Chase Jarvis & The Flatiron Building

Chase: Wait a minute!

Tommy: Crossface! The Daily Talk Show.

Chase: A conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Jansen and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: It is The Daily Talk Show, live from New York City.

Tommy: Tommy Jackett, Josh Jansen, we, uh, you can't see if you're listening, but we've got a video of this and we're standing at— what's this called? Flatiron?

Josh: The Flatiron Building in New York City. It is sort of like the, it's like very narrow at the end and then it sort of views out a little bit.

Tommy: I keep calling it a wedge.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: I said, let's go to the wedge thing.

Josh: It's got wedge vibes.

Tommy: The funny thing is I was here in 2012 and I was across the road from the wedge. I had no clue that it was a tourist attraction.

Josh: You stopped calling it the wedge?

Tommy: I was stopped, the Flatiron. And I was filming a bit and it just so happened that I was right there. So I kind of lucked out with that one.

Josh: Yeah, there's a lot of places where you look buildings and you're like, man, this is— it looks so cool, you'd think it'd be famous. And it turns out 9 times out of 10, it already is famous and you just don't know it.

Tommy: But this, this is what I love about this city. Yeah, there's millions of people, but if you keep your eye out, you spot people that you might see on the internet.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, there's all different types of characters, including some of the best, uh, people in their craft. And today we headed to somewhere just outside of New York called Hastings-on-Hudson.

Tommy: Yeah, what an amazing place. It is the polar opposite of New York City.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And we went there because we were going to interview a guest, pretty much one of the reasons we came to do this American trip, Seth Godin.

Josh: Yes, so on episode 20 of Seth on the Daily Talk Show, you mentioned that you gave me a little bit of a challenge.

Tommy: Yeah, it was a classic radio stunt. Josh, I dare you— no, it was just to get a guest on And it was like, who could— and I literally, I hadn't thought about it before you asked me.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And then I came up with it and it was Seth Godin and we got him on the show. And speaking of bumping into people, we've actually got Chase Jarvis. Man of the street. Come in, we're here.

Josh: Oh wow, this is high tech. Yeah, so we're just talking about the fact that we came to New York City for one of the main reasons to see Seth Godin and to interview him. And it just so happens that we're walking along and there couldn't be a more awkward moment than having you with noise cancelling noise-canceling headphones ignoring the shit out of you. I think that's Chase. It's like, well, why don't we say his name?

Tommy: He said that, I think that's Chase, and I sort of went around, did you hear me?

Josh: No.

Tommy: Well, the noise-canceling headphones are doing well.

Josh: Bose Chase Jarvis. For the few people who don't know who Chase Jarvis is, you are one of the top photographers in the world, and you've got CreativeLive. Yes. Changing people's lives with education, all that sort of thing. How's all that stuff going?

Chase: It's going well. Yeah, knock on wood, dangerously good. Uh, you know, we grow because people like the folks who are listening and you folks are spreading the word. We've got more than 10 million creators in our platform now, serving every country on the planet every month, and I still feel like we're just getting started.

Tommy: We mentioned to you that we had Seth Godin on the podcast today, and then you dropped, you've got him on next week as well.

Josh: You've just one-upped us, chose—

Chase: Oh yeah, I just recorded with him last time I was in New York, which was about 2 weeks ago, and of course he's got a new book dropping called This Is Marketing, which is an insane book. It's a book for creators and entrepreneurs on how to make sirens very loud in your podcast.

Josh: This is perfect, this is great, this is New York, baby.

Chase: It is. No, it's a book about how to build what you love to build for the smallest viable audience. We're all taught to do big things and go, you know, whatever, make the biggest startup in the history of the universe, but Seth, the contrarian that he always is, does such a nice job of helping us understand like, no, build something for a posse of people who care, and from that vantage point you can change the world.

Tommy: Well, what's amazing about about Seth and the interview today is every answer sounds like something out of a book.

Chase: Yeah, it's brilliant. He speaks like the best writers in the world, right?

Tommy: Yeah.

Chase: He really does.

Josh: And he talks about the importance of focusing your customers or the people you're trying to change as students. You've basically done that by creating a whole education platform. What have you noticed in the craft and what you do by changing your mindset to being a teacher? Do you see yourself as a teacher?

Chase: I see myself as a learner. You know, I feel like I've had a lot of life experience in building photography careers and starting businesses, but if you heard the point I made earlier about CreativeLive, we've been in it for 8 and a half years, we've got tens of millions of people on the platform, I feel like we're just getting started. That's because there's still so much to learn. So while the platform has teachers like Tim Ferriss and Seth and Arianna Huffington and Brené Brown and the best photographers in the world and designers like Debbie Millman and Stefan— I'll stop listing names, but when you do get to be around amazing folks like that. It's incredibly inspirational. And what I love is it's not inspiration to sit at home and twiddle your thumbs. It's inspiration to go out and do. Yeah. And I think that's the thing that most people struggle with, is that step between learning something in their brain and acting on it.

Josh: Yeah.

Chase: And so that's one of the reasons that CreativeLive, I think, has been successful, because it's about going and doing the passion, the thing that you care about. And by extension, me, like, that's— I created CreativeLive because it was an act of doing. Like, okay, if this is really gonna be a thing, let's build it and see if people care about it. And, you know, following some That's Mantra. It started out with just a handful of people and a couple volunteers in a room, and now, you know, we're in every country on the planet every month.

Tommy: So it's amazing. Um, who have you bumped into in New York, uh, on a random— is this the most random thing you've done in terms of podcasting?

Chase: No, podcasting on the street, yeah, it's pretty cool. But I do— a lot of people are vlogging, so I get to like make cameos in people's vlogs. Um, man, it's like I'm— I, I get recognised a lot here in New York, and more than a lot of cities, but I enjoy it. Like, I'm super glad you stopped me, and I put you in my Instagram storey just to say hey to I encourage that. We're all in this together. We gotta sort of help one another, and if I can give someone a buzz on your podcast for just 45 seconds here, then awesome. And likewise, CreativeLive wouldn't exist if it wasn't for folks like yourselves wanting to learn and learn from authentic people that are on CreativeLive. This is what makes it all go around, so I try and do whatever I can. I love New York though, it's incredible. I mean, the sirens, the sunset, the people are filming. Yeah, like I enjoy bumping into fans and followers and peers.

Tommy: Yeah.

Chase: And when I'm in New York, for sure.

Josh: You've got to head off to Brooklyn in a few minutes, but before we go, the transition from going to being a solo photographer to having your own business.

Chase: Yeah.

Josh: How do you, how do you approach it? What do you become? Uh, how do you go from not just being a manager or is that just a reality of what happens?

Chase: Well, I think, you know, if you surround yourself with amazing people, like we've named a bunch of people just in the time that we've been speaking here and I do I do everything I can to put myself around people. I try and punch above my weight. I try and put myself in a position to learn at all times. And I think in part, part of building anything is who you spend time with. And whether those are people that are gonna work for you, that you're going to work with, or that you're going to work for, it doesn't matter. You wanna have an amazing community. And I think I talk a lot about the other 50%. So there's the thing that you're building, whatever that thing is. In this case, it's your podcast, The Daily Show. The Daily Show.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show.

Chase: The Daily Talk Show, almost got it.

Josh: Talk.com, very popular.

Chase: I won't forget again. But it's about the other 50%. What are you doing to build community when you're not actually shipping the product, when you're not actually standing on the street doing man on the street, woman on the street interviews? What are you doing to build community? And so for me to build a community around the things that I love, at first it was around photography. I just tried to get like-minded people together. And as it turned out, there were some people who weren't quite as far along in their career as I was, and those are people that I could hire first as contractors and then ultimately as employers. As employees, and then there are people that I was aspiring to be around, folks like Seth, for example, or Richard Branson, or Brené Brown, people who were, you know, have so much more life experience than I do. And now they all get to be together in CreativeLive, and again, here we are bumping into one another. I think it's just, if you're asking for a tip, it's do not— people want to expand way too early. Yeah, like make something small and beautiful and make it great, and the expansion can be organic. This, like, grow it at all cost. I don't believe that. I think that's a farce. And if— whether you are on the position of looking to get hired or should I hire someone, the only thing you can do wrong is, uh, not believe in yourself. And on the hiring side, do it too soon. Make it painful and then hire somebody. And managing someone is a very different skill than being the creator.

Josh: Yeah.

Chase: So if you're not a great manager, you have to work on some of those skills and/or find someone that you can help— who can help you who is a manager. Trying to do it all on your own as an independent creator, I get it, we've all been there. Expect to stumble, expect to learn along the go, and be in it for the process. If you're just in it because at some point you get to stand on a, you know, with a model on a beach with a camera, that's the wrong reasons. You have to love the process. Like clearly you guys were like, you grabbed me, I don't know if you were, I thought at first you were gonna jump me, but like you clearly like, oh, we wanna do a podcast right here in front of the Flatiron, but you love what you're doing, you can feel it, and that's critical, so.

Tommy: Well, Chase Jarvis, thank you for a very random impromptu Chat, mate, let's get a photo.

Josh: We've got my girlfriend Bree taking, taking photos all over it. And, uh, mate, Chase Jarvis, he's uploading stuff.

Chase: The vertical, we got the—

Tommy: we gotta do them all, mate.

Josh: She's all over it, content queen. But, uh, Chase is on YouTube, across everything. Like, what are you focusing on?

Chase: Chase Jarvis on anything. And please cheque out CreativeLive if you're a creator or an entrepreneur. Yeah, at any stage of the game. This is where the folks that I've, you know, named while we've been standing here, this is where they go to teach and inspire you. There's all kinds of free content there, and you know, there's a creating community of tens of millions of people there. So cheque it out, man.

Tommy: Thanks, bro.

Chase: I gotta bounce, you guys. I appreciate it.

Josh: Just give that to Breeza.

Chase: Good luck. Bree, keep killing it. Nice job.

Tommy: Thank you.

Josh: Chase Jarvis. That was so cool. We expect to do Vox Pops. We did a Vox Pop of a lady on a bike in Times Square. This is probably the, I don't know what you describe, the highest profile. Yeah, obviously. Well, you don't know what the girl on the bike was doing. She might have been the celeb. Yeah, we didn't even know.

Tommy: It was a high-profile vox pop, random, and we're, oh wow.

Josh: Yeah, that was good. So the energy in New York City is just, it's amazing, right? It's contagious, it gets you excited. And so going back to the Seth Godin, Monday we are releasing our chat with Seth and he gave us like close to an hour of his time.

Tommy: It was amazing. It was everything I thought it would be and more.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So if you are a fan of Seth, I guess like we are, I'm losing my voice.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: It's the energy here. It's—

Josh: This is what happened to me when I was travelling and you already pulled me up on it because I'm like, mate, you'll be fine. It's like you lost— you pointed out the fact that I did fully lose my voice.

Tommy: Well, it was one of the funniest things on this podcast.

Josh: So it'll be enjoyable when we get to it.

Tommy: Yeah, it's just sucks when I was giving you shit for it. And now it's me.

Josh: And now it's me, it's coming. So what did you get out of being around Seth or even bumping into Chase? What does it do to you?

Tommy: Yeah. I mean, everyone, we're all humans. And I think when you see them online, you think of them as— you hold them way up. And not that that's a bad thing at all.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But it's amazing how relatable and kind and generous.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Because you think— I don't know why you think they're not going to be those things.

Josh: Well, you just think that maybe—

Tommy: Chase just gave us 12 minutes of his time and he didn't have to.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, he's— yeah, he was literally off. And the funny thing is it shows the different strategies in the sense of like he pushed on to us. We said, look, he goes— I said, what are you up to? You off to now? He said, I'm off to Brooklyn. And we're like, okay. He's like, oh, how long is it going to be?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: It's like, and so I think that what I've taken out of interactions like that is it's like to be at the top, to be the best at your game, it's actually, it's about giving and it's about being generous. And it's about like, he like, Chase doesn't know what the return on investment is of having a conversation with us, but he did it.

Tommy: Maybe one sign up.

Josh: Exactly.

Tommy: No, but he doesn't. You can tell these people don't even care about that. They do it to connect, to teach, to help people learn. I mean, everyone is at the same stage at some point. Some go further.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But that's, you know, that's just as far as you want to take it.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So we are all equal at some point on our journey. And I think these kind of people like Chase, people like Seth, there's a lot of people that are on a journey that they can help guide. It's not everybody. Yeah. But it is. There's a lot of people out there.

Josh: And there's the other funny thing is that the, what I also just, you know, started to work out is how the way that markets and niches work. 'Cause we were in a diner and in Hastings-on-Hudson and we're talking to a lovely woman who was working at the diner and we're saying, oh, we're interviewing someone. And we said, Seth, Bree is just making some adjustments at the moment. What's going on?

Tommy: I thought Bree was doing something to my bum.

Josh: Yeah, she's just getting out the camera.

Tommy: She got the camera out of my back pocket.

Josh: Thanks, Fraser. But we were speaking to the lovely lady at the diner and she had no idea who Seth was. And the thing is that it sort of blew my mind because we're in this small little town and there's not a huge amount. I think she said there was what, like a few thousand people, maybe 4,000?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Maybe even less. But yeah, just the idea that the power of just speaking to a specific audience and the power of not going for mainstream.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it's great. And today we also went to Sirius. Yes, what an experience. That's Sirius is like an internet radio? No, it's satellite radio.

Josh: Sirius XM. Ben Harlem, who used to work in Australian radio, made the move to New York and he gave us a tour of their facilities.

Tommy: Some of the radio shows they've got— Sway. Yeah, Sway basically works on this station within Sirius that is produced by Eminem. Yeah, and they—

Josh: you loved this. What's his name? Sway.

Tommy: Sway on Shade.

Josh: I don't— yeah, he's so cool. He's rap.

Tommy: Like, he interviews so many rappers. They come on. Childish Gambino was on his show. And just did this freestyle. Like, he just has these amazing guests doing these amazing, amazing freestyles and raps. It's just like you'd never see that in Australia. And so it's just like— and that was what Ben was saying, access to guests there.

Josh: So Ben is the producer. I didn't want to stuff this up. Producer at the Morning Mashup on SiriusXM. Yeah. So they get like over 10 million people people listening to their show.

Tommy: Well, he said that this week they've had Christina Aguilera. Yeah, like top echelon celebrities in the studio. That's what happens in New York City though.

Josh: Yeah. And you look out and you see Times Square. Yeah. And he took us around to one of the parts of the building and you see the little ball that look—

Tommy: that drops.

Josh: Yeah, it looked little from where we were. That drops during New Year's.

Tommy: Yeah. And who else is there? Howard Stern.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: The most famous broadcaster in the world.

Josh: That was pretty insane because there's like an authorised people only sign. It's very shut down when it comes to having access to that area. They take celebrities and guests into a secret special lift.

Tommy: No one can buzz in. They said that Howard has his own lift down to his car.

Josh: Amazing.

Tommy: Not near the people. I wonder when it gets to that stage whether you do it because you just don't want to be annoyed because people actually will annoy you when you're that famous.

Josh: I wonder. I don't know if it even is that, but it's probably like a persona almost, right? Like, it's like when you're getting paid a lot of money, all of a sudden sometimes your persona can become like— that's part of the shtick is like, um, and that's the mystique. Yeah. And that was like the interesting thing with, um with Seth, even with Chase right now, is what's awesome is it's like we got to see a bit of a behind the scenes, like what happens if you just bump into someone?

Tommy: Well, if you bump into Chase, he jumps on your podcast and he gave us a shout out on his Insta stories.

Josh: And the same with Seth, is he was just so chilled back. We just came in like, you know, we'd been having email correspondence over the last 3 months too. To organise it and no assistant, no reception.

Tommy: No.

Josh: Just like, just come up.

Tommy: Well, I think it's like when you start working for a big company and you go, I thought everything would be like perfect. But perfect's not a reality.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: It is like ships run, Seth's got his going at the way he likes it and it's not always how you think it will be with hundreds of staff.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And then Chase, Yeah, I just, I love this. I mean, this whole trip has been about putting ourselves out there for no return other than experiencing and meeting people.

Josh: And that's the biggest return I think that we can ask for. I think that that's the, um, maybe the missing link in a lot of cases is it's like we expect, um, it's almost a self-sabotage. Yeah, because it's the, it is the thing that we actually want. It's the experiences. And for whatever reason, it seems us coming here, we, you know, we were, you know, you're losing your voice. There was a complete argument to say, let's not record now. And we nearly didn't. And we're like, you know what, let's do it. Like, we're already here.

Tommy: We literally stalled along the way to get here. And if we didn't, we wouldn't have bumped into Chase.

Josh: We were talking about doing a rickshaw. We're going, so for people who don't know, a rickshaw is like a bung, bike with one of those little carts at the end and, um, at the back, and you sort of can be ridden along.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it's like a tuk-tuk in Thailand but, um, powered by human.

Josh: Exactly. And so we're thinking, oh, let's do, um, uh, it was really me pushing it.

Tommy: Let's do it. I thought it was a great idea, but it was 15 minutes up and then we had to walk an hour and 15 back. But how good is this?

Josh: Yeah, exactly. And so I think that it's we still did something and we put ourselves out there and it was able to work out.

Tommy: Yeah, it's amazing. Hey, we're off to LA next.

Josh: Yes. So we've still got Monday, we've got Seth, we'll be in New York for an episode on Tuesday. Wednesday, we have an interesting dude, is the Chinese tuxedo owner. Can you explain?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: 'Cause you know a lot about when it comes to There's a whole level of people that I don't even know about, which is sort of the movers and shakers in owning restaurants.

Tommy: Yeah. Well, I think it comes from me going out to nightclubs and actually just—

Josh: Being out after 9:00 PM.

Tommy: Spending a lot of money at these establishments. So Eddie Buckingham, I've been put onto him through a friend who is best mates with him.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And he is an Aussie dude living in New York who owns one of the coolest restaurants in New York.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: It's like one of those up-and-coming— Bill Clinton's been there, like Kylie Jenner.

Josh: Why is it that Bill Clinton is the one guy that seems to have been everywhere in New York? Have you noticed that?

Tommy: Everyone loves Chinese food. Just so happens that he loves Chinese tuxedos.

Josh: But it's funny because I've noticed a lot of photos, like, I guess ex-presidents, that's probably Maybe it's a bit of a pub crawl that you do as the next president.

Tommy: It's probably his Secret Service. Yeah, Bill's a pain in the ass. He always wants to go to little places. And I heard of Bill being at a tux— a KFC.

Josh: Really?

Tommy: Like, basically his Secret Service called and said, can we book a table? Okay, so heaps of storeys about Bill like, like that.

Josh: There is heaps of storeys about Bill.

Tommy: Well, we'll find I found out the Bill stuff from Eddie.

Josh: And so Eddie was also the mixologist. I didn't even know there was a thing called a mixologist. I would have thought that was a DJ. But so mixologist for Justin Timberlake. So you can see why I thought, okay, he's mixing music.

Tommy: No, it makes total sense. But turns out JT has a, I think it's a tequila brand. And Eddie is a master at making cocktails.

Josh: Yeah, well, you're gonna lose your voice. So let's, let's finish up.

Tommy: Let's stop it here.

Josh: Yeah, it's the Daily Talk Show, everyone. Monday we have Seth Godin on the show. That gives me— I don't know if it's because it's getting chilly, but that gave me chills.

Tommy: It's actually cold. I think it was just that.

Josh: It is cold. hi@thedailytalkshow.com if you want to send us any emails. And we're also on Reddit, reddit.com/r/thedailytalkshow. You can put up any, we'll put up some of Chase Jarvis's content so you can get an idea of the cool shit he's doing. 'Cause he's killing it. It's a daily talk show. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you on Monday.