“Everything came when I completely dove in fearlessly and made the content that I needed to make as a kind of artist … I got out of my own way. I stopped doubting myself, and the universe winked at me when I did that, so to speak.”
Jason Silva (FB: JASONLSILVA; THISISJASONSILVA.COM) has been called a “Timothy Leary for the viral video age” by the Atlantic. He is host of Brain Games on National Geographic Channel. The show was the highest-rated series launch in Nat Geo’s history, with an average of 1.5 million viewers for the first two episodes.
Spirit animal: Seagull
• What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made?
“Investing in the editing of my videos 3 years ago, which kickstarted my career. I had left Al Gore’s Current TV in 2011 and was technically unemployed: a former TV host with limited savings. Deciding to spend money on editing these videos without an income was a leap of faith. The first two videos were ‘You Are a RCVR’ and ‘The Beginning of Infinity.’ Both of these were essentially proofs of concept for what would become my signature digital media style: philosophical espresso shots. I released both on Vimeo and immediately saw excitement and interest grow in my work. I knew I was onto something. Within months, I was being invited to give speeches and was eventually asked to make a video that opened TEDGlobal 2012. From there, things took off. A few months later, National Geographic became fans of the videos and invited me to host the TV series Brain Games, which was a huge global hit and garnered me an Emmy nomination.”
TF: I love to study the early versions of current successes. Jason is quite polished, but the hatchling stages are often amusingly rough around the edges. For instance, search “old blog of Ramit Sethi,” “old blog of Gretchen Rubin,” or “old blog of Tim Ferriss,” or watch the first few episodes of Wine Library TV by Gary Vaynerchuk.
• What has become more important to you in the last few years and what has become less important?
“I want to build my life around flow states [the sense of being ‘in the zone’].”
TF: This is something Josh Waitzkin (here) talks about often: journaling and using tools like HRV (heart-rate variability) devices to identify the patterns and prerequisites that create peak flow states or their opposites.
“To me being jaded is almost like being dead. Nothing impresses you because you feel like you’ve seen it all before, and you go through life with dark lenses on … the curtain’s closed. No light gets in, no rhapsody gets in, and to me that’s death.”
TF: Closely related advice from one of my own mentors: “Be a skeptic, don’t be a cynic.”
• Video and YouTube channel recommendation
“Did Shakespeare Invent Love?” by Nerdwriter.
TF: My favorite podcast is Hardcore History by Dan Carlin (here). Nerdwriter can be thought of as a short-form video complement to HH.
• Do you have any quotes that you live your life by or think of often?
“We are simultaneously gods and worms.”— Abraham Maslow
• Advice to your 25- or 30-year-old self?
“I would encourage my younger self to just not be afraid, right? To realize that a lot of things that were—I don’t want to say crippling anxieties, but—definitely ever-pervasive fears in my life growing up were unnecessary. A lot of time was wasted, a lot of energy was wasted, being worried.”
TF: Across all guests, the most common answer to this question is some variation of “It’s all going to be alright.”