Chase is a content creator currently working on a full year of 30 Day Challenges related to various habits. In this episode we discuss why it is important to be mindful of our habits and how 30 day challenges can be helpful in becoming more aware of how those habits effect our everyday lives.
Click the links below to listen the podcast on:
Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio
You can follow Chase’s challenges on his social media and can find the 12 month calendar on his website, https://chasebarron.com/.
Transcription:
Chase Barron Interview
Craig Inzana: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Happy You Are Here show wehre we share tools, techniques, and ideas to help us all live more happy and fulfilled lives. In this episode, we have Chase Barren. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know, I meant to release this episode a few weeks ago. I had some trouble with the editing software and everything going on with the coronavirus.
Just kind of set things back a little bit, but here it is. Chase is a content creator. He is currently doing 30 day challenges the entire year of 2020, and talks a lot on his YouTube channel about habits, how to build better habits and challenging the assumptions we have about the habits that we do have.
So here is chase Barron. So hi, chase. Thanks.
Chase Barron: [00:00:46] A pleasure to be here, man. Pleasure to reconnect. This is our first digital conversation. So I’m
Craig Inzana: [00:00:53] excited is from the same area originally for people that don’t know, uh, and. You were at one point a filmmaker, are you still a filmmaker?
Chase Barron: [00:01:01] I make YouTube videos now I don’t call them films.
So yeah, I I’m a video maker.
Craig Inzana: [00:01:08] I said, I call myself a new media producer now instead of. Because I make podcasts. I do this podcast and I do a bunch of other podcasts that I manage for other people. And I sometimes make YouTube videos. I edit YouTube videos for other people a lot, but yeah, my everything it’s like, I also make films, but I just say new media for Easter.
Cause it covers the whole gamut.
Chase Barron: [00:01:26] Yeah. That’s a good word for it. I might steal that because I often don’t know what to tell people. You know what I’m creating, because like you, you know, you pick up a gig here and there, you start doing photography, start doing videos, start editing a podcast. And today, like there’s a certain quality associated with the web that isn’t quite being a filmmaker.
So that whole content creator umbrella is kind of nice.
Craig Inzana: [00:01:51] Yeah. Content creators get to. Kind of, for me, it’s like a lot of the stuff I’m doing is for other people. So it’s like, I’m not the face. That’s where the calling and a producer comes in. But yeah. Anyway, it all, I’ll put it anyway. Our lives have like, been like adjacent to each other, basically since I met you, I think you were still in high school when I met you playing for chase.
Chase Barron: [00:02:12] No, that was an old band called the balcony scene, which if anybody’s interested, you can find them on Spotify. We, uh, we were like a little. Pop rock ensemble that actually ended up doing pretty well. Like we opened up for red jumpsuit apparatus after some time and stuff like it went well and then life happens and it’s hard for people.
Craig Inzana: [00:02:36] To start bands when they were in high school and college. Like, I have a lot of friends that are in bands that do that. Like they get relatively out of friend, his band ended up touring with Mayday parade. And at once he graduated college, they all just kind of went separate directions and it’s like, that happens a lot.
What is it that you’re doing now? Tell me a little bit about what your, uh, specifically, you know, I wanted to, I’ve been watching your YouTube videos. I’m really interested in a lot of the habits stuff. And I’m just interested where you’re at with that.
Chase Barron: [00:03:03] I guess like yourself, I’m very interested in living a healthy life, both physically and mentally and pursuing it.
This knowledge on my own, you know, isolated reading books, listening to podcasts forever was kind of getting old. So I just started to. Kind of document and film my journey towards improving my physical and mental health. Not that it was too far out of whack to begin with, but I just started rolling a camera one day, uploaded a video.
And somehow the second video I posted the YouTube just caught the algorithm and what kind of viral, which, uh, was a nice confidence booster right off the bat. And, um, yeah, since then, I’ve just been trying to make it a point to do. Then you have to try to try to live up to it. Um, and it’s funny how the algorithm works.
Cause you can create something that you think is the best thing you ever made and YouTube just. Laughs at it. And then something you might not even be proud of. YouTube just says, let’s put 2 million people in front of this. So, uh, yeah, but since, uh, since that first video, I’ve just been making a point to document what I’ve been up to.
I’m doing 12 different 30 day challenges this year. And all of it kind of has a bit of a YouTube component. So, so.
Craig Inzana: [00:04:19] Last year, you did a couple of those challenges, right?
Chase Barron: [00:04:23] Yeah. It was just kind of experimenting. I know that the 30 day challenge, John HRA is a big thing in YouTube, which is why I wanted to try it out.
There also videos that I really like to watch. So yeah, last year I just made up a couple and did them in a less structured way where I did yoga for 30 days and I did. A hundred burpees a day for 30 days, which was the one that really kind of took off. But this year I have it more structured and I like released a calendar online.
Yeah. And I’m telling people that if they want to participate yeah. Feel free at your own risk and Patrion group where people talk about their experiences. And we do like these weekly round tables and it’s kind of just like a masterclass in habit formation for myself, which is like, You know, what is stopping everybody from, from doing the things that they want to do and how is it affecting all of these different people, you know, not just myself anymore.
So, so it’s been interesting.
Craig Inzana: [00:05:17] Yeah. I mean, like I’ve talked about on this show before, and obviously, like you said, I bring it up on my Instagram and stuff all the time. It’s just like every cabinet is the core of everything. Uh, our brain is just like one big habit machine. So I think it’s. Cool to focus on that, the way that you are.
Um, and I, I really love it. Those 30 day challenge things and stuff on, on YouTube, kind of inherently for that reason. It’s a cool thing to be watching you do that. And some of your stuff, a lot of your stuff last year was, was fitness, like physical health based. But this year you have. Oh, a little bit more variety in the type of habits that you’re talking about.
Um, how did you come up with the habits that you did choose to put on that calendar for this year?
Chase Barron: [00:05:58] Yeah, it’s, it’s stuff that I, that I really need, we need to do. Um, Mary focus of, uh, like the primary focus of the channel is health and mindfulness, but it’s, it’s mostly fitness. Like, I, I am. My biggest ties are probably to physical fitness.
So all of that’s in there for my own experimentation, things that I think are healthy, interesting in the fitness world, like running a little bit, something that I had been kind of niggling acting because I’m a big proponent of like trying to build muscle, but also stay flexible and training those muscles with yoga and being mindful in that way.
But so most of the challenges deal with my own. Interest in the physical body and how that relates to the mental side of things. But some of the challenges are selfish in a way that they’re like, just for my personal growth, like the no headphone challenge.
Craig Inzana: [00:06:55] Yeah. That was a very specific one.
Chase Barron: [00:06:56] Yeah. I need that.
Um, I am such a. An audio content addict, whether it’s, you know, music or podcasts that sometimes I find that keeps me from, from being totally present with my work. So, so that month I think is going to be insanely insightful and then like the no social media one too, I’ve seen some people do. And it all kind of comes down to it’s either a physical or mental thing.
Craig Inzana: [00:07:22] Right. I’ve done no social media for a month before. And that was, I mean, I wish that I could say that it just like. Fixed my social media addiction. Um, but it has allowed me to do the way since then. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I think two years ago when I first did that and I’ve kind of done detoxes, I call it since then where I’ll just like block myself from all my social media ops.
Someone changed my passwords and stuff for like a week. And that’s enough usually to kind of reset that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like this is cause it’s crazy. You don’t realize how much you’re using it until you tell yourself not to use it or like you delete the apps from your phone. And then how often I pick up my phone to look at Instagram and realize like, Oh, the app’s not there.
And just that breaking of that, the app not being there is enough to like, make me mindful of the fact that I was just gonna. I was just escaping to it, you know? Cause then it’s like, okay, well, why did I just pick this up? Uh, you know, what was I looking at? And, and usually it’s an escape. It’s like, Oh, I’m frustrated with something I’m working on or I’m bored or whatever.
And it’s just like, cool. Let me just mindlessly consume something. And there’s so much to consume on the internet.
Chase Barron: [00:08:27] Oh, and that’s the kind of perspective that you, that is the goal from 30 day challenges, you know, like what you, the real. Reason that we’re doing, this is not for the challenge, but it’s for what happens after the challenge, you know?
And that’s like kind of what that 30 day social media detox did for you. Cause you, you go through it and 30 days is a long enough time to really see what it’s like to have a habit instilled into your life. But if you don’t want to keep it forever, cause it’s probably a little extreme it’s like, where can we find the halfway point between not thinking about our phones at all?
And. Then putting on the blockers and not using it at all. And there’s somewhere in the middle. The going through the challenge helps you find, you know, to find balance. You got to go through those periods of, of imbalance.
Craig Inzana: [00:09:15] Yeah. I mean, and, and you’re, you’re indoctrinate, you’re swimming in the one extreme, just kind of haphazardly because life works out that way for a lot of these habits, it’s just like the sugar thing.
It’s just like you are, you you’re, you’re consumption habits. Aren’t dictated by a mindful choices. They’re just tainted by, this is how I was raised, or this is how the environment that I live in dictates this. And when you do those habits, they’re to the extreme of the other end, but it allows you to break.
And kind of just see it from a different angle and then choose then mindfully. In what way you want to have that? Um, appearing.
Chase Barron: [00:09:51] Yeah. Cause if you don’t know anything different than you don’t know, like ignorance is bliss in a way, because like our society is so built around how acceptable it is. To just like wake up, drank this super sugary, highly caffeinated drink and be super wired and then have another one mid day.
So you’re like caffeine rush, sugar rush. You’re checking your phone constantly. Cause that’s just the norm. And then like, by the end of the day, you probably worked so hard and you’re so wired on caffeine and sugar that you need like a drink or two to go to bed. And it’s like, Such a weird system that we are okay with all of this.
And we’re like also okay. With not exercising along the way. And I don’t know, it’s just these, uh, these societal norms that we’ve built, aren’t the healthiest and some of the stuff that’s a challenge. Wouldn’t even be a challenge if we were in a different part of the world. So some of them aren’t even that extreme, which is just interesting.
You bring that up, that. That. Yeah. You’re just kind of raised into this world that breeds like sugar and caffeine, addictions and cell phone addiction. It’s just kind of a, just kind of becoming the norm.
Craig Inzana: [00:11:01] Yeah. Yeah. Our whole society is built around like this. Dopamine addiction, you know, like it’s, it’s the it’s because it’s the easiest one to pack as it’s the easiest rain like chemical system to use in order to get people to buy stuff.
No ruthlessly capitalistic.
Chase Barron: [00:11:20] And I’ll tell you something. Um, this month is a zero sugar. And artificial sweeteners challenge, which I’ve, since I’m into fitness, I’ve never been a guy to like consume a ton of sugar, but I have been like letting myself have like, you know, proteins that are sweet and I’ve been adding Stevia to my coffee every day and I’ve been overdoing it in certain like artificial, but better artificial regards.
But regardless, it’s still, even if it’s Stevia and monk fruit, like it’s still a dopamine hit. Um, but I’ve noticed that since, yeah, cutting out all the artificial sweetness, I’m checking my phone less too, because I’m getting less like dopamine hits throughout the day. Cause it used to be that a cup of coffee was like this sweet thing.
And you know, like you have that, you suck it down. It’s gone. It’s like, where am I getting my dopamine now? So I’ll check my phone a little bit. But I noticed that if I just keep those levels kind of at Bay. I’m not seeking as much. I’m not on the constant rollercoaster that constant, you know, trigger, happy hunt, so to speak.
Craig Inzana: [00:12:19] Yeah. Yeah. And like, I think some people look at that and they think like, why deprive myself of all of these, uh, you know, sweet things, whether it’s, you know, the media that I consume or. The sugary foods or the, whatever it is. And I think, you know, people just don’t know what it’s like to not have that those things.
So they don’t really understand that. Like there’s a difference between this like short term hit of pleasure and a more sustained sense of fulfillment is the only one I can really think of it, which I use that word maybe too much. But what I’ve noticed is, is like the less that I’m pleasure seeking for the moment, the more overall satisfaction I feel with my life, which is a weird thing that doesn’t seem like that should be the way that it is, but it just is kind of how the human brain works.
Chase Barron: [00:13:12] Yeah. It’s um, I like to call it delayed gratification, um, versus instant gratification, which is the way that I’ve always kind of looked at it that like you can seek instant gratification, but it’s easy to get. And for some reason we can be told this a million times, but it’s literally about the journey more so than it is about that finish line and
Craig Inzana: [00:13:37] well, with instant gratification, there’s like, there’s, there’s a, there’s a.
Um, like diminishing returns. So it’s click, click, click, click. And they just like, I don’t know if you’ve ever kind of like yourself stuck in a binge where you’re watching Netflix and eating sugary foods. And I do it sometimes when I like, kind of burn myself out. I’ll just go in this like total binge of, you know, just anything that feels good is like an instant.
And gratification, and then I’ll end up after a day of doing that or something and you just sitting there you’re completely numb. And just like, there’s literally nothing else that can top, like it’s just, that’s bar has been set and unless I go do some like crazy drugs, it’s not going to end even then, you know, if you do go do that, then eventually you get hit that bar and it’s like, okay, there’s nothing else.
Chase Barron: [00:14:21] Yeah. Because you’re not thinking about the journey at all. At that point, you’re just thinking about gratification and the returns definitely diminish. I mean, I, and, and they, uh, I guess the returns of instant gratification are more pronounced when you aren’t. Seeking it or addicted to it all the time.
For example, since cutting out sugar, I recently, I mean, it was a Valentine’s day and maybe my girlfriend went out to dinner and we got cheese plate, which I thought was all good, which I think was all good. But one of them she’s like had pureed blueberries in it and I just had a. Piece of that. And to me it tasted like a wild Berry pop, like so out of this world suite, and I’m like, is this really that sweet?
She was like, no, it’s not that bad. But, um, you know, when you get totally off for a while, it’s really surprising how much you can enjoy the things that. You used to kind of take for granted when you were indulging a little too much.
Craig Inzana: [00:15:21] Yeah. And I think that’s the biggest benefit of it. I mean, besides the obvious, like overall health benefits you might get from one of those 30 day challenges, it’s just seeing it.
From a different perspective allows you appreciate, I mean, it might help you to actually adjust those habits, so you’re not overdoing it, but it also helps you appreciate, you know, when you do have sugar or you do use social media, you’re using it in a more purposeful way, which then makes it feel, cause there is a purpose to all of those things.
Like every habit that we have served us at some point, there’s a reason that it started. It’s just when we’re not paying attention to it. And we allow it to just spin out of control. It stopped serving us in those ways, but allowing it to. You know, be part of your life in a healthy way is okay. For some things, some things, some things people get into the belly has cut that out completely, but a lot of stuff it’s like moderation is.
Chase Barron: [00:16:12] Yeah, exactly. And, and that’s a, that’s true for habits that we add to our lives, such as, you know, the, the social media, like from an evolutionary perspective, it just totally makes sense that we want calorie dense foods. We want to be stimulated. We want to be accepted socially. And it also makes sense that we want to preserve energy by not moving that, you know, we don’t want to take cold showers because they’re uncomfortable.
It’s all of this stuff that makes total sense. Like if you follow the trail, I mean, no wonder we’re. Fueled on caffeine and sugar and very sedentary today. I mean, that’s, that’s a great way to, uh, you know, preserve survival of the coziest evolutionarily speaking. We have to be. You know, we have to be fit enough to avoid predators and we have to preserve enough energy to sustain life.
But, um, we just kinda ran out of predators. So there’s not a lot of reasons to, to stay fit anymore. So it’s easy to see, see how things can spiral out of control. We’re just not really hardwired for this world.
Craig Inzana: [00:17:25] Exactly. We, instead of evolving, I always talk about how instead of evolving physically. Yeah, humans have changed a little bit over the last 10,000 years or so, but mostly we’ve kind of stunted, physically and built tools and a society to fix all of the like potential downsides to a point where we’ve just kind of rounded the entire edges, right?
Not that I’m one of those people that like the world needs to be tougher and like people need to suffer more. But I do think that we need to pay attention to the fact that things that, like you said, it makes evolutionary sense. Uh, so it’s not necessarily like, you shouldn’t feel like, Oh man, I still lose her because I love sugar or I don’t like to exercise, or I acceptance from other human beings.
Like those are natural things. Those are good. Things, it’s just, we need to keep them in check in our modern society where those things are abundant, overly abundant.
Chase Barron: [00:18:16] And that’s the thing like you can’t feel guilty about. And sugar is such a good example of that. I loved just as a metaphor for everything, but, but sugar specifically, it’s just, you can’t feel guilty for wanting to binge on a tub of chocolate ice cream.
It’s like, imagine if a caveman. You know, where we spent most of our evolution, every time found a jar of Ben and Jerry’s like he would be housed. And the problem is, you know, I use this clip in a video recently where this pygmy tribe had to climb a 200 foot tree to get their hands on, honey. And, you know, they would climb this tree and along the way, they’re getting stung by tons of bees and they’re just still climbing in the heat and like they’re sweating and covered in bee stings.
By the time they actually get the honey and then they have to bring it down the tree, they have to share it with everybody because it’s like this big community event. And it’s like, wow, you could seriously go to the grocery store right now and buy 10 pounds of sugar for like a quarter of the. Effort that that guy put into the honey thing.
It’s, it’s nuts. Yeah. It’s just so easy now to see what people would do to get sugar. And then what we have to do, which is, which is literally nothing.
Craig Inzana: [00:19:38] Yeah. And I mean, as everything that’s basically most of our needs, there’s some, you know, the things, the things we’re dealing with are more abstract. You know, the things that stress us out.
And I think that’s probably why we are. So we seem so overly stressed because we don’t really know how to deal with the stresses of modern life, because they’re different than what we do or evolved for. And, but I think getting some of these basic habits in check. Can help deal with all of those other parts of life.
Like I said, the social media thing was huge for me.
Chase Barron: [00:20:07] Yeah. So much of the stress is imaginary. Just like, yeah. If you sat in a white room with nothing going on, like your mind would pull from the past, um, anticipate the future and
Craig Inzana: [00:20:20] the past never actually going to happen.
Chase Barron: [00:20:22] Yeah. You will be stressed no matter what, unless you,
Craig Inzana: [00:20:27] unless you practice mindfulness.
The whole point of which is funny. Cause that’s, you know, when the Buddha like wrote down all of this stuff or taught all this stuff about, you know, relieving suffering,
Chase Barron: [00:20:39] human mindfulness.
Craig Inzana: [00:20:41] So it’s nothing new.
Chase Barron: [00:20:42] It traces back as far as human consciousness. I mean, people have always been trying to integrate mindfulness into their lives.
And I think that’s a good word to use for what we’re talking about.
Craig Inzana: [00:20:55] We have this incredible ability to be purposeful about the way we use our brain. It’s just, it’s a practice muscle. You know, it doesn’t come as there’s so many, there’s so many other portions of the brain, anxiety, depression, just different systems in the brain that are working against your natural, like conscious ability to control your own brain.
And again, it’s not that there’s, there’s a reason. Those are there. At some point, those were serving us. Now, they’ve just kind of, when we become so comfortable as a society, they, despite a lot of control and looking at it and being aware and saying, I don’t need to be stressed right now. Like I need to do enough effort to like, you know, keep making money and put food on my table, but I don’t need to like, be freaking out all
Chase Barron: [00:21:39] said and done the same thing with how, like generally the, the amount of muscle mass on humans is, is declining.
Could be, cause like we don’t have. To train anymore. Like there’s no reason like in a, in a primitive society, w w it would just be fit walking around because of the way that it was hard to find food. And we had to exert ourselves, but nowadays we have to train physically. To achieve like a healthy lifestyle, but because that’s just counter in the environment.
Um, but I think we also have to train mentally and it’s really hard for people to understand that like the mind is a muscle and you legitimately have to train it to combat the environment that it is exposed to. But since the, uh, since there was also that training are less obvious, um, I think a lot of people.
You know, if you want to get your life together. I think a lot of people would like start in the gym, but it’s also like, dude, you could just start by saying, being on the floor and trying to be still in a room for 20 minutes and see what happens, your attention,
Craig Inzana: [00:22:47] train your attention, like a muscle. That’s where I’m coming up.
I’m now shift as I’ve gotten better at that I’m shifting to trying to make exercise a more common part of my life. Cause it’s not how I used to play sports that it’s just like without sports. I have no motivation to exercise at all, but. I did, you know, just sitting on that mat and like learning to train your attention and look at your brain from kind of an outside observer perspective, that’s been life changing.
So hopefully I can also get the, kind of the same benefits from physical exercise.
Chase Barron: [00:23:20] And if you can integrate the two, which I’m really trying to do, and I’m, I’m actually at a point in my life where I’m trying to. Actively trying to build muscle, like a quote unquote bulking, but I’m a, I’m really enjoying.
Yeah. Integrating the two, like for what I’m doing right now, I occasionally go on like a long walk and I do these like walking meditation, where you just focus on different aspects of the walk of your body, of your feet on the concrete or the path area. You spend time focusing on the sites above and then at your level, and then below, and you just focused on all the different things.
And it’s a really great integration of mindfulness and physical activity. And like the same thing applies for, even if you happen to find yourself in a gym, like. Dude focus on every single rep and like, think about the muscles engaged and feel them. And it’s like such a great way to feel your body. And it’s super woo, woo.
And Zen. And like half the guys in the gym are just like wearing a backwards hat, like waiting to chug protein, but I’m like, okay, no, feel your feel this and every inch of your muscle. And it’s, it can be, um, I think the two worlds are married. Uh, in a way that’s hard to describe.
Craig Inzana: [00:24:35] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Chase.
So if people are interested in this, these 30 day challenges, you’re doing, um, plug your website, YouTube, wherever you want to direct people to.
Chase Barron: [00:24:45] Yeah. If you want to keep up with the 30 day challenges, go to chase barron.com. There is a link, a button. I’m going to go there right now, so I can talk about it, chasing it.
Craig Inzana: [00:24:56] And I’ll put this down in the show notes
Chase Barron: [00:24:58] too. Thank you. Um, yeah, the website’s very minimalist. Just go straight to it. You can get the 20, 20 challenge calendar and it also has links to my Instagram, YouTube, Gmail, and even Spotify for some old music projects like we talked about. So everything’s up@chasebaron.com.
Craig Inzana: [00:25:14] Cool. You want to talk about before we head off?
Chase Barron: [00:25:18] It’s just. Exciting to be on the show with you because like we both grew up in the same area. And I think that I’m really grateful to grow up in a small town, such as that. I don’t want to like start another tangent conversation, but it’s just one thing that I would, would never change about my life is growing up in that small town community.
Craig Inzana: [00:25:42] There’s a lot. This thing we do that when I’m, when I moved back to Dubois, I missed the amount of stuff there is to do. I guess there’s something special about small towns, especially cause just the impact that you can make is like really noticeable. And that was really cool.
Chase Barron: [00:25:58] Yeah. Yes. It’s funny. Cause like the same types of projects we are working on now, but since we are, we have now become smaller fish and bigger seas.
Whereas in a small town, it’s easy to be a big fish. And it’s easy to have an impact, and it’s easy, easy to, to know your community members too. Like there are so many pros and cons of, of both scenarios, but I, I noticed that yeah. You know, integrating myself into city life, I can easily pick out people that grew up in small towns and,
Craig Inzana: [00:26:27] um, Oh yeah.
Chase Barron: [00:26:28] It’s, it’s just, uh, It’s very insightful. Something that I’m glad we share and that I’m glad we got to experience for sure. Yeah. Well, Hey man. Thank you.
Craig Inzana: [00:26:38] Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of the happier here podcast with chase Baron. Again, you can check out his website@chasebaron.com. The link to that will be down in the show notes below wherever you are listening.
And don’t forget if you want to follow the show a little bit closer. You can always go to the happy you are here. Dot life. Website and sign up for the newsletter. The only time we use the newsletter is to post information about the new episodes coming out. And thank you again for listening. Happy you’re here.
See you next week.
