EVER FORWARD: Turning Tragedy Into Something Magical with Chase Chewning - Episode 44
Purpose and meaning. Two high-qualifiers as a next level human and definite areas that guest and personal friend Chase Chewning brings to the table in all of his work. An Army veteran, health coach of nearly a decade and host of the top-rated "Health & Fitness" podcast Ever Forward Radio Chase's work is driven by his family's mantra of "ever forward".
Connect w/ Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning and @everforwardradio
Listen to Ever Forward Radio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify
Learn more about becoming a Next Level Human at www.jadeteta.com
Jade: [01:17] Today I have my very good friend Chase Chewning on the show. We’re talking about purpose and meaning, and how you turn tragedy into something magical and useful and make a difference in the world with your work. You know, Chase is somebody that helps me an awful lot, someone I’ve learning an awful lot from, and we’ve had a journey together as we’ve gotten to know each other over the last couple of years. Now, we’re integrating some of our business stuff; he’s helping me with the podcast. This is a really useful and enjoyable podcast for me, and I think you’ll see why, as it touches on many different aspects of life that we all deal with. I’m always inspired by Chase’s story. Check him out on Instagram @chase_chewning, C-H-E-W-N-I-N-G, and @everforwardofficial on Instagram. Check my boy out, give him a follow, and please enjoy the show.
Chase: [02:20] My name’s Chase Chewning. I host the Ever Forward Radio podcast.
Jade: [02:22] Yeah. Why don’t you start there just real quick. So, for my peeps, kind of tell them – because I love, I absolutely love your mission and your story. Every time I hear it, it touches me, it inspires me. It’s one of these things that when you hear it you go that’s exactly what life’s about. Finding something that – tragedy – that you essentially turn into magic and purpose.
Chase: [02:47] Yeah. It wasn’t easy. The tragedy was, like you said, we lost our father - my brother, my sister, and my family – to a horrible terminal illness, Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS. He had a really escalated case of it, about 17-18 months from diagnosis to when he passed, and it just tore me apart. He was my best friend, my hero. At that same time, I had flown the nest of my family and was with Uncle Sam, I joined the Army, and just completely destroyed me emotionally, spiritually for years and years. I thought it was just this tragedy, like you said, that happened – and was – but I was only ever focusing on that… call it grief, call it depression. I went through a lot of different things, but it only was until, really, just a couple years ago I really took a dose of my own medicine. I’m this positive walking, talking, optimistic guy, supposedly, and I try to be, but I was like, Chase, you’re not living a life ever forward. Ever Forward, it’s your tattoo, it’s your license plate, but you’re just kind of playing the role. And that’s when I really looked inward and just allowed myself to feel what I was suppressing for years, and just truly mourned and truly went through that process, and finally got the help that I needed, you know, professional mental health, and let the right people into my life, and the right people closer into my life, and just began that whole work of finding the gift in it. Like I told you earlier, he gave us this final amazing last life lesson that has become not only just our creed but our business. The entire reason why I wake up every day – of course, besides my wife… and taking the dog out – but it’s given me purpose. I had to find it.
Jade: [04:36] So, just briefly, the Ever Forward sort of mantra… you know, I love that. Tell them what’s that about. What’s it mean to you?
Chase: [04:46] It means to me, well, my catch phrase – I’ll say the elevator speech – is to bring heightened attention and awareness to key areas of our life such as fitness, nutrition, and mindset. That’s kind of a good description of the show and the brand. But to me, it’s just being a decent human being. When I think back to everything that my dad tried to instill in us, and the message behind it, it’s not – you know, very much like what you’re doing, Next Level Human – it’s not trying to be better than thou, it’s not trying to be holier than thou. It’s just be you, be a decent human being, while at the same time looking around for other decent human beings, growing and cultivating that community, and just making you, everyone around you, and your environment, as much as possible, just better, and just true and authentic, really.
Jade: [05:35] I freakin’ love that message. And it’s funny because I do think Next Level Human and Ever Forward is like, literally, if you listen to what Chase is kind of saying, there’s this whole idea in there that like, I had this idea of these 4 jobs, and those 4 jobs are inside of Ever Forward as well, and it’s kind of what you essentially do. You gotta look at health and fitness, we gotta look at finances, we gotta look at personal relationships, but the most importantly and critically, purpose and meaning. The reason your story inspires me so much, and stories like yours, is that the thing to me – and I just want to sort of get your thought on this, we can go in any direction you want, but I love starting here – but the thing to me about purpose and meaning, it’s one of these things that I’m not sure you can find it truly until you kind of get beat down, until life basically holds you down, pins you down, and gives you something to really go wow, I’m not the center of the universe, things are not guaranteed, I’m not going to live forever, I don’t get to have certainty and stability in my life, things can be random and cruel. How do I make sense of this, and how can I turn this into something that makes a difference for my own personal growth, but also makes a difference for the world? And one thing that you and I have both done with some of the things that have happened in our lives – and by the way, I have my father. Like, to me, part of the reason your story scares the hell out of me, ‘cause that is the one thing, same as you-
Chase: [07:06] Based on absence, really.
Jade: [07:08] Yeah. He’s my best friend! Losing him would be so tragic to me, but I have had my own pain, and everyone listening’s had their own pain – but you’ve made a right turn. Some people go left, some people degrade – and maybe you were in that – it sounds like you were in a dark place for a while where it did take you backwards for a while. If you go left, you degrade yourself, but if you go right, you go, how can I use this to be better in the world, and more importantly, to take my lessons and help other people grow. That in the end, to me, is how you find purpose and meaning. Most people think that you find it through doing joyful things or being happy and, you know, getting married and having kids. Which I do think it’s there, but without the dark stuff, without the tragedy, you don’t have someone as deeply purposeful as someone like you that you run into. Part of the thing that I think you and I see in each other and why we immediately connect is ‘cause like, here’s somebody who’s been through tragedy, suffering at a deeper level, and has gone right and actually gone to their next level, elevated as a result of it. That to me is the piece that ties it all together.
Chase: [08:19] So true. I mean, yes to everything you just said. But to the person who has lost 50lbs, you can never really effectively translate that to someone who has never been overweight in their life, or someone who, like in my case, just was unable to walk for a significant period of time. The level of appreciation I had and still have for being ambulatory is unreal. That’s, I think, to go back to what I was saying before, to really answer your question, is that’s really what I had to get into, because on surface, I had this phrase. My family, we had this catchphrase, and it began to develop some steam on the internet. As we began to grow social media presence and try to figure out what are we doing here, it was just kind of a little bit of a façade, and it just kind of reaching a boiling point of like I can’t keep putting myself forward as this happy face, optimistic face, when I truly have not faced these things. I’m talking about, you know, I’m trying to help people, you know the [inaudible] school’s the way, find the gift in the thing that you went through that just wrecked your life, and I truly didn’t go through that yet. So, once I finally took a dose of my own medicine – and the biggest thing that happened for me was I gave myself permission to feel all the things that I thought I shouldn’t feel or wasn’t worthy of feeling. I mean grief, pain, depression… PTSD, all my experiences that I really suppressed because I didn’t think I was worthy of feeling them. It was just an unraveling and there’s been no looking back ever since. Once you start looking inward and diving deeper, and ignoring all the external facades that you’re going through that you think are pushing you forward, of like I’m going to get in better shape, I’m going to get a better job, I’m going to get a better significant other, all these things on the outside, it just really personifies all the inside that you haven’t squared away.
Jade: [10:19] Yeah, dude, that’s some really deep stuff. You don’t mind, I want to ask you one more thing about this.
Chase: [10:23] Yeah, please!
Jade: [10:24] Because I have this thing, I want to see what you think about this. You know the term vulnerability, right? So, me and a lot of my friends, a lot of them, a lot of dudes in particular, but this is sort of a Brene Brown concept – those of you that know Brene Brown, love her, read all her books – there’s this idea of vulnerability. It’s funny because my friends, they know that I’m a fan of hers; they also know I don’t not really love that term. And not that I don’t get the concept. I don’t love the term, but I agree with the concept. I think for men, I like the term open and available better. Part of the reason I don’t like the term is not necessarily that I don’t like the term, I know that when I work with people sometimes, it’s just a semantic issue. I might get what vulnerability is; like, to me, I understand her concept of strength – that to be vulnerable you have to be strong – but for many people, they just hear weakness. So, I say, well, think of then about being open and available. But it sounds like in what you were saying there, I’m just curious how you see that term, and – because essentially what you were just talking about there is this idea of being sort of vulnerable to these feelings. Because part of that, especially for, I don’t know, as a man who’s – I’m 10 years ahead of you – so a little bit more, and my parents, my dad even more, your father even more… like that whole male dynamic is kind of changed to some degree. So, I’m just curious how you see that. And then we can go wherever you want to go, but I’m just curious because I’ve got you here and I know we kind of do the same work. I’m wondering what your perspective is on that whole concept.
Chase: [11:57] Oh, man, I love it. And actually, this is really funny timing. This morning I was on another show – have you heard of Andrea Owen?
Jade: [12:06] Yeah.
Chase: [12:07] I was a guest on her show. She’s been on EF Radio a couple of times, actually. That’s really the path of the conversation, so this is our universe [inaudible] We were talking about Brene Brown, we were talking about vulnerability, bringing up this whole kind of, I think, a small little wave that’s happening that I think it’s turning into a true revolution in masculinity and redefining that – what it means to be a man, what it means to be a provider, how to feel. Vulnerability for me was something that I think probably played a role in what I was not allowing myself to feel, what I was suppressing. Because I didn’t grow up in a household of like, we don’t talk about our feelings or you don’t show emotion kind of thing, but it also wasn’t very like, hey, how are you. It was kind of a little in between. And then, of course, at 17 I joined the Army.
Jade: [12:57] And that’s a whole different kind of culture.
Chase: [12:59] Yeah.
Jade: [13:00] You don’t express weakness in that culture at all.
Chase: [13:03] You know, at least the time when I was in, ‘03-’09, something like that, weakness can equal death. Weakness can equal failing the mission. Weakness can be that half millisecond of making a decision that is going to cost you your life, cost people their lives, or just a horrible tragedy. So, I was trained, literally for years and years and years to not be vulnerable and to not think, just react. Then, add on the tragedy of losing my father and being thousands of miles away from him and my family at the time. Vulnerability was not even on my radar. I had no idea what that meant, and I think – my wife kind of makes this an analogy a lot – of how professionally, getting my professional career started, and just really personal growth even, but I kind of have a learning disability because I didn’t really start until I was like 24, 25, when I was getting out of the Army. And going to college, I was the old guy on campus, right? I’m just getting my professional career started, my first real job at like 28 years old, when everybody else is already working their way up to upper management and stuff. So, a lot of things hit me. And maybe it was a blessing in disguise and it forced me into being vulnerable, because I really wasn’t latching on to just any real belief system. Once I began to figure that stuff out, and rather, life smacked me around in a lot of ways, it really physically, emotionally, spiritually brought me to me knees and really showed me vulnerability for damn sure.
Jade: [14:38] You know, it’s funny. The reason why I wanted to ask you about it, because I know your military background and I know a little bit about your history, and to me, distinctions matter. So, it’s kind of like when we have these discussions, because I know it’s going around. It’s definitely something that everyone’s talking about, vulnerability this and vulnerability that. What I heard from you-
Chase: [14:53] It’s trending.
Jade: [14:54] Yeah, it’s trending. Exactly. It’s the thing! But then I just go, and I wanted – part of the reason I wanted to ask you that is because I know your story of your father, and I know your history of being in the military, and to me, I go like this – it’s kind of cliché, but I use it anyway – but there’s a way that, essentially, warriors show up. Men and women can both be warriors, but certainly men have more historically been identified with that sort of class. To me, the idea of you hear it on both sides, sometimes you hear men have to be warriors. Sometimes you hear the idea of men need to be sort of vulnerable, and the way that I, you know, the way I do this – and I talked about this with our good friend Josh Trent – but we talked about the idea that there’s something sort of in the middle there, where there’s a time and a place when you’re out and you’re in danger, or when you have a family to take care of, or you got stuff that’s going on that you just have to buckle down and do your job, it’s not really, in my mind, a time to do that. That’s a time to be the warrior. That’s the time to be engaged in the fight. Then, of course, after the smoke is cleared, then there’s an opportunity for you to process feelings, and to open up a little bit, and to be open and available. But it’s, to me, it’s always this thing in life – and this is how I work with everything that I do – it’s always the fact that we always want to create dichotomies, when really, the healthy spot is somewhere in the middle. So, you coming out of the military, you basically – you had the military thing, where it’s like be all warrior. Then you have sort of the world you’re in now that’s been sort of be all vulnerable. A lot of the people I work with I’m just like, the truth of the matter is you absolutely need both. And I say this for men and women, not just men. But in particular, when you’re having the male discussion, you better be able to access both of those and know when to access them, because if you just default to warrior all the time, or you default to vulnerability all the time, you actually are not going to be effective in a world that requires those two different states, basically.
Chase: [16:53] Again, funny timing. I went down to Encinitas a couple of weeks ago. Mark Devine, ex-Navy Seal Commander, top of his class, one of the most badass Seals, I think, of our time, and his whole thing now is, how can I be more Zen? Like, I’m a Zen warrior. That’s a lot of the things that we talked about there, but as you were talking about that, it really brought up for me the first kind of like flash in the pan of all these dichotomies and multi-facets to being a man, being a human being, and the personal work outside of fitness and nutrition and stuff where a lot of us start, I think, to get better. That’s what we think we need to do to get and feel better. Are you familiar with Elliott Hulse? Do you know him?
Jade: [17:32] I’ve heard the name, yes.
Chase: [17:33] He’s down in Florida. He’s gone pretty wild nowadays. He’s a little woo-woo.
Jade: [17:36] That’s what I was going to say. I literally was going to say he’s a little woo, right? I still respect him, but yeah, of course.
Chase: [17:44] To this day, one of the first principles that I picked up on – he was one of the first fitness YouTubers I watched, and I learned a lot of strength and fitness and gym stuff from him – but he always talked about these 4 areas that he lives his life by. It was based off this book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. As you were talking, those words just came back up into my mind, and I’m like, absolutely right. I mean – Queen, woman, whatever, man – as a person, you know, leader, warrior, magician, lover, I think are all these kind of main areas when you think about every area of our life that we have been, need to be, or are right now, it’s kind of one of those areas. Sometimes we gotta get crafty. Sometimes we need to humble and just be there and support people. Sometimes we gotta grow a pair. Sometimes we gotta man up, woman up, and lead and just attack, whether you’re literally protecting you and your family or someone you believe in, or just go on the offensive in your career, whatever. But it’s that kind of melting pot of all those areas there that I think – that’s what I’m personally striving for – and I think it definitely aligns with you too.
Jade: [18:51] I mean, again, I love the nuance of it. And I feel like I want to have those nuanced conversations now because it gets lost when you start just going, ok, this is what’s popular, and then people default. It’s the same way in metabolism. Like the keto diet, everyone’s doing that. Is that useful for everyone? It has a place, it’s a tool.
Chase: [19:12] It can work.
Jade: [19:13] Yeah, it can work. You know, but is being vulnerable all the time useful? I think when someone like Brene Brown puts out a book, the reason it’s important is because people don’t understand its power. That doesn’t mean that it should be the default state now for everyone, just like-
Chase: [19:29] It’s not the end all, be all.
Jade: [19:30] Yeah. It’s like, we didn’t understand the keto diet either, but now we understand that it has a role to play for short periods of time maybe for some people, and it can be useful in that regard. So, just understanding and being able to access – that’s why I like those sort of 4 areas to focus on – because I think we have to be that as a human.
Chase: [19:49] And I mean, personally speaking here, I think that really shines another light on my whole journey of getting out of – being injured, transitioning to a civilian, going to school, finding true fitness outside of just, you know, running miles and miles and rucking in the Army. I mean, it’s that natural progression where I think a lot of us start, and we all have probably been through, alright, I’m going to go to the gym, or I’m going to lose weight. So, then we adopt this one training modality, right? I’m going to do a bro-split, I’m going to CrossFit. And again, personally speaking, I see this all the time in real world, and the internet for damn sure, people just latch on so heavily to this ideology, this daily practice, these daily habits that they just see other people doing, and they think that’s the end all, be all; like, I can only eat this way, I can only train this way, I can only live this way. Again, like I was saying before, I didn’t allow myself to feel in terms of that emotional experience, and the depression and grief. I don’t think people really give themselves enough time to experience and feel their diet, experience and feel their workout. Am I doing this just because my neighbor’s doing it, or the hot girl I’m trying to get with is a CrossFitter? You know, what does my body tell me? What’s this biofeedback in my recovery? Am I resting, am I gaining weight, losing weight? It’s just experience. Actually, I should get Josh to sponsor this – Josh Trent again – he’s got this concept I heard on his show a long time ago of be a study of one, n=1. This whole life is nothing but an experiment, and it took me a long time trying to really figure that out.
Jade: [21:23] Yeah, you know though, so, the way I see it is really interesting. See if this resonates with you or not. It’s like sometimes you try stuff on in these conversations, right?
Chase: [21:31] Absolutely.
Jade: [21:32] So, it’s like, it’s just interesting to have these discussions.
Chase: [21:35] And if it doesn’t sound good, we’ll just cut it out.
Jade: [21:36] Yeah, exactly! Then, yeah, we just edit it for everybody. But I have this concept with Net Level Human is there’s 3 types of human. There’s sort of this base level human, and the base level human sort of acts from a place that’s almost like a child. They, you know, a child is – they’re wonderful, but they also – they’re the center of the universe. They don’t know any different. They think it’s all about them in a sense. So, they’re looking about how to fulfill their needs.
Chase: [22:00] Are we talking about children or social media influencers?
Jade: [22:03] Exactly.
Chase: [22:04] I got confused for a second.
Jade: [22:05] Both! They can be very base level. And then there’s the culture level mindset of this like, a lot like the teenager, where now they’re doing everything so that Jade and Chase and everyone else can be like, oh, look how cool they are. So, they’re looking for what fits. And eventually, and whether we’re talking about personal development or fitness or whatever, but eventually you graduate to the next level human; and next level human is this idea that you go, ok, I had my time where I was the center of the universe, and I’ve had my time looking out there and trying to pair with everyone or copycat everybody, and I tried things on. These things can be useful, but at some point, this is for our life, and for our fitness, we essentially have to go, I’ve done different things, I now have enough information about how just me being the center of the universe doesn’t provide meaning and doesn’t do anything for the world. I’ve also got information that me trying to follow the crowd doesn’t give me a sense of purpose and meaning either, or results if I’m talking about fitness. But I start to put these things together and become my own person, what you’ll see – and this is so interesting to me – what you’ll begin to see is the same thing we were just talking about. I think before we turned on the cameras, you and I, I think, were talking about this sort of personal sort of journey of going from I’m a fitness guy, I’m only about metabolism and fitness, and now seeing how that changes into-
Chase: [23:30] Tying our identity to one thing, one title.
Jade: [23:32] Exactly, to personal development. And I think it’s the same exact journey. So, if you’re someone who’s in that place still, that culture level thing where I gotta try on every diet, or I’m still in that culture level thing where I gotta read every book, and whatever new diet or new book I read becomes my new religion and my new fitness regime, what I would suggest is don’t beat yourself up about that, of course, it’s part of the journey; but eventually, you’re going to want to become somebody who can take all these things that you’ve experienced and create your own out of it. You’re going to want to take all the life pain and suffering and create something unique out of it. This is, to me, the maturity process, and it happens in many domains. So, in those 4 jobs in the next level human, financially it happens, because eventually you learn how to earn money, and then you have to manage and save money. It happens in fitness because eventually you go, I tried keto and intermittent fasting, Zone, vegetarian, whatever, whatever, and this is what works.
Chase: [24:28] I sprained my shoulder; now I can only walk.
Jade: [24:30] Exactly. I now know that I can’t do whatever you were doing to hurt your shoulder. You figure these things about yourself, and then you mature. So, to me, it’s a really interesting sort of discussion about that, whether we’re talking about fitness, personal relationships, or sort of financial. That leads you to a sense of personal developing and meaning in all of those areas, which is, to me, why are you even listening to someone like Chase and me? You know, if you’re in this conversation, which in a sense, is all of us having this conversation, right? It’s just you and I, for whatever reason, get to have a platform where we have more people. We can facilitate the discussion, but that’s really what this is about, is people wanting to be better in those areas; but part of that better is not being in this place where you latch on and become so biased and dogma about a particular regime or particular idea.
Chase: [25:25] Yeah. Absolutely. This kind of just came to me, when you were talking there, that, again, personally speaking, when I started listening to all the podcasts, and reading all the self-help books, and doing all the things, I – if I’m being honest – looking back now, I can say that I was looking for an answer. I’m going to the gym, I’m looking for the answer, I’m looking for the right workout. I’m looking for the right way to eat. I’m looking for the book that’s going to give me the answer to my question in life. I’m looking for the mentor that’s going to give me the answer to level up in my job. I think if we stopped doing things – stopped training, stopped eating, stopped reading, stopped existing – with the pretense of whatever I’m doing in those areas I just listed, I’m looking for an answer in them, but just think, this is not the thing. This is not the answer. But the experience is.
Jade: [25:13] I love that.
Chase: [25:14] This is not the answer. I’m here in this gym, doing this program, eating this diet, in this job, with this other person, to find my answer. This isn’t it. Like, the answer isn’t going to be in the book. The answer isn’t going to be the end of the workout. It’s the experience. It’s process over the prize all the time, but if you go in with a pretense of just thinking like, I’m not going to find my answer here, I’m going to find my answer here. Like, it’s always there in me, it just takes this magical little concoction of the right person, the right place, the right time; or sometimes not the person, not being around somebody or not doing something that… the thing comes to us.
Jade: [26:54] I love that, because I was thinking that maybe the word is not find, but maybe the word is create.
Chase: [26:58] Yesss, yes!
Jade: [26:59] You know, it’s basically – and choice. You have all these things that you’re on this journey to find something, and then you finally go. Like, I have this saying that I use. I say you know you’ve arrived when arrival is no longer the goal, which is very similar to what you’re essentially saying, which is like, you’re all about finding, finding, finding at one point; but then at some point you go, out of all these things, all these journeys that I’ve taken, and whatever endeavor we’re talking about – fitness, personal development, personal relationships, whatever – I have now have enough information to choose and create something out of that for myself. That, to me, it’s a really interesting way that you described that. Because then it’s like, you get into some of the cliché stuff, where it’s like, yeah, it’s a journey, but at some point in the journey, it’s like you just lose the idea of that I’m heading somewhere, and you just go ok, I’m here. Now – there was nowhere to get to. Maybe the place to get to was the realization that I get to create it. It goes to the whole thing with purpose and meaning where it’s like, people go, well, how do you find your meaning in life, or how do you find purpose in life, and the whole thing is like, you don’t. You don’t find those things. You literally choose them. You choose what they’re going to be, and then it’s for the rest of your life a creative a process. You know what I mean? And that’s part of what you and I are engaged in at the early part of maturity in a sense. Like, part of – and this is not my term, but I always love to bring it up because it’s just on my mind recently – but, I read a lot of Alain de Botton. I don’t know if you know him, but he’s a French philosopher. He’s still around.
Chase: [28:33] No, he doesn’t sound familiar.
Jade: [28:34] He’s still living today, and I read a lot of his stuff. One of my favorite books of those, if you want to check him out, is called A Course on Love.
Chase: [28:41] Ok.
Jade: [28:42] Which is, you know, it’s about love and how love progresses throughout different stages of life. But anyway, he talks about the idea of maturity. He essentially says - and you can see how this goes into my concept of base level, culture level, next level human – but he essentially says that as we mature, we get to a place, somewhere usually around the age of 35-55, and this span of time where we go through what a lot of people call the mid-life crisis.
Chase: [29:13] I’ll start preparing now. I got a year.
Jade: [29:14] Yeah. It’s somewhere in there! I mean, and it sounds like you may be entering into this, and I may be entering into it or I’m right in the middle of it, but I actually would call it sort of a mid-life awakening. And the awakening is-
Chase: [29:25] I like that.
Jade: [29:26] Yeah, it’s a better term, but what are you awakening to? You’re awakening to the idea that you’ve been living a very culture level existence. Now, the wakening is that I can now have my final opportunity. This is what Alain de Botton says; he goes, “The mid-life crisis is the final opportunity to escape adolescence.” Then, adolescence is essentially this idea of I live in a culture level state where everything that I do is based on how Chase is going to see me. Now, I can never escape that, because I want you to like me, and I want people to like [inaudible]
Chase: [29:58] I like Jade. We’re good on that.
Jade: [30:00] I know you like me. But I want them to like me too. You know what I mean? I want… that we can’t ever escape that; however, my way of being now is the way I have chosen to be despite what they think of me. In Adlerian psychology, they call that the courage to be disliked. And that ultimately is the awakening away from, you know, sort of this culture level existence. We can’t escape from it completely, but that should be our goal.
Chase: [30:30] That’s actually something I think I’ve been struggling with a little bit lately. Maybe it’s perfect timing. I’m getting into my mid-life crisis, my awakening, right? I know a big part of it just because now, the past two years, I’m in a space where I’m responsible for my income, I’m responsible for my livelihood. I work for myself. I do all these things, so I have had to significantly reprioritize a lot of hobbies and interests and just casual going out, you know, filling in fluff time here, because I need to work. I need to make a living. I need to pursue this passion that’s in me. And I’ve been struggling a little while because I recognize – I’ve been here exactly a year pretty much, in L.A. – and my wife and I have this conversation all the time. She came here for school, I came here to work, and for a while, we were just so miserable. It’s like, we never go out anymore, we hardly go out to dinner, we don’t have any friends. It was just like, are we really distraught about that? Ok, let’s go back to the reason why we came here. The reason why we came here is for you to pursue your higher education and for me to just pursue growth professionally. Ok, we’re hitting the mark on those two areas, but still latching on to this I want people to see me and like me, I want to go out. I’m still holding on to these old belief systems and habits that like, do I truly still want them, or is it just what I think I’m supposed to still be doing? We’re joking earlier, but I stay in my bubble. I go weeks without driving. I live my little 5 block radius downtown, and it’s just, I work, I wake up, I just wash, rinse repeat. It’s just really accepting like, again, this season of my life and that it’s ok. It may feel different and uncomfortable, but am I hitting my goal? Yes, and I think I struggle with that, and I think a lot of people do. Because you feel like you’re supposed to be this kind of way, you’re supposed to be doing these things for self-love and exterior love, but why? If it doesn’t serve you, and it doesn’t serve those around you, then do you have a goal? Do you know what you’re working towards? Do you know why you do anything? The people around you, do they truly matter that much to where your relationship is stemmed off of how many happy hours you go to or, not to make it all about drinking, but how many times you see other people or do other things.
Jade: [32:54] Well, drinking is associated with connection, which is why we always bring it up that way.
Chase: [32:57] Yeah. I mean, sure, I would crack open a beer right now with you, but that’s – I enjoy a good beer – but my thing now is totally shifted into… I’ve become really obsessed with connection.
Jade: [33:08] Yeah yeah. Same.
Chase: [33:09] And I’ve fully – I’ve always believed it, and I’ve said it – but I truly grasped it this year being here, just because of the in-person connections I’ve been able to make, that this is really the most fulfilling thing in the world. When it comes, 10pm on a Friday night, and if I just happen to still be out, I get anxious. I’m like, should I stay out and be social? Or I could go home, get great sleep, and wake up again and just crush it.
Jade: [35:34] Yeah. This discussion, I think, is another one of these things that you can gloss over it real quick; but if you really get into this, this is some of the deepest stuff that we have in our lives. So, here’s my take on all of that. This, to me, is one of the most… I think it’s a conversation we have to have, because I will – and you’ll see, and we’ll just see where this goes, because I think this is critical – here’s the way I see this. When we are between the ages of 15 and 30, let’s say, we humans are very engaged in life. We have first loves and first heartbreaks, we lose people, we’re at least conscious to some degree now. Like, we’re a teenager, we know, we can see our, you know, you probably lose somebody, you know someone who died. You’ve lost family members. Like, you start seeing-
Chase: [34:28] And you understand what that means. You have awareness of stuff.
Jade: [34:30] You have awareness of it. You can see where you like people and they don’t like you, or they don’t like you and you like them; where you travel, you’re in the military, you go away to school. It’s a very heavy learning change and challenge, change and challenge, change and challenge. In that, we look back on that and we go, those were the best times of my life, because we are happy, and we are sad, and we are beaten, and we feel like we’ve conquered, and we’ve done all of these things. Then, what happens is our whole life, while we’re going through all this frenetic change, some of it very deeply painful, we get to a point where we’re like, I’m going to get stable, I’m going to get stable, I’m going to get married, I’m going to have kids, I’m going to do this job. And then, we get there, many of us, and we think, ahh, stability. But the problem is that there is no-
Chase: [35:27] The ‘s’ word.
Jade: [35:28] Yeah. There’s no such thing as that, nor would we be fully happy with it. So, we move into this next phase where I think you and your wife are now, where it’s this very much like, I know I need change and challenge, that’s in my brain, and I also know I need stability. What happens is – and then we also, there’s this other thing on top of this – you layer on top of that the fact that our significant – this is why I love romantic relationships. They’re amazing because they become our, simultaneously, romantic sexual partners and our parents, in a sense, and our best friends.
Chase: [36:02] What’s that about, by the way.
Jade: [36:03] Yeah, that’s attachment theory 101.
Chase: [36:05] I didn’t sign up for this shit.
Jade: [36:07] Exactly. That’s attachment theory 101. But they become all this to us, and often times we can get sort of narrowly focused on just them. So, all of our change and challenge happens around only them. My solution for this is this idea that you purposely expose yourself to change and challenge and the other ‘c’; so, there’s 3 Cs if you want happiness in life. You need change, challenge, and then Chase said it, connection. You need change, challenge, and connection.
Chase: [36:34] I thought it was chase.
Jade: [36:35] Chase is the 4th one.
Chase: [36:36] Plot twist!
Jade: [36:37] You need change, challenge, connection, and Chase in your life. But you need those 3 Cs. When you start feeling like you’re stuck in relationships, in general, to me, I always go, like when I’m working - ‘cause I do a lot of counseling work as well - and when I work and counsel with people, I do, literally in my head, go where’s their change, where’s their challenge, where’s their connection. Because if they’re feeling depressed, anxious, I’m looking at where is that. Then, I’m looking at how are they balancing that with stability. Because think about it, too much change and challenge… and connection is very draining. It can be very tough.
Chase: [37:10] That’s [inaudible] weeding out the gene pool.
Jade: [37:12] Absolutely.
Chase: [37:13] If you don’t evolve, don’t adapt.
Jade: [37:15] Exactly. And you have to – then, to counteract that – you have to have stability. But too much stability is also so detrimental. There’s this whole thing – when you were talking about the idea of I need to go out and challenge myself and do this new stuff, but I’m also having long periods of time where I’m in my little bubble and I don’t want to go anywhere. That’s where you and I were kind of fighting back and forth subtly, being like, who’s going to come to who in L.A., because of the drive out here. It’s like, we only live – Chase and I only live-
Chase: [37:42] We’ll play that game.
Jade: [37:43] But it’s been a year, and this is the first time we’ve seen each other because no one leaves, goes anywhere in Los Angeles. But I would say, anytime we’re feeling that as humans, we gotta check in and go, ok, let me just go with that. When I’m stable, enjoy it, take a deep breath, whoosah, right? But also understand when that starts feeling like… it’s going sideways – this is where emotion can, when it’s kind of feeling like, you know, baby, I love you but I’m getting tired of you – I’m feeling like this is feeling a little bit aggravating all of a sudden.
Chase: [38:12] I got some kind of hesitation. Absolutely.
Jade: [38:14] Exactly. Now you go change, challenge, connection. You’re like, I need to change and challenge and connect outside of you, or with you; but it can’t always be with you. So, it might be-
Chase: [38:23] That’s a good point right there.
Jade: [38:24] Let’s me and you go on vacation. A lot of couples will do this. But sometimes it’s about Chase going on vacation by himself, or Chase going to hang out with Jade by himself, or bro-time. I had a wonderful relationship with my ex-wife, who I’m still super close friends with, and everyone goes, “Well, what happened with you two? You guys seem like you’re the best friends.” We’re no longer involved romantically, and we divorced, but we’re still super close. But one of the things we tell people who ask us about this, we say all of our change and challenge, and everything, was always done together. We really struggled with separating and being like, well, I’ll grow here, you grow here, and we’ll grow here together; so, three separate lives, really. There’s me, there’s you, and then there’s sort of what I call youme in the middle. And youme is important, but youme can’t become the dominant thing in a romantic relationship. If it does, you lose you, and me, and then that becomes unsustainable over the long run. So, there’s this balance between when you’re in these relationships. I would say this is the case with anybody – you create this 3rd identity. This 3rd identity should not suck energy from both. It needs to deliver energy to both. So, the way that you balance this is, when you feel that that is sucking energy from you, the trick is let me go get change and challenge out there. Doesn’t mean you go do what I did, which is go have an affair, which is a whole big mess; I’m not saying that. But to go out and get recharged somewhere else, get your own change and challenge so you can bring that back to the relationship. Then, every once in a while, take that relationship, and take that youme to a place of change and challenge. Then, balance that stability. That’s how you want to be looking at relationships, because it seems like that might be sort of what you’re talking about. Again, this is a maturity thing to understand.
Chase: [40:12] Sure. Sure, yeah.
Jade: [40:13] You put your oxygen mask on first, then you take care of your partner’s. So, in a sense, it is that psychological equivalent of you put your airplane mask on and then you can go, now I can feed youme.
Chase: [40:25] That’s so… amazing to hear, and honestly, it’s like calling me out a little bit. Anyone who, on my platform, who’s followed me for a long time, there was a period of my life, about 4-5 years ago now, that they could probably tell that… my wife and I, we actually split up. It was like a weird gray area, like we’re on a break, split up. It was just a weird situation. We still kind of saw each other, we still kind of talked to each other, but we weren’t together.
Jade: [40:59] Yeah, we all know those kind of relationships.
Chase: [41:01] Yeah, and we had already been together, at that point, for about 2 years. We were moving out of our hometown together, doing all these things. And then, it’s exactly that – we had multiple conversations around that, and she was more upfront, and she was more aware of these things that you were talking about than I was, and this was right before the crux of my diving into reading all the books, and all the podcasts. It was all about the youme. And she was honest enough and brave enough to bring it up, where I was just so – I was madly in love with her – so I was like whatever you want, whatever you want. She goes, I don’t fucking want that, like what do you want? I also want to do what I want. It shouldn’t always have to be just this youme, youme thing. Again, she was the first person, I think, if not one of the first people, to call me out and be like there’s something more there.
Jade: [41:51] Oh my God, I love her, man.
Chase: [41:53] You guy’s gotta meet, absolutely. She called me out, and she was like, look, you’re it for me, I want to marry you, we’re going to have kids and do all this, but you have lost yourself.
Jade: [42:05] And babe, you better figure that out.
Chase: [42:06] Yeah, absolutely, and it was the most miserable time of my life. It was so hard. I didn’t understand, because in my mind at the time, I was like what do you mean; I’m giving you everything that I think you want; I’m giving you all my love, all my attention, all this stuff. She’s like, “Who are you anymore?” That’s when – it was about a 4 or 5 month period – and we just kind of danced around it, and it really… it forced my hand. The challenge was there. I didn’t want it, but it was necessary; and then the change that came about that was it really allowed me the opportunity to figure out who the hell I was and what I wanted. Because I was, even as much in love that I was, I was all youme. There was no me. In that time – go back to my Instagram posts, go back to my YouTube videos, go back to, really, the origin of anything that maybe people have come to know me for – it all started at that time.
Jade: [43:01] I love that story.
Chase: [43:02] Because she forced my hand.
Jade: [43:03] I love that story. And isn’t that funny, I do think this – not to bag on men, men have a lot of great things about them – but I do think when we’re dealing with… you know, women have, to me, they have a little bit more emotional insight than us just because of the way they connect a little bit more. Not always, by the way. In gross (?), generally, you should never have generalizations because they’re never always true. But just in general, it doesn’t surprise me that she was the one that kinda helped you sort of see that. It’s critical, and all I would say to people who are listening to this, from my perspective, the lesson in that is that what we should be doing – there’s this whole thing about rise to occasion. Well, to me, rising to the occasion means, in a sense, you’re not prepared for it, then once it happens, you have to figure it out. To me, I think more, yes, there are going to be occasions you have to rise to. That’s life. But also, if you create the occasion, in other words, you start going I am going to, yes, controlled stability, but I’m going to create change and challenge and connection in my life, even when I don’t want to. Then, when you do have to rise to the occasion, it’s not as much figuring it out because you’ve kinda done it.
Chase: [44:16] Yeah, you got a little bit of a template.
Jade: [44:18] Yeah, you got a little bit of a template. You know, it makes me – I’ll tell you what’s interesting – I never was in the military. I’ve always sort of… I’ve always vibed with sort of the warrior mentality, and sort of the way that I was, and my jealousy from not having been there, two things, is that you don’t get to – putting yourself in harm’s way for a purpose that you believe is greater than yourself. Not all military people even do that; they do it for many reasons, but-
Chase: [44:47] To stay out of jail.
Jade: [44:48] Yeah. There’s many reasons they might do it that aren’t conscious, but just that idea of putting yourself on the line, I think, does change you in some way; however, again, it’s the dichotomy. It also can become, like that’s all you stand for. So, we need to be very psychologically flexible as humans. Just like I talk about you gotta be metabolically flexible, you gotta be psychologically flexible, and I do think you have to be flexible in your personal relationships as well. To me, the point of that whole story is that when I think about, oh, I love sort of the idea of the warrior mentality, but I never did that. Now, I just go – but I do now, purposely, do things to challenge myself. Things that I’m afraid of.
Chase: [45:32] Showing up in some of your workouts today. See, that’s a warrior mentality, man.
Jade: [45:35] I mean, in a sense, I love that. I do think it is. Exercise in that way is something.
Chase: [45:42] Willingly showing up everyday and forcing stress and possible injury – hello, my shoulder – and just like literally tearing your muscles down… I mean, that’s a warrior mentality.
Jade: [45:54] I definitely think it is, and I actually think that’s the one – it’s funny that you went there – because if you were to say to me, if your follow up questions was well how do we do that, I would say the simplest way to do that is physical pursuits.
Chase: [46:03] Well, how do we do that, Jade?
Jade: [46:04] Exactly. Physical pursuits are the best way. It’s the best metaphor for life. You know, it’s like you doing whatever you were doing. It’s funny, we were talking about how he hurt his shoulder and he did it squatting. You think it’d be a push press or bench press, but to me, that’s how come people – you know, I’m 45 now. You know something? I’m not nearly as strong as I used to be, and I’m also a little bit out of shape compared to how I used to be. So, my mom and dad go-
Chase: [46:29] I’ll settle for this at 45.
Jade: [46:32] Well, I appreciate that.
Chase: [46:33] By no means.
Jade: [46:34] I appreciate that.
Chase: [46:35] You good, man.
Jade: [46:36] But you know, it’s interesting, people always ask me, why are you – my training partner’s like why do you need to squat 405 anymore. And I go, you’re right, my body doesn’t need it, and maybe it’s even detrimental for my body, but I want to challenge my brain with that heavy ass weight for the rest of my life.
Chase: [46:56] Because the brain knows that we’ve done something before, and then I think the ego wants to just constantly remind ourselves and show ourselves that it can always still be done. And that’s not the case.
Jade: [47:06] It can get us in trouble.
Chase: [47:07] Maybe this is my body telling me the same thing. Hey Chase, you know, about to be 34 year old Chase doesn’t need to be squatting… like 350, whatever I was doing, for reps. You’re good. You achieved fitness, alright?
Jade: [47:18] Yeah, and see, that’s exactly what I – that’s such a cool conversation ‘cause to me, I go, exactly, your brain will tell you, so it checks you, but at the same time, then you also go, but I’m still going to seek it because I want to play right on that edge. Learning happens right on that edge. If we’re too I’m kind of done with that, I’m just going to start doing yoga now, which is – I love yoga – but it’s like, I’m always going to lift heavy too, or try as long as I can. Because that keeps me on that edge, and also gives me direct feedback to my ego. It’s like, you overextended yourself, dude. No wonder you’re hurt.
Chase: [47:55] Shoulda been a yoga day.
Jade: [47:56] Yep, should’ve been a yoga – or you didn’t recover enough, or you’re not taking care of other things in your life. So, these, to me, are lessons that apply across the board. There’s no greater metaphor for life than, in my mind, sport and fitness.
Chase: [48:09] It was – I say this all the time, and again, like I said before, sometimes we have to take a dose of our own medicine, pay attention to actually walking the talk. I say that your body will whisper to you a long time before it ever starts screaming at you.
Jade: [48:26] That’s interesting.
Chase: [48:27] And we just ignore those whispers, ‘cause oh, this kind of hurts, or this aches, or I didn’t get a good sleep, or my diet’s been off, but ehh, it’s fine, I can get through it. And we can. The body’s amazing. The mind, the body, the soul, the muscle, everything – you can endure a lot. And for me, I was telling you, for years I’ve had this kind of touch and go, on and off, shoulder thing. I get treatment, I do the things, I get my lacrosse ball out, I do my PBC rotation, I do my mobility, but just even – I can consciously say, honestly say go back and look at that day when I was squatting – it was really bothering me. I should’ve just been like alright I’m just going to do nothing or I’m going to go for a walk. Again, it is an ego check for me as well, because I go back in one of the reasons why I still squat so heavy is because I’m showing my body, because of all the trauma that I went through, my injuries, like no, that doesn’t define me. That I can still do this, or I can do this thing that other people my age and whatever should still be able to do, because a lot of that… physical strength, identity, professional identity, was totally yanked from me. I didn’t want to leave the military, I didn’t want to be injured, I didn’t want to have the love of my life pull the plug on things. I didn’t want, you know, to go through all these traumas. I didn’t want to lose my dad. I’m sure all the horrible things that you’ve been through, we don’t ask for. We didn’t want. But they’re so necessary, and I think physical, emotional, spiritual, all these things, like we have these little whispers that we just don’t really pay attention to usually until they’re just screaming bloody murder at us. That’s the challenge that I really think that you’re talking about.
Jade: [50:08] Yeah. My sister-in-law, I don’t know where she got this from, but she always – my sister-in-law Jillian Sarno Teta, she’s also an ND, and married to my brother who’s an ND – but she-
Chase: [50:16] It’s a house of learned doctors!
Jade: [50:19] We have some interesting conversations always. But she has this thing, and she says it’s easy to be all good when everything’s all good. I don’t know where she got that from, but I think it’s out there, but I heard it first from her. I think it speaks to your sort of idea of the whisper and listening to that, and I also think it speaks to the idea that, listen, if you’re just going to take it easy in times of ease and not challenge yourself, then that’s going to make the times, very difficult times, way harder for you. To me, that’s sort of, as I’ve matured, I’ve kind of gotten to this place where I’m like I don’t like working out. People are always like, you don’t? And I’m like, I can’t remember the last time I literally was like “can’t wait to get to the gym.” I’m like, no, I hate it, man. I mean, I life it after. I’ve gotten addicted to the idea of doing something that I hate. That’s what I like. I like that I can do something I don’t like.
Chase: [51:14] Isn’t that a thought? Just think about that, ponder that.
Jade: [51:19] It’s weird.
Chase: [51:20] We are weird human beings.
Jade: [51:21] It really is. It’s just strange, man.
Chase: [51:24] It’s so bizarre. All of these things have to be kind of the encompassing body of next level human. I know we’ve kind of talked about it, and I love this dual interview style; but I do think – sometimes I’ve forgotten at least, to circle back to really accurately describe you and what it is you’re here to do. I got to know you through, really, the fitness and nutrition, the get your heck in check, and the Metabolic Effect, and all this stuff. But, you have grown personally, professionally, and so, share with us please, for my audience, what is this next level human truly all about, outside of what maybe we’ve already described?
Jade: [51:59] Yeah, I mean, honestly, it’s a lot of what we already talked about; but just to sum it up for you, as Chase said, I started in the metabolism world. But the truth is, I really started in the personal development world. I’ve been doing this work since, well, I started personal training when I was 15, which I know is weird, but I started very early, writing programs for people on my football team. Then, 18, I read my first book on self-development after I went through my first breakup. Now, fast forward to where this conversation today, and ultimately, all that experience – and it goes to what you were saying – all the heartache, all the experience, and I’ve lived a charmed life, man. My whole family is still together, but we have our own wounds, and we all-
Chase: [52:41] Wait, you’re human?
Jade: [52:42] Yeah, exactly. That’s the whole thing, and I think that’s a good message for everyone listening to hear. It’s like, it’s not comparing wounds; it’s just the idea that we all do have our own form of suffering. Next Level Human is this idea above and beyond everything else. It’s the idea that I, as a human, have one guarantee, and that guarantee is that I am going to suffer. Life is not going to be everything I want it to be. I will lose, I will hurt, I will get sick, I will have my heart broken, I lose my loved ones, I will die. This is the idea. We will suffer – this is very Buddhist, by the way. I’m very much into philosophy, and this is a very Buddhist philosophy. They say life is dukkha, which means life is suffering. And the acknowledgement of that is kind of scary at first, until you go, but suffering actually can be a source to great beauty, and learning, and growth.
Chase: [53:45] Like Viktor Frankl.
Jade: [53:47] He’s the typical example of that. Viktor Frankl’s book, The Man’s Search for Meaning, is exactly what I’m speaking of, and it speaks to this deep wisdom of the Buddhists in a sense. To me it’s this: pain is the path to growth; suffering is the source to purpose, in a sense. Next Level Human is about just saying-
Chase: [54:08] Pain is the path; suffering is the source. I’m sorry, I wanted to say that again. Pain is the path; suffering is the source. Wow.
Jade: [54:15] I think once you see that, you go, the source and the path to what? Well, the source and the path to deep purpose of why I’m even here. To me – I tell this story a lot, but I’ll tell this – but this is the idea of the next level human. In the 80s – I’m a child of the 80s – and in the 80s, there was this case, when I grew up, we would sit there and have our breakfast cereal and look at these cartons of milk; and on these cartons of milk, there’d be faces of children, and these children would be missing children. So, you’d sit there and look at them. That story, I found out years later, was either a father or a mother, I think they were single, I don’t know, but a family lost their kid, was kidnapped, raped and murdered – this little boy – and essentially, they never found the kid until years and years later. Now, that’s the most horrifying experience you have can have as a parent. This woman or man or couple made it there – they took that pain and made it a path. They took that suffering and made it a source to help other parents not lose their kids. The whole mission was – now imagine you and me – we’re entrepreneurs, so we know, like let’s go back and think about what this would entail. You have to go to the dairy council and say, you have to go the state legislators-
Chase: [55:30] The logistics of [inaudible]
Jade: [55:33] You have to have a monumental – and this is the time that social media wasn’t around – you have to like, to get all the milk cartons across the nation to have pictures of missing kids on them is a monumental thing.
Chase: [55:49] An act of God, basically.
Jade: [55:50] Pretty much. And thousands and thousands of children were saved as a result of that. That’s what I mean. If we can, as humans – this is what a next level human is – a next level human goes I’m not an island unto myself and if I want to make a difference and matter in the world, it’s not about me anymore. So, how can I use my suffering and pain – not to get attention, not to wound shop, not to say hey everybody, look at me – but to go, I have a unique set of superpowers, and a unique set of suffering that make me uniquely suited to solve this problem. And I’m going to go do it, without need for acknowledgement and recognition, simply because I’m taking on that job I choose. I choose to grow, and I choose to grow Team Human. That is what next level human is.
Chase: [56:39] I love that, and actually, this reminds me – anyone in my audience will know me for this – big stoic philosophy; you know, Daily Stoic.
Jade: [56:45] Absolutely.
Chase: [56:46] And this is so timely, again. I think it was yesterday or two days ago, the passage was all about this. You know, why are we doing things… basically checking yourself to do things, not for outside approval, but just because it needs to be done. Oh man, I’m going to fall on my own [inaudible]. Where was this? If I can find it, I’ll link it down in the show notes or something.
Jade: [57:10] While you’re looking at it, I’ll say this about stoicism. To me, stoicism is one of these things that - again, for those of you that aren’t familiar with the stoic philosophy – it is very much in alignment with this idea that, you know, life is… everything is on loan.
Chase: [57:26] Yes, yes.
Jade: [57:27] You’re not going to – you don’t get guarantees. And suffering is - also in stoic philosophy and Buddhist philosophy – it’s sort of guaranteed you’re going to suffer. So, if everything’s on loan and you’re going to suffer, now you get to decide what you’re going to do with that. My way of thinking is if you’re not here to help, then why the hell are you here? Just for yourself? I mean, really? Then, we don’t really need you here, bro. Like, you know what I mean? We don’t need you. What we need is next level humans. We don’t need egotistical people trying to take over and push people down.
Chase: [57:57] I’ve talked about this recently, actually. I think I did a YouTube video about it or something. It’s really… again, speaking of dichotomies, that’s the dichotomy I think that we’re in with, really, with what we’re doing. Social media, and making these platforms, it is so possible for people to literally create their own world; live in it, thrive in it, and create whatever identity they want – and – be successful. Get their name, their message out there in front of hundreds of thousands of millions of people, live their own life. Then, when they actually have to connect with another human being, or support somebody else, or just do anything outside of themselves, it is so much not a habit anymore. It’s completely changing their identity. And it’s a really, really scary place where I see a lot of people going. Yeah, you’re great, you’re successful, you’re doing well, but what are you doing to help other people?
Jade: [58:54] Like, think about it this way. Would you want to be remembered – two ways I can remember Chase – I can be like, oh, he’s an attractive dude, he had a nice car, and, you know, he did x, y, z. You know, he won this award. Or I could be like, I love that dude, man, because he inspired me to be better and it fundamentally changed my life in some meaningful way, and then I helped someone else as a result of that. I guarantee you, when we’re on our deathbed and we’re thinking about the difference we made, no one is going to – and we’re not going to celebrate oh, I once had this Mustang convertible or this bunch of money in my bank – the things we’re going to remember and the things that people are going to celebrate about us is how we impacted other people in the world, how we actually made a difference for them, not for us.
Chase: [59:39] How they made us feel, how we made them feel. Was it Maya Angelou? I think it was her. The quote is, people will forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. Something like that.
Jade: [59:50] Absolutely. I think it speaks exactly to that, and more importantly, how you helped them impact other people and made them feel. It really is that feed forward sort of thing. That, to me, is Ever Forward, why I relate to it. It’s also Next Level Human. It’s about how are we pushing the world to be better. And the only way we do that, by the way, like right now, we’re sitting here, we’re talking, and we’ve got Donald Trump as our President, the Amazon forest is burning, we’ve got all these things, so we can all get up in arms, and start yelling and screaming about politics, and all this kind of stuff, or we just be like, you know what, I’m going to go out into the world, I’m going to be the best human that I can be, and be as kind as I can be – with boundaries, because that’s important, there comes a time that you do have to put your foot down so you have the energy – but that’s what I’m going to do. By doing that, hopefully Chase will do that; and by Chase doing that, hopefully his people will do that; and by that person doing that, hopefully all of a sudden, now we just have a really good people in the world. By the way, this is how it has always happened, and we’re always going to have, potentially, a couple steps backwards as we move forwards because-
Chase: [01:00:58] We’re human.
Jade: [01:00:59] We’re human, and ultimately, it’s like this – the base level types will try to pull us down. The culture level types want to keep us where we are; they don’t want anything to change. And the next level types are trying to move us forward. My whole thing is I want to be the next level type. I do want to move us forward, but we need – we do need the culture level types because going too forward, right, that’s our safety net. They’re like, well, that might be a problem; and the base level types, they remind us of the history and the way it went bad.
Chase: [01:01:29] How far we’ve come.
Jade: [01:01:30] How far we’ve come.
Chase: [01:01:31] What we need to not do again, absolutely.
Jade: [01:01:32] But ask yourself, where do you want to be on that thing? I know for me and I know you, because we know each other. You want to be in that next level place. You want to be out there leading. Everyone gets to do that. It’s not about like, who cares whether you got a podcast, money, or whatever. It’s literally how do you show up today when you go home and kiss your wife or your husband, or talk to your children, or take care of your mom, or show up for your coworkers, or that kind of thing. That’s really what we’re talking about, and it makes all the difference in the world. I ask myself all the time when I go base level or I go culture level, I go, Jade, why are you so caught up on needing people to recognize you, and see you, and tell you you’re so great? Do it for someone else. And I try to go do it for someone else. Sometimes I’m successful, sometimes I’m not, but every time I make that choice, I just get better. Now, I’m like, more times than not, I don’t need acknowledgement and recognition. I don’t need Chase to tell me how wonderful I am anymore. Matter of fact, I’m more likely to tell him how wonderful he is.
Chase: [01:02:37] I’ll stop.
Jade: [01:02:40] Well, don’t stop completely, man! But that sums it up for my perspective.
Chase: [01:02:45] The external gratification – and I failed, I can’t find that quote on here; but if I do find it, I’ll make sure to put it down at least in my show notes – but it really talks about, like I said earlier, when my wife and I were kind of feeling like unnnggg, L.A.… why? Are we not hitting the mark on goals and stuff? And why do we feel distraught when we put something out there and maybe we don’t get as many likes or follows or reshares? That is a really, really hard process, I think, for people. Because at this point, let’s just call it what it is – we become desensitized to a lot of things; we become habitualized in other things, so just, you know, put something out and we get immediate gratification. Well, again, what’s the goal? Why did we come here? What’s the goal of this post? What’s the goal of this podcast? What’s the goal of whatever you’re doing? And it is to, hopefully, two-fold I think, to make yourself better. The work that you’re doing should provide you a sense of fulfillment, and just knowing that if it works for me, if it does provide sense of fulfillment for me, odds are at least one other person’s out there. And can I put that thing out there without seeing the like or the reshare – and it ain’t easy. That’s for damn sure, especially in this day and age, when your business can be really dependent upon shares and all this stuff. But just knowing that the decency of your work, the principles that you live by, or choosing to get better at and live by, is just out there. Then, being able to walk away from it, I truly believe that’s in alignment with being a next level human. And that’s how we live a life ever forward. That’s this beautiful harmony, I think, that your mission and mine, hopefully how it’s being perceived and received and applied by anybody listening, watching.
Jade: [01:04:30] Yeah, it’s a beautiful way to say it. I have one more thing to say that sort of sparked me on that, and then I think we’re good – but I think like, when you take that last sort of thing that you brought, where it’s like, we want to be liked, and we want to be seen, and then you hear, people listening hear the idea of like, well, you shouldn’t seek acknowledgement and that kind of stuff. It’s not that you shouldn’t want it; it’s human to want it. And it’s not that it’s not useful. That feedback is incredibly useful. In other words, if you’re getting likes and shares and stuff like that, it is an indication that you’re doing-
Chase: [01:05:11] You’re on the right track.
Jade: [01:05:12] You’re on the right track. However, the distinction is when the likes and the shares become the reason that you’re doing the thing in the first place, and they’re the only reason, that’s when you’re in trouble. From my perspective, I go, let’s cut ourselves some slack as humans. Yes, we want likes; yes, we want shares; and yes, we should put ourselves first, because us putting ourselves first bolsters our energy, allows us to be successful monetarily. That’s what allows us to give back. But, if that is the only reason we’re doing the thing that we’re doing, and it’s the only source of motivation, you will live a sad, depressed, tired, defunct life. It’s not what inspires. So yes, use it, but purpose should be the thing that you’re looking to create, and you create it. It’s not you don’t find it, you just decide right now. Like, you decided, you made a choice. This is what my life will be. And by the way, you have full permission to change it at some time. You and I were just talking, your career is taking a path that your purpose may slightly change in its trajectory, but you are now a very purposeful person. That is where we need to get to, and that needs to be, in my mind, the thing that is mostly driving us as humans. Then, the rest of it we just go, hey, I’m an ape, I have certain needs as a human, and I accept that; but as a next level human, as someone who’s moving ever forward, you have to go, this – I lead with purpose. I don’t lead with ‘look at me’. Or I don’t lead with ‘I want to win’. I lead with ‘I want to make a difference’.
Chase: [01:06:52] Absolutely, man. Well, Jade, it’s been awesome having you back on here.
Jade: [01:06:55] Same, brother. Thanks for being on mine too.
Chase: [01:06:56] Thank you so much for having me on as well. Next time, I won’t make it another year before we see each other, especially now that I’m on the same coast as you. When we met last time, I hadn’t moved here yet. It’s been right a year, like basically this coming week will be a year we’ve been here. And just… again, I can’t really complain. Life has been good. My wife’s killing it in school. She’s going crazy, but she’s keeping her head above water. And being here in the presence of other people, so many other like-minded people, has just been a blessing to me. So, thank you for just, your conversation, your time, and being a reminder that I am adherent and my purpose is being fulfilled.
Jade: [01:07:37] I mean, thank you back, man. This is what’s beautiful, it’s exactly what we talked about, like literally, you and me now get to learn from each other. I love your voice being in this space, and it helps me be better; so, thank you, my friend.
Chase: [01:07:49] Likewise. Well, for my show at least, we’ve asked you this before, I have one final question. I know we’ve talked a lot about it, but we all change, we all grow, so I’m curious what this question means to you now. How would you say that Jade Teta lives a life Ever Forward?
Jade: [01:08:02] I mean, for me, it literally – the one thing that I have done is - whenever I’m having pain, which I do, like I was just telling you I’m going through some romantic stuff now with someone I love… whenever I have that now, the way that I turn that into something, I go, let me see that I can soothe that in someone else. I just realized that one of the best ways I can soothe my own pain is looking to soothe that pain in others. That, to me, literally is sort of something that I do. That’s the more spiritual answer to your question. The other, more practical answer to your question is when I’m dealing with that kind of stuff, I also – like painful stuff, suffering – I literally move. To me, moving my brain, sometimes when it gets stuck, I move my body, and that gets me moving forward. I think that’s the other answer to your question. Whenever I feel stuck mentally, I can move myself physically and get myself unstuck. Those are the two ways that I do that, and actually, I’ll throw that to end – I want you to answer your own question.
Chase: [01:09:05] Oh, damn!
Jade: [01:09:06] What are you doing recently? Like, how are you – because, you know, it changes, right?
Chase: [01:09:10] Very true.
Jade: [01:09:11] I mean, you’re moving yourself forward by this podcast, but do you have any other insights that – practical stuff that you do?
Chase: [01:09:17] I’ll kinda stick with the theme of – I think I’ve touch a couple times on here – of really, in my backstory, how I got start, and as of late, just really going back to my own message… taking a dose of my own medicine. My wife would call it, “Stop complaining so much.” Living a life Ever Forward, moving forward, means just recognizing things, and trying to change them for the better. Stop just the knowing and start doing more. Yesterday, for example, I had a horrendous, disgusting experience with the hospital I went to to have my shoulder checked out. Physically I was in danger, my personal information was in danger, and I was just appalled, first, and shocked, literally; and then I was just complaining. I was bitching and moaning. Then, I funneled it down, and I shared my experience online, I shared it with my family, my friends, and then I followed up with action. I don’t want that to ever happen to me or anyone else ever again. On the way over here, actually, I had a phone call with the patient advocate center at the hospital, the VA Center here. It was unacceptable and no one should ever have to endure that. So, I’m really trying to pay more attention to the things that I… maybe I’m avoiding, even complaining about, and just really looking at, alright, is it just an inconvenience for me or is there something here really that I can come back to, try to challenge myself to grow, and hopefully make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Jade: [01:10:41] That’s an amazing thing, because that’s literally a mini example of the milk carton kids.
Chase: [01:10:46] Yeah!
Jade: [01:10:47] I love it, man. Thank you, homie.
Chase: [01:10:48] Absolutely. Boom.
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