Jarvis Hacker

[Desiderato Chouinard]

ChaseJarvis: Hey there. What's up? It's Chase. Welcome to another episode of the Chase Jarvis Live Show here on CreativeLive. What if I told you that you could travel the world for free or super cheap without really changing much of your behavior? Would it have your attention? What if I told you that by simply tweaking a couple of other areas of your life, you could have more time to pursue what lights you up, and more money to spend on the things that bring you joy? What if I told you that if nothing else, in this episode, we will tell you how to get two round trip tickets to go anywhere in the world? The way you do that is by listening to my guest today on the show, the one and only, Chris Hutchins.

Chase Jarvis: Now, Chris is a long time friend of mine, and he is an avid life hacker. He's a financial optimizer, and he's a host of the top rank podcast, All The Hacks, where he shares his advice on his quest to upgrade his life. Now, I've been on Chris's show before. He's a fantastic interviewer. In this episode, we get to turn the tables and hear from Chris how all of the things that he's learned from all the top life hackers in the world, on his show, how he applies them, and how you can too. I'm going to get out of the way, and let you enjoy this episode. Yours truly and Chris Hutchins.

Chase Jarvis: Well, I think two things are in order. One for the few folks who do not know you and or your work, I like to start off by giving you the stage to share a little bit about yourself, what you want people to know in the first 90 seconds, two minutes here. Then I will ask you after that for a cursory review of our short but interesting history together. In fact, I was on your show, which is one of the things I want to talk about, building an amazing podcast. We'll take the second part second. I want to start with the first part first, which is orient us around you and your world.

Chris Hutchins: You know what, probably everyone listening has one of those friends that's crazy and has a spreadsheet for everything. That's definitely me. I've just applied that level of diligence and optimization to every aspect of my life. I finally brought it to life, I guess, with a podcast and a newsletter called All The Hacks. But ultimately, I am the kind of person that wants to find every single way that you can optimize and upgrade what you're doing, and living, and how you're living to travel your finances, your health, your family, your relationships, your career, and find all the little hacks that make it better, more optimal.

Chris Hutchins: I like to do it from a lens of spending less and saving more because... I don't know. I think there are so many ways that you can live what I'll call the high life, but without having to spend $3,000 a night to stay in some ridiculous over water bungalow. You could do that for free if you want. You could fly across the world in business class for free if you want. I always tell people, "I'm not trying to optimize my way to a $10 a night stay at the motel eight." I want to say the four seasons. I just don't want to pay for it.

Chase Jarvis: I love it, confession. I'm in the process of working another book. I draw inspiration from a wide range of sources. It's part of what... I love the research part of the book more than actually the writing. I was reading a section from the 4-Hour Workweek, our mutual buddy, Tim Ferris. There's a line in there. The goal is not to necessarily be a millionaire because that's going to take you N number of days, months, years to do it. But what if you could start living like one tomorrow, how would that affect your deal? When I recount my both experience on your show and the episodes that I've enjoyed, that is I think that when I'm thinking of the word hack, there's all kinds of connotations with that word, but just the fastest path to the actual experiences that you want to have you just described.

Chase Jarvis: I don't want to... The motel eight versus the four seasons I thought was fascinating. So with the concept of all the hacks, but more importantly with your life, what has been the journey of doing that as a human, and you doing it in your work life and all these things, and then realizing that that meta orientation that you have, that that is a thing that you want to share, that that actually is your art? I know if I'm going to ask a question for the people who are listening right now, so many people are clear what they want to do, but most are like, "Oh gosh, I really... If I was to double down, he had a gun to my head. I can't actually say what my thing is or..."

Chase Jarvis: How did you recognize that this meta skill, like learning how to optimize things across a number and number of channels, was the gift that you could give the world because you'd done it yourself? Talk to me about that realization process.

Chris Hutchins: I wish that realization process was faster and easier. In hindsight, it always looks so obvious, right? If you ask anyone, ask our mutual friend, Kevin Rose, he's like, "Chris was going to do this. He knew this a decade ago," but for some reason, it just took a long time. It wasn't because I didn't try. If you go look on... I had a medium blog, and I wrote a post about credit card points and getting 80% off a Peloton. That was eight, nine years ago maybe. It's not that I didn't love this stuff, and I didn't feel like I should put it out in the world, but I don't think I found the right channel if you will, so I tried to blog.

Chris Hutchins: Didn't love it. I'd had a newsletter that I sent when I was doing another project, but it didn't feel right at the time. Then finally, someone was like, "You just got to do a podcast." So I was like, "Well, I can buy a microphone. That's not hard." I got some really good advice that you only have to make it a season. It doesn't... You can try a podcast, do six episodes, and call it quits. I was like, "Okay." So season one, let's just record six episodes. If no one likes it, I don't... I didn't quit my job over it. I was like, "Oh, I found the channel," and people just started coming, and people were really excited.

Chris Hutchins: I think a slight accelerant that maybe... I can't decide whether this is true or storytelling. History is sometimes made up in your own mind, but I was... I get a lot of energy being around people. I'm definitely like energy from others, extrovert. I would always go to dinners, and I would be like, "Oh my gosh, you got to... Here's this way to do this thing. That's so much better and so much cheaper." People would be like, "Tell me about it. Send me links." It just always happened. But in COVID, there were none of those. I was missing out on that, being able to share the cool thing. So during COVID, we had a baby.

Chris Hutchins: A baby forces you to figure out optimizing your life and your time. Baby costs money. There were all these things happening that I was diving into so much research to figure out, and I had no channel to share that. I built probably a 45-page notion site about having a child and all the different things of registry, the stroller. I have a stroller spreadsheet that would blow most people's minds. I was like, "I don't know where to share it," so I was like, "I would join the moms groups." I was like, "Here's my stroller spreadsheet in case anyone wants it." I just got a lot of validation from putting stuff out there.

Chris Hutchins: Then I was like, "What's the right channel?" I was like, "Every time I go on a podcast as a guest, I love it. I share things. I get good feedback. Let's just flip it around and do it the other way." Honestly, it was experimenting with the channels, even though I knew the thing. So a lot of people out there, listen, you might know the thing you love, but you don't know how to put it out in the world. Are you building an app? Are you creating a website? Do you have a product, or are you a consultant? Do you have a service where you provide things? For me, I didn't know what it was, and then it almost clicked when I recorded a few episodes.

Chris Hutchins: I never even released it as a series because after putting one out there, and even before it was out there, I was like, "This is it. I got to keep doing this." Because for me, interviews aren't a way to get information just to the people listening. They're a way for me to get the information. I want... The people I interview like you, I was like, "I want to unlock more creativity in my life. I want to hear this." I'm just sharing my journey to optimize and upgrade every aspect of life with the people listening.

Chris Hutchins: If one person listens, who cares because it's enriching my life. It just happens that a lot of people listen, and that lets me get more interesting people, and it's a win-win for all of us.

Chase Jarvis: I think there's a gem in there, which if I could clip it out and paste it on the headline of today, it's that you didn't realize you had a vague idea, and you didn't... It wasn't clear until you actually started doing it. I think that is a huge thing that most people try and think their way out of a pickle, or conundrum or... In fact, I do not have experiences of... or they are very, very few and far between where the thinking part gets you free. It's usually thinking, and you've got 10 ideas, and you actually have to put them to bear in the real world in order to feel it. You talked about being energy or energetic.

Chase Jarvis: I absolutely 100% concur. I think one of the reasons I wanted to open the show with that here in my show notes is I believe that that is one of the most important messages for people, the handful of us, who don't know exactly the thing we're supposed to be doing, not with our one big precious life, but now. What are we supposed to be doing now? What's engaging to us? What's inspiring us? Maybe stalled out in our job or our relationship or whatever, and we need to do a thing, and the actions.

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