The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Hey friends, Chase here.
Every summer, I revisit conversations from the archive that have stood the test of time. Not because I'm nostalgic, but because the best ideas don't expire. They deepen.
This is another installment of Summer School—episodes I return to when I'm stuck. When a pattern I've been conditioned to see suddenly needs to be broken, I go back to the people who help me think differently.
This one with Ben Uyeda is near the top of that list.
Ben is a designer, entrepreneur, and creative force of nature who left a successful architecture firm and an Ivy League teaching gig to bring high-design ideas to the masses through media. His designs—widely shared, often free—have reached tens of millions of people and are being built around the world. And his most recent project? A 65-room hotel on 180 acres in the California desert, adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, built with a team but rooted in the same hands-on curiosity that started with a concrete vase on YouTube.
When this episode first aired, I called it one of the most shocking conversations of the year—not because Ben tried to shock anyone, but because I didn't expect it to blow me away. It did. It still does.
His superpower is orthogonal thinking. Where most of us see the world through the patterns we've been trained into, Ben keeps asking the next question—about scale, purpose, risk, money, mastery, and what creatives actually want when they say they want "more."
This conversation changed how I think about career growth. I think it can change yours too.
"Forget scaling. What I think is really intriguing is this idea of escalation." — Ben Uyeda
Summer School: Ben Uyeda on Escalation, Purpose, and Building Bigger Without Losing Yourself
Ask Ben how he describes what he does, and he keeps it almost stubbornly simple: he designs things and he makes them. Those things range from a small concrete vase to a dining table to homes—and all the way up to Reset Hotel: 65 rooms on 180 acres near Joshua Tree.
The leap sounds impossible until you understand his model.
Most creatives, Ben argues, get trapped in a false choice. Either you're the solo maker—writing the book, building the table, running the photo shoot—or you're the manager of something massive, taking in everyone's opinions and slowly losing contact with the craft. He thinks the more interesting path sits between them: escalate.
Scaling is repeating one thing at higher volume for better margins. Escalation is using each project as practice for a bigger adventure—vase to furniture to staircase to house to hotel—with new skills, collaborators, and risk at every step.
There is no clean line from designing a vase to building a hotel. But there are incremental steps. In Ben's case, roughly five years from vase to house. Another five from house to hotel. Each jump maybe 50x to 100x in scale. The next project isn't the destination. It's skill-building—and an opportunity to meet the people you'll need when the economic risk gets larger.
That distinction is the heart of this episode. And if you've ever chased "scale" when what you really wanted was growth, challenge, grit, relationships, and a life that still feels like yours, this one will hit hard.
What You'll Hear in This Episode
How Ben describes his work—from concrete vases to a desert hotel, and why he focuses on the doing
Why small creative projects feel like Zen practice—and why bigger ones require learning to pass the ball
The tension every creator knows: curiosity and economic safety often feel like they're pulling in opposite directions
Scaling vs. escalating—and why most creatives think they want scale when they actually want challenge, skill, and connection
The paperclip-to-house Craigslist story as a model for adventurous creative careers
Why nature is becoming a luxury good—and how that thesis shaped Reset Hotel
Ben's multi-year process for building a point of view: observations, post-its, journaling, and knowing when you're secure enough to ask bigger questions
How to borrow pattern recognition from outside your field (Ben's favorite: food)
What AI changes—and what it doesn't: reputation, responsibility, and embracing creative fear instead of waiting until you feel safe
The story of Reset Hotel, Industry Night for creatives, and why physical immersion may be the next horizon
Scale vs. Escalate
This is the idea I keep coming back to—and the one that originally made this episode unforgettable.
Typical entrepreneurial advice says: find a minimum viable product, then scale. For creatives, Ben says, that model often fails. Scaling optimizes for volume, repetition, and efficiency. Escalation optimizes for adventure: trade the paperclip for the lighter, the lighter for something bigger, and keep going—not by doing the same trade forever, but by graduating the game.
Chase's own lived experience lines up with Ben's: escalation built the best things in his life—relationships, skills, grit, humanity. Scaling often decoupled him from those same things.
That's the trap. People hear "economic upside" and chase repetition. What many of them actually want is escalating challenge—backstory, resources, personal development, network, connection—the exact texture of a project like building a hotel with your hands, your partners, and your reputation on the line.
Ben didn't know this as sage wisdom going in. He learned it. Early ambition and big swings "worked," but felt like speedrunning a video game—fast completion with a strange emptiness afterward. Over time he learned something more useful about himself: his long-range visionary chess game is limited, but his commitment and belief once he chooses a path are incredibly strong. That self-knowledge became the architecture for taking on Reset.
Nature as Luxury—and How a Hotel Got Built from a Thesis
Ben's confidence in the hotel didn't come from a weekend of inspiration. It came from years of noticing.
One signal: between roughly 2013 and 2016, monthly active users on Instagram and visits to national parks both exploded. The attention economy was booming—and simultaneously creating unprecedented demand for its opposite: walking through Yosemite or Joshua Tree, somewhere with little or no cell service.
His larger thesis: as digital consumption becomes frictionless, we start craving the analog. The more algorithmically efficient our feeds get, the more we want to throw the phone aside, touch grass, hike, watch a real sunset. Because digital experiences got so good at being artificial, nature itself starts to feel like a scarce luxury—not just a pretty view from a coastal city, but immersive emptiness, dark skies, raw land.
That thesis, plus an audience built by sharing design ideas, plus collaborators from craftspeople to investors, plus a shipping-container house project that opened new conversations—those pieces compounded into Reset.
Ben is blunt that this kind of vision doesn't arrive as effortless brilliance. It's multi-year. Curious. Plodding. Built from obvious observations written on post-it notes until they start to arrange themselves into a next move.
His practical advice for creatives trying to think at that altitude:
Don't pour all your curiosity into tools and tactics alone. Also ask the scarier questions: What's my place in this discipline? What's my place in the broader economy?
Earn enough security to think. For Ben, around $100k of income was the point where economic stress dropped enough for bigger questions to enter the process—not as luxury branding, but as creative fuel.
Look outside your industry. Food is his favorite lens because he has emotional distance plus deep daily connection. Farm-to-table, farmers markets becoming aspirational, celebrities posting chickens instead of Bugattis—he's watching a backlash against efficiency and mass production. Then he asks: what's the design-and-craft version of that for me?
Talk it out with peers. The work is often solo. The therapy and pattern recognition are better in community—ideally in person, without a competitive chip on your shoulder.
Timecodes So You Can Jump Around
00:00 – Welcome and why this episode is part of Summer School
03:55 – Ben Uyeda joins the show
05:12 – How Ben describes what he does: design things, make them, from vase to hotel
07:33 – Are you bananas? Risk, scale, and building a hotel with your bare hands
12:51 – Forget scaling: why escalation is the more interesting creative model
14:12 – From YouTube vase to 65-room hotel—and the skill (and people) built along the way
16:27 – Chase on the difference between escalating challenge and chasing scale
18:42 – Did Ben know this going in—or learn it the hard way?
21:09 – Instagram growth, national parks, and the demand for the analog
24:24 – Why nature is becoming a luxury good
27:31 – How to build a creative thesis over years (not a weekend)
39:27 – Cheat codes: borrow pattern recognition from food (and other industries)
49:00 – AI fear, reputation, responsibility, and what still can't be automated
57:30 – Reset Hotel: dark skies, building the right way, and the first new ground-up hotel in the area in 15 years
01:07:36 – Where to follow the project—and Industry Night for creatives
Why This Conversation Still Matters
If anything, this episode is more urgent now than when we first recorded it.
The creator economy still rewards the idea that the goal is to make one thing and multiply it forever. Platforms still optimize for volume. AI is accelerating that pressure—making certain end products cheaper and more abundant, and making a lot of talented people scared.
Ben's counsel isn't "don't worry." It's the opposite. Be scared. Talk to friends. Diversify your thinking. Double down on reputation and responsibility—being the person clients call because you fix problems, even when the brief is imperfect. Accept that fear doesn't vanish when you "make it." Often it gets worse, because you feel like you have more to lose.
And that's the trap: postponing the wild, scary, purpose-shaped adventure until you feel safe. Safety delayed often becomes safety that never lets you move.
Meanwhile, the deeper trend he named—digital ubiquity creating hunger for physical, immersive, scarce experiences—keeps compounding. Reset Hotel is that thesis made concrete. Industry Night—his informal peer-to-peer gathering for creatives—is another version of the same idea: horizontal connection in a culture that keeps selling top-down scale.
Whether you escalate toward something as large as a hotel or simply toward a braver version of your next project, the question remains the same: are you chasing repetition, or are you chasing a life?
Keep Going Deeper
If this conversation resonates:
Reset Hotel: stayreset.com · @reset.hotel
Ben online: benuyeda.com · Instagram · HomeMade Modern on YouTube
Earlier conversation: Escalate & Evolve: A Blueprint for Career and Life with Ben Uyeda
Follow Ben: Instagram | Website | YouTube
Questions to Reflect On
Am I optimizing for scale (repeat one thing) or escalation (grow into bigger adventures)?
What would my "next size up" project be—not 100x overnight, but one honest step beyond what I've already made?
Where am I chasing economic certainty in a way that quietly starves my curiosity?
What obvious cultural observation have I been noticing—and what would it mean if I took it seriously for my own work?
Am I pouring all my curiosity into tools and tactics while avoiding the harder questions about my place in the economy?
Where am I postponing a meaningful risk until I "feel safe"—and what might that delay really cost?
In an age of AI and infinite digital content, what physical, scarce, or immersive experience could only come from me?
The Core Idea
Most creatives don't actually want to become a machine that repeats the same win forever. They want a life that escalates: bigger challenges, deeper skills, richer relationships, and work that still feels like craft even when the coordination gets complex.
Ben's path—from free design ideas online to a modernist hotel on the edge of Joshua Tree—isn't a prescription to go build hospitality. It's a reminder that purpose compounds through projects. Each one prepares you for the next. Each one brings in the people you'll need later. And the goal isn't to arrive as fast as possible. It's to grow into someone who can hold more risk without abandoning who they are.
If there's one lesson worth carrying forward from this Summer School session, it's this:
Don't confuse scaling with growing. The creative life you're probably hungry for is escalation—one braver project at a time.

Hey friends, Chase here.
Every summer, I revisit conversations from the archive that have stood the test of time. Not because I'm nostalgic, but because the best ideas don't expire. They deepen.
This is another installment of Summer School—episodes I go back to when I'm stuck, looking for the person in my network who's already lived the answer.
This one with Tony Robbins is a perfect example.
I've been navigating some peak performance challenges around my physical body—joints breaking down from a life as an athlete. Tony has spent years deep in the breakthroughs happening in precision medicine and regenerative health. I originally brought him on the show to learn what was possible. I'm bringing the conversation back for Summer School because those questions matter even more now.
Tony is a legend: #1 New York Times bestselling author, life and business strategist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and peak performance expert. He's coached world-class athletes, entertainers, Fortune 500 CEOs, and U.S. presidents. He's also a friend. I've been front row at his multi-day seminars. I've used his techniques—from mental training to visualization to priming—and yes, I've walked on fire with him.
But this conversation goes beyond mindset.
It goes into the habits that separate people who are successful and fulfilled… and into Life Force, Tony's book on the regenerative medicine breakthroughs that can transform the quality of your life—and the lives of the people you love.
"Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure." — Tony Robbins
Summer School: Tony Robbins on Peak Performance, Precision Medicine, and Transforming Your Quality of Life
Tony's obsession is a simple question with a lifelong answer: what actually changes the quality of people's lives?
He frames the work as pattern recognition, pattern utilization, and pattern creation—learning from the best so you don't waste 10 or 20 years figuring it out the hard way. Then standing on those shoulders long enough to create your own.
That lens shows up everywhere in this episode: in habits, in health, and in mindset.
After being told some of his own health challenges were irreversible, Tony experienced firsthand how regenerative technology didn't just help him heal—it made him stronger. And the bigger point he makes is that these breakthroughs aren't reserved for the ultra-wealthy. As technology doubles in power and halves in cost, access keeps expanding.
Medicine isn't the whole story, though. Tony also deconstructs the patterns of top performers—because your habits and your mindset still determine whether any of it matters.
What You'll Hear in This Episode
Why Tony does this work—and how growing up with pain made him obsessed with helping people reclaim themselves
The habits of people who are both successful and fulfilled, starting with a mission bigger than yourself
Why progress equals happiness, and why comfort quietly kills growth
How to prime your day on purpose: cold water, gratitude, three-to-thrive, sincere compliments, and doing the hardest thing first
The personal story behind Life Force—family illness, a pituitary tumor, a torn rotator cuff, spinal stenosis, and the stem cell turning point
What's changing in regenerative medicine: stem cells, gene editing, diagnostics, sleep science, and more
How to use Life Force as a guidebook, not a 600-page homework assignment
Why mindset still decides the outcome—including the surprising power of belief, placebos, and your "emotional home"
Patterns of Peak Performance
One of the most useful parts of this conversation is how concrete it gets. Identifying patterns that already work for peak performers can save years of trial and error. In this episode, three keep coming up:
1. Have a mission
Have something you care about more than yourself. It could be your family, your craft, your business, your community—anything real.
Tony's blunt about this: when people have something more important than themselves, they don't run out of energy or excitement. When it's only about you, comfort creeps in. And comfort is where growth dies.
His one-word formula for happiness is the same one he's taught for decades: progress.
If you're not making progress, you're not growing. And if you're not growing, you're not giving. Growing and giving is the game.
2. Prime with gratitude
Most people assume their thoughts are simply "their thoughts." Tony's point is that your thoughts are primed by your environment—so you might as well prime yourself on purpose.
His morning starts with cold water (not because he loves it, but because it trains the brain: when I say go, we go). Then a 10-minute priming practice built around gratitude, a prayer-type focus, and "three to thrive"—three outcomes he sees and feels as already done.
Why gratitude? Because you can't be grateful and angry at the same time. You can't be grateful and fearful at the same time. Most people, as he puts it, have a highway to stress and a dirt road to happiness. Priming is how you reverse that wiring.
He also leaves someone a sincere audio compliment each day—not generic praise, but something specific that deepens the relationship.
You can learn his free priming process at tonyrobbins.com/priming.
3. Do the hardest thing first
Difficult work needs your best energy. Tony's rule is simple: crush the hardest thing early, create momentum, and let everything else get easier.
How you start and end your day both matter. Of the two, he says starting well may matter most—because it frames everything that follows.
Timecodes So You Can Jump Around
00:00 – Welcome and why this episode is part of Summer School
04:23 – Tony Robbins joins the show
05:03 – What gets Tony up in the morning: impact, reclaiming yourself, and pattern recognition
11:37 – Habits of the most successful and fulfilled people
13:16 – Progress equals happiness; growing and giving as the game
14:44 – Priming your day: cold plunge, gratitude, three-to-thrive, hardest thing first
20:35 – Why Tony wrote Life Force—and the personal experiences behind it
22:21 – The cancer story that shifted him from victimhood to biohacking
25:20 – Pituitary tumor diagnosis, second opinions, and learning to question standard answers
28:53 – Snowboard crash, torn rotator cuff, spinal stenosis—and the stem cell turning point
31:37 – Regenerative medicine breakthroughs worth knowing
38:54 – How to approach Life Force as a guidebook
43:19 – Access and cost: why these tools aren't only for the wealthy
47:00 – Mindset, placebos, and upgrading your emotional home
52:38 – Closing thoughts
Why This Conversation Still Matters
It's easy to treat health, energy, and longevity as tomorrow's problem—something you'll deal with when you have more time, more money, or a clearer diagnosis.
This conversation makes that delay harder to justify.
Tony's point isn't that you need every breakthrough tomorrow. It's that ignorance isn't bliss. Ignorance is pain. And in the worst cases, it's preventable loss. The diagnostic tools alone—especially if you're 40 or older—can change the trajectory of a life before a crisis shows up.
At the same time, he keeps bringing it back to something simpler and more immediate: how you start your day, what you care about more than yourself, and whether you're actually making progress. The regenerative medicine is extraordinary. The habits and mindset are what make any of it usable.
That's why this episode earned a Summer School seat. The science has only accelerated since we first recorded it. The human part—fulfillment, discipline, belief—hasn't gotten any less essential.
Keep Going Deeper
If this conversation resonates:
Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life & Those You Love — Tony's guidebook to regenerative medicine, diagnostics, and the mindset that makes healing possible. (100% of profits are donated to feed people in need and fund research on Alzheimer's, cancer, and heart disease.)
Free priming practice: tonyrobbins.com/priming
Follow Tony: Instagram | X/Twitter | Website
Questions to Reflect On
What do I care about more than myself—and is that mission actually driving my days?
Where have I confused success with fulfillment?
Am I priming my mornings on purpose, or being primed by accident?
What's the hardest thing I keep delaying—and what would change if I did it first?
Am I waiting for a health crisis before I get curious about prevention, diagnostics, or recovery?
Where has "I don't have access" become a story that keeps me from doing the homework?
What 3–5 things could I do right now—habits, sleep, diagnostics, mindset—to raise the quality of my life and protect the people I love?
The Core Idea
Peak performance isn't just about grinding harder. It's about recognizing the patterns that create an extraordinary life—then using them, and eventually creating your own.
Your body is part of that equation. So is your mind. So is having something you care about enough that you refuse to get comfortable.
Tony's invitation is simple and demanding: don't wait until you're forced to pay attention. Learn what's available. Prime your days on purpose. Grow. Give. And don't let an old story about what's "possible for people like me" keep you from tools that could change—or even save—a life.
If there's one lesson worth carrying forward from this Summer School session, it's this:
Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure—and progress, in body and mind, is still the most reliable path to both.

Hey friends, Chase here.
Every summer, I revisit conversations from the archive that have stood the test of time. Not because I'm nostalgic, but because the best ideas don't expire. They deepen.
This is the first installment of Summer School, a series where we're bringing back conversations that still have something important to teach us.
This episode with Brené Brown was originally recorded more than a decade ago, shortly after Daring Greatly was published. A lot has changed since then. The platforms have changed. The technology has changed. The creative landscape has changed.
But one thing hasn't.
If you want to make meaningful work, build something that matters, or live a creative life, you'll eventually have to face criticism, self-doubt, and the fear of being seen.
That's why I keep coming back to this conversation.
Brené's research reminds us that creativity and vulnerability are inseparable. You can't create something original while trying to protect yourself from judgment. You can't innovate without uncertainty. And you can't live wholeheartedly if you're constantly waiting for permission.
Twelve years later, this conversation feels just as relevant—maybe even more so.
Summer School: Brené Brown on Vulnerability, Creativity, and the Courage to Be Seen
One of the reasons this conversation has endured is because it addresses something every creator wrestles with: how to keep showing up when criticism feels inevitable.
Brené explains why vulnerability isn't weakness—it's the birthplace of creativity, innovation, trust, and meaningful connection. The people creating remarkable work aren't fearless. They're simply willing to enter the arena despite the uncertainty.
Whether you're an artist, entrepreneur, leader, or simply trying to live more authentically, these lessons remain timeless.
What You'll Hear in This Episode
Why vulnerability is the foundation of creativity, not the enemy of it
How fear of criticism keeps us from doing our best work
What Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech teaches creators today
Why belonging begins with belonging to yourself
How perfectionism masquerades as self-protection
The difference between courage and fearlessness
Practical ways to create even when you're uncertain
Why this conversation remains as relevant today as when it was first recorded
Timecodes So You Can Jump Around
00:00 – Welcome to Summer School and why this conversation is worth revisiting
06:30 – Brené on vulnerability and why it's misunderstood
18:00 – Creativity, innovation, and the courage to be seen
32:00 – The cost of perfectionism and people-pleasing
46:00 – Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" and dealing with criticism
59:00 – Shame, resilience, and wholehearted living
73:00 – Audience Q&A
87:00 – Final thoughts and key takeaways
Why This Conversation Still Matters
It's remarkable how much of this conversation feels like it could have been recorded today.
We're living in a world where sharing your work has never been easier—and where criticism has never traveled faster. The temptation is to wait until you're completely ready before putting yourself out there.
But as Brené reminds us, waiting for certainty is often another form of hiding.
The people who make meaningful work aren't the ones who eliminate vulnerability. They're the ones who learn to create alongside it.
That's as true today as it was twelve years ago.
Keep Exploring Brené's Work
If this conversation resonates, we've been fortunate to continue exploring these ideas with Brené over the years. You might also enjoy:
Daring Greatly: Unlock Your Creativity with Brené Brown
Brené Brown's Rules for Overcoming Criticism and Getting in the Arena
Brené Brown Revisited: The Courage to Belong in a Divided World
Brené Brown: The Quest for True Belonging
Questions to Reflect On
Where am I holding back because I'm afraid of criticism?
What would I create if I stopped waiting to feel ready?
Where has perfectionism become a substitute for courage?
Whose opinions have I given too much power over my creative life?
What would stepping into the arena look like this week?
The Core Idea
The greatest creative breakthroughs don't happen after fear disappears.
They happen when we're willing to create despite it.
That's why this conversation continues to resonate more than a decade later. The tools have changed. The platforms have changed. But courage, vulnerability, and authentic creative expression remain timeless.
If there's one lesson worth carrying forward from this Summer School session, it's this:
The work that changes your life—and perhaps someone else's—is almost always waiting on the other side of vulnerability.

Hey friends, Chase here
We are living in a moment where perfect is cheaper than ever.
A few words into a prompt can generate an image. A template can make your brand look polished. A filter can smooth the rough edges. An AI tool can help you produce something slick, flattering, and technically impressive in seconds. On the surface, that sounds like creative abundance.
But there is a catch. When everything can be perfected, perfect starts to feel invisible.
That is the tension at the heart of this episode. In a world flooded with polish, your imperfections are not the liability. They are the signal. They are the thing that makes your work feel alive. They are the fingerprints that remind people there is a human being on the other side.
Whether we are talking about your writing, your art, your business, your personal brand, or the way you show up in conversation, authenticity is becoming more scarce. And because it is more scarce, it is becoming more valuable.
This is not an excuse to make sloppy work. It is not a call to be careless. It is not a suggestion that everything needs to be grungy, lo-fi, or deliberately rough. The point is much more useful than that: the future does not belong to the most polished version of everybody else. It belongs to the thing only you can make.
That is why your imperfection is the advantage.
Perfect Is Boring Because Perfect Is Predictable
There is a reason perfect things often slide right past us. It is not just taste. It is biology.
Our brains are wired to ignore consistent patterns and fixate on disruptions. We notice the thing that breaks the pattern. The one blade of grass that moves. The tiny irregularity. The detail that does not quite fit. Evolutionarily, that mattered because the disruption might have been danger. Creatively, it still matters because disruption is what catches attention.
That is why a too-perfect image can feel dead. It is why stock photography often feels generic. It is why so much AI-generated visual work can feel like slop even when it is technically "good." It is predictable. It has been averaged into smoothness. It has no meaningful edge.
And when everything around us starts to look polished, polished stops being special.
The creative opportunity now is not to chase a cleaner version of sameness. It is to understand the specific ways your work can break the pattern. The weirdness. The humanity. The point of view. The taste. The slight asymmetry that could only come from you.
Imperfection Has Always Been Part of What We Love
Most of the things we love in art are not perfect. They are human.
Think about the warmth of music played on vinyl. The light leaks from an old camera. Film grain. Paper texture. VHS distortion. A hand-drawn line that is not perfectly straight. A stage performance that leans on raw emotion. The detail that feels a little unpredictable, a little alive, a little impossible to manufacture cleanly.
Those are not defects. They are part of the experience.
That is the beauty of being you. You cannot be perfect. It is impossible. Even when you try, something human slips through. Your taste. Your timing. Your awkwardness. Your humor. Your obsession. Your point of view. Your hand drawn line that is beautifully off by just a bit.
In a world of homogeneity, you being you is an act of rebellion.
That is not a cute phrase. It is a real creative strategy. If everyone has access to the same tools, the same prompts, the same templates, and the same visual trends, the thing that separates your work is not the tool. It is the person using it.
The Question Is No Longer "Can You Create?"
There was a time when the bar was simply whether you could make the thing. Could you shoot the photo? Could you write the essay? Could you record the video? Could you build the product? Could you design the page?
Now the bar is changing.
The more creation becomes automated, the more valuable it becomes to make something only you could create. Not something flattering. Not something frictionless. Not something that looks like it belongs in the same feed as everything else. Something that carries your signature.
This is why authenticity is becoming scarce. It is also why people are hungry for creator content that feels real. When every surface can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal. It tells the audience that there is a person here. A voice here. A perspective here. A set of fingerprints here.
And as AI gets better at creating any aesthetic you like, including artificial imperfection that presents as authentic, the focus shifts again. It becomes less about what is being said and more about who is saying it.
That is the big takeaway: you matter now more than ever before.
Deliberate Imperfection Is a Creative Tool
This does not mean you should pursue slop. That distinction matters.
The point is not to make careless work and call it authentic. The point is to understand what kind of imperfection belongs to you and then master it as deliberately as you would master any other creative tool.
Maybe you love film grain. Go deep. Maybe you love JPEG compression and the artifacts it creates. Study it. Maybe you are drawn to hand-drawn lines, VHS distortion, paper textures, strange dialogue, raw performance, awkward honesty, or a niche visual language that does not make sense to everyone. Follow that thread.
The goal is not to be rough for the sake of being rough. The goal is to channel the specific chaos, taste, and humanity you are drawn to in a way that becomes unmistakably yours.
If your aesthetic is polished, great. Double down. Triple down. Ten X on that. Just make sure the polish is based on you, not on a generic idea of what polish is supposed to look like.
Your work does not have to be messy to be authentic. It has to be yours.
What You'll Hear in This Episode
This is a short episode, but the message is direct: perfect is no longer the advantage. In a world where everything can be smoothed, generated, and optimized, the edge belongs to the work that feels human.
Why too polished, too proper, and too slick are losing power in creativity, branding, and personal connection
Why authenticity is becoming more scarce, and therefore more valuable
Why the shift toward imperfection is showing up in popular culture and even inside the platforms that helped create the polished-feed era
Why perfect anything becomes boring when it is predictable
How human biology makes us notice disruption instead of consistent patterns
Why stock photography and AI slop often feel forgettable, even when they are technically polished
Why deliberate imperfection is a creative mandate, not a lack of craft
How film grain, light leaks, vinyl warmth, and raw performance reveal what we actually respond to
Why being yourself is an act of rebellion in a world of homogeneity
Why your awkward, quirky, unapologetic creativity may be exactly what your audience wants
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:
00:00 – A note about my weekly email and where I put my time and attention each week
01:50 – Welcome to the micro show and why too polished, too proper, and too slick are dead
02:20 – Why authenticity is more scarce and more valuable than ever
02:43 – Why the alarm bell is ringing now and how this idea is filtering through popular culture
03:07 – The Instagram CEO's point about authenticity, creator content, and imperfection as a signal
04:03 – What this means for anyone banking on a perfect, all too polished aesthetic
04:26 – Why perfect anything is boring, and why this is rooted in human biology
04:48 – How our brains notice disruptions in patterns rather than the patterns themselves
05:13 – Why stock photography and AI slop feel predictable and forgettable
05:45 – The mandate to master your own deliberate imperfection
06:07 – Why so many things we love in art are imperfect, from vinyl warmth to film grain
06:31 – Why the beauty of being you is that you cannot be perfect
06:51 – Why being yourself is an act of rebellion in a world of homogeneity
07:11 – Why the focus will shift from what is being said to who is saying it
07:38 – Why now is an amazing time for your work to stand out in an authentic niche
07:58 – How to go deep on the imperfections and textures you are drawn to
08:35 – Why this is not permission to pursue slop or force a grungy aesthetic
08:55 – Why you are the imperfect, beautiful element in the next chapter of creativity
09:26 – A thank you for listening, sharing, and growing together
Read This If Your Work Feels Too Imperfect
If you have been waiting until your work looks more polished before you share it, pay attention to that instinct.
There is nothing wrong with craft. There is nothing wrong with quality. There is nothing wrong with caring deeply about the details. But the pursuit of polish can become a hiding place when it turns into a way to remove yourself from the work.
Sometimes we sand down the exact thing that would have made the work connect. We remove the weird sentence. We smooth the rough edge. We choose the safer visual. We make the thing look more like what we think it is supposed to look like and less like something only we could have made.
That is the trap.
Your audience does not need you to become a cleaner copy of the internet. They need the part of you that has taste. They need the part of you that notices what other people miss. They need the part of you that is awkward, specific, playful, obsessive, and unapologetic.
That does not mean you publish work you do not care about. It means you stop confusing sameness with excellence.
Stop Treating Polish Like Proof
Polish can be useful, but polish is not proof of meaning.
A thing can be polished and empty. It can be clean and forgettable. It can be technically impressive and still feel like nobody was home when it was made. That is the danger of building everything around surface.
The deeper question is whether the work carries a point of view.
Can people feel the person behind it? Can they sense a choice? Can they tell that the texture, tone, rhythm, humor, awkwardness, restraint, mess, or precision came from someone specific? Can they tell that the thing was made from taste rather than simply assembled from trends?
That is where the advantage lives.
Because as the tools get easier, taste matters more. As production gets faster, point of view matters more. As the internet fills with frictionless output, the strange and unmistakable human element matters more.
A Simple Practice for Finding Your Deliberate Imperfection
Start by noticing what you are already drawn to.
What textures do you love? What details do you keep saving, collecting, or returning to? What kinds of images, sentences, sounds, performances, conversations, or objects feel alive to you? Where do you feel a little spark of recognition?
Then ask why.
Maybe it is the grain. Maybe it is the pacing. Maybe it is the awkward pause. Maybe it is the rawness. Maybe it is the restraint. Maybe it is the way something feels handmade, overheard, imperfect, or emotionally unvarnished. Whatever it is, do not dismiss it as random. Your taste is data.
Once you see the pattern, go deeper. Master it. Study the nuance. Learn how to use it on purpose. Turn the thing you thought was a flaw into a language.
The goal is not to manufacture authenticity. The goal is to stop editing out the parts of your work that already carry it.
Don't Be Generic in a World That Rewards the Unmistakable
Generic work has never been easier to make.
That is not an insult. It is just the reality of the tools we now have. Anyone can make something that looks good enough. Anyone can generate a flattering image. Anyone can produce a polished surface. But not everyone can make something that carries the weight of a lived point of view.
That is your opening.
Your niche can be playful. It can be esoteric. It can be polished. It can be raw. It can be quiet. It can be strange. It can be rooted in film grain, hand-drawn lines, paper textures, compression artifacts, dialogue, performance, or any other creative language that pulls you in.
What matters is that it is based on you.
Because there is a world of fans, friends, and customers who are not waiting for another generic version of what already exists. They are waiting for something with fingerprints. Something awkward, quirky, and unapologetic. Something that feels real.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Where am I making my work more polished but less personal?
What rough edge am I tempted to remove that might actually be part of the signal?
What do I love in other people's work because it feels imperfect, raw, or human?
What kind of imperfection am I naturally drawn to?
Where has my pursuit of polish become a hiding place?
What could I master as a deliberate creative tool instead of treating it like a flaw?
What part of my taste feels too niche, too weird, or too specific?
What would make this work feel more unmistakably mine?
Am I chasing excellence, or am I chasing sameness?
What can I make that only I could make?
The Core Idea
Your imperfection is the advantage.
Not because craft does not matter. Not because sloppy work is suddenly good. Not because every aesthetic needs to become rough, grungy, or lo-fi. Your imperfection is the advantage because it is evidence of a human being. It is the signal inside a culture drowning in polish.
Perfect is cheap to produce and boring to consume when it becomes predictable. What people want now is work that feels real. Work with taste. Work with fingerprints. Work that carries the strange, specific, beautiful mark of the person who made it.
So stop trying to sand yourself out of the work.
Pick the textures, rhythms, ideas, edges, and obsessions that are yours. Go deep. Master them. Channel the chaos. Make something beyond the algorithm's training data. Make something that only you could make.
Until next time: trust your taste, master your deliberate imperfection, and let the human part of the work lead.

Hey friends, Chase here
Jeff Boyd is on the show today, and this conversation is about building the kind of life and business that does not always look like the predominant story on the internet.
Jeff is the founder and chairman of MTE, More Than Energy, which he describes in this episode as "an energy that loves you back." Before that, he spent 15 years as the President and co-owner of Luggage Free, where he expanded global operations to more than 100 countries before selling the company in 2019.
What I loved about this conversation is that it is not the usual story about chasing the next app, raising venture capital, or building something because the internet told you that is what entrepreneurship is supposed to look like.
This is a conversation about physical products, unsexy businesses, competition, fatherhood, leadership, and what it means to keep choosing hard things on purpose.
Jeff says it plainly right at the top:
"That's why I tell my team all the time. They just look at me and I'm like, if it were easy, everybody be doing it. We got to do what nobody else is willing to do, and then you're going to be happy we did it. And I tell them that I'm like, oh yeah, this is hard. And I'm excited about it. Because now that's an opportunity for us because we'll outwork anybody."
That idea is at the center of this episode. We talk about the grind of building something real, why curiosity matters more than credentials, what sports teach us about business, why leadership is not about personality type, and how the best things in life often come down to loving the process instead of obsessing over the outcome.
Why This Conversation Matters Right Now
Most of the entrepreneurs and creators we see online are building in public, building digitally, or building something that looks like the current version of what the internet rewards. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is not the only path.
In this episode, I say:
"A lot of folks I know in the audience feel a pressure to make their businesses walk and talk and look like the creators and the entrepreneurs that see out there in the world, which is one of the reasons I want to start celebrating some people who are building really successful lives, careers."
That is why I wanted to have Jeff on the show. He built and sold a shipping business. Now he is building a physical product in the health and wellness space. He is not chasing the obvious thing. He is not trying to make his work look like everyone else's.
Jeff's path is a reminder that there is a whole world of entrepreneurship outside the digital-first story. There are products, services, local businesses, physical goods, retail shelves, manufacturing problems, customer conversations, teams, families, and real-life constraints.
And sometimes, that is where the opportunity is.
What We Explore in This Episode
Jeff's early business story and how he became employee one at a shipping company before helping grow it around the world.
The "answer is yes" mindset that helped Luggage Free expand into all 50 states and more than 100 countries.
Why physical products are different and what changes when you are building with atoms instead of bits.
The origin of MTE and why Jeff wanted to build "an energy that loves you back."
What it means to enjoy the grind when the work is hard, relentless, and full of problems you do not know how to solve yet.
Fatherhood, presence, and time and why Jeff says he is "so all in now" with his family.
Competition, sport, and business and why Jeff still trains and competes as a long jumper.
Leadership and authenticity and why Jeff says people do what you do, not what you say you do.
Second and third career arcs and what Jeff has learned about zooming out, building teams, and letting people play the right roles.
The Core Idea: If It Were Easy, Everybody Would Be Doing It
One of the strongest threads in this conversation is Jeff's relationship with hard things. He is not pretending the grind is glamorous. He says straight up that building physical products, selling through retail, and getting people to care is hard.
But he also sees that difficulty as part of the opportunity.
"You know I some of this stuff I think the harder it is, the better for me. For sure. You want, you want to bear. People are going to be like, oh, I don't have the guts to do this. That's right. Yeah. And then the ones that do, that's a that's another level, right? That's another fence they cleared. But then it's like, okay, well now you did that. But are you ready to grind now because it's a grind."
That is the mindset that shows up again and again in the episode. The point is not that everything should be hard for the sake of being hard. The point is that difficulty can reveal where other people quit.
That is true in sport. It is true in business. It is true in building a family, a product, a brand, a company, or a body of work.
The Answer Is Yes
Jeff's first major business story starts with Luggage Free. At the beginning, the company was taking orders by hand and trying to get the phone to ring. Then the first real call came in.
"Anyway, so we're trying to get the phone to ring so we can handwrite our orders. And the first call, the guy, you know, we're all. It was kind of like a movie. We're all like, you know, hushed around him, waiting, you know, hearing him, he's like, oh, I'm sorry, we don't serve. North Carolina hangs up. And we were like, oh, dude, Gary, of course you serve anybody."
That moment became a kind of operating philosophy:
"And I was like, from now on, the answer is yes. Like whatever anybody says answered yes. And with that really that charge? Yeah. We were quickly in all 50 states and we grew to 109 countries throughout the world. And it was always in response to a call."
There is something powerful in that. Not because saying yes is always the right answer, but because early in a business, the market often tells you where to go before your strategy deck does.
Someone calls. Someone asks. Someone has a need. Someone gives you a clue.
The question is whether you are willing to follow it.
Building Something You Can Hold
After selling Luggage Free in 2019, Jeff had time and space. He was not rushing into the next thing. He was riding his bike, playing tennis, spending time with his family, and looking for what might call him next.
What called him was not another service business. It was a physical product.
"And so in 19 sold it 2019, 2019 were operating all over the world, offices all over and sold it and was kind of free to at that point, I was like, all right, I want to like what I loved about it was the challenge and the fun and the competition. Right. You're building, you're competing."
He continues:
"But I what I yearn for was a product and something that was tangible I could actually hold right and do a different scent or a different flavor or different size or different color, whatever."
That desire eventually became MTE. Jeff had been trying to solve his own energy problem, stacking supplements, chasing better mood, better energy, and better performance, until he realized the pieces were not working together.
"And I realized I was like, Frankenstein. I mean, like, we were talking about it last night, like piling all these supplements together to try and make yourself feel better, even even like ten supplements, which doesn't sound that bad. Shit. Crazy. Yeah. We'll be like a suitcase full when you're traveling, you know?"
MTE came from that search.
"So we built it's an energy that loves you back. Right. Like an energy drink that loves you back. Yeah. Right. So you get prebiotics and caffeine free blend. That's better than caffeine. Yeah. So now you're getting energy that feels great that you can trust. Sure. And no jitters, no crash, no impact on sleep."
Curiosity, Thrill, and Figuring It Out
One of my favorite parts of this conversation is when Jeff talks about starting something in a category where he did not have obvious experience. He had not built beverage brands before. He was not a chemist. He was stepping into a new world.
His answer was not fear. It was curiosity.
"Yeah. Like, I like hair on fire. Like, let's go figure this out."
Then he gets to the larger point:
"I like it's curiosity and thrill. And that's what it boils down to. Right. Like, I think you you like that's what entrepreneurship is. It's solving problems and and finding solutions to things. Even if you've done it 20 times, they're going to be solutions that need to be had in the evolving world and landscape in which we operate."
That is entrepreneurship in a sentence. You do not get to know everything before you begin. You do not get a guarantee that the answer is obvious. You get a problem, a question, a changing landscape, and the chance to learn fast enough to keep moving.
Jeff says:
"But that's why I love it. I think if, if we boil it down, I love the curiosity that that is necessary to just because you're like, I don't know the answer to that. Instead of that overwhelming me or said of panicking, I'm going to go learn because I'm sure there's more than one answer. We'll figure out. Maybe we'll triangulate, figure it out. Yeah, get to a solution. And and then we'll know for next time. And then we'll be able to iterate and make it better. And on it go. Like I love that process."
You Have to Love the Process
The conversation moves from business into fatherhood, sport, and the shape of a life. Again and again, we come back to process.
Jeff says it directly:
"Yeah. You have to love the process, right? And I think that's true of anything, particularly in stuff like that where it's easy to focus on the outcome. I'm lose 20 pounds, I'm going to whatever it is, I'm going to get this promotion, you know. And then I think what happens is then the outcome just naturally happens because you love the process."
This applies to entrepreneurship, training, parenting, leadership, and creative work. If you are only trying to reach the finish line, you miss the life that happens while you are getting there.
Jeff connects that idea to family:
"Like the time is fleeting, right? For whatever it is. And you really have to enjoy the journey because, you know, like, I look at things like, if it's a line that's made up of just millions and millions of dots, and those dots would represent any given period in time."
He continues:
"Right. College graduation, high school graduation. They get married like whenever it is. You've decided that they've you've set them free. The that point will just be one of hundreds of millions of points that made up the line. Yeah. So, you know, looking and it's kind of the same with like a business, right. Like if you're just all you want to do is sell the business, you're just focused on that. You're going to miss all these hundreds of millions of, of experiences or anything else, right?"
Competition Brings Out the Best in People
Jeff is still a competitive long jumper. He talks about master's track, world records, regional meets, and the way competition gives him purpose.
That competitive lens shows up in business too.
"I love it, I love it, I think I think I love to compete. Like I was just telling my buddy the other day, like, I don't like when he's fine, but I hate losing, which is weird, right?"
Then he goes deeper:
"So I just love the competition, and I love the process that goes into it. And having, you know, so being able to have a purpose and go in and compete and I love competing. Sure. I just think it brings out the best in people."
For Jeff, sport is one vehicle for competition, but not the only one. Business is another.
"Sports is just a vehicle to compete. Right. So is it the competition like because it brings the best out in you or why do you like it. Yeah, I think I think just that it's the vehicle for sports. Sure. So I like it as an umbrella. I love it in the business."
He talks about the shipping company in that same frame:
"Like even the shipping company I had towards the end, I was I didn't have a lot of passion for it, but I had, you know, a very competitive space and there were upstarts in the industry and you're like, all right, well, these guys are trying to take my lunch money, you know, like, right. Not on my watch."
Leadership Means Leading From the Front
When I ask Jeff what is required of leadership, his answer is simple:
"Got to lead from the front, I think. Right. I mean, yeah, it's people do what you do, not what you say you do."
He adds:
"I think you need to be genuine too. Yeah. Right. Like, if you're, if you're genuine and authentic, I think people are more prone to get in line and buy in and say, I'm, I'm, I'm subscribing to what? You're where you're leading me again."
That is an important distinction. Leadership is not just having followers. It is not having the loudest voice in the room. It is not projecting certainty at all times.
It is what people see you do.
It is the consistency between your words and your behavior. It is whether the people around you believe that the thing you are asking from them is something you are willing to model yourself.
Nobody Does It Alone
Later in the conversation, Jeff talks about what he has learned in this newer chapter of his life and career. One lesson is the importance of zooming out. Another is the myth of the lone genius.
"And then the other thing I've learned is you like, nobody does it alone. Right? I mean, that's like total myth. Yeah. The myth of the lone wolf. The lone genius. Yeah. It's, you know, you need a you need a whole group of people that are going to bring ideas that you would have never thought of. They're going to execute your ideas that you do have."
He continues:
"Right? They're going to they're just they're going to champion for you in ways that you never even knew needed to be championed. You know, I mean, all the things you need a you need a great team and you need to find."
That is a hard-earned lesson for builders. The bigger the thing you are trying to create, the less likely it is that you can muscle your way through alone.
You need ideas you would not have had. You need people who can execute. You need people who can challenge you, support you, and help you see what you are missing.
Role Players Matter
One of the most useful leadership ideas in this episode is Jeff's realization that not everyone on a team has to be an all-star.
"And the other thing I talk about all the time is it's you have to resist the urge to demand that everybody in your team is an all star, right? Like even the greatest sports teams have role players, and they have guys that sit on the bench to get the starters ready for the playoffs."
He explains what he learned:
"But they don't, you know, they're they're effectively benchwarmers. But they have a role in the team. And you have a trainer and you have a coach and assistant coaches and all. You know, it's it's the whole organization."
That perspective changed the way he thought about people and teams:
"That was difficult for me earlier on. I, I just felt like everybody had to be an all star. If you're not at all star, you're you're like, I'm failing you or you're failing me. And either way, you got to go. You know, we're going to get somebody else in here."
The lesson is not to lower standards. It is to understand roles. Great teams are not built by pretending everyone is supposed to contribute in the same way.
About Jeff Boyd
Jeff Boyd is the founder and chairman of MTE (More Than Energy), colloquially known as 'energy that loves you back'. MTE has prebiotics and a caffeine-free blend that functions better than caffeine, giving users feel good energy they can trust, with no spike, no crash, and no impact on sleep.
Prior to founding MTE, Jeff spent 15 years as the President and co-owner of Luggage Free where he expanded global operations to over 100 countries before selling the company in 2019.
In his free time, Jeff is a notorious oenophile, cyclist and long jumper. If he's not on the bike, on the track, or in the cellar, he enjoys traveling the world with his wife and two children.
www.getmte.com
Instagram
YouTube
Timecodes
00:00 – Jeff on why hard things create opportunity
02:06 – Chase welcomes Jeff to the show in Seattle
02:21 – Why this episode is different from the usual digital-first entrepreneurship conversation
05:21 – Jeff begins the story of becoming employee one at a shipping company
07:35 – "From now on, the answer is yes"
09:21 – Selling the company in 2019 and wanting to build a product
10:31 – Jeff starts getting the itch to build something new
15:40 – Why building a physical product is not a get-rich-quick scheme
17:57 – Jeff explains MTE: "an energy that loves you back"
22:35 – Starting in a category where you do not have all the experience
23:59 – Curiosity, thrill, and solving problems as entrepreneurship
28:01 – Fatherhood and being "born to be a dad"
31:12 – Why Jeff is "so all in now" with his family
33:16 – Time, family, business, and "millions and millions of dots"
36:18 – Why you have to love the process
38:15 – Attitude, winning, and sports psychology
39:23 – Jeff on still competing in long jump
42:00 – Why Jeff loves competition
46:33 – Leadership, authenticity, and leading from the front
50:45 – Zooming out and finding your North Star
51:47 – Why nobody does it alone
52:05 – Building teams with role players, not only all-stars
58:37 – "When people show you who they are, believe them"
01:03:14 – MTE cans, flavor work, and mango pineapple
01:05:08 – The Reggie Watts collaboration
01:09:20 – Why the harder path can be better
01:12:15 – Retail as the next frontier
01:17:03 – Jeff's three-pillar vision for MTE
01:17:45 – Ingredients, paraxanthine, prebiotics, and clean energy
Questions to Ask Yourself
If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes with these questions:
Where am I making my business or creative life look like someone else's version of success?
What is the "non sexy" opportunity I might be overlooking because it does not look cool online?
Where could "the answer is yes" help me learn faster?
What hard thing am I avoiding that might actually be the opportunity?
What problem do I not know how to solve yet, and who could help me triangulate an answer?
Where am I too focused on the outcome and missing the process?
What part of my life is made up of "millions and millions of dots" that I need to appreciate now?
Am I leading from the front, or only telling people what I value?
Where am I expecting everyone to be an all-star instead of building a real team?
What would it look like to zoom out and find the North Star again?
A Simple Practice for Builders
Here's something practical you can do this week.
Pick one hard thing in your work or life that you have been treating as a sign to stop. It might be a distribution problem, a hiring problem, a creative problem, a sales problem, a health problem, or a relationship problem.
Then sit with Jeff's line:
"Oh yeah, this is hard. And I'm excited about it."
Do not use that line to pretend the hard thing is easy. Use it to reframe what the hard thing might be showing you. It may be pointing to the part where other people quit. It may be pointing to the skill you need to build next. It may be pointing to the person you need to ask, the rep you need to take, or the process you need to fall in love with again.
The work is not always to find an easier road.
Sometimes the work is to become the kind of person who can walk the hard one with more purpose.
Final Thought
This episode is a reminder that business is not only about scale, speed, funding, or hype. It is also about curiosity, grit, family, physical products, role players, clean energy, long jumps, retail shelves, hard conversations, and the willingness to keep learning when you do not already know the answer.
Jeff's story is not about avoiding the grind. It is about choosing the right grind.
It is about building something thoughtfully, leading from the front, and staying close enough to the process that the outcome has room to take care of itself.
Until next time: do what nobody else is willing to do, and love the process enough to keep going.