, it's just not the right path for 99% of people.
- [07:41]
Steve Chou
So what's funny is over the weekend I was reading your book Never Played Safe and I have to say this, I think the book should be required reading for every Asian American in the world. And I probably should not be speaking for an entire nationality, but for many years I was the poster child for playing it safe in life. As you mentioned, I was raised to follow a path of certainty. Go to a good school, get a job, and then work in an office in perpetuity as a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. And I would say this, like a lot of my friends are Asian, very few stray from this path because all the other paths are scary. And what first came to mind when I was reading your book was what is your definition of playing it safe? Because I just kind of gave you an idea of what mine was.
- [08:29]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah, well, it's very much aligned to me. Playing it safe is defaulting to the well worn paths of others because that's what we're told and, or I use the word conditioned to do. And that can be anything. That can be in career, it can be in relationships, it can be in relationship with yourself. It can be your own sort of self awareness or discipline or you know, the ability or willingness to take care of yourself or listen to who you truly are at your gut. So what I think is interesting, and I hope you felt this in the book, the book is not a, hey, never make mistakes. If you, if you're on it, you got to know who you are and just stick to that path. My path is very different. For example, I charted my sort of course earlier and I would say looking backwards, I knowingly went years off of my path. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt, chasing the things that everybody else wanted only to realize again, years in and $100,000 in debt, like, oh my God, what have I done? And to me, any book that preaches perfection and that you're going to, it just holds this, this vision up there that you have to achieve or anything less is a waste of time. That's just not how life works. This is actually the process working. And to me that's interesting. And as I charted my course of my life looking backwards and I've deconstructed the lives of thousands of my friends, people who I've had on the podcast over the last 15 years, and this is a pattern. It's not that we never make mistakes. The goal with this book and a life well lived is just to return to ourselves 1% better, 1% smarter, 1% faster than we did before. And that's what I'm living proof. Right again. What is it? If you're a degree off, but you walk for, you know, 10 years, you're going to be a thousand miles from home. That absolutely defined me. And yet, you know, as you articulated the opening question in my bio, like, that's a lot of really random stuff. You know, you've built multi hundred million dollar companies and written books and directed television shows and a photographer like. And to me it's because I'm just 1% better than I am, you know, lazy or confused or off track. It's not that I'm 100% on and never, never stray. So I think that's a really important message. And I don't, I'm curious if you, if you felt that from the book, this isn't about perfection, it's about progress.
- [11:07]
Steve Chou
Absolutely. And it's actually I was reading the book and I was like, hey, I felt that way. Hey, wait. I leveraged some of these things. So what I thought would be interesting in today's interview. I know a lot of people listening to this, they want to create a life they love, but they're scared. And I know what that feeling is of being scared. And then, and you mentioned a bunch of levers that you can pull. So I would like to just talk about some of that from the perspective of someone who's just sitting on the sidelines. And there are a lot of people listening to this, probably going, hey, why did I become a lawyer? Why did I go to law school? Because now I'm in the office 100 hours a week, you know, and hating life. Yeah, I was thinking about one friend in particular who just came to me and said that.
- [11:48]
Chase Jarvis
So, yeah, I was walking my golden retriever, Bodhi this morning and I crossed paths with my across the street and down one house neighbor. I won't say his name in case he's listening, but he's a lawyer and he heard about the book and he's like, hey, can I get a copy of the book? Because specifically there are so many of us and this is, you know, I don't want people who are listening to feel alone because this is what the system is designed to do. And there's no evil overlord. But that's what a late stage western capitalism does. It's like Cool. These are the well worn ruts. Let's, you know, get in the rut. If you're out of the rut, then it's going to be more uncomfortable. And you know, my hypothesis is that all of the best stuff in life is on the other side of our comfort zone. So this is sort of a blueprint. And you mentioned levers. There are a handful of levers. These are just tools that reside naturally within us, that we know how to use. And it's just a returning to those tools and with that we can access again all the best stuff on the other side of fear and risk in our comfort zone. And we don't have to go a thousand miles. This is not about moving to France and getting a new set of friends and wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette. And this is, you don't, you know, this is an inside job. And that's part of what's after, you know, in the process of writing this book became for me so seductive, is like, wow, we don't. It's an inside job. So the way the book is structured, as you mentioned, there are seven chapters and each of those chapters is dedicated to a lever which is essentially just a tool that resides naturally within us, that allows us, if we focus on it, to get disproportionate, I guess, leverage, which what that means is attention, for example. That's the first lever. Maybe we can talk about that specifically as to peels the onion for the rest of the levers. But if you have the ability to direct your attention in a way that's meaningful to you, where you're paying attention to the things that you want to pay attention to, the people that you want to add, you know, that you want to value in your life their opinions. And you're able to shut out distractions, whether that's your phone or the career counselor who's telling you that you need to go be a doctor because you're a smart, talented, hardworking person, the ability to focus our attention is an insane power. It's a superpower. Dr. Andrew Huberman, a lot of people are going to know that name because we've got a very famous podcast over at Stanford. He did a bunch of research, or meta research, really research on a bunch of other studies about the benefits of being able to direct your attention. And he said it's the defining characteristic between success and failure in any endeavor, like literally anything. And so what that means is what we pay attention to matters where you direct your attention in the morning when you get up, matters Whether you're, you know, if you're sitting in, you know, if you're in the backseat of your life or the front seat of your life, that's essentially an example of a lever. Attention is the first one. And what I posit is there are six others that if we can learn to direct them, learn to master them, or even just move forward in any of these different areas of our lives, we're going to be disproportionately successful toward finding what we love and doing it well.
- [15:27]
Steve Chou
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in ecommerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell, all the way to getting your first sales online. Now, this course is free and can be obtained@mywifequitterjob.com free. Just sign up right there on the front page via email and I'll send you the course right away. Once again, that's mywifequitterjob.com free. Now back to the show. Let's talk about focus real quick because I know for me I fall for shiny object syndrome all the time. And I was just looking at your background. That's a lot of stuff that you've done. Yeah. I assume you didn't try to do all those things at the same time. Were you just doing them one at a time, focusing and then moving on?
- [16:22]
Chase Jarvis
I was. And Steve, I mean, I know you're a smart person, but this is like I couldn't. You teed it up beautifully for me because the next chapter, the next lever, if you will, is time. We, for example, think how could you possibly have all these different career arcs or different friend circles or we feel we're conditioned to believe that life is short and there's a lot of value to the concept generally, like get up and get going, you know, motivation, now's the time, seize the day. But what I find is that we actually end up screwing it up big time because we run around with our hair on fire. And what if, by contrast, we said, what if life is long? And what if I have plenty of time to pay attention to something, to go really deep on it and get good at it and then learn? Great. That was a great 10 year career. And now this is for the doctors and lawyers and people who this might be resonating with right now. It's like, there's plenty of time. I don't care if you're 50, 60 plus years old. Carmen Herrera, the painter, had her first retrospective at The Whitney at 99 years old.
- [17:39]
Steve Chou
Wow.
- [17:39]
Chase Jarvis
I mean, I mean, we don't want to, like, that's not what we're gunning for as our first realization. And yet that wasn't her first realization either. She'd had many different turns at the crank. And this is what I'm advocating for. And to me, if we are aware of these things like that, what if life is long and what if there is time in your 20s to absolutely explore everything? You don't have to have it figured out because you're going to be able to have a new career in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s. And the same could be true for relationships. Everything that you learned in that last relationship, maybe that it ended, you know, in a difficult parting ways or a divorce, or like, those are things that are valuable. No effort here is wasted. You're taking all of those lessons, assuming you can frame them constructively into the next chapter of life, which is going to serve you. Just like photography helped me understand what it was going to be like to be an entrepreneur that could raise tens of millions of dollars and serve tens of millions of customers. So could that last relationship that you have, it's going to benefit all the next relationships that you have if you let it.
- [18:42]
Steve Chou
You know what's funny about this is someone recently signed up for my class who was 80 years old.
- [18:48]
Chase Jarvis
Yes.
- [18:49]
Steve Chou
And he asked me, he was like, hey, is it too late for me to do this? And I'm like, what have you done in the past? And he, he, you know, reeled off a whole bunch of different things that he's worked on. Well, how's this going to be any different, you know? And he was like, yeah, it's a good way of thinking about it. I have done a lot of different things. And.
- [19:05]
Chase Jarvis
Right.
- [19:05]
Steve Chou
He's arguably has more drive and rigor than some of the younger folks that I have in my class.
- [19:11]
Chase Jarvis
But this, Steve, you just hit on another brilliant thing, which is this is what it feels like when you're doing things that are aligned with who you truly are, regardless of what your parents or career counselors or your, your peer group thinks of it. It's like he's got energy because he's pursuing something that he's genuinely curious about and genuinely cares about and wants to get better at versus, you know, someone who may be younger in age and wisdom. But is is again stuck in that rut. And that's, you know, the. I wrote this book specifically because I realized there were lots of times in my life where I got sucked off my track. Off the track out into the wilderness. And I was like, wait a minute. Every time where I was able to be self aware enough that I had done that and every time I was able to redirect my attention. What is it that I really want? I'm not quite sure. These three things are interesting. I pursued each of those three things. One emerged and then I went deep on that thing only to realize that, man, I love doing this. And when you love doing something, it's easier to get good for sure. And again, you can't sort of stand out and fit in at the same time. You got to be willing to as your 80 year old student. He's different. Right. He showed up in a way that he most other people aren't willing to do. And I think we would all agree that he's really getting a lot out of life. He's just on the other side of his comfort zone.
- [20:40]
Steve Chou
Yep. There's a quote I want you to explain that really kind of struck me. It was, life is about flowing with time and not managing it. Can you explain that?
- [20:49]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah. This is essentially what we've been talking about over this last two, three minutes here. We are taught in our, our mind runs immediately to clock time. Right. It's like, okay, how do I get more in, in a day? And how do I, you know, whether this is stacked appointments as that doctor, or the back to back calls with your corporate clients as a lawyer, or you know, getting the kids out to school. And like as a, as a parent, like we, we gravitate to clock time, understandably. Right. And yet we all have the experience of something beyond this hamster wheel running in the background of our lives. We've all experienced maybe, you know, heavens, maybe you've been in a car wreck. And I was caught in an avalanche. And I've had the experience of time, like what was literally seconds in the case of my avalanche, for example. It. I've never thought so deliberately and slowly and clearly in my entire life. It was, you know, this is a human superpower. We felt time slow down and also we felt flow where. Wait a minute, how did we write an entire chapter of a book in a day? Which is something that I did with this book. I wrote one of these chapters in a single sitting. Other chapters took weeks or months. And we've all been in a position where everything happens effortlessly and we're like, wait a minute, that is not possible. How do we get so much done? So my point here is that time is absolutely malleable. And if we can reorient our thinking around it, not that we have to hustle around and stuff everything into it, and that that actually makes us crazy and makes us behave in unnatural ways. That if we realize that our body has a natural relationship with time, and let's lean into that, let' trust that this stoplight is taking this long for a reason. And that, you know, me trying to pack one more thing into my day is probably not the thing that's going to be most beneficial. What if I could have a different lens on time that worked for me instead of to me, for example?
- [23:10]
Steve Chou
I think it's all about recognizing this. So just the other day, or I should say last month, I was working on a coding project for my online store. It was a loyalty program, and I literally worked on it for the entire day. I woke up at like 7am on a weekend, and I forgot to eat lunch, I forgot to eat dinner. And then I pumped that thing out, and then I. I think that's what I enjoy doing. And so I. It's funny about this is I just did a podcast episode about shiny object Syndrome, and I was thinking to myself, should I productize this thing that I just wrote? And then I kind of talked myself out of it because, you know, I have other priorities right now. But, like, just after talking to you about this just now and reading the book, maybe that's what I'm meant to be doing, because I'm so easily able to achieve that flow state and pump stuff out, and time passes so quickly.
- [23:57]
Chase Jarvis
It's. And. And again, whether it's about time passing quickly or slowly, or whether it's about, you know, how much we get done in a day or how present we are, I think it's just important to realize that all we ever have is now. If we spend so much time living in the future, what we're going to do, or essentially deferring this present moment. There's a. There's a little section in the book called the End of Waiting. And right now we're in a position where I don't remember the last time, you know, I was able to. Prior to sort of realizing this and writing this book. Like, I was all. It was like, if I was waiting, I was just, like, frustrated or like, come on, hurry. I want the line. I need to be at the front of the line to get my coffee to go to the next thing, to, like, I'm living in the future. What if waiting ceased to be? And because when you think of it, like, legitimately think of it, I have right now, and whether I'm choosing to smell the donuts that are, the smell of donuts that are wafting out of the case or the coffee, like, there's value and joy in that moment versus projecting myself into the future or worrying about the meeting that I just came from, from the past. So there's this power that comes from a being present and realizing that, man, time actually is working for us. And when things go are excruciatingly painful, it might be an area of interest or you should look there. Is this something that I can outsource, have somebody else do, discard from my life, or by extension, how could I actually change my attitude toward it so that it's joyful? This moment is no less or more valuable than the moment that we just came from or the moment we're going to have in the future. I don't mean to get too philosophical, but when you think about, like, of course we need to get to the dentist on time and we need to drop the kids off on time, and there's so much room, as you talked about getting up on a Sunday and being able to, you know, complete an insane amount of work and loving it in the process, like, that's always available to us. If we can focus on the right things, learn to direct our attention and, and, and basically commit to caring about stuff like this, which is the quality of our life, literally.
- [26:23]
Steve Chou
And then the flip side. The flip side is true also. Right. If time is just passing really slowly for you when you're doing something, maybe that's an indication that shouldn't be doing as much. For sure.
- [26:34]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah. If it's painful, like heck. That's. That's, you know, there are indications in there. This is the cool thing is like, both success and failure leave clues and we ought to tune into those.
- [26:47]
Steve Chou
Let's talk about your gut for a sec, because I remember when I was deciding so. So my wife went up to me and she told me she was going to quit and she was making six figures at the time, and we needed the money that she was making. And my gut told me that actually she should keep working.
- [27:04]
Chase Jarvis
But that's not your gut. I mean, that might be your gut, but that's also your fear. Right?
- [27:08]
Steve Chou
Right. So how do you know? Because I know you've mentioned, like, trusting your gut, but I think my gut hasn't always been correct.
- [27:17]
Chase Jarvis
Fair enough.
- [27:17]
Steve Chou
In retrospect.
- [27:18]
Chase Jarvis
So fair enough. Well, this, like, let's just say for example, you woke up and went to the gym and you stacked £225 on the bench press bar and you got underneath it and you tried to lift it and you're like, yeah, this is, it's not for me. I'm not very strong. Well, the same exact thing is true with your intuition. Most people, because they haven't really been attuned to their intuition. And just like everything else, it's a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets, the better it gets. And so like you, if you hadn't been conditioned or taught to pay attention to stuff like this, it's not going to be developed totally normal. What I advocate for and what I think is available to every person who's listening is what if you, if you set aside some time and a little bit of space and energy to actually start to listen to what it feels like in your body because your wife quitting. Actually it wasn't your intuition, that was your fear. Do you feel constricted and like, would you categorize that as fear? Most people wouldn't. They just like, I'm concerned. Or they would, you know, assign some label to it that wasn't as meaty as fear because it makes us feel better about ourselves. But what if you just were aware? What are my body sensations? That's a really great place to start with, learning to listen to your intuition. There are a handful of exercises in the book, but I think I'll leave you with. It's a muscle just like anything else. You learn to listen to it and then detect the outcome. I don't know too many people who can refute having the concept of a gut feeling about a person or a job they should take or something. And in hindsight they're like, God, I should have listened to my gut. Well, the science behind this is fascinating and I got to do a bunch of research in preparation for writing the book. We've always in our western world been very conditioned to the science as end all, be all and we over index on rational thought. But what they're realizing now is rational thought. While it has helped us develop tools and progress the human species, it's actually kind of slow, kind of fumbling. We misremember a lot. I just had my AI remember something that I as a human would totally deny about myself. And it told me where the source was in my own life. And I Was like, oh crap, oh my gosh, it's smarter than I am. And yet I would hang all of my everything on my rational thought, my ability to remember what I really said or did or wanted. And yet we now know that that's actually sort of a little bit bumbling, a little bit slow, prone to errors, and by contrast, intuition. Science is starting to realize that, hey, there are what, like a couple trillion, a trillion something cells in your body. Each cell has some aspect of memory and it's way more than rational thought. And what we're feeling, this is why it's a body feeling and not a head feeling. What we're feeling is the cells in our body telling us something that we've been conditioned to either not pay attention to or outright ignore. So, you know, again, I advocate, through a couple of exercises in the book, learning how to start to do, like, do a body scan. How does it feel when someone says, like, hey, I think you should fill in the blank, you should do this or that? There's no shortage of people willing to give us opinions on what we should be doing. How does that feel in your gut, not in your head. And learning to listen to that, developing a practice around it, will make that stronger and more clear with practice.
- [31:03]
Steve Chou
I mean, I think intuition just comes with experience, really. Can you just give an example, one of these exercises just for experience? Sure. Yeah.
- [31:11]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah. Like a body scan literally is one of the examples. Like when someone says something like, you should be a doctor or a lawyer. There's two things that are happening for most people. Most people, the brain is like, ooh, that sounds nice. I could make a lot of money or I would be well respected, or ooh, I'm a little bit afraid because I'm not very good at science. Or there's these stories that we tell ourselves, but that's all up here. Right before all that stuff between your ears started kicking in, there was a gut feeling which is, does that make you feel afraid? Does that make you feel excited? Ooh, I think I could do that. Oh man, this person sees me and they're telling me that I should do like, wow, that's it. If you scan your body, park your brain, that multimillion year old organ between our ears, which is there to make you stay alive, not feel fulfilled or happy or any of the things that we're talking about here, you will recognize that there are two different sort of spheres. There are two different hemispheres to the same hole. That is the person we're conditioned to over index on the thing between our ears. And ironically, the thing between our ears is telling us, hey, be sure to pay attention to the thing between the ears and not that stomach and not that feeling in your belly. Which turns out is to our own detriment. So a body scan is a great example. Some sort of a meditation practice that allows you to get quiet. Journaling is another one. Ask yourself what you really want. I journaled on this. Well, I've been journaling on this for almost two years. It was a tip I got from James Clear. What is it that I really want? And if you write on that every day, if anyone listening or watching just does this for seven days, you'll be able to see. It will be transformational. Because what you get is, you get really clear. Say, oh, I want to not have to worry about money and do something I love. That's the first day. And you're like, okay, cool. You walk away from that journal entry. The next day, it's like, no, I really love online marketplaces and I feel like I can make a lot of money there. I have friends that are like, okay. And then it's something deeper. It's like, oh, no, Now I know exactly what thing I want to focus my attention on. And I know that I don't want to do it, you know, in the middle of Washington D.C. where I live. I can do this job from anywhere. And what I really want is to get out of the city. Or, you know, you start to get smarter and listen to that part of you that transcends the rational into the. Into the intuitive.
- [33:40]
Steve Chou
I mean, I think the struggle that most people have is whether that thing that you're interested in could actually generate money in the example that you just gave. Right, sure. So how do you rationalize that?
- [33:51]
Chase Jarvis
Give me anything in the world and I will be able to make a case for how you can make an insane living doing that thing. Anything. Papaya farmer, moon rover designer. Like, anything. The most absurd thing. And this is the beauty of really trusting your intuition. It's when you go deep on something and you start to realize a 360 degree picture of that thing rather than that two dimensional picture that you look at in a book or when you're super far away, like a compressed lens, when you start to stand in it, you start to understand things in a way that few other people that are not in that thing feel. This is why I encourage people to go back to the life as long part. If something curious for you, like, go do it for a while, get close to it. Who do you know, that does it. Do you have a friend? Can you join a group? Can you be a part of something? Can you do a workshop? Like, get close to it? And, you know, that's when all these things start to unfold. Let's use the papaya farmer as an example.
- [34:58]
Steve Chou
Sure.
- [34:59]
Chase Jarvis
If right now you're like, oh, man, I don't know, Jay. That's pretty far reaching. And I'm just. I'm literally making this up. I don't think I've ever said the two words papaya and farmer together in my entire life. And if you told me you're crazy about papaya farming, like, cool. How did you get interested in it? Oh, you know, I lived in Hawaii when I was a kid and, you know, I had a grandpa who was really into them and knew someone who had a farm. And I went and spent and it was just beautiful. Well, great. What if you start to participate in that community in some way? You volunteer there. You go there once a. Once a. You know, once a year with your family or spend a month working at the farm. You know, someone who knows someone, you get close to it. As soon as you're in there and you're actually curious about it, you realize, wow, this whole thing is really inefficient. You know what would dramatically change this business is if we layered in some technology. Papayas. Turns out they're pretty popular. Oh, this. I look at a bag of dried, dried papaya at the store and it goes for $15. And I know that's half a papaya. And a papaya costs 38 cents to raise. There's gotta be more here. So it's not to say that the people before you haven't had similar thoughts, but what if you spent five years of your life being really curious about it? I believe deeply that you would out innovate someone who's doing it because their dad did it, and they told them that that's what they need to do to keep up the family farm, that's.
- [36:25]
Steve Chou
A great way to think about it. Actually. I teach a class on building an audience and I get all sorts of people with random interests and the first question they ask is, can I really make money doing this?
- [36:38]
Chase Jarvis
What is your response?
- [36:39]
Steve Chou
My response is if you're like the foremost expert on something, and chances are, if you're interested in it, there's other people are too.
- [36:46]
Chase Jarvis
There's a million people.
- [36:47]
Steve Chou
And the less people that are interested in it, that generally means the more that you can charge also. Absolutely right.
- [36:53]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah. And also the less Competition. Right. I mean, I think that's people who are, like, interested in really esoteric stuff. Just, you know, just be the best in that tiny niche and the tiniest niche. Now, if you have an interest, turns out there's a million plus people on the Internet who are absolutely as passionate as you are about that. And a million might sound like a lot, but in order to be in the top 1%, you really don't have to do so much crazy stuff to be in the top 1%. And if you're in the top 1% of an industry, you know, where millions of people are interested, you can make a really good living and doing what you love in the process.
- [37:34]
Steve Chou
Here's a perfect example of that, actually. I have a guy who's a. Who's a buddy of mine. He's a foodie. He tried to start a food critique site of just California.
- [37:42]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah.
- [37:43]
Steve Chou
But then he niched down to like a small town in California. And that's where he got the traction. There's only like a million or 2 million people in this town, but he has them essentially. And he's able to make thousands of dollars a month off of something that's just his hobby.
- [37:59]
Chase Jarvis
Right. And to me, that's interesting. Now let's just say it wanted. He wanted it to transcend his hobby. And to be clear, it's not bet at all on black. This is a. He could expand to the neighboring town. See if that worked. Could he use the same playbook that he ran on his own town in the neighboring town? And it's a pretty simple experiment. I have littered throughout the book, and I really like reframing this. Reframing is. What if you, instead of putting it all on the line and going big with his business, what if he recharacterizes it? Let's run a tiny experiment. And if we're in San Carlos, let's go next door to the other town and let's try and do the same thing there. And if you ran the same playbook and made a few, you know, changes, you localized it, you know, 25% better, you know, pretty quickly, if you have something or you didn't and you've just run a tiny experiment rather than deciding to go all in on my foodie experiment. And there's a lot of value in.
- [39:02]
Steve Chou
That, which actually is the perfect segue to what I wanted to ask you.
- [39:06]
Chase Jarvis
All right.
- [39:07]
Steve Chou
I want to talk about failure. And I know in the book you talk about different types of failure, which is something that I hadn't heard other people Talk about before.
- [39:15]
Chase Jarvis
Sure.
- [39:15]
Steve Chou
Can you define what these are and what's good and bad about each and the type of failure that you should strive to achieve?
- [39:21]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah. Well, there's the failure. Science is pretty deep. So rather than listing out all the individual types because, well, I got the book right here in front of me, I could. There are a handful of them, essentially. The science of failure is fascinating. And the way I'll boil it down for the listener right now so it doesn't get too complicated is it's not just try and try again, which is one of the adages from, you know, most of our childhood. It's like, oh, just keep, keep trying. It turns out that that actually isn't the best advice there are. That would be one type of failure. Right. You're just basically banging your head against the wall. And what the science says as is slightly different, a twist. There is no. It's very specific. What you need to do is specifically do a debrief what didn't work last time, what are a couple of variables, small changes that I could make and try again. And it also posits, the science does that if you try again more quickly, if you let a lot of time lapse, you lose value. If you try again quickly with a slightly different tact, that's the sweet spot of the kind of failure that you should be seeking because essentially it's data. And you know, for there's. I know there's a lot of parents who are in your community, let's just say you have an able bodied child. How many parents, when their child stumbled on the 139th time, they just said, well, I guess my kid's not a walker. We're going to turn this one in. We're going to. That's it. I mean, it's laughable, right? You just started chuckling because it's hilarious. But look at what a child who's learning to walk does. As soon as they stumble, they try and stand up again and then they reach for something to help steady them, like, oh, even if, whether it's dad's finger or the couch arm or whatever, that is the kind of adaptation we're talking about. Okay, I couldn't just start walking. So I'm going to mostly walk on my own. I'm going to stabilize this part of me that I can stabilize and I'm going to get up really quickly and try it again. That, you know, when you deconstruct our human, our biological approach to these things, it starts to become fascinating and it's this sort of combination of art and science, the science that we see us, how we adapt as humans in our environment and wow, the art is. This is why creativity matters. Right. It's the things that I am going to try and change versus the things that I'm not. And having a little insight there and a little wisdom and taking a shot framed as a tiny experiment that if I stumble again like my kid, or if I don't, you know, this particular product launch isn't a massive success, well, what would I change next time? How can I relaunch this product pretty soon after so that I can keep the momentum that I had from the previous failure? That's really the science of failure. And there's all kinds of ones that are very complex. For example, that the military tries to debrief where there were a thousand different inputs, what the enemy combatants did, what we did, what the weather happened, what. And over indexing on those, for example, is really not that valuable because it's such a complex failure that trying to make sense of it is exceedingly difficult. So there's a sweet spot in there where we don't just keep smashing our head on the concrete and we don't try and solve the most complex types of failures that we have experienced. And we look, what are the two or three things that we could change and give it another shot and see if we can learn something and try again.
- [43:15]
Steve Chou
Yeah. The reason why I was interested in asking about this is it's actually one of my pet peeves. I'll have people come up to me and say, oh, I tried that, I tried that for two years. It just doesn't work right. And then I go in and you.
- [43:27]
Chase Jarvis
Ask them, oh, give me some detail about this wrong and this wrong and this wrong. And you do it. As a master of this era, as. As a master of this area, you know, you can hear they say, well, I was buying online ads through fill in the blank, wrong platform. And you're like, duh, that's not the right place to do that kind of work, for example.
- [43:45]
Steve Chou
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, not banging your head on the same thing actually change, like if you do. I think my dad told me this. If you do the same thing and expect different results, you're dumb. I think that's. He said it in Chinese. I don't know what the direct translation.
- [44:01]
Chase Jarvis
Is.
- [44:03]
Steve Chou
But yeah, that's brilliant.
- [44:05]
Chase Jarvis
And there is a big part in the book. It's a whole. There's a whole chapter dedicated to failure. It is to me now a lot of these tools are slightly counterintuitive. The intuition one, for example. There's another one about constraints which is reasonably counterintuitive. And I do think that the failure one we're conditioned to hear, even the word sounds funny. And the opposite of that is when people just like, oh, we're just going to fail fast and fail forward. And it's like, if you're not trying things that actually matter, where you're actually a little bit disappointed if it doesn't work out well, even if you have the best attitude and you frame it as a tiny experiment, it should sting. You should need to scratch your chin. Like, what would I actually do different? Like, if. Let's recast our understanding of failure. And, you know, as you just indicated, and I don't know a single business person, whether you're, you know, Richard Branson or Steve, that hasn't created success for themselves through this iterative process. And I don't know if you consider this, oh, this is a massive failure. I mean, what I remember from your origin story is you're like, no, we can do this. Tweak. Put it back in the market. Tweak. Let's try this and that. It turns out if you deconstruct the success of the happiest and also the most successful and importantly fulfilled people, this is a skill that they have developed, and we all can do it.
- [45:30]
Steve Chou
Absolutely. Chase and I just want to thank you for coming on the show today because I know you're deep in your book launch.
- [45:36]
Chase Jarvis
Oh, I couldn't be more excited about it, though. Thank you, Steve.
- [45:39]
Steve Chou
Just when I thought you couldn't fit in another interview during your book launch, you totally turned the tables. And come on, for everyone out there who's listening to this, who is afraid like I once was, this book will really help you overcome your fear and give you a framework on really how to make money. Or in my case, in my audience, make money doing what you enjoy as opposed to suffering in that day job. And as I mentioned before, especially if you're Asian and you're listening to this, I don't know how many Asian listeners I have.
- [46:09]
Chase Jarvis
You don't have a breakdown.
- [46:11]
Steve Chou
Chances are you've been brought up like I have, and this book will hopefully reframe your mind to take action. So, Chase, where can people get this book? I know you got some killer bonuses, too. What are they?
- [46:21]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah, it's everywhere. Books are sold. There's some bonuses that when this podcast drops, if you went to neverplayitsafe.com or just my name chasejarvis.com the book's front and center. If you buy this week you get access to I think 705 something dollars of bonuses. There's a live launch event. There is a master class that I'm including which I would normally charge about 300 bucks for. There is a companion workbook that helps you get the most out of it if you are more on the studio side. Just a range of tools to help you maximize it. And it's available anywhere books are sold. Again, Steve, I have to be real. I got to extend a huge debt of gratitude. I think the community that you have built is amazing. That's one of the reasons I had you on my show not too long ago. Your story is so inspiring and I know that the people listening and watching, they follow you and pay attention for a reason because you add a lot of value and to get your endorsement that this book has helped you. It means the world to me and I'm forever in your debt. Tell me how I can help going forward. And again for the folks in the audience, it's never play it safe. A practical guide to freedom, creativity and a life you love is the subhead.
- [47:37]
Steve Chou
And once you get the book, make sure you go over to your website chasejarvis.com and get the bonuses too.
- [47:42]
Chase Jarvis
Yeah, yeah. Put your email in there and we will send you all the surprises.
- [47:51]
Steve Chou
Hope you enjoyed this episode now, especially if you've been on the sidelines or if you're unhappy with where you are at. Go pick up Chase's book Never play it safe on Amazon and then go over to ChaseJarvis.com to get the bonuses. For more information and resources go over to my wife, quitterjob.com episode559 and once again, tickets to Seller Summit 2025 are now on sale over@sellersummit.com if you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton. Then come to Yinvent. Go over to sellersummit.com and if you're interested in starting your own ecommerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free 6 day mini course. Just type in your email and assign the course right away. Thanks for listening.