All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins
Chase Jarvis
Lesson Info
10. All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins
Lessons
How to Find Your Purpose Through Grief and Loss with Tunde Oyeneyin
48:49 2What is the Meaning of Life? with Tony Nader
1:17:18 3Weirdness is the Key to Self Improvement with Marcus Buckingham
1:10:59 4How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell
41:57 5Talent is Bullsh*t with Steven Pressfield
1:06:26 6Finding Self When No One Is Looking with Jason Reynolds
59:50 7Does Cold Water Exposure Really Have Scientific Backing with Dr. Mark Harper
56:15 8Heal Your Past with Sheleana Aiyana
51:06How An Unconventional Path Got Nabil Ayers To President Of One Of The Most Influential Music Labels
1:04:12 10All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins
1:08:02 11Happiness is an Inside Job with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
1:19:58 12The Power of Regret with Daniel Pink
49:35 13Data-Driven Life Decisions with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
1:01:26 14Escape Purgatory of the Mundane With Radical Confidence with Lisa Bilyeu
1:09:58 15Transform the Quality of Your Life with Tony Robbins
51:37 16Strengthen Your Intuition & Unlock Your Inner Wisdom with Amber Rae
1:00:13 17Make Your Message Heard with Victoria Wellman
1:13:34 18Susan Cain: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
1:09:31 19Can Food Turn Us Into Geniuses with Max Lugavere
1:21:16 20Peace Is a Practice with Morgan Harper Nichols
1:14:56 21Creativity Hates Complacency with Maria Brito
1:10:34 22A Love Letter to Human Potential with Kate Robinson
54:14 23How to Build Confidence and Be More Social with Vanessa Van Edwards
1:01:21 24Trauma Is Wreaking Havoc On Our Lives with Gabby Bernstein
51:59 25Take The Leap, Start a Business with Payal Kadakia
58:37 26What Every Creator Should Know About NFTs with Tom Bilyeu
1:05:47 2740 Seconds To Fame Or Failure with Apolo Ohno
45:52 28Unlock the Power of Nonverbal Communication with Joe Navarro
1:03:28 29Living Shouldn't Hurt with Aaron Alexander
1:20:24 30Ego, Disrupted. How Buddhist Wisdom Meets Western Therapy with Dr. Mark Epstein
1:11:55 31Words Can Take You Anywhere with Arianna Davis
53:00 32Master Your Inner Voice with Dr. Ethan Kross
1:06:21 33Accelerating 10,000 Hours to Mastery with James Altucher
1:09:49 34Transform Your Mind in 12 Minutes a Day with Dr. Amishi Jha
1:15:57 35Powerful Habits to Ease Anxiety and Boost Productivity with Mel Robbins
1:15:17 36The Art of Self-Reinvention with Malcolm Gladwell
1:00:45 37Creative Acts of Curious People with Sarah Stein Greenberg
1:10:01 38Self-Discovery, Activism, and Rock & Roll with Stevie Van Zandt
57:56 39Why Design Matters with Debbie Millman
1:07:04 40Discover Work that Makes You Come Alive with Jonathan Fields
1:15:34 41Releasing Trauma and Mastering Your Emotions with Jason Wilson
1:05:35 42Food Saved Me with Danielle Walker
47:16 43Changing Our Relationship with Rest with Chelsea Jackson Roberts
49:11 44Retracing Passion to Build Lasting Career Success with Chris Bosh
54:27 45Old School Photography + Other Musings with Kai Wong
41:52 46Escalate and Evolve: A Blueprint for Career and Life with Ben Uyeda
1:08:44 47The Stories That Hold Us Back with Jon Acuff
1:07:22 48Poetry, Vulnerability and Finding Your Voice with Jericho Brown
1:13:40 49What Does it Take to be Backable with Suneel Gupta
1:05:38 50Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success with Rebecca Minkoff
53:00 51How To Heal From Your Past with Dr. Nicole LePera
1:13:54 52That Will Never Work with Marc Randolph
1:12:06 53The Real Cost of Your Dream Life with Rachel Rodgers
1:02:44 54Your Network is Your Insurance Policy with Jordan Harbinger
1:24:15 55Dream First, Details Later with Ellen Bennett
1:14:45 56We're Never Going Back with Harley Finkelstein
1:01:47 57How to Shatter Limitations and Achieve Your Dreams with Steven Kotler
1:08:10 58The Creative Art of Attention with Julia Cameron
1:05:23 59The Path Back to True Self with Martha Beck
59:45 60Upgrade Your Brain and Learn Anything Quickly with Jim Kwik
1:21:22 61The Urgent Need for Stoicism with Ryan Holiday
1:11:30 62Delicious Food Doesn't Have to be Complicated with Julia Turshen
1:14:35 63Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention with Erin Meyer
56:27 64Stop Living On Autopilot with Antonio Neves
1:07:38 65How to Tackle Fear and Live Boldly with Luvvie Ajayi Jones
59:42 66Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable with Jamie Kern Lima
1:05:03 67Hard Work + The Evolution of Self with Priyanka Chopra Jonas
36:36 68The Power of Idealism with Samantha Power
1:34:35 69Pushing the Limits with Extreme Explorer Mike Horn
1:22:54 70Fast This Way with Dave Asprey
1:15:34 71Uncomfortable Conversations with Emmanuel Acho
45:59 72Why Conversation Matters with Rich Roll
1:24:17 73Elevating Humanity Through Business with John Mackey
1:15:14 74When Preparation Meets Opportunity with Paul Ninson
1:04:14 75The Art of Practice with Christoph Niemann
1:12:18 76Matthew McConaughey: Embracing Resistance & Catching Greenlights
1:19:38 77Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul with Justin Boreta
1:25:32 78Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results with James Clear
1:20:55 79Badass Habits and Making Them Stick with Jen Sincero
1:06:12 80Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
1:09:18 81Imposter Syndrome, Getting Unstuck and The Practice with Seth Godin
1:13:19 82The Art of Curiosity and Lifelong Wisdom with Chip Conley
58:47 83The Lost Art of Breath with James Nestor
1:03:15 84The Art of Reinvention with Sophia Amoruso
1:03:59 85Harness Kindness as Your Hidden Super Power with Adrienne Bankert
1:08:26 86Heal the Soul, Restore the Calm with Stephan Moccio
1:28:19 87Finding Resilience & Possibility with Guy Raz
1:08:47 88Truth, Fear, and How to do Better with Luvvie Ajayi Jones
1:18:22 89The Future is Faster Than You Think with Peter Diamandis
57:56 90Music, Writing, and Time For Change with Nabil Ayers
1:20:38 91Freedom to Express Who We Are with Shantell Martin
1:10:34 92So You Want to Talk about Race with Ijeoma Oluo
1:10:47 93Photographing History with Pete Souza
1:16:35 94Maybe You Should Talk to Someone with Lori Gottlieb
58:51 95Never Settle with Mario Armstrong
1:38:11 96The Science of Making Work Not Suck with Adam Grant
1:15:36 97Street Photography + Capturing Truth with Steve John Irby
1:10:54 98Life, Writing, and Real Talk with Roxane Gay
1:05:57 99Steve Aoki: Creativity, Community and No Days Off
50:57 100The Power of Passion and Perseverance with Angela Duckworth
1:08:25 101Know What Drives You with Michael Gervais
1:05:20 102The Code of the Extraordinary Mind with Vishen Lakhiani
59:07 103Risk, Fear, and the Art of Chill with Jimmy Chin
1:13:51 104Personal Growth and Understanding with Citizen Cope
1:16:21 105Living Life on Purpose with Jay Shetty
1:20:06 106Get Out of Your Own Way with Dave Hollis
1:08:10 107Hope in A Sea of Endless Calamity with Mark Manson
1:15:12 108How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle
1:10:16 109Make It Til You Make It with Owen Smith
1:20:50 110Surf, Survival, and Life on the Road with Ben Moon
1:08:01 111Create the Change You Seek with Jonah Berger
1:00:22 112Workplace Revolution with Amy Nelson
1:05:16 113Rethink Impossible with Colin O'Brady
1:29:31 114Good Enough is Never Good Enough with Corey Rich
1:25:24 115Say Yes To What You Want with Chris Burkard
1:22:54 116Finding Stillness In A Fast Paced World with Ryan Holiday
1:08:00 117Everything is Figureoutable with Marie Forleo
43:50 118The Art of Being Yourself with Elizabeth Gilbert
53:41 119Creativity, Comedy, and Never Settling with Nate Bargatze
1:37:12 120Personal + Career Reinvention with Jasmine Star
1:01:18 121Stay Creative, Focused and True to Yourself with Austin Kleon
1:12:25 122Ramit Sethi 'I Will Teach You To Be Rich' book launch with Chase Jarvis
1:07:17 123You Don't Need to Be Rich to Live Rich with David Bach
1:09:51 124Harnessing Your Human Nature for Success with Robert Greene
1:04:28 125Addiction, Reinvention, and Finding Ultra with Endurance Athlete Rich Roll
1:07:41 126Disruption, Reinvention, and Reimagining Silicon Valley with Arlan Hamilton
1:12:31 127The Intersection of Art and Service with Rainn Wilson
1:03:25 128Your Mind Can Transform Your Life with Tom Bilyeu
1:30:19 129Do Something Different with Jason Mesnick
1:02:38 130Less Phone, More Human with Dan Schawbel
1:07:40 131Startup to $15 Billion: Finding Your Life's Work with Shopify's Harley Finkelstein
1:12:42 132It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work with Jason Fried
1:49:02 133Love, Service, and Living Your Truth with Danielle LaPorte
1:11:05 134How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin
1:10:56 135Happiness Through Gratitude with AJ Jacobs
1:12:54 136You Are Your Habits with Julien Smith
1:03:40 137Maximizing Creativity + Navigating the Messy Middle with Scott Belsky
1:09:10 138The Most Important Conversation About Lifeā¦ Death with Michael Hebb
1:13:38 139Redemption and a Thirst for Change with Scott Harrison
54:58 140Imagination and The Power of Change with Beth Comstock
1:12:29 141Success, Community, and his cameo in Parks & Recreation with NBA All Star Detlef Schrempf
1:02:02 1421,000 Paths to Success with Jack Conte
1:07:32 143Unconventional Ways to Win with Rand Fishkin
1:37:49 144How to Sell Without Selling Out with Ryan Carson
1:05:45 145Be the Artist You Want to Work With with Nigel Barker
47:12 146Your Story Is Your Power with Elle Luna
1:33:53 147Celebrating Your Weirdness with Thomas Middleditch
1:14:04 148Persevering Through Failure with Melissa Arnot Reid
1:33:23 149Go Against the Grain with David Heinemeier Hansson
1:18:07 150Stamina, Tenacity and Craft with Eugene Mirman
1:17:15 151Create Work That Lasts with Todd Henry
1:06:50 152Make Fear Your Friend
08:08 153Tame Your Distracted Mind with Adam Gazzaley
1:12:08 154Why Grit, Persistence, and Hard Work Matter with Daymond John
1:05:15 155How to Launch Your Next Project with Product Hunts with Ryan Hoover
1:11:15 156Lessons in Business and Life with Richard Branson
45:05 157Embracing Your Messy Beautiful Life with Glennon Doyle
1:27:29 158How to Create Work That Lasts with Ryan Holiday
1:20:25 1595 Seconds to Change Your Life with Mel Robbins
1:14:53 160Break Through Anxiety and Stress Through Play with Charlie Hoehn
1:08:10 161The Quest For True Belonging with Brene Brown
1:29:41 162Real Artists Don't Starve with Jeff Goins
1:19:16 163Habits for Ultra-Productivity with Jessica Hische
56:18 164Using Constraints to Fuel Your Best Work Ever with Scott Belsky
1:21:07 165The Intersection of Art and Business with AirBnB's Joe Gebbia
1:19:56 166Build a World-Changing Business with Reid Hoffman
1:19:31 167How Design Drives The World's Best Companies with Robert Brunner
1:05:33 168Why Creativity Is The Key To Leadership with Sen. Cory Booker
53:06 169How To Change The Lives Of Millions with Scott Harrison
1:16:14 170How To Build A Media Juggernaut with Piera Gelardi
1:21:04 171Transform Your Consciousness with Jason Silva
1:08:02 172The Formula For Peak Performance with Steven Kotler
1:01:40 173How What You Buy Can Change The World with Leila Janah
1:04:10 174Overcoming Fear & Self-Doubt with W. Kamau Bell
47:44 175The Unfiltered Truth About Entrepreneurship with Adam Braun
1:21:36 176Build + Sustain A Career Doing What You Love with James Mercer of The Shins
51:58 177How Design Can Supercharge Your Business with Yves BĆ©har
33:40 178Conquer Fear & Self-Doubt with Amanda Crew
1:29:39 179Become A Master Communicator with Vanessa Van Edwards
1:19:52 180How iJustine Built Her Digital Empire with iJustine
1:08:05 181How To Be A World-Class Creative Pro with Joe McNally
1:05:19 182How To Stop Waiting And Start Doing with Roman Mars
43:43 183Gut, Head + Heart Alignment with Scott Dadich
38:17 184If Not Now, When? with Debbie Millman
55:31Lesson Info
All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins
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? Or what if I told you that you by simply tweaking a couple of other areas of your life, you could have more time to pursue it, 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. 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, and this epi...
sode, 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. So, I'm gonna get outta the way and let you enjoy this episode, yours truly and Chris Hutchins. (Energetic music) (congregation applauding) Hey, love you. Chris, my man, thanks so much for being on the show. I'm excited, we finally made it happen. Yeah, I'm excited, thanks for having me. 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. And then I will ask you after that for a cursory review of our short but interesting history together. And in fact, I was on your show, which is one of the things I wanna talk about building an amazing podcast, but we'll take the second part, second. I wanna start with the first part first, which is orient us around you and your world. Yeah, so, you know, you probably, everyone listening has one of those friends, that's kind of crazy and has a spreadsheet for everything. And that's definitely me, and I've just applied that like kind of level of diligence and optimization to every aspect of my life. And 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. And I like to do it from a lens of spending less saving more because I don't know, I think there's so many ways that you can live that, you know what I'll call the high life, but without having to spend $3,000 a night to stay in some ridiculous over water bungalow, like you could do that for free, if you want. You could fly across the world in business class for free if you want. So, I always tell people, I'm not trying to optimize my way to a $10 a night stay at the Motel 8. Like I wanna say the four seasons, I just don't wanna pay for it. (laughing) I love it. Confession, so I'm in the process of working another book and 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. And I was reading a section from "The 4-Hour Workweek" our mutual buddy, Tim Ferris. And there's a line in there, like, the goal is not to necessarily be a millionaire because that's gonna take you end number of days, months, years to do it. But what if you could start living like one tomorrow. Yeah. How would that affect your deal? And when I recount my both experience on your show and the episodes that I've enjoyed, that is I think when I'm thinking of the word hack, you know, 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. I don't wanna, you know, I don't the Motel 8 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, 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 sort of meta orientation that you have, that is a thing that you want to share. That that actually is your art, because I know if I'm gonna 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, you had a gun to my head. I can't actually say what my thing is, or what like. So, how did you recognize that this sort of meta skill, like learning how to optimize things across a 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. I wish that realization process was faster and easier. And in hindsight it always looks so obvious, right? If you ask anyone, you know, ask our mutual friend, Kevin Rose, he's like Chris was gonna do this. He knew this like a decade ago, but for some reason it just took a long time and it wasn't 'cause I didn't try, right? If you go look on, I had a medium blog and I wrote a post about credit card points and getting a Peloton, like a 80% off a Peloton. And that was like 10, eight, nine years ago, maybe. So, 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, didn't love it. You know, I'd had a newsletter that I sent when I was doing another project, but it didn't feel right at the time. And then finally someone was like, you just gotta do a podcast. And so I was like, okay, well I can buy a microphone that's not hard. And I got some really good advice that you only have to make it a season. Like you can try a podcast, do six episodes and call it quits. And I was like, okay, so season one, let's just record six episodes. If no one likes it, you know, I didn't quit my job over it. And I was like, oh, I found the channel. And like people just started coming and people were really excited. And I think a slight accelerant that maybe, I can't decide whether this is true or storytelling, you know like history is sometimes made up in your own mind. But I get a lot of energy being around people. I'm definitely like energy from others extrovert. And I would always go to dinners and I would be like, oh my gosh, you gotta here's this way to do this thing. That's so much better and so much cheaper. And people would be like, tell me about it, send me links. Like, you know, it just always happened, during COVID there were none of those. And I was like missing out on that, being able to share the cool thing. And so during COVID we had a baby, a baby forces you to figure out optimizing your life and your time, baby costs money. So, like there were all these things happening that I was diving into so much research to figure out, and I had no channel to share them. Like I built a probably like 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 joined the moms groups and I was like, here's my stroller spreadsheet in case anyone wants it. And I just got a lot of validation from putting stuff out there. And then I was like, what's the right channel? And I was like, every time I go on a podcast as a guest, I love it, I like share things, I get good feedback. Let's just flip it around and do it the other way. So, I 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? And for me, I didn't know what it was. And then it almost like clicked when I recorded a few episodes and I never even released it as a series because after putting one out there and any, even before it was out there, I was like, this is it. I gotta keep doing this. Because for me interviews, aren't a way to get information just to the people listening. They're in a way for me to get the information. Like I want, the people I interview like you, I was like, I wanna unlock more creativity in my life. I want to hear this. And I'm just sharing my journey to optimize and upgrade every aspect of life with the people listening. And 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. I think there's a gem in there which if I could clip it out and sort of paste it on the headline of today, it's that you didn't realize you had a vague idea and it wasn't clear until you actually started doing it. You know, I think that is a huge thing that most people try and think their way out of a pickle or conundrum or, and in fact I do not have experiences of, or they are 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. And you talked about being energy or energetic. So- Yeah. I absolutely 100% concur. And 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 like now, like what are we supposed to be doing now? What's engaging to us? What's inspiring us? And maybe stalled out in our job or our relationship or whatever. And we need to do a thing. And the actions like, you have to do do the verb in order to be the noun, right? Yeah. You're not a podcaster, unless you podcast, you're not an artist, unless you art, you're not an entrepreneur unless you build a business, so. Yeah, and I would say ask the people around you because sometimes it's easier for someone else to say, Hey, you say, Hey to your wife, to your husband, to your kids, to your parents, to your friends. What's the thing that when I talk about, I just light up and everyone else knows it, right? Like everyone knew that I was gonna be, it's like, everyone told me, oh, you should do this, you should do this. And I didn't know, but if I just did what my friends and my family were like, that's your thing, find a way to make it work. That's a hack, is just asking others what lights you up because sometimes you don't realize it. And then the other, I interviewed a guy named Dan Pink, who just recently wrote a book about regret. And he said, you know, he researched tens of thousands of regrets from so many people. And they came into four categories and go listen to the podcast if you want to all the details, but one of the top four regrets, and really they all fell into four categories, was a regret of boldness? Which is people regret not taking that chance, not doing that thing that kind of felt scary. And if you don't want that, you could just do it. You don't have to quit your job to start a podcast. You don't have to leave your family to go learn how to do a new hobby. Like you could do these things on the side until you realize that maybe they're more than that. So, yeah, I'd say, ask people what to do, ask people what lights you up and then just try it. And it's sometimes scary to go record something of your voice and go put it on the internet for a million people to hear. But guess what? One of two things happens. A lot of people listen to it or no one listens to it. And if no one listens to it, who cares? Like what's embarrassing about releasing something no one saw? If lots of people listen to it, that's fantastic. Like you validate it, that it is something people are interested in, so- Like if you feel that, wow, that was kind of fun and exciting and interesting something I'd like to do again, that sort of internal realization. It's fascinating to me that we're talking about this, like it's normal. And yet people have been discovering things about themselves all the time. And yet here we are in modern times, we have the internet at our fingertips, these devices that are crazy powerful, the ability to distribute our voice across the internet for free or cheap and yet so many people are still paralyzed. And I'm speaking about this, I'm not immune from this either. I have been in that position at a number of different times. So, before we move on as a closure to our opening salvo here, do you recall our first encounter together, yours in mind? I do, I don't remember when, but let's call it a decade ago in the CreativeLive studios. I think in Potrero Hill, in San Francisco. I think Kevin Rose, who at the time, he and I, and a few other people were running a small startup. And I think he was maybe coming on a show with you, or we were just coming to hang out, but I believe that was our first meeting. I don't know if you remember differently. Yeah, no, I do. And it was, Kevin was also an investor 'cause he was at Google ventures at that time. Okay, so we met then. So, I'm slightly off. It was right, it was around after milk, the startup. Yeah, Kevin and I were both investors at Google ventures and I guess we invested and visited you, but it was about 10 years ago, so. Yeah, it was a long time ago. I also have a memory, a strong memory of you dabbling in finance, in FinTech. Talk to me about that. Yeah, so, you know, it's funny when I started a company called Grove and it was all about trying to make the mess of financial planning easier for most people. So, I left Google ventures, we raised some money, we started this company. And the idea was everyone is stressed out about money, right? It's the number one cause of stress, the number one cause of divorce. What if we could help people go through a process to relieve some of that stress? And there's an actual process, like called financial planning, and there are certified financial planners and there are things you do to take an inventory of your assets and your liabilities and your income and go through this process. And what I found was that when people go through that process, they come out the other end with a whole lot less stress about money. Whether you have a lot or a little, it kind of works for both. And you would be wildly surprised at how many people with a lot of money are still stressed out about it because they don't know that they have enough, even if they do. And so the goal was to take that process and systematize it with software. The unfortunate reality is that people don't prioritize their money. And so we learned this thing that I thought was the best learning ever. And we raised another round of financing for the company because of it. And it turns out it was an early indicator of why the business wasn't gonna work. But we had a wait list, because we had humans involved in the process and we put this product out in the world, we said, you can't sign up, but if you wanna hold your spot, give us $ And hundreds and hundreds of people gave us $ And then when we were ready to let them in, they were like, no, I'm not ready to get started. And we were like, okay, we can refund you the $100. And like, no, I don't wanna give back the $100. I wanna do this, just not now. And what we learned was no matter how many emails we sent, they were always willing to keep their a $ on the line "cause they knew it was important and they were never willing to get started. And so ultimately the learning was that financial planning in any mass scale is something that people are gonna do on their own time. You're not gonna be able to grow that exponentially, but maybe if you could offer a product in the world that people could use, which was much lower friction and easier to get started, you could start to offer financial products and services and help people kind of slowly work their way into the process of financial planning. And so we joined a company called Wealth Front, and Wealth Front's helping people build wealth through investing. And when you use the product, you can save cash, you can invest money, you can link external accounts and we slowly let you through our software, figure out, how to better enrich your life. How much home can I afford? What happens if I send my kids to this college? And we didn't try to make people go through the entire process upfront. And so it was an unfortunate, outcome for the company and that we didn't, you know, everyone starts a company to go build something huge, but we ended up building something great and landing at Wealth Front. And it's been an awesome experience there getting to build the same kind of experience at more scale. And I thought to loop back and close the door on our first conversation, when I started Grove, I was like, I love personal finance. I love people helping people with money, let's start a company that's me. And a lot of my investors have since said, wow, when you started Grove, I was like, this is Chris as a company. Now that you're running this podcast, "All the Hacks," I'm like, that's actually, like they, it was like a proxy for Chris as a company. 'Cause I loved financial things and optimization, but it wasn't at its core, the thing that I think I'm best and known for, and now I'm finally doing that, and I didn't even realize it then, but ultimately I just wanna help people not be stressed out about money, but also not have to make rakes out of sticks in their backyard and eat rice and beans. Like there's a way to find a balance. And I feel like there are a lot of tricks and tactics and hacks out there to help you do it more efficiently. I think that is also true. And I'm sure that if I could see just an immediate, like a Zoom call with 111,612 people who are watching this episode are listening to it. There's a lot of head nodding going on right now because this idea that you think you have the thing, and it's just this peeling of an onion and you went from, you know, your early iterations at Google Ventures, then to Grove and now to the show, "All the Hacks" and each one is more authentic, more in connection with who you are, what you want. It's not always linear. We don't we're always going the right direction. But I know having known you for a long time and to just to have seen you on the current trajectory you're on with the show and whatnot, I think it's fascinating. And it gives, I hope if you're listening, you have hope wherever you are on your own journey that this peeling of the onion is the way it works. And you can only connect the dots really looking backwards, right? Yeah, people always ask, oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead. Keep, dive in. People always ask me why I care about optimizing and why I'm so, you know, some people say cheap. I like to think of it as more like frugal and value-oriented. And it took me 10 years to figure out like what at my core made me this way? Maybe it took me 20 years. And it's something that you just can't figure out. Like you just have to figure out over time. And ultimately I was never happy in a job. You know, that sounds so pessimistic. It's not that I wasn't happy, but I never found a job that I was like, I could do this my whole life. Like this is my calling. And I was like, if this isn't my calling, I can't do it forever. If I can't do it forever, I have no income forever. And so if I have no income forever, I don't have money. So, I have to save everything I have. And I slowly over time, I realized that I tried one job, I didn't love it. I tried investment banking, then management consulting, then freelance consulting. Then I went to one startup, another startup, Google, Venture Capital, running my own company, and through that series of events, I was either at companies that I knew I couldn't do forever to fulfill myself or I found a startup and I was like, this is it, I love doing this, but it didn't work. So, I was still on this quest to find what the thing is. And now I'm like, oh, the thing is that "All the Hacks," "All the Hacks" doesn't make enough money right now, to cover an entire lifestyle. It probably hopefully will one day, but I at least understand why I am so kind of default saver. And it's because I've never felt like I could make money on my own and be happy. But I wish I knew. I wish that was obvious to me earlier because it just would've unlocked a whole lot of answers to questions I was so confused about, but sometimes you just gotta learn by waiting and letting the pieces all fall together. You highlighted in that sort of recap there a number of different, your personal vector around say personal finance, whether it's saving, but I wanna zoom out maybe one click further just to this, the concept of "All the Hacks," because obviously you cover a lot of ground on your show and in life and that you've made a show and I would argue you've made maybe most or part of a living and certainly your life around this concept of optimization. And the idea of optimizing personal finance is, that's easily understood, right? We want to be able to save effectively and efficiently and have automated systems. And, but what I was fascinated by in, first when you shared with me that you'd launched the show, I'm like, oh, I wanna see where he goes with this. Where you've gone has been very wide ranging. Very, I mean, from having me on your show and sort of optimizing your life through creating the life of your dreams, right? That's the optimization of your life is being able to create the one that you want. And that's not a passive process, that's an active process. So, from personal finance to say lifestyle design to obviously you also alluded earlier in our conversation already about points and miles and just touch on a couple of areas that are what you would say, areas where you personally find a lot of value and where your audience is the most engaged. I think we've named a couple of those areas. Yep. And you know, maybe name an outlier as well. And then I'll want to dive into a couple of those. So, sort of most popular things, that's going to be relevant to a majority of our audience and then maybe an outlier and then I'll go deep. Yeah, so it's interesting. I just ran a survey with my listeners and said of these 20 topics, like, what do you love? What do you hate? What do you wanna hear more of? And I wasn't that surprised. Like personal finance, credit cards, travel, is kind of like the core of the optimization because it's one of the highest kind of variable expenses, your lifestyle, your travel. And so a vacation can be not having enough disposable income is to take the vacation or not. So, being able to optimize that, lets people live this life that they wanna live, that costs a lot of money for free. But you know, I find that on the internet, there are sites like the points guy, where someone who wants to go a 10 miles deep on points and credit cards can go and there's other sites for every topic. And so some of the topics we've done, I had Johannes Mallow, who, I don't think anyone listening to this maybe has heard of, but he's a two-time World Memory Champion. Like this kind of stuff he can do with his mind blows, it's like less than, and under five minutes he's memorizing a deck or two of cards. Like he's just learned tactics to unlock your memory in ways that aren't just about memorizing cards, but memorizing people who you meet and their names and their faces and that kind of stuff. And so I didn't want to be a place where you could go all the way down one rabbit hole. There are a lot of places that are really good for that, for every topic. If you wanna learn memory, I bet there's a forum, you could go deep on Reddit or somewhere. I wanted to be across all the areas. How can you learn how to get the 80,20, like the Pareto principle of all of these, and apply them to your life. So, aside from the travel, the money, the investing, the credit card stuff, we talked about negotiating. So, we had the Director of the American Negotiation Institute to talk about like negotiating tactics. If you wanna go for a really edge case one, Logan Ury is the Director of Relationship Science at Hinge, the dating app. So, like I'm not even, I've been married for over a decade, but I was fascinated to understand what has she learned about the science of dating, which applies to relationships also, like how does that apply to your life? I've gone deep on all these like kind of strange topics, sports related, Kerri Walsh Jennings you know, three-time Gold Medal Olympic volleyball player. I was like, how, like, you know, like that is, you know, I wanted to ask both the crazy questions, the fun questions, the learning questions. I always kind of tie it a little bit back to my core passion of kind of travel. It's I'm like, look, you've traveled to, she's been to like tournaments all over the world. You've racked up a lot of miles. Like how does Kerri fly around the world? Like you're upgrading, right? You're not sitting in the back. So, there's a fun kind of travel and money angle to a lot of the conversations, but sometimes there's not. And so I think that's kind of at a little bit of a range of what we've talked to people about. Yeah. And I'm looking for people in lots of walks of life, because I keep finding, oh my gosh, you're someone Laura Vanderkam is written six books about time management and productivity. I have a child and another one on the way, like time is dwindling by the day. So, help me figure that out. So, I think that's a little bit of an overview, but there's probably 20 other topics that we didn't mention that we've (indistinct) on with someone's. No other like, comparative say lenses, you know, Guy Raz, like how I built this. It's very, like, you're basically understanding the people who have optimized different areas of their life. And I do wanna get back to sort of personal finance travel. Yeah, I'd say credit card miles points. I do have a couple specific questions I wanna say to the end, but as we're sort of pulling on this thread, I wanna go back to right before we started recording, we started down a topic and I was like, stop. I don't wanna talk about, I wanna record it. And I guess you could put it under sort of just personal health and wellness. I was complaining about how cold I was, and 'cause I had, it was 19 degrees this morning when I woke up in Seattle, which means it was probably got down to about 16, which is extremely cold by Seattle centers. And I mentioned that my cold plunge was frozen. So, I had to literally break ice this morning with a hammer, not talking like I just pushed on it or you know, I had to hit it with a hammer to get into my bucket of cold water that I do every night. And then you pose the question. These are personal problems here that we're gonna get into. You pose the question, hey, Chase with your hot tub, do you take care of it or do you hire someone to take care of it? Now, this on the surface may seem like a petty and simple exploration, but I think there's something one layer deeper here, which is you are finding the hacks in how to optimize this. You're asking me this question, I'm just paying the bill. I'm paying the man to come by and clean my pool, my hot tub every week. And it's not expensive, but it's work that I am either not good at, or do not have an interest in and I choose to separate that. So, I'm wondering if we'll take on this particular issue. You know what I do, and what I wanna know is what do you do with your hot tub and why is it the same frugality that you mentioned that you don't wanna pay a person I don't know, say 75 bucks a visit to show up at your house, clean the hot tub, put the chemicals in it or a pool or whatever your cold plunge, whatever thing it is. What part of that I wanna understand, I want you to tell me this story about yourself and the psychology behind it. Yeah, so I asked the question because we moved into a new place and it had a hot tub, and I know lots of people that have had to hot tubs. You know, you've been to hot tubs before. And at one point in time, we got, I know that you're supposed to balance the level. So, you know, I get the little sticks out. I put in the pH up and down and the alkalinity and the chlorine and all this stuff. But I'm like, gosh, this is a lot of work. Like it never crossed my mind that to own a hot tub is every single week you're balancing all of these chemicals. And I don't know about you, but I'm not in the hot tub every week. Like for us, it wasn't something that we were like, we are hot tub people, we want to use this three nights a week. So, I just crossed my mind, I'm like, gosh, you're supposed to drain and refill the hot tub three times a year. I was just like, is the maintenance of owning a hot tub even worth it for us? Yeah. And then I was like, oh, did maybe you could just have a hot tub guy. And I don't mean this as a man versus woman thing, but I've gone down this conversation in podcast asks of once you move to a non-condo where you have, you know, you have a lawn guy, maybe you have a housekeeping guy, like got a hot tub guy. Like I'm just stacking up the guys I'm like, this is expensive. And so for me, I'm looking at each one and wondering what enjoyment do I get from doing this? You know, how much time does it take? There's an amount of time it takes someone to come to your home. So, if the hot tub takes 10 minutes or even one minute, let's say, all you have to do is come in and dump a chemical in. It's gonna cost a lot because someone has to drive there, even if they're only there for one minute. If the task takes a lot less time, or if it's like your neighbor's lawn guy, oh, well, to add me on, I should get a deal, 'cause you're already coming to my neighbor's house. Or, or maybe it's one and a half times for both our yards. Maybe I'll be nice. I'll split it with the neighbor. But I'm certainly shouldn't pay the same 'cause you don't even have travel time. It's kind of what goes on in my mind. But the hot tub guy, I was like, gosh, I just wanna know the process. I find myself regularly wanting to call these services and say, hey, what is a hot tub guy do? Like, what's the process and they're, well, we're gonna come, we're gonna do A, B, C, we're gonna do it once a week, and I was like, cool, that's all I needed, now I have my playbook. How much work is this actually? And I would pay, I would call if they just on their website said pay $5. And here's like the simple maintenance plan. That's not filled with affiliate links trying to get you to buy chemicals from different companies. I do it. But I put together the plan. And now the question is, is this work worth it or do we rip out the hot tub And I do put a sauna in there? I'm gonna find out maybe from you, I don't know, sir, do you need a sauna guy? And now I'm like back at square one, wondering what to do, but. Saunas are much easier to maintain than hot tubs for sure. Hot tubs. And I would say my cold plunge is actually the hardest to maintain although cold water gets funky, less easy than hot water. I try and leave that chemical free. So, it has to be changed more regularly. And I actually do most of the maintenance on the coal plunge because it doesn't have the same, it's, we didn't have enough equipment for two or a space for two sets of pool equipment. So, one is we got all the pool equipment and the other is a very basic version of it. So, I have to do a lot more work. But, and I can't say I like it, but I find that it is worth it. So, there are some things in life that there is pain associated with them, where that may be managing your finances or any end number of things that you have explored on your show. But I think that little, that exercise helped people understand a little bit of your psychology. Like I wanna know, and I wanna call the hot tub company. I wanna say, what do you do. And I wanna understand that and I can decide, well, now that I understand the playbook, do I wanna run playbook? Do I wanna pay somebody now? Am I in a better position to pay someone? Because I know something about it. So, now that we have an insight into your personal psychology and we can, if you have any further questions, my friend, Chris, about hot tubs and cold plunges, I'm happy to answer them at this point before we move on. So, I will lay this on your desk. Do you have any other questions about this my friend? I just want, how often do you use the hot tub? Every single day. Okay. Often twice. Wow. In the morning and in the evening. In the morning, I'm hot and cold and out. And in the evening I'm either hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, or just hot. And I do those two things. The morning thing wakes me up. I'm primarily interested in the cold part of it. I just use the hot tub in order to increase the contrast. Okay. Between 'cause if I get hotter, then my cold is colder. And then in the evening, I either am using the hot, cold contrast to move my lymph system. And for health reasons, like, you go to the spa, and get in the hot and the cold, you go back and forth or the Russian spa or whatever. Or I just get in hot to get really sleepy and then I sleep better. Yeah, I did find that the hot tub as a precursor to bed was very good. So, I just gotta get it back balanced, drain it again. I mean, to give a like a little bit more of the psychology is like hot tub. We turned it off for four months 'cause we were just not using it. And then the pump's not working. So, I call someone they're like, it's gonna cost $700 for a pump, 300 bucks to replace it. I go online, I just buy the pump for 300 bucks. I'm taking the, I'm like watching YouTube videos, taking the pump out, putting the pump in, fill it up. Oh, the heater's also out. Drain it again. Take the heater out, buy it for $100. Put the new heater in, put it together, fill it up, now we're good. And then I was like, Ugh, I forgot that when you drain a hot tub, you also need to like flush all the lines with like some kind of chemical to make sure all sorry, I gotta drain it again, flush all the line, I'm like sitting here, like now. You're an old man. Yes, I was like, this would be great in my retirement sitting in the backyard having a beer, but like we have a child, so, you know, there's not like that. That's not the weekend yet. But I do find, from an optimization standpoint, I do find that I can, like fixing, replacing a heater in a hot tub is an activity that takes a lot of time, but it doesn't take a lot of brain concentration. So, I just schedule that during a call, that I don't need to concentrate as much on maybe I'm listening to a meeting that need to consume the information, but not a participant or maybe I'm having a conversation with a friend I wanna catch up with. So, at least I'm trying to multitask the event with a different type of activity, right? Like I couldn't paint and replace a hot tub heater, but I could have a call with an old friend or a family member while I replace it. Just optimize like nobody's business. All right, so now we know how your brain works. We've seen some of the more popular shows and areas of interest and focus for you. I want to move specifically in there because I do think you have a shit-ton to add to people's awareness about, just credit cards. There's a relation between those credit cards and personal financing, good, bad, and in different cards. And there's also optimizing specifically points. I know you have been featured in a documentary where you earned more than 10 million points, which is totally bonkers unless you're buying companies for $10 million on your credit card. So, I wanna shift our attention now to that part of your show and I'll just say you, because I think it's a big part of it. So, let's start at the top. What is the most general advice that you can give folks who are interested in the personal finance universe and for whom are at least moderately inspired and consumed by the way that you approach life, your show and whatnot. Let's talk to those people specifically and give them some top down advice. Yeah, I'll give a few pre reqs first. So, one is, there's a few things that I think everyone should square away in their personal finances before they go down the rabbit hole. I'm about to kind of at least give a glimpse into. And one is, I feel like everyone should set aside. You pick the number, whether it's one, two, three, six months of kind of cash so that if something comes up, you don't have to borrow money. When you need to borrow money, and you aren't planning for it, you're gonna pay a lot, like interest rates on credit cards are high, personal loans are high. So, one is like set aside some money so that if you need it, car breaks down, medical bill, or something, you've gotta covered. And number two, is prioritize paying down any high interest debt. So, like it doesn't make sense to play the credit card points game if you can't pay off your bills because credit card interest is extremely high, and there are cards that have 0% interest, but those cards are not the cards that relate to the points game. So, I'm like step one, set aside an emergency funds, step two, pay off all your high interest debt. That doesn't mean, maybe low interest student loans, that doesn't mean your mortgage, but it does mean your credit card debt or medical debt or personal debt and that kind of stuff. So, now you're at this point, you're like, okay, I've done those two things. I think most people spend money, right? Like most people in their lives have to spend money. They have to buy groceries, they have to buy a plane ticket. They have to pay their rent. All of those things now, rent included, thanks to a company called Built. You can put on a credit card and you can earn points. I am also not a fan by the way of paying any fees to put something on a credit card. So, given the option of pay with your bank account or pay 2.9% to pay with your credit card, never a good deal. But for all the things we can put our credit cards on, as the payment method, there is an to get paid probably more than you're getting paid by using the right card. And that's one piece of it. And the other piece is, for some reason banks really love new customers and they are willing to pay extreme amounts to get you as a new customer. And so, for example, right now, when we're recording this, at least the Capital One Venture X card, you sign up for it. They're gonna give you 100,000 Capital One Points if you spend, I think it's $10,000 in six months, which if you're listening and you don't spend anywhere near that, probably not worth it. But if you do 100,000 Capital One miles, you can go anywhere in the world, literally anywhere in the world, and not pay for it. So, for me, the idea of maximizing this thing that lets you travel and explore the world for free, which doesn't really cost you anything is a no brainer. So, my whole life I've realized this, and realized that there are some kind of fun ways that you can accelerate it, right? I don't want to go spend $500,000 a year because I don't have $500,000 a year to spend. So, like I can't rack my points up that way. But when my friends were like, oh, let's go on this Bachelor Party, this person's getting married, I'm like, how about I manage the whole trip for you guys? And everyone's like, oh my gosh, nobody ever wants to do that. Nobody wants to be the person that books the hotels and the flights, and I'm like, I will gladly be that person. I'll book 10 flights on my credit card, I'll book the hotel or the Villa on my credit card. And everybody will send me a Venmo and I racked up the points for the whole trip. And so finding ways that I could take advantage of spending money, that wasn't mine, whether it was at work, when I was at Google, it's like, oh, I need a new monitor. I'm like, can I just buy that on my own card? Okay. Can I put the travel on my own card? Okay. Yeah, it's a little bit of extra work to go and submit my expenses than using like Google's corporate card. But every time I took a trip for work, I was using a card that earned three points, some five points on travel or hotels or airlines and just racking out points. And it wasn't that I spend so crazily, like a lot of it was this card's got 120,000 point signup bonus. Let's open it. You know, I might keep it open for a year. Maybe there's an annual fee, if it's not worth it, maybe towards the end of the year, I'll call and say, hey, this fee's a little high. I'm not sure if I can do it. And they'll say, oh, we'll wave it. Or, oh, if you downgrade it to this card it's free or they'll say nothing. And I'll say, unfortunately, I'm gonna cancel it. So, you know, I try to respect the system, right? Like I never wanna get blacklisted for a card sign up, get the bonus, cancel it the next day. But if banks wanna, the way it works is Capital One is saying, hey, we're gonna give you this huge thing, 'cause we think you'll love it so much that you'll stick around. If you don't and you just use those points to go on a free vacation. Like that's not the end of the world for them, that that's baked into their model. So, I think that travel's just an expense, that's really hard to get for free. Right, if you wanna get exercise for free, there's probably community gyms, you can go on a run. But if you're really excited to go see the pyramids in Egypt, like there's not like a free way to do that, that's just obvious. But there's like 20 airlines that fly to Cairo, and all of them have some award program. That's probably a transfer partner of Capital One or Amex or Chase. And so if you optimize it correctly, you're going to Cairo for free. And I guarantee you there's a Marriott or a Hyatt or a Hilton Hotel there that takes points. So, you could stay there for free. So, my love for travel and my lack of a belief that I have a way to make money, which is purely psychological. Like it, I've been able to consistently find jobs that pay me, but have forced me down this path of like, let's find a way to continue that passion without spending the money. For many of my friends who I think would align with your set of values around money and whether that's frugality, there's just also a certain curiosity and there's a joy of the game. How much of that is it true for you? I think the joy of the game dwindles over time. So, 10 years ago, I love the game. There are people out there that open up three or four credit cards every quarter, right? And they're like opening up. They're like every quarter, they're like, today's the day I'm gonna open up these cards. And you know, even if the bonus to open up a card is $100, they're like, I'm gonna do it, 'cause it's a system and every month I'm doing this and I'm racking all this up. For me, I think I'm like if there's enough bonuses that come that are really big, that I might open up a couple cards a year, but I've kind of lost the desire to go too deep down the rabbit hole, which is, I think what a lot of people like about "All the Hacks" is that I'm not trying to tell people the crazy version of it. It's like, what's the more manageable version? It's like here is a really great bonus right now. Also right now, if you go, I even put so two things, one, usually I try to keep updated a list of like what I think are the top cards in the top signup bonuses@allthehacks.com/cards. But like right now, I don't know if this'll be true when this comes out. So, definitely check it out. But at all, the hacks.com/southwest, here's a great hack. So, Southwest, has this amazing program called Companion Pass. And normally you have to earn, I think it's like 120 or 125,000 Southwest points in order to earn Companion Pass, which takes a lot of travel and a lot of spending. But once you're there any one you want, you can name any person, and whenever you buy a ticket or use your points for a ticket, they fly free. And by free, I mean I think domestically you pay $5.60 in taxes, internationally, it's maybe a little higher, but it's effectively free, right? You buy a $700 ticket to Hawaii, pay, couple dollars in taxes, they're coming free. You wanna take 50 trips a year, that's 50 free trips. Right now, as we're speaking today, if you sign up for any one of the three Consumers Southwest Cards and you spend five grand in the first three months, you get Companion Pass, until February 2023. So, a full year, of buy one, get one free on Southwest for putting $5,000 on a credit card, that's it. In three months, most people can probably put $5, on a credit card without having to stretch. And if not, there are plenty of fun hacks, like just go to the grocery store, buy some Amazon gift cards, buy some whole foods gift cards and use those over the next year instead of your credit card. So, you're not buying things you don't need. So, that's like another example of, you don't necessarily rack up the points, although you also get 30,000 points. They're giving away points and free buy one, get one free travel, but it's stuff like that where these rare opportunities and it turns out they're not actually as rare as you think pop up that that I'll jump on them. But you know, I'm not gonna jump on every card that offers any bonus because I think I'm at a point where I want something that's a little bit more manageable. So, I try to be like, hey, this really amazing thing is happening, check it out. But not, here's the thing this week. Here's the thing this week, here's the thing this week. And I think with not a lot of work, right? Maybe open one or two cards a year and maybe you just optimize your spending. If all your money's on groceries, get a card that earns on groceries. If all your money's on flights, get a card that's optimized for flights. I think if you just make a few tweaks, sign up for a couple cards, you're taking a vacation, like, a nice vacation every few years. And if you are lucky enough to be a business owner and have a lot of business expenses, maybe you're taking a baller vacation every six months. Like one of my listeners spends $1 million a year on his credit card for work. And I'm like, man, this dude is racking up. Like he's stay overwater bungalows, flying first class, as often as he wants. I know a founder of, maybe a mutual friend of ours, I don't know if you know this particular person, but he was running a startup that he sold for 600 million, high, $500 million. And it was an ad tech company and they had huge AWS bills as one might imagine. And he paid him on his personal credit card. Yeah. And the amount of miles that this cat, who's now a very rich doesn't need the miles, but it was unreal. So, I think that idea of if you're a business owner and you can afford to put those points on your, like that is a great way to immerse points. Now a venture backed companies, Amazon bills are, there is some risk there. So, I am not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. But I think that's an interesting example that just using a card for business that is, or that is oriented rather towards your area of passion, whether groceries or travel. So, let's explore the dark side of all this upside that we've been speaking about. So, cheerly recently the concept of opening multiple cards per quarter to someone like myself just sounds, it's almost like, I just almost gasp out loud. Like, oh my God, who does that? How is that possible? I mean, again, different passions, different areas of interest. But let's talk about the, like, what are some of the cautionary tales toward the hacks? If you will. Yeah, yeah. But there are a lot, right? Like credit card debt is probably a debilitating thing for tens of maybe even 100 million people in this country. So, I can't enough say like, if you can pay your credit cards off each month, that is your priority. Like that should be the priority. So, that's like the biggest one, right? The other big one is look, your credit score affects what rate you get when you buy a car. It affects the interest rate you get when you buy a home. There're jobs that sometimes look at your credit score to evaluate, just what kind of person you are financially. I know that some venture capital firms run credit reports on founders to figure out whether they owe dead and all this stuff. Your credit report is something that you want to keep in good shape. Opening up a credit card has a bunch of effects. Some of which are actually really positive to your credit score and some are negative. So, the biggest thing that your credit score looks at is your kind of total debt, to your total credit, right? They want to know if you are able to borrow $50,000 right now, are you borrowing 49,500 or are you borrowing 3000? And so if you have another credit card, it increases the denominator of total debt you can borrow and assuming you don't spend more, it actually makes it, appear to creditors like, oh, this person isn't borrowing every dollar they have available to them, so that helps. It hurts in that they wanna say, what is the average length of all of your credit lines? Well, if you open up 15 new credit cards today, and you only had one before, it's gonna be the average of that have opened up for one day and one that's maybe 10 years old. So, that's a tough one. The only thing I can say there is, the more things you open on earlier, the better you'll be later, but it's also a smaller factor of your credit. And then the last is you get a ding every time your credit's checked, at least for a lending purpose. Like if you open a bank account, they might check your credit, it's called like a soft pull, which doesn't affect your credit score. If you apply for a loan, they do what's called a hard pull, and that affects your credit score. And it stays on there for anywhere from one to two years. So, every time you open up that card, you're getting a three, four or five point ding on your credit score, which is often countered by the extra credit you're getting. So, I think if you were, I've never even been the person that opens up three or four credits a month. It's I feel like it would be gut wrenching, just as a process to manage. Like, which one do I have to cancel now? Where's the annual fee? How much do I have to spend to get the $300 bonus? It's just too much for me, but there's a whole Reddit thread, Reddit r/churning, where people are like churn through cards to optimize their life, go down that rabbit hole if you want. My version of the rabbit hole is open up cards when there's a massive bonus. Like there's a business card right now from Capital One that give you 300,000 miles. Like that's insane. Like, so, it's called the Capital One Spark. And I would say, shoot me a note on Twitter, Instagram, if you're actually listening and interested as a business owner, 'cause there may be another way to get 350,000 points, but you have to go through a channel that I'm happy to share. But like, that's crazy, if that applies to you, you should do that. Like, that's an awesome opportunity to get what I would consider thousands of dollars of value. So, I save my card opening for huge opportunities and then I'm only really adjusting what I'm doing regularly, if some new card comes out, if a new card came out tomorrow, that's like we do 10 points on dining. I'm like, okay, well I eat out. And right now I'm getting three or four points on dining. I would change my card usage for that card. Otherwise I'm like, I have more cards than most people, right? I probably have like 10 credit cards right now, but I probably regularly spend on three or four of them. And the rest, there are these cards that are like, the annual fee is $100 and they give you enough of a bonus each year of points that are worth $110. So, I'm like, I'm just gonna keep it open, helps the credit score. But you know, a core card that's like one or two or three is like enough for almost anyone. It's like, get the card that maximizes where you spend the money. Maybe that's a travel dining card and then get the card that's good for everything else. For me right now, Capital One Venture X, two points per dollar on everything, right? And then my Amex gold is four points per dollar on dining and groceries. And then I have another card, the Chase Reserve, that's three points on travel, and like that's it. Like hotels and flights go on one, or groceries and dining go on the other, and everything else goes on the third. And like, for me that works, for a lot of people, that's too much. Start with one. Like Capital One Venture X is great, two on everything, don't have to think. So, I have a lot of thoughts, but I don't think you have to go down the rabbit hole. I don't think you have to be like checking out every single launch. That's kind of like what I've infused in the show. It's not every week we're talking about cards 'cause there's just not enough news. Yeah, yeah. But when there's something crazy, I'll even, I think last week I did a Friday episode. It's like, there's just enough news going on today. We're gonna do a special episode just 'cause there's cool stuff happening. But I try not to overwhelm people with the depth of the rabbit hole, that many people on the internet go down. Well, I appreciate that about you and the show and like look at this is, the goal of providing all the hacks across a number of industries is that you don't like. If you get any number of these things and there's 10 shows and four books and eight Instagram handles that you would follow to do, you know any and all of these things at the highest level, you could optimize for. But you know what? I'm hoping that you're doing that work for me, so. Yeah, in the points of miles world last week, it was like this huge news that Qatar Air, is changing their miles program from their own to be the same, like joining the miles program that British airways uses. And I was just laughing, 'cause like it was the biggest news ever. And I was like to most people, this news doesn't matter. And like that is like that news was like the complete difference of what I'm trying to do, is like, I want to help people figure out this world, but I don't want to inundate them with news like this, that unless you're like planning on booking a trip using Qatar miles like next month, like, which is probably maybe one person that listens to my show if that, like it's not gonna matter. And so I'm like, here's the stuff you need to know. And by the way, if credit cards, aren't your thing. Like we talk about travel hacks. Like how do you get to grease on a paid ticket for half the cost or a third of the cost? It turns out there's like a very, I credit Scott Keyes from Scott's Cheap Flights for branding this the Greek Island trick. But when you're searching for flights online, a big pitfall is searching for the destination, if it's in a foreign country and it's not a major city, because you're only gonna find flights that go from where you start to where you finish. So, if you wanna go to Santorini, right? You're only gonna see. You do not search Santorini, you search a Athens. Exactly. Because if you look at Santorini, there's like 15 airlines that fly to Santorini, but not like maybe five of them fly to the United States or their partners do. So, there's these small, like I can't remember, Olympic Air might have been one of them. It's like if you search Santorini, you're never gonna, you're only gonna get like the Lifton's, the Air Frances of the world. But if you go to Athens, you might get a much cheaper flight because American might fly to Athens, but they don't fly to Santorini. And then you just buy the Olympic air flight to Santorini and you can cut the cost in a third. And that's true all over the world. Like if you wanna fly to Osaka, in Japan, like most carriers don't fly to Osaka from the U.S., buy your ticket to Tokyo and then buy a flight to Osaka. And so like tricks like that. The one that I think everyone here can benefit from, and I say this because it's the trick I've gotten the most emails back from listeners from, is when you book a hotel, do two things. Just everyone listening. The next time you book a hotel, that has nice rooms that you're not booking, right? If you're booking a regular room at Marriott, any hotel, book the hotel directly with the hotel's website, after you book it, email the hotel, if you can't find the hotel email, call up the hotel and ask for the email, and say, hey, I'm really excited to be staying with you guys on this upcoming trip for X, Y, Z, purpose. And then follow up three days before you come and say, hey, gonna be checking in in three days, super excited to stay with you. Really excited about X, Y, Z, it doesn't matter. I have had over 100 people email me with pictures or stories of their bottle of champagne, their upgraded room, their like, huge balcony. The craziest one was, I can't remember which hotel it was, stitched the initials of the couple on their pillows, like hand, I mean, maybe it was machine stitch, but their initials were sewn into their pillows and they didn't buy the upgraded room. They just sent an email to the hotel and it's probably like the best travel hack out there that most people have never heard. Wow. Any time it takes you to send an email. Yeah. And I could tell you that suites in hotels are not like 10% more than a regular room. There's sometimes like five times more and hotels make a lot of money on champagne. So, if you can get that for free by sending an email, and why not? The dark side of canceling credit cards. I've read that that's a thing. Yeah. And you don't want to cancel too many things. Yeah, so one dark, I mean, dark side sounds so scary, but when you cancel a card- That's why I'm trying to just fear and- Yeah, yeah. Brow beating there. That's our show. But there's two things. There's two things and there's a hack in there. So, one is when you cancel a card, the total amount of debt you have, or credit you have out there goes down because whatever the credit limit on that card was, is no longer accessible to. So, now your ratio of how much you spend each month, how much credit you have goes, that goes up. That's not good, so that's one thing. If it's a card you've had for a really long time and you cancel it, now your average history goes down. So, a thing that is very common is people who've never even thought about the points in miles world have their Bank of America, Basic Credit card that earns them one point per dollar on everything and can only be used in the Bank of America portal for buying gift cards or something. Like that kind of horrible card, or, I mean, it's better than a debit card, right? Like, so you go cancel that card, and that card has like 12 years or 15 years of history, which helps your credit score. So, I always say two things. One, don't cancel a card if the annual fee is zero, and it's adding value to your credit score, right? If you've had it for a really long time, it has a high credit limit, all those things, you don't have to cancel it. If it has no annual fee, a lot of cards, you can call Chase, Amex and say, hey, I want to downgrade this card. So, I had the Chase preferred card, which lots of kind of millennials had. And then they came out with the Chase Reserve and I was like, oh, that's even better, I want that one, but I didn't wanna cancel the preferred 'cause I'd had it for so long that I called and said, Hey, can I downgrade this? So, I downgrade it to the Chase Freedom Unlimited, no annual fee, great. So, now I keep the history and I don't lose the, I don't have to spend money to have a card I don't need. So, that's one. And then the other, and I've done this with Chase. I can't say for certain, whether it works anywhere else, but you can shuffle your credit around. So, if you have a card with a big limit and you don't want it, and there's no way to downgrade it, get rid of the annual fee. You can call, Chase and say, hey, I've got these two cards, one has a $30,000 limit, one has a $5,000 limit. Could I move the 30 to the other one? And you can't move it all. You have to leave like $1,000. So, it's like, now I'm gonna move 29,000 over here, I've got a $34,000 limit on one card and a $1,000 limit on the other card, now I'm gonna close that card. Because now it's gonna have a much smaller effect on your kind of debt to total credit ratio because you've moved the credit somewhere else, you've still kept it. So, the dark side is leaving a card open that you don't use that has a high annual fee, and you're just paying a fee for nothing. The dark side is you cancel a card that you've had forever and has a high credit limit, it has a big negative impact on your credit score. Downside is you open up for some signup bonus and you cancel the card, the second, the bonus hits and the bank flags you as like the person who's not even gonna give the card to try, right? There are a lot of people that have done this. You're not gonna get banned from Amex, if you open a card, get a bonus, use it for a year and then annual fee posts. And by the way, once it posts, you can cancel after it. You have like 30 days usually. They're less gonna treat you negatively there. But if it posts and the next day you cancel it, you don't wanna get blacklisted from a credit card company. So, there is some downfalls, but I think that you just have to go in eyes wide open and understand them. And you know, I'm a resource. If you're worried about any of these, just find me on Instagram, on Twitter on email and shoot me a message. Well, I do, I wanna sort of wrap up our episode. I went a little bit longer than I planned then reserve for our time today. So, I apologize to you here very publicly, my friend, but I do wanna steer sort of to that last point into the macro, like hacking things. There are a handful of episodes of the show that I think are worth steering attention to, this idea of beating inflation. Everyone's hearing in the news that there are money is, it's sitting in cash, is becoming less valuable. So, what do you wanna do with it? There's discussions about crypto alternative assets if you will, concepts around simplifying your personal finances. Like all these areas are areas where you've gone, I would say reasonably deep on across your show. Also some of that you mentioned the show with Dan Pink, "The Power Regret," then, of course wrote a great book on that. I think that is a very powerful conceptually. So, those are a couple ones that I'm interested and aware of that have been on your show recently. Are there a couple of other areas that would point our listeners and then please do give us some coordinates in the best place to find you out in the world. But first answer that question some other. Yeah, yeah. Areas that you are particularly proud of, and that you people who listen and watch the show are most gravitate towards. Yeah, I think episode one was like, I'd done six interviews and the first episode was not the first I recorded, but it was the first where I left the conversation, was like that is it, like, there was just magic in that conversation. And it's with someone no one's ever heard of name, not no one, sorry, Lee, if you're listening, not no one, but like it's not a Tim Ferris name, right? Sure, sure. And we talk about travel hacks, but not deep on the points and miles, but a lot of the tactics for when you're traveling, what you do there? I thought it was just a great first episode for someone trying to understand the show and you could go to all the hacks.com/one to find it, or just open whatever app you're in right now, listening to this and scroll all the way to the bottom. Another one that's kind of like a detour from normal, was a guy named Ben Nemtin, who just recently actually got named as under Tony Robbins. And I can't remember the other one as like the number three best motivational speaker in the world. And he is fantastic. And he wrote this book about "Bucket Lists" and how expanding your bucket list past, just this idea of adventure and travel can really enrich your lives. He has done some research and read a ton of research about what people regret when they die and the steps you can take to really set audacious goals in your life. And I released it right at the beginning of the year. And I know whenever you're listening to this, it's not January, but I'm sure you still wanna, if you're here, you still wanna live an amazing year and it's something you could apply anytime of the year. So, I think that was a really great one. Obviously, if you wanna hear the flip side of this conversation and dig into the mind of our lovely host Chase, I had a great episode with him number 31. But I really say what's interesting is, what I did this survey with my audience, I said, what's your favorite episode or few episodes. And every single episode, someone thought was their favorite. And so I took this advice. There's a really long episode with Tim Ferris about how to start a podcast. And I'd say if you have any interest and ever start a podcast, it's a great episode. As I say, in the intro, if you're not interested at all in starting a podcast. Don't listen. Yeah, maybe there's some nuggets there about how to interview someone, how to get things off the ground, but it's long, and like there are better. Yeah. But I make every episode with the expectation that some people will find this their favorite, but not everyone. Yeah. And so if you're looking at this and you're like, I don't care about X or like this episode's all about memory, which is not interesting, skip it. Like you don't need to listen to every single episode. But if you find yourself distracted all the time by your phone, around your family, Nir Eyal wrote this book called "Indistractable" and we had an entire conversation about how you can kind of become indistractable and like focus on the things that matter to you in life. If that's interesting, go listen to that episode 'cause it's fantastic. True. So, I just say- I gotta recommend the Kevin Rose one also, Mutual- Mutual Friend of Ours. We went into health and crypto, NFPS and we went all around the world in that episode, it was awesome. Well, crypto and NFPS part I think is very fascinating. And obviously we know Kevin for some health hacks and whatnot, and he was the episode right after me, number 32 in case people are interested. Yeah, so scroll through, find something that excites you, check it out. If you're not sure, go back to the beginning and listen to number one and you know, send me feedback. If there's people you think would be good to have on, if there are topics you want me to explore, I am all ears on social. So, you can find, the show is allthehacks.com, search all the hacks in wherever you're listening. I'm @Hutchins on Twitter @Chris Hutchins on Instagram. You can find me either, you can shoot me a DM or you can just email me. I'm just chris@allthehacks.com. Awesome. Chris, thank you so much for being guest on our show for helping us hack our lives and for you doing most of the work and just telling us how to do it, which is the part that I like. So, thanks very much for being on the show, buddy. And now we know where to go and find you and for everyone out there in the world, grateful for your time today, from both Chris and I, I'm in sunny Seattle and he is in sunny San Francisco Ish. Is that true? Yeah, good enough, it's out to San Francisco. Yeah, fair enough. All right. We both bid you all and do you have a great day? Yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. (upbeat music)
Ratings and Reviews
Dream Focus Studio
By far the best classes on Creative Live!! Thanks Chase Jarvis for bringing so much greatness to the table for discussion! Just LOVE it!
RenƩ Vidal
@ChaseJarvis - love chat with Gabby about hope and the "relentless optimism" you share at the end of Creative Calling. Many thanks. -- RenƩ Vidal McKendree Tennis
bob
Excellent interview with thoughtful questions. Thanks!!
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