Episode 49: Chase Jarvis

An interview with Chase Jarvis about the fine line between being a creative and entrepreneur, how he had the courage to pursue his career, what inspires him, how he decides whom to collaborate with and his best career advice.

Welcome to the 49th episode of 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel. As your host, my goal is to curate the best advice from the world’s smartest and most interesting people by asking them just 5 questions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:33 — 8.6MB) | Embed

This episodes guest:

My guest today is photographer and CEO of CreativeLive, Chase Jarvis. Born in Seattle, Washington, Chase attended San Diego State University on a football scholarship. While his original goal after graduating was to attend medical school, his plans changed after his grandfather died and Chase inherited his photography equipment. He instead went on a trip to Europe to follow his passion to be a photographer, leading to an extremely successful career. He was hired by the likes of Volvo, Nike, Apple and Pepsi to shoot lifestyle, sports and landscape photography and has won numerous awards for his work. In 2010, Chase co-founded CreativeLive, an online education platform, with millions of students globally and three billion hours of education consumed. A year later he started his podcast, Chase Jarvis Live, and you can listen to my episode on it called “Less Phone, More Human.” I’ve known Chase since the early part of my career, which is why it’s a pleasure to have him on my podcast to talk about his book, Creative Calling. As a fellow creative and entrepreneur, I was interested in learning more about how he sees himself and how his creative pursuits ended up turning into a business.

The 5 questions questions I ask in this episode:

Is there a fine line between being a creative and an entrepreneur?
What gave you the courage to pursue your dream instead of living someone else’s?
Who or what inspires your creative urges?
How do you decide whom to collaborate with?
What is your best piece of career advice?

Follow Chase’s journey: