October 10, 2024 • 49 mins
My Persistent Path
Chris Kahn, a dynamic entrepreneur with an inspiring career journey, joins us to share his remarkable evolution from personal training to screenwriting and tech innovation. Discover how his fitness background and networking skills paved the way for the creation of Treever, a unique messaging app. Chris's journey embodies persistence and adaptability, showing how diverse passions can lead to unexpected professional success.
In a captivating discussion, Chris delves into the joys and hurdles of screenwriting, from developing a comedic tech startup story that attracted Melissa McCarthy's interest to leveraging his screenplay success with the Nichols Fellowship. Gain insights into the art of storytelling, where Chris compares crafting narratives to a strategic chess game, tackling profound societal themes like gun violence through compelling characters. Learn how he navigates the distinct challenges of writing across different media, using a pseudonym to align with the varied expectations of literary and screenwriting communities.
Explore the balancing act of maintaining dual careers as Chris shares strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome while managing a successful personal training business. From training Hollywood elites to pioneering virtual fitness during the pandemic, Chris's story is one of adaptability in the face of uncertainty. Dive into the psychological aspects of goal achievement, with Chris exploring dopamine's role as a motivator, and take away practical advice on pursuing passions with a balanced blend of enthusiasm and pragmatism.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Chris Kahn (00:00):
I had a mentor years ago and I was complaining about
not having anything made and hesaid just keep writing, produce
content, because you never knowwhen that content is going to
be in vogue.
And sure enough, the very firstnovel I wrote between 96 and
2000, quantum Prophet is thename of it that is being looked
(00:22):
at as a potential streamingseries now, now.
Now, oh, wow, because thethemes of that novel then were
proper stewardship of the planet, right, very relevant now.
The theme of the book is thatthe Earth is a sentient organism
, it has its own consciousnessand it deplores the parasite
known as mankind.
(00:43):
And so it speeds up all theevolutionary processes, the
tectonic plates crashing againsteach other, hurricanes, storms,
electromagnetic interference,so the Earth is basically
remaking itself, trying todestroy mankind.
And you have a hero character,a female who has these special
gifts, that understands why thisis happening and she trots the
(01:04):
globe throughout the novel tohelp, you know, restore the
balance and the earth.
And so that was the novel backin the late 90s welcome back to
my perfect path, a show aboutchasing dreams and developing
careers.
Today we have a special guestentrepreneur, chris khan.
His journey has taken him frompersonal training to
(01:25):
screenwriting, to launching hisown startup, and along the way,
he's worked with some ofHollywood's biggest names.
Chris is the founder of Trever,a messaging app with a fresh
approach.
Over the years, he's worn manyhats, from fitness to tech to
storytelling.
He's also a dedicated cyclist,riding an incredible 250 miles a
(01:45):
week, with a lifetime total ofover 300,000 miles, and if
that's not impressive enough,he's trained high-profile
clients like Steven Spielberg,all while pursuing his passion
for screenwriting.
In today's episode, we'll diveinto how Chris balances his
diverse career and lessons he'slearned along the way.
Whether you're interested inwriting, entrepreneurship or
(02:08):
just looking for inspiration,this episode has something for
you.
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Welcome to today's episode, myPersistent Path, featuring a
very special guest, chris Khan.
Chris, welcome to my PerfectPath.
I'm thrilled to have you here.
Thank you, just to kick thingsoff on a high level to have you
here.
Thank you, just to kick thingsoff on a high level.
Can you describe your currentstate of your career?
(02:29):
Well, it's unwinding in manyways.
I have a background in fitnessand that fitness has led me to
in my personal training businesshas led me to a lot of clients
who are very interesting andconnected and I built a robust
network out of all those yearsof training and that allowed me
to a lot of clients who are veryinteresting and connected and I
built a robust network out ofall those years of training and
that allowed me to move into thetechnology side of things,
(02:51):
because these people wereconnected to Silicon Valley and
I realized that I couldtranslate my skill set from
interpersonal capabilities todeep research on subject matters
and then understanding themarketplace for technology.
So I've sort of transitionedfrom that to being a startup
(03:13):
founder and building a messagingproduct that we're pretty
excited about.
Daniel Koo (03:17):
So the product itself is called Treever,
Correct?
Could you tell us a little bitmore about Treever and how it
works?
Chris Kahn (03:23):
Yeah well, one of the things that struck me in my
musing it's actually the genesisof this actually comes out of a
screenplay that I wrote becauseI've been a writer all along
the way as I've had my trainingbusiness of novels and
screenplays and I had an ideafor a comedy where someone like
Melissa McCarthy invents thenext big thing tech app.
(03:46):
And my idea was that you couldhave an app that was sort of a
hybrid of Snapchat and Instagramand Musically at the time,
which become TikTok.
And I wrote a movie aboutsomebody who invents this app
and all of the shenanigans thatgo along with not being
technically savvy, not being acoder but having an idea and how
(04:08):
would you go about building ateam.
And she gets her ex-boyfriendto help with the coding and all
this and it becomes sort of likethe wedding crashers meets the
social network.
So I wrote this script and wegot it to Melissa McCarthy and
she was attached to the movie.
It never got made.
It's all in development still.
But I ran into a friend of mineon the bike path who I knew was
(04:31):
a high level engineer at Oracleand I was telling him about
writing this movie and I toldhim what the app was and what it
could do and he said why don'twe go build that?
And so that's how my journeybegan to build this messaging
app, and because we realizedright away that there was a
niche between native texting andmessaging and making TikToks
(04:53):
essentially right.
So native messaging itself iOSand Android has not evolved that
much and it's still the mostused messaging format in the
world.
And it's still the most usedmessaging format in the world.
Something like 90% of textmessages are still sent over the
native platforms on those iOSand Android, and that hasn't
(05:17):
evolved much past GIFs andBitmojis and things like that.
So we thought we could find away to build very quickly,
assemble from the content, whichis image content, music content
and the message itself, and ananimation component.
With a couple of steps youcould integrate all those things
into a multimedia micro montagethat contained your text
message and we could just pushthat through that pipeline of
(05:38):
native texting.
So we thought we recognized anopportunity in that marketplace
and that's what we're building.
Daniel Koo (05:44):
I think this is definitely the coolest start of
an app idea I've ever heard, andI'm very excited to see what
comes of it and actually to beable to use it.
How do you envision peopleusing this app in the future?
Chris Kahn (05:55):
Well, I've always said that Treever could be very,
very successful because itmakes texting more emotionally
gratifying.
So a lot of texting istransactional, telling somebody
you're going to meet them here,you're going to meet them there,
whatever, you're going to putsomething together or you're
sharing something that you justsnapped a picture of or whatever
, and I think by adding themusic component, you make that
(06:18):
message more emotionallyrewarding, and so I think that's
where we can position ourselvesin the marketplace of more
emotionally gratifying texting,I see.
Daniel Koo (06:26):
So it's making boring text more engaging,
correct, just like TikTok madeInstagram posts more engaging.
I think maybe that's wherewe're going at.
Yeah, thank you so much for theexplanation.
I do want to get into how youbuilt up your career as well,
and for today's episode we'vepicked the adjective persistent.
Can you tell me a little bitwhy you picked this adjective?
Chris Kahn (06:49):
You can tell from the preliminary bits of
information that I've been ajack of many trades, to say the
least.
Yeah, and I'm still working onbeing a master of one or two of
them.
But each time that I dosomething, a path or a journey.
Stephen Covey has the greatbook Seven Habits of Highly
(07:10):
Effective People, and one ofthose is begin with the end in
mind, and I always liked thatidea and so that sort of stuck
with me, because when I start onsomething I can see where I
want to be, and so thatresonated with me pretty
significantly.
And you'll find out as anybodygoes on these journeys, the
obstacles that presentthemselves can be formidable,
(07:32):
and it was always a question ofhow much am I going to let the
hurdles deter me?
And I guess I just have thekind of personality where I said
that's not going to stop me,that's not going to stop me,
that's not going to stop me,that's not going to stop me.
I mean the whole UniversalMusic licensing thing.
My first meeting at UniversalMusic with the head of business
(07:53):
affairs, jeff Harlston, theywanted a million dollar advance
from us to use their catalogbecause they're the most robust
catalog in the world, right?
Best music, best artists.
Daniel Koo (08:02):
And at this point, did you have a lot of experience
dealing with these deals?
No, not at all.
Chris Kahn (08:07):
No, no, but I've dealt with the players who most
of my personal training clientswere very successful high
profile executives orcelebrities or business CEOs.
So on a daily basis I'minteracting with those people.
So I'm not afraid, I'm notintimidated by those people.
And so when I went in there andthey demand this huge upfront
(08:31):
fee, we got into a whole longdiscussion about how punitive
that was to entrepreneurs and Isaid there are going to be other
people besides me coming inhere with ideas about how to use
music and if you're going todemand this big upfront payment
from them, you're going todiscourage all the entrepreneurs
and they're not going to beable to give you a value add on
(08:52):
your music, on your catalog.
You need that out there in theworld generating revenue for you
.
So you need to completely flipyour position on how you're
going to deal with entrepreneurs.
And that led directly to themcreating this innovation
licensing department, which so,in some ways, my persistence on
not letting them say, no, okay,no, you can't have it.
(09:13):
Snapchat, which what was tryingwas using the music and not
paying for it.
So they wanted to be punitiveto everybody else because they
weren't getting Snapchat to playfairly.
So I said well, there's areason, and if you can change
this, this and this, you willprobably open up a whole new set
of revenue streams for yourself.
Daniel Koo (09:32):
And this API would kind of open it up to
entrepreneurs to use it moreprogressively and then have a
pricing model where it's easierto create and that's SongClip.
Chris Kahn (09:41):
I don't know if you know that app SongClip.
That's what ultimately came outof it, so you now, as an
entrepreneur, can have access tothe most popular music if going
through the SongClip app.
So that was a combination ofthe universal publishing and
business affairs and marketingworking with another set of
entrepreneurs.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Daniel Koo (09:59):
You've basically, by being persistent, you've gave
them actually a lot ofinnovation as well.
Exactly, can you tell me alittle bit about your background
, maybe a little bit about yourchildhood and what was it like
growing?
Chris Kahn (10:11):
up.
Sure, I feel very, veryfortunate about my formative
years.
I grew up in San Luis Obispo,which is Central Coast, halfway
between LA and San Francisco.
My father moved out from NewYork.
He had an engineering degreefrom Manhattan College and he
was hired to be part of theconstruction of the 101 freeway
(10:31):
and so that's yeah, and so hiswhole family's in New York and a
lot of them are still there,and he and my mom packed a
trailer and my little brotherand my mom was pregnant with me
and they came and they settledin San Luis Obispo and they
stayed there for all the waythrough and I grew up there and
it was an idyllic childhood.
I went to Catholic school upuntil ninth grade because it
(10:53):
only went K through nine and wasinvolved in the Catholic church
.
My dad was a Knights ofColumbus.
He was also the scoutmaster.
I went through scouting.
I was an Eagle Scout youngestEagle Scout in California at the
time.
Daniel Koo (11:08):
Oh, amazing.
Chris Kahn (11:09):
Yeah, but so I was great and I had great friends
played sports.
We grew up in the era where ona Saturday you'd get on your
bike in the morning with yourfriends and you wouldn't come
home until dinner and yourparents didn't care.
So it was great.
So I had fantastic friends,fantastic schooling, didn't
really have a lot of troublegrowing up.
(11:30):
And then I got a scholarship toUCLA and I left San Luis Obispo
and came down and I knew thatSan Luis Obispo is slow town,
slo, right, and it is slowAlthough it's grown quite a lot
since then but you don't havethe opportunities that you do in
a bigger urban environment.
But yeah, that's my background.
Daniel Koo (11:51):
So you've had three distinct careers that you've had
almost in parallel.
First, your writing career,which includes your work as an
author and also a movie writer.
Your personal training career,which has basically been
throughout your whole life, andthis tech founder role.
Could you tell us a little bitabout the timeline of how that
happened and perhaps how theymay or may not have helped each
(12:13):
other?
Well?
Chris Kahn (12:15):
I've always been a writer.
I wrote in high school and Iwas actually published poetry in
high school and short storiesand even poetry in high school
and short stories, and evenwrote a musical in high school
as a senior project.
Essentially I was a big eltonjohn fan at the time and he has
an album called tumbleweedconnection which is a brilliant
masterpiece album I think.
(12:36):
But it didn't have any reallypopular hits on it, so the
mainstream listeners don't havemuch of an idea of that album
unless you're really an EltonJohn fan.
But there was a total story inthat album.
It was kind of a themed albumand at the time I thought you
know this, I could craft a wholemusical with these songs and
(12:56):
I'd been.
You know, my family was verymusical and I grew up in the
theater and so that was mysenior project and ultimately
down the road I was ableactually to get that musical
into development 30 years lateras a result of my relationships
and personal training.
So the writing part was alwaysthere.
I've always been passionateabout telling stories and
(13:18):
characters and situations arealways in my head.
But I was also wanting to go tolaw school.
I was at UCLA in the early 80sand I thought you know, I'll do
a practical thing, I'll go tolaw school, get a law degree.
But I was training a lot at thetime myself personally, for
triathlon.
I was racing triathlon.
I knew I had a good level oftalent.
(13:39):
I wasn't sure how talented Icould be.
What major did you study inUCLA?
Communications, because it wasthe most broad.
You know, it wascross-discipline, it included
mass media, it includedsociology, it included English
and writing and politicalscience.
Daniel Koo (13:56):
So did you have a lot of friends that were trying
to go to law school A lot?
Chris Kahn (13:59):
yeah, and that was sort of the direction I expected
I would head.
But then training for thetriathlon.
The triathlon itself was justbeginning to grow and it was
just introduced into theOlympics in 1984.
And I thought, okay, between1984 and 88, I'll just allow
myself to train, see if I can beat Olympic caliber.
(14:21):
Ultimately I didn't reach thathighest of levels but in my own
effort to be better I waslearning the science of exercise
physiology for myself and Irealized that a lot of people
wanted to know what I knew.
So that's how I transitionedinto training.
It became coaching, then itbecame personal training and
then I got some high-profilecelebrity clients and then it
(14:41):
turned into a very successfulpersonal training business.
So I was still working outmyself, potential high-level
athlete to transitioning tocoaching or educating, and then
continue to write all the waythrough that period of time.
You know, in the evenings Iwould do a lot of writing and in
the early 90s I optioned myfirst script and so I've been
writing and been hired to write,to adapt books I've been hired
(15:04):
to, I've done some pilotepisodes for people rewrites so,
and I'm in the writer's guild.
So that tracked my personaltraining business very
successfully for quite some time.
Daniel Koo (15:15):
I want to talk about how you made the decision to
not go to law school, because Iknow there's a lot of listeners
just like me, where law schoolhas lots of points of ingress.
So basically, you haveengineering, you have
communications, you have so manyother majors that can go to law
school and kind of work in avery specific capacity.
So, which means a lot of peoplewill consider law school
(15:37):
because it has a very definedcareer path and a lot of
attorneys will make a very goodliving right.
How did you decide not to go tolaw school and what did you do
instead?
Chris Kahn (15:49):
Well, right.
So after I graduated from UCLA,I took the time.
I said I'm going to give myselftwo years to train, see how
good I can be.
And in that period of time Iwould, you know, occasionally
run into people who were in lawschool or who had graduated and
were now at a firm, and theywere all so miserable and I
(16:14):
realized, oh my god, I'm goingto set myself up for a decade of
being inside and working 80hours a week and I won't be able
to ride and run and, you know,be outside.
And that actually was a verybig deterrent for me, because I
couldn't imagine a life where Iwasn't able to be physically
active as much as I wanted andrace and and just train and just
being outdoors.
I'm a very outdoors person.
Daniel Koo (16:32):
Yeah, just for reference.
How many miles per week did youdo cycle?
Chris Kahn (16:36):
Well, now I used to cycle about 250 a week, but I've
dialed it down to about 120 orso a week.
Daniel Koo (16:43):
Yeah, yes 120 is dialed down.
Yeah, dialed down.
Chris Kahn (16:47):
Well, I did a rough calculation at one point because
my wife is also a cyclist andshe's the numbers noggin, so she
likes to have all the numbersand at this point in my cycling
career I'm not interested, Ijust want to be on the bike.
But she has all the numbers andwe together, as a couple, have
ridden almost 150,000 miles.
(17:08):
Oh, my goodness and I hadprobably another 150,000 before
I even met her, so I think I'velogged about 300,000 miles on
the bike, oh my gosh, that'ssome good mileage.
Daniel Koo (17:19):
You're getting out of the bike and out of your legs
.
That's incredible.
Okay, so your main reason fornot wanting to go to law school
was you couldn't really imagineyourself going through that kind
of lifestyle.
Chris Kahn (17:31):
Yeah, exactly so.
It's very important.
But the visualization we weretalking about begin with the end
in mind, right, and I hadn'tread Stephen Covey's book at
that time, but I'm very big onvisualization of things.
I really try to imagine ithappening.
You know, on visualization ofthings, I really tried to
imagine it happening, you know,act as if and then manifest it.
(17:57):
So I had those visions of notbeing, you know, bogged down by
the work instead of beingimpassioned by the work, so I
didn't feel the passion for itas well.
I mean, that was a leftbrainbrain decision.
Right, it's a verystrategically, it's a very smart
thing to get a degree.
It can go like we were talkingabout the different applications
a law degree has in careerpaths.
It's a very smart move if youwant to be in politics, if you
(18:18):
want to be a diplomat, if youwant to be a developer or a real
estate person right, there'sall sorts of applications for
law school.
So the left brain part of mewas thinking that, and then the
right brain, creative part of mewas imagination, was
envisioning the misery of it andthe sacrifices that were made.
Ultimately, if you think aboutit, I didn't want to sacrifice a
(18:40):
certain lifestyle that I wanted.
Daniel Koo (18:43):
Actually, one thing I've heard from lawyers is that
the only good thing about beinga lawyer is that you can say
that you're a lawyer and that'spretty much it.
Right, and not to bash on thecareer, but it's certainly an
intense line of work, right, andI can definitely see that being
a deterrent.
So, instead of going to lawschool, was there anything else
that you gravitated towards too?
Because usually, if you'removing away from a certain path,
(19:06):
there's another path thatbasically enables them to pour
their passion and pour theirhours.
Was there something like thatfor you?
Chris Kahn (19:13):
Well, there was about 15 years into my career, I
really started doing a lot ofreading on biotechnology, and I
knew that was going to be areally huge and lucrative future
.
This was in the late 90s, early2000s, and I thought at one
point about going into biotech,because that was something that
I thought would satisfy myintellectual appetites as well
(19:34):
as being able to perhaps be inthe cool kids table for what's
coming in technology terms.
But that didn't materialize.
I just think at that point Iwas just beginning to get some
success with my writing.
So then I focused a little bitmore on cranking out screenplays
.
Daniel Koo (19:50):
Then we can talk about the screenplay as well.
What was your very first oneand how was that process?
Chris Kahn (19:57):
Well, I think what happens when anybody has some
success at something, theycontinue to go at it right
Because it gives you the rightdopamine and serotonin
neurochemical stew.
It creates a cycle of success.
One of the first scripts I everwrote.
It was a finalist in theNichols Fellowship, which is a
(20:18):
screenwriting competitionsponsored by the Academy, and
that script got optioned and Iwas excited.
We went through the process ofgetting directors attached and
Kevin Bacon was attached at onepoint, so that was so all of a
sudden you get into that andthat's what.
That's what keeps people comingback to that trough, right?
Because because you get excitedabout these things and, oh my,
(20:38):
this could be the movie, andI've been.
This has happened to me dozensand dozens of times with my
projects and the frustratingthing is that none of them have
ever been made into the bigscreens.
But the process, again, if youlike the process and I do, I
like the process of storytellingit's, in some ways, it's like
chess with emotional characters,right, you have to figure out
(21:00):
if you have an idea.
Like one of the first scripts Iwrote, I had an internal theme
about gun violence and I thought, well, how can I tell a story
that shows the importance of thefact that picking up a gun is
not a good choice to resolve aproblem?
So I have a deeply emotionalattachment to an issue and then
(21:23):
I think about.
Well, how can you highlight theboth sides or the aspects of
that issue through the means ofstorytelling platform?
And so then you have to havestrategic thinking about okay,
well, what's the plot and how dothey get from A to B and how
does that change the characterand what would the relationships
?
How will those relationships bealtered?
(21:44):
So I like that part of writingand storytelling is figuring out
the whole of it and, at thesame time, bringing forth
something that's emotionallygratifying, something that's
compelling, might have sometheme to it, some message.
I try not to write messagemovies, but there's always some
type of a message, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Daniel Koo (22:03):
There needs to be some sort of driving force for
the story.
Chris Kahn (22:07):
Yeah, like I have a script right now.
It's interestingly enough, juston Wednesday that we might have
a major director gettingattached to.
It's called Glass Bullets, andI was so outraged by the
financial crisis of 2008, howthey perpetrated this tremendous
fraud that wiped out so manypeople, and none of the
perpetrators of this fraud, thisDerivatives scam, went to jail
(22:32):
none of them there.
All they all still have theirhomes in the Connecticut and
their apartments in Manhattanand their big salaries, and they
went on to work for other WallStreet firms or private equity.
The little guys were devastatedAll the mortgages that went
under right.
Right Now some of them deserveit because they used liar loans
and they didn't really have themeans to own a house.
(22:53):
But the system itself was alittle bit flawed.
The system was rigged.
It wasn't flawed, it was riggedand it made me so mad.
So I wrote this screenplay andit's a really kind of an action
movie.
You, this screenplay, it's areally kind of an action movie.
You know the ex-Special Forcessniper that was dishonorably
(23:15):
discharged for a nuclearsuitcase deal that he was
supposed to stand down on.
But he executed the deal and hegot court-martialed, finds him
and blackmails him intoassassinating the seven heads of
the too big to fail banks whenthey make this big announcement
down on Wall Street aboutrepaying the TARP money.
Basically, I read all three ofTony Gilroy's screenplays for
(23:35):
the Jason Bourne movies and Isaid, OK, I'm going to write
this like it's the fourth Bournemovie and so it was all very
much written.
If you were looking at thestyle of the screenplay and you
read it in sequence, you'd think, okay, this is pretty close to
what Gilroy does with Bourne.
So I wrote that.
But the whole point of that wasit was a catharsis for me.
It was like you paid noconsequences for ruining the
(23:57):
lives of hundreds of millions ofpeople.
You're going to get shot.
Daniel Koo (24:02):
I think that really shows the creative side of you
and I see a lot of artiststrying to really draw on from
their own lives and that'sreally interesting that you have
such a creative outlet therethat turns into movies and
scripts like that.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how writing like a fiction
novel and screenwriting, howthat's different?
Chris Kahn (24:24):
Yeah, there's almost like two schools of thought.
Like, I write under a pseudonymfor novels, ck Brewster, and I
chose that intentionally becausethe literati in New York, the
publishing world, the publishers, tend to think that
screenwriters can't be novelists.
And then the screenwritingcommunity thinks that novelists
(24:44):
can't be screenwriters.
Oh, classic, right.
So in order to avoid that trap,I said I'll just use a
pseudonym.
So I write novels as CKBrewster, but the novel, the
form of the novel, remember.
So this is a really easy thingfor writers or potential writers
out there.
The screenplay is a blueprintand you're really telling the
(25:05):
audience.
In your writing you're onlyshowing and telling what's going
to be on the screen.
So in the writing of that youdon't have the chance to get
into any internal monologue ofthe character.
That's not in a screenplay.
That's what's in a novel isthat you get to understand the
inner workings of yourcharacters through the book and
(25:25):
you have the liberty of superintense description and dense
description or kineticdescription.
You've got to keep all that outof the screenplay because that
just boggles down the read andremember who reads the
screenplays Producers, studioexecutives, actors and actresses
and directors.
They want to see the movie,that's it.
They don't need any extradescription.
Daniel Koo (25:47):
Oh, interesting.
Okay, yeah, that actuallyreminds me of.
I've read some of Dostoevsky'swork and the internal dialogue
or actually I mean theirmonologues really is extensive
and the novels are so long justto really accurately describe
what the character is goingthrough.
But I guess that doesn't reallyshow up in movies, as you said.
No, it doesn't.
Chris Kahn (26:08):
And that's two things.
Number one the talent of anovelist is to be able to
clearly and compellingly deliverthat part of it, the depth of
understanding the character andwhy they're doing what they're
doing.
And in novel writing there's asaying that plot is character.
So a lot of Dostoevsky.
(26:28):
He doesn't lean on that toomuch because he's spending a lot
of time on internal monologue,whereas John Grisham is spending
a lot of time on plot.
Okay, but whatever thecharacters choose to do, it
tells you a lot about who theyare.
So plot is character.
But in the novel you have thechance to extrapolate on the
richness of character.
(26:48):
And you could say the samething about a script, because
what people do in the movietells us a lot about who they
are.
But the reason streaming serieshave become so popular is
because they've kind of beenable to do a little novelistic
thing cinematically, becausethey have more time to develop
the character.
So you see longer scenes andmore establishment of atmosphere
(27:12):
.
If you take a Bridgerton, theytake a lot of time to build that
world for you Would have beendifferent if it was a movie.
Daniel Koo (27:17):
you're saying yes because you have two hours.
I really like this movementbecause I know a lot of my
favorite movies.
I wish there was just more ofit, you know, and I guess that's
.
Chris Kahn (27:27):
And that's what makes you know how many times
you've heard people say oh, thebook was so much better than the
movie, exactly Right.
Well, that's because they don'thave enough time really to give
you all the goodies from thenovel.
So that's why streaming isfabulous.
I mean, you're young, you'regrowing up in the era this is
the golden era of storytelling,and it all started with the
Sopranos, the Sopranos and theWire.
(27:49):
So it's really only 22, 23years.
You can go back and see allthose great movies from the
second half of the 20th century,but the best storytelling is on
these great series now, do you?
Daniel Koo (28:00):
plan to write scripts for TV shows as well, if
you get the chance.
Chris Kahn (28:05):
What's happening now , getting back to persistence,
is, even though I didn't meetwith success, really huge
success.
I kept writing and I had amentor years ago and I was
complaining about not havinganything made and he said just
keep writing, produce content,content, because you never know
(28:26):
when that content is going to bein vogue.
And sure enough, the very firstnovel I wrote between 96 and
2000 quantum profit is the nameof it that is being looked at as
a potential streaming seriesnow, now.
Now, oh wow, because the themesof that novel then were proper
stewardship of the planet, right.
(28:47):
Very relevant now the theme ofthe book is that the Earth is a
sentient organism, it has itsown consciousness and it
deplores the parasite known asmankind.
And so it speeds up all theevolutionary processes, the
tectonic plates crashing againsteach other, hurricanes, storms,
electromagnetic interference,so the Earth is basically
(29:08):
remaking itself, trying todestroy mankind.
And you have a hero character, afemale who has these special
gifts, that understands why thisis happening and she trots the
globe throughout the novel tohelp restore the balance in the
earth.
And so that was the novel backin the late 90s and I read again
(29:28):
my passion.
I read Bill McKibben's book theEnd of Nature, and then another
book by James Lovelock calledGaia, and those books really
resonated with me and I thoughtwell, those are academic books,
right, those are very dry,talking about the status of
things and with evidentiarypresentation.
Very few people are going toread that kind of a book and get
(29:51):
anything out of it.
So if you want to try to tellpeople that we need to be better
stewards of the planet, you gotto tell it through a compelling
story, something that peoplecan emotionally connect to.
And so I created this novel asa way to put these themes into
an emotionally encompassing,identifiable arena.
Daniel Koo (30:09):
I must say that story is actually very ahead of
its time.
I feel like it's something thatI could definitely see as a
movie now, or even a TV show.
Chris Kahn (30:17):
So I'll tell you a really interesting tidbit about
that book.
One of my clients at the timewas Ray Manzarek.
This is your personal training.
Daniel Koo (30:25):
My personal training clients.
Chris Kahn (30:27):
He was the keyboardist for the Doors right,
and so those guys in the 60s,acid, lsd, right, all that stuff
.
So he was one of the first guysto read the book, the first
draft, and I remember he came in.
I gave it to him on a Thursday.
He came in on Monday morningfor the workout and he looked
right at me and he goes Were youon?
Daniel Koo (30:50):
What the hell were you on?
Chris Kahn (30:52):
when you wrote this book, I said nothing.
And he goes you're kidding.
That's the way your imaginationworks.
Extremely creative yeah, so Isee that as a very backhanded
compliment.
Daniel Koo (31:08):
No, I think, as a writer and a creative, I think
that's one of the best thingsyou can hear.
I want to talk about yourmentor that you've mentioned.
I was going to ask about werethere any influences in your
life for your writing career andhow you were able to be
persistent for that career?
Chris Kahn (31:24):
I had a good screenwriting teacher at UCLA.
It's very difficult to finish ascript.
I mean because you just getbogged down and it just gets
frustrating.
I can't tell you how manythousands of hours I've been
staring at a computer screenwaiting for the inspiration to
come.
And they always tell you aboutall these tricks.
Well, just start writingsomething right, and never.
(31:47):
Here's another trick forwriters is when you're finishing
up on something and you'vewritten three, four pages, stop
in the middle of a sentence.
All right, right, just thinkand then pick it up from there.
The next day.
It's much easier to continuefrom a mid sentence right, full
right yeah, another great thingthat I was taught by my by Bob
Adams, might you still ascreenwriting teacher was
(32:08):
amateur screenwriters.
They tend to think that a scenehas the beginning and an end.
But but he said wherever yourstory's going, whatever you
think the first two or threebits of information that are
necessary for your audience,just eliminate them.
Jump right in, okay, and letthe audience catch up to what's
happening in the scene, insteadof trying to set the table for
(32:30):
them with the scene.
Jump into the scene and letthem catch your coattail and go
through it right.
Daniel Koo (32:34):
I see those are some strategies that potential
writers who are listening, Ithink could really take
advantage of.
Chris Kahn (32:40):
It just makes things more concise too, because you
just eliminate the unnecessarybuffering and the bulk of
something and you get right intothe nitty gritty of what's
happening.
Daniel Koo (32:49):
So I think for your writing career it seems like
it's always been there andalways being kind of persistent,
as we say.
But I think it being like that,I bet there's a lot of moments
where it was discouraging andmaybe would have felt a little
bit of imposter syndrome.
Did you ever face that kind ofchallenge All the time?
Chris Kahn (33:09):
Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you any time.
Why am I even trying to do this?
Daniel Koo (33:15):
What's something that helped you get over it and
keep on pushing?
Chris Kahn (33:19):
Well, I'll tell you a really interesting story.
I met a guy who was an agentfor years and years and he was
in packaging and I wasexpressing my frustrations to
him.
Interestingly enough, I wasmeeting with him for potential
investment in Treever, oh Right.
And then we were talking aboutthe screenplays.
And I was meeting with him forpotential investment in Treever,
oh Right.
And then we were talking aboutthe screenplays and I was
expressing my frustrations andhe said well, send me a script
(33:39):
and I'll read it.
And so he read the script.
And then the next time I sawhim, I talked to him.
He looked right at me and goesthis script is amazing.
Why the fuck aren't you JJAbrams?
And you know, it was one ofthose moments where, okay, yeah,
I can do this.
Daniel Koo (33:56):
There are people in your life that are directly
complimenting your work.
I mean yes.
Chris Kahn (33:59):
I've had enough compliments and success along
the way getting into the WritersGuild, having some deals done,
being hired to write something,All that stuff tells you that,
yes, you're talented enough,right, but I haven't been able
to make a living as a writer.
But I'm fortunate Again, all bysort of accident, random
accident, having the base of avery successful personal
(34:22):
training career as an income hasallowed me the liberty to
continue to pursue writing.
Daniel Koo (34:27):
So for writers, what's a kind of success metric?
Because for writers, when yousell a movie script, you're
completely losing control of thescript.
Chris Kahn (34:36):
Most of the time, that's what happens, yeah.
Daniel Koo (34:37):
So how does a writer kind of measure their success
in the movie industry?
Chris Kahn (34:42):
Well, I think what happens is you sell something
and you get sort of anentry-level position and then
you get a quote, right.
So it was this kind of a movie.
It was for a streamer or it wasfor a studio.
It had this budget If it was $2million budget, the WJ had
certain scale, like the minimumsyou can be paid for certain
type of product that you'recreating.
(35:03):
If your budget for your movie is100 million, different scale,
right.
So based on the scale, paymentfor the project, you get a quote
.
So measuring your success isthat each subsequent thing that
you write, you get paid more, soyour quote goes up.
I see, and I think the ultimateis when you and I haven't
(35:24):
gotten here and I hope somepoint I might be able to break
through to this is when you gethired to rework somebody else's
script and and these the guys atthe top of the business they
can get paid a million bucksjust to take some journeyman
writer's script who had a greatstory and some great characters,
(35:45):
but it's got plot holes orwhatever.
But we know you can deliver, weknow you have that skill, so
we'll give you a million bucksjust to rework that.
Now, that's the top of thelevel, but a couple of successes
, that I could conceivably be ina situation where there'd be a
couple hundred thousand dollarsfor a few weeks work Right.
Daniel Koo (36:01):
That's amazing.
I think that's definitelysomething that people can look
forward to as kind of a Northstar when they're starting out
their writing career.
We can get into how you'rebalancing personal training,
career and writing and being afounder.
So what is your day-to-day kindof schedule look like?
Chris Kahn (36:18):
Well, I'm very fortunate that I start very
early with very high net worthclients and I'm done by about 11
o'clock every day, so I've mademy nut right Right in the
morning.
In the morning and I have therest of the day, so then it's
writing and it's researching,writing and taking a lot of
meetings.
There was a period of timeputting Treever together where I
(36:39):
was going up to Silicon Valleyand meeting with people in New
York a couple times some ofthose founders events,
networking events, et cetera andthat ultimately, when I look
back on it, was quite a lot ofwaste of time.
But you know, I learned and Igot a chance to talk to people
and I have an idea of how itworks.
(37:00):
So we're in a position nowwhere we're very close to
getting a significant amount offunds where we'll be able to get
to really ramp up the team now.
Daniel Koo (37:10):
To kind of backtrack from your personal training
career.
How was being a triathlete andreally pushing as an athlete
like, and how did that kind ofgive you lessons on how to live
your life in the future?
Chris Kahn (37:23):
Well, the interesting thing about that is
you spend a lot of time planningyour strategy for improving as
an athlete.
So there's a lot of goalorientation there.
So you want to do a certaintime.
You have a certain set ofprotocols that you have to do X
amount of your heart rate forthis period of time.
This much recovery, right?
(37:43):
So physical execution for beingable to achieve the goals along
the way, set the goals and worktowards the goals.
But that's also for anything.
Same thing for screenwriting,you know, trying to get through
that scene and trying to solvethat problem.
Same thing for business.
You know what I mean.
We have a goal of raising Xamount of money.
Well, how are we going to getto that goal?
These things.
(38:04):
So the physical fitness part ofthe triathlon, it had the goal
setting.
Part of it, it had thediscipline because you got to
get out there and do it.
And the other big thing isyou're putting yourself into
distress on a regular basis.
Daniel Koo (38:18):
So how are you?
Yeah, on purpose, voluntarilyright.
Chris Kahn (38:22):
So by learning to handle a physiological stress,
it helps you, I think, handleother stresses too.
Daniel Koo (38:27):
I think that's really true.
I have a mentor who used to bemy manager actually,
interestingly enough, he's oneyear younger than me, but he's a
great resource for engineeringcareer right and I think during
his college years he tried tocycle in the Tour de France.
So when he was training he wasincredibly tenacious, like he
trained so much every day and,as we know, tour de France is a
(38:50):
couple of weeks of cycling andyou know, hundreds of miles a
day.
So I see a pattern for a lot ofathletes being really having a
lot of perseverance and beingpersistent.
I think that's reallyinteresting.
So one thing that wasinteresting was you mentioned
you trained Steven Spielberg andhis family.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that?
Chris Kahn (39:08):
Yeah, that was a great experience.
So I had been trainingentertainment industry people
and ended up training Stephen'swife, kate, for a couple of
years at that point and gotinvolved in the Spielberg family
because it had a lot of littleones at the time and I'm pretty
good with kids, so you knowthey'd come into the gym here
(39:28):
and there.
And when Stephen decided tomake Schindler's in Poland they
wanted to know if I would gowith them, because Kate's
daughter, jessica, and herfriends they were going to do a
semester in Europe kind of thing.
So they were going to befinished their junior year in
high school in Poland withtraveling around on the weekends
to different cities and gettingsort of a historical flash
(39:51):
party in Europe, and so theyknew I could handle some
physical activity for the kidsas well, because the whole
family went.
So we had two nannies and I wasthere for the personal training
for Kate and Stephen when hewanted to train, which was very
seldom and then doing someactivities for the kids.
So they hired me specificallyto do that and so I went over in
(40:13):
advance and set up a gym.
They had a big compound inKrakow that they rented for the
six months and I went over thereearly and set up a gym in that
compound.
Wow yeah, and because this wasjust after this was 93.
So you know, 89, the wall camedown and so Poland was still
Eastern Europe and there was noreal cutting-edge industry.
(40:35):
So all of the equipment had tocome from West Germany and we
put it in there and I was thereto train Kate, do the activity
for the kids and Stephen and anyprincipal actor who wanted to
work out as well.
So I ended up working out withRalph Fiennes and the
cinematographer Janusz Kaminski,and that was great.
But it was great because Iwould have a certain amount of
(41:00):
obligation for everybody'sphysical fitness and then the
rest of the time I was on theset watching Stephen make the
movie, and so for me it was likethe ultimate film school and I
got to meet a lot of thecreative people, the editors and
the production designers.
Because I was Stephen's person,they actually had to talk to me
.
So it was like it really trulywas a very immersive kind of
film school.
Daniel Koo (41:20):
How do you find all of these high net worth
individuals and how do you growyour network?
Chris Kahn (41:30):
It's all word of mouth.
So whoever's listening to thisin your life, if you do a really
good job at what you're doingand you're really skilled at
what you do and you're reallypassionate about it and
intelligent about it, peoplewill want to hire you and
they'll want to work with you,and so I think that's really
only it, that I was doing agreat job with client after
client after client.
I haven't had to solicit apersonal training client in 30
years.
They just come.
Daniel Koo (41:52):
Did you have a mentor in the personal trainer
career and what were some of thechallenges that you faced and
how did your mentor help youthrough?
Chris Kahn (42:00):
that?
That's a good question.
I don't know that I had adirect mentor.
I had a, I guess, a friend ofmine.
Kevin at the Phoenix AthleticClub is where I kind of started
that.
So he was in charge of thefitness program there and he was
very knowledgeable, he had aphysiology degree and so I just
sort of picked his brain and myvery first client was over there
(42:22):
.
That Kevin knew I was workingout there myself and he knew
that I knew all that stuff andso he introduced me to somebody
that I trained there.
So I actually got my firsttaste of training somebody
before I even came back to LA.
So I actually got my firsttaste of training somebody
before I even came back to LA.
So I would say that Kevin wasvery influential in encouraging
me and I think at one point hesaid that when you have
knowledge, people will pay forit.
(42:44):
Right, and he was actually veryprescient because this was in
the mid 80s and he was sayingthat health and fitness oriented
service industry is just justgoing to explode and I think
that stayed with me.
And then when I came back to LAI was just working in a gym and
then I saw the beginning of thepersonal training program
happening.
(43:04):
And then I was very luckybecause I was working at a
sports connection in Encino andthe owners of the sports
connection they wanted to buildthe most premier gym and health
fitness facility in the UnitedStates and that was the Sports
Club LA.
And they interviewed all thetrainers from all the different
clubs around Southern Californiaand they picked the 10 best to
(43:25):
come and launch their flagshipfitness and I was one of those
10.
Daniel Koo (43:28):
Right, Wow, yeah, I guess the skills kind of speak
for themselves and that's howyou're able to kind of push that
.
So the skills kind of speak forthemselves and that's how
you're able to kind of push that.
So, as we kind of near the end,I want to ask a couple of
questions.
So the question is around towhom would you not recommend
this career or, I guess, in thiscase, careers and to whom would
you recommend this career?
And maybe I think we could talkabout even having this like
(43:56):
split career, as well as theindividual, the three careers
you've had in parallel, right.
Chris Kahn (43:58):
So I think it takes a certain kind of personality.
I read a Deepak Chopra.
I read him years and years agoand I remember one of the
biggest lines that stuck out tome was he said learn to live
with uncertainty.
And that is so true.
It's very powerful, powerful,and people who can't live with
(44:19):
uncertainty, they're not goingto be able to handle all of the
anxiety that comes with thesethree.
Trying to spread myself out toothin, perhaps some people might
say I can hear my mom sayingthat right now.
Or just not knowing like apersonal training career.
When the pandemic came, we werefreaking out because we weren't
(44:40):
going to be able to be with ourclients in person.
Our income could have gone tozero, right.
But again, the pivot,persistence right.
We convinced, I think, about80% of our clients that we could
train them effectively throughZoom, and so we worked very hard
, and the most interestinglesson about that was we had to
(45:03):
become super effective andefficient communicators, because
you're not doing for them inthe gym.
They have to do for themselves,but you have to give them the
instructions, not just whatmuscle groups they're focusing
on and their breathing.
And all that.
No, when you pick that dumbbellup off the rack, make sure your
knees are bent Right.
I mean you have to get thatspecific when you're training
(45:25):
somebody over Zoom.
So we were able to pivot likethat, thanks God, and we were
able to maintain that income.
So, anxiety, that's anuncertainty.
Boom, tomorrow there could be apandemic and your personal
service job could be gone.
Now that's anxiety.
And then writing a script thatgoes to a studio and there's a
(45:46):
lot of anxiety.
Are they going to like it?
Is it going to come together,all of that stuff.
So there are plenty of peoplewhose personalities should be
indicative of them.
In a corporate job wherethere's benefits Like all of my
sisters have jobs where theyhave benefits.
They're teachers and they'readministrators, so they have set
hours, everything's sort oflaid out for them.
(46:07):
They have benefits.
None of that works for me.
It doesn't work forentrepreneurs.
Daniel Koo (46:12):
Do you believe that a lot of these skills are innate
, or did you feel like youdeveloped them over time?
Chris Kahn (46:16):
I think I'm always an 80-20 guy 80% genetics, 20%
work and 20% lifestyle and 20%choices.
Right, I mean, my efforts to bea high-level triathlete were
absolutely that I had a certainamount of genetics and the 20%
(46:37):
where I was going to apply everypossible scientific and
training advantage to myselfbecause I knew what they were
and how to implement them.
It still didn't make up forthat shortfall in my genetics.
Daniel Koo (46:49):
To summarize some of the things that we talked about
today.
I think persistence has reallybeen a key movement throughout
your life and we can see it inevery part of your journey.
And something I personallylearned is, you know, having
that perseverance and being ableto really push through until,
even though there's no immediatereward, you know there's I mean
call it delayed gratificationor perseverance, but I feel like
(47:12):
if you have a vision in mindand constantly pushing towards
that, even though there's nosomething immediate, that takes
a lot of work, but I think itreally gives you a massive
reward.
I think later you know.
Chris Kahn (47:24):
I'll add one thing to that when certain situational
things come up, my wife, beforea social gathering, she'll say
well, chris, tell us how thebrain works.
And because it's like, why dothey do that?
Or whatever, because I'm a laystudent of neurobiology and the
interesting thing is that we ashuman beings are
(47:45):
dopamine-seeking creatures.
That's it.
Whatever you're doing, you'reseeking dopamine.
And we religion, we have sex,we have drugs, you have
carbohydrates.
But one of the leastappreciated dopamine producers
is goal achievement.
And what the interesting thingabout goal achievement is that
it secretes a little bit ofdopamine over a long period of
(48:08):
time.
So each time you get a littlecloser to your goal, you you do
get that dopamine rush right,and because you're getting
closer and closer.
So it's just some sort ofelongated dopamine delivery.
So goal orientation is a bigpart of that.
Again, that's persistence isclearly necessary if it's a
long-term goal, I guess.
Daniel Koo (48:28):
To wrap things up a little bit, I want to ask you
for one last piece of advice.
Is there something that youwould like to tell the listeners
?
To kind of wrap it up.
Chris Kahn (48:36):
Probably the most famous student or a teacher, I
should say of mythology andunderstanding mythology is
Joseph Campbell, hero with athousand faces, and one of his
constant invocations is followyour bliss.
And that's great, and I havelived a life of following my
bliss because these things haveall mattered to me, but at the
(48:58):
same time I'd put an addendum tothat Follow your bliss, but be
smart about it.
Daniel Koo (49:06):
Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
I really appreciated all ofyour insights and also your time
, my pleasure.
I had a mentor years ago and I was complaining about
not having anything made and hesaid just keep writing, produce
content, because you never knowwhen that content is going to
be in vogue.
And sure enough, the very firstnovel I wrote between 96 and
2000, quantum Prophet is thename of it that is being looked
(00:22):
at as a potential streamingseries now, now.
Now, oh, wow, because thethemes of that novel then were
proper stewardship of the planet, right, very relevant now.
The theme of the book is thatthe Earth is a sentient organism
, it has its own consciousnessand it deplores the parasite
known as mankind.
(00:43):
And so it speeds up all theevolutionary processes, the
tectonic plates crashing againsteach other, hurricanes, storms,
electromagnetic interference,so the Earth is basically
remaking itself, trying todestroy mankind.
And you have a hero character,a female who has these special
gifts, that understands why thisis happening and she trots the
(01:04):
globe throughout the novel tohelp, you know, restore the
balance and the earth.
And so that was the novel backin the late 90s welcome back to
my perfect path, a show aboutchasing dreams and developing
careers.
Today we have a special guestentrepreneur, chris khan.
His journey has taken him frompersonal training to
(01:25):
screenwriting, to launching hisown startup, and along the way,
he's worked with some ofHollywood's biggest names.
Chris is the founder of Trever,a messaging app with a fresh
approach.
Over the years, he's worn manyhats, from fitness to tech to
storytelling.
He's also a dedicated cyclist,riding an incredible 250 miles a
(01:45):
week, with a lifetime total ofover 300,000 miles, and if
that's not impressive enough,he's trained high-profile
clients like Steven Spielberg,all while pursuing his passion
for screenwriting.
In today's episode, we'll diveinto how Chris balances his
diverse career and lessons he'slearned along the way.
Whether you're interested inwriting, entrepreneurship or
(02:08):
just looking for inspiration,this episode has something for
you.
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Welcome to today's episode, myPersistent Path, featuring a
very special guest, chris Khan.
Chris, welcome to my PerfectPath.
I'm thrilled to have you here.
Thank you, just to kick thingsoff on a high level to have you
here.
Thank you, just to kick thingsoff on a high level.
Can you describe your currentstate of your career?
(02:29):
Well, it's unwinding in manyways.
I have a background in fitnessand that fitness has led me to
in my personal training businesshas led me to a lot of clients
who are very interesting andconnected and I built a robust
network out of all those yearsof training and that allowed me
to a lot of clients who are veryinteresting and connected and I
built a robust network out ofall those years of training and
that allowed me to move into thetechnology side of things,
(02:51):
because these people wereconnected to Silicon Valley and
I realized that I couldtranslate my skill set from
interpersonal capabilities todeep research on subject matters
and then understanding themarketplace for technology.
So I've sort of transitionedfrom that to being a startup
(03:13):
founder and building a messagingproduct that we're pretty
excited about.
Daniel Koo (03:17):
So the product itself is called Treever,
Correct?
Could you tell us a little bitmore about Treever and how it
works?
Chris Kahn (03:23):
Yeah well, one of the things that struck me in my
musing it's actually the genesisof this actually comes out of a
screenplay that I wrote becauseI've been a writer all along
the way as I've had my trainingbusiness of novels and
screenplays and I had an ideafor a comedy where someone like
Melissa McCarthy invents thenext big thing tech app.
(03:46):
And my idea was that you couldhave an app that was sort of a
hybrid of Snapchat and Instagramand Musically at the time,
which become TikTok.
And I wrote a movie aboutsomebody who invents this app
and all of the shenanigans thatgo along with not being
technically savvy, not being acoder but having an idea and how
(04:08):
would you go about building ateam.
And she gets her ex-boyfriendto help with the coding and all
this and it becomes sort of likethe wedding crashers meets the
social network.
So I wrote this script and wegot it to Melissa McCarthy and
she was attached to the movie.
It never got made.
It's all in development still.
But I ran into a friend of mineon the bike path who I knew was
(04:31):
a high level engineer at Oracleand I was telling him about
writing this movie and I toldhim what the app was and what it
could do and he said why don'twe go build that?
And so that's how my journeybegan to build this messaging
app, and because we realizedright away that there was a
niche between native texting andmessaging and making TikToks
(04:53):
essentially right.
So native messaging itself iOSand Android has not evolved that
much and it's still the mostused messaging format in the
world.
And it's still the most usedmessaging format in the world.
Something like 90% of textmessages are still sent over the
native platforms on those iOSand Android, and that hasn't
(05:17):
evolved much past GIFs andBitmojis and things like that.
So we thought we could find away to build very quickly,
assemble from the content, whichis image content, music content
and the message itself, and ananimation component.
With a couple of steps youcould integrate all those things
into a multimedia micro montagethat contained your text
message and we could just pushthat through that pipeline of
(05:38):
native texting.
So we thought we recognized anopportunity in that marketplace
and that's what we're building.
Daniel Koo (05:44):
I think this is definitely the coolest start of
an app idea I've ever heard, andI'm very excited to see what
comes of it and actually to beable to use it.
How do you envision peopleusing this app in the future?
Chris Kahn (05:55):
Well, I've always said that Treever could be very,
very successful because itmakes texting more emotionally
gratifying.
So a lot of texting istransactional, telling somebody
you're going to meet them here,you're going to meet them there,
whatever, you're going to putsomething together or you're
sharing something that you justsnapped a picture of or whatever
, and I think by adding themusic component, you make that
(06:18):
message more emotionallyrewarding, and so I think that's
where we can position ourselvesin the marketplace of more
emotionally gratifying texting,I see.
Daniel Koo (06:26):
So it's making boring text more engaging,
correct, just like TikTok madeInstagram posts more engaging.
I think maybe that's wherewe're going at.
Yeah, thank you so much for theexplanation.
I do want to get into how youbuilt up your career as well,
and for today's episode we'vepicked the adjective persistent.
Can you tell me a little bitwhy you picked this adjective?
Chris Kahn (06:49):
You can tell from the preliminary bits of
information that I've been ajack of many trades, to say the
least.
Yeah, and I'm still working onbeing a master of one or two of
them.
But each time that I dosomething, a path or a journey.
Stephen Covey has the greatbook Seven Habits of Highly
(07:10):
Effective People, and one ofthose is begin with the end in
mind, and I always liked thatidea and so that sort of stuck
with me, because when I start onsomething I can see where I
want to be, and so thatresonated with me pretty
significantly.
And you'll find out as anybodygoes on these journeys, the
obstacles that presentthemselves can be formidable,
(07:32):
and it was always a question ofhow much am I going to let the
hurdles deter me?
And I guess I just have thekind of personality where I said
that's not going to stop me,that's not going to stop me,
that's not going to stop me,that's not going to stop me.
I mean the whole UniversalMusic licensing thing.
My first meeting at UniversalMusic with the head of business
(07:53):
affairs, jeff Harlston, theywanted a million dollar advance
from us to use their catalogbecause they're the most robust
catalog in the world, right?
Best music, best artists.
Daniel Koo (08:02):
And at this point, did you have a lot of experience
dealing with these deals?
No, not at all.
Chris Kahn (08:07):
No, no, but I've dealt with the players who most
of my personal training clientswere very successful high
profile executives orcelebrities or business CEOs.
So on a daily basis I'minteracting with those people.
So I'm not afraid, I'm notintimidated by those people.
And so when I went in there andthey demand this huge upfront
(08:31):
fee, we got into a whole longdiscussion about how punitive
that was to entrepreneurs and Isaid there are going to be other
people besides me coming inhere with ideas about how to use
music and if you're going todemand this big upfront payment
from them, you're going todiscourage all the entrepreneurs
and they're not going to beable to give you a value add on
(08:52):
your music, on your catalog.
You need that out there in theworld generating revenue for you
.
So you need to completely flipyour position on how you're
going to deal with entrepreneurs.
And that led directly to themcreating this innovation
licensing department, which so,in some ways, my persistence on
not letting them say, no, okay,no, you can't have it.
(09:13):
Snapchat, which what was tryingwas using the music and not
paying for it.
So they wanted to be punitiveto everybody else because they
weren't getting Snapchat to playfairly.
So I said well, there's areason, and if you can change
this, this and this, you willprobably open up a whole new set
of revenue streams for yourself.
Daniel Koo (09:32):
And this API would kind of open it up to
entrepreneurs to use it moreprogressively and then have a
pricing model where it's easierto create and that's SongClip.
Chris Kahn (09:41):
I don't know if you know that app SongClip.
That's what ultimately came outof it, so you now, as an
entrepreneur, can have access tothe most popular music if going
through the SongClip app.
So that was a combination ofthe universal publishing and
business affairs and marketingworking with another set of
entrepreneurs.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Daniel Koo (09:59):
You've basically, by being persistent, you've gave
them actually a lot ofinnovation as well.
Exactly, can you tell me alittle bit about your background
, maybe a little bit about yourchildhood and what was it like
growing?
Chris Kahn (10:11):
up.
Sure, I feel very, veryfortunate about my formative
years.
I grew up in San Luis Obispo,which is Central Coast, halfway
between LA and San Francisco.
My father moved out from NewYork.
He had an engineering degreefrom Manhattan College and he
was hired to be part of theconstruction of the 101 freeway
(10:31):
and so that's yeah, and so hiswhole family's in New York and a
lot of them are still there,and he and my mom packed a
trailer and my little brotherand my mom was pregnant with me
and they came and they settledin San Luis Obispo and they
stayed there for all the waythrough and I grew up there and
it was an idyllic childhood.
I went to Catholic school upuntil ninth grade because it
(10:53):
only went K through nine and wasinvolved in the Catholic church
.
My dad was a Knights ofColumbus.
He was also the scoutmaster.
I went through scouting.
I was an Eagle Scout youngestEagle Scout in California at the
time.
Daniel Koo (11:08):
Oh, amazing.
Chris Kahn (11:09):
Yeah, but so I was great and I had great friends
played sports.
We grew up in the era where ona Saturday you'd get on your
bike in the morning with yourfriends and you wouldn't come
home until dinner and yourparents didn't care.
So it was great.
So I had fantastic friends,fantastic schooling, didn't
really have a lot of troublegrowing up.
(11:30):
And then I got a scholarship toUCLA and I left San Luis Obispo
and came down and I knew thatSan Luis Obispo is slow town,
slo, right, and it is slowAlthough it's grown quite a lot
since then but you don't havethe opportunities that you do in
a bigger urban environment.
But yeah, that's my background.
Daniel Koo (11:51):
So you've had three distinct careers that you've had
almost in parallel.
First, your writing career,which includes your work as an
author and also a movie writer.
Your personal training career,which has basically been
throughout your whole life, andthis tech founder role.
Could you tell us a little bitabout the timeline of how that
happened and perhaps how theymay or may not have helped each
(12:13):
other?
Well?
Chris Kahn (12:15):
I've always been a writer.
I wrote in high school and Iwas actually published poetry in
high school and short storiesand even poetry in high school
and short stories, and evenwrote a musical in high school
as a senior project.
Essentially I was a big eltonjohn fan at the time and he has
an album called tumbleweedconnection which is a brilliant
masterpiece album I think.
(12:36):
But it didn't have any reallypopular hits on it, so the
mainstream listeners don't havemuch of an idea of that album
unless you're really an EltonJohn fan.
But there was a total story inthat album.
It was kind of a themed albumand at the time I thought you
know this, I could craft a wholemusical with these songs and
(12:56):
I'd been.
You know, my family was verymusical and I grew up in the
theater and so that was mysenior project and ultimately
down the road I was ableactually to get that musical
into development 30 years lateras a result of my relationships
and personal training.
So the writing part was alwaysthere.
I've always been passionateabout telling stories and
(13:18):
characters and situations arealways in my head.
But I was also wanting to go tolaw school.
I was at UCLA in the early 80sand I thought you know, I'll do
a practical thing, I'll go tolaw school, get a law degree.
But I was training a lot at thetime myself personally, for
triathlon.
I was racing triathlon.
I knew I had a good level oftalent.
(13:39):
I wasn't sure how talented Icould be.
What major did you study inUCLA?
Communications, because it wasthe most broad.
You know, it wascross-discipline, it included
mass media, it includedsociology, it included English
and writing and politicalscience.
Daniel Koo (13:56):
So did you have a lot of friends that were trying
to go to law school A lot?
Chris Kahn (13:59):
yeah, and that was sort of the direction I expected
I would head.
But then training for thetriathlon.
The triathlon itself was justbeginning to grow and it was
just introduced into theOlympics in 1984.
And I thought, okay, between1984 and 88, I'll just allow
myself to train, see if I can beat Olympic caliber.
(14:21):
Ultimately I didn't reach thathighest of levels but in my own
effort to be better I waslearning the science of exercise
physiology for myself and Irealized that a lot of people
wanted to know what I knew.
So that's how I transitionedinto training.
It became coaching, then itbecame personal training and
then I got some high-profilecelebrity clients and then it
(14:41):
turned into a very successfulpersonal training business.
So I was still working outmyself, potential high-level
athlete to transitioning tocoaching or educating, and then
continue to write all the waythrough that period of time.
You know, in the evenings Iwould do a lot of writing and in
the early 90s I optioned myfirst script and so I've been
writing and been hired to write,to adapt books I've been hired
(15:04):
to, I've done some pilotepisodes for people rewrites so,
and I'm in the writer's guild.
So that tracked my personaltraining business very
successfully for quite some time.
Daniel Koo (15:15):
I want to talk about how you made the decision to
not go to law school, because Iknow there's a lot of listeners
just like me, where law schoolhas lots of points of ingress.
So basically, you haveengineering, you have
communications, you have so manyother majors that can go to law
school and kind of work in avery specific capacity.
So, which means a lot of peoplewill consider law school
(15:37):
because it has a very definedcareer path and a lot of
attorneys will make a very goodliving right.
How did you decide not to go tolaw school and what did you do
instead?
Chris Kahn (15:49):
Well, right.
So after I graduated from UCLA,I took the time.
I said I'm going to give myselftwo years to train, see how
good I can be.
And in that period of time Iwould, you know, occasionally
run into people who were in lawschool or who had graduated and
were now at a firm, and theywere all so miserable and I
(16:14):
realized, oh my god, I'm goingto set myself up for a decade of
being inside and working 80hours a week and I won't be able
to ride and run and, you know,be outside.
And that actually was a verybig deterrent for me, because I
couldn't imagine a life where Iwasn't able to be physically
active as much as I wanted andrace and and just train and just
being outdoors.
I'm a very outdoors person.
Daniel Koo (16:32):
Yeah, just for reference.
How many miles per week did youdo cycle?
Chris Kahn (16:36):
Well, now I used to cycle about 250 a week, but I've
dialed it down to about 120 orso a week.
Daniel Koo (16:43):
Yeah, yes 120 is dialed down.
Yeah, dialed down.
Chris Kahn (16:47):
Well, I did a rough calculation at one point because
my wife is also a cyclist andshe's the numbers noggin, so she
likes to have all the numbersand at this point in my cycling
career I'm not interested, Ijust want to be on the bike.
But she has all the numbers andwe together, as a couple, have
ridden almost 150,000 miles.
(17:08):
Oh, my goodness and I hadprobably another 150,000 before
I even met her, so I think I'velogged about 300,000 miles on
the bike, oh my gosh, that'ssome good mileage.
Daniel Koo (17:19):
You're getting out of the bike and out of your legs
.
That's incredible.
Okay, so your main reason fornot wanting to go to law school
was you couldn't really imagineyourself going through that kind
of lifestyle.
Chris Kahn (17:31):
Yeah, exactly so.
It's very important.
But the visualization we weretalking about begin with the end
in mind, right, and I hadn'tread Stephen Covey's book at
that time, but I'm very big onvisualization of things.
I really try to imagine ithappening.
You know, on visualization ofthings, I really tried to
imagine it happening, you know,act as if and then manifest it.
(17:57):
So I had those visions of notbeing, you know, bogged down by
the work instead of beingimpassioned by the work, so I
didn't feel the passion for itas well.
I mean, that was a leftbrainbrain decision.
Right, it's a verystrategically, it's a very smart
thing to get a degree.
It can go like we were talkingabout the different applications
a law degree has in careerpaths.
It's a very smart move if youwant to be in politics, if you
(18:18):
want to be a diplomat, if youwant to be a developer or a real
estate person right, there'sall sorts of applications for
law school.
So the left brain part of mewas thinking that, and then the
right brain, creative part of mewas imagination, was
envisioning the misery of it andthe sacrifices that were made.
Ultimately, if you think aboutit, I didn't want to sacrifice a
(18:40):
certain lifestyle that I wanted.
Daniel Koo (18:43):
Actually, one thing I've heard from lawyers is that
the only good thing about beinga lawyer is that you can say
that you're a lawyer and that'spretty much it.
Right, and not to bash on thecareer, but it's certainly an
intense line of work, right, andI can definitely see that being
a deterrent.
So, instead of going to lawschool, was there anything else
that you gravitated towards too?
Because usually, if you'removing away from a certain path,
(19:06):
there's another path thatbasically enables them to pour
their passion and pour theirhours.
Was there something like thatfor you?
Chris Kahn (19:13):
Well, there was about 15 years into my career, I
really started doing a lot ofreading on biotechnology, and I
knew that was going to be areally huge and lucrative future
.
This was in the late 90s, early2000s, and I thought at one
point about going into biotech,because that was something that
I thought would satisfy myintellectual appetites as well
(19:34):
as being able to perhaps be inthe cool kids table for what's
coming in technology terms.
But that didn't materialize.
I just think at that point Iwas just beginning to get some
success with my writing.
So then I focused a little bitmore on cranking out screenplays
.
Daniel Koo (19:50):
Then we can talk about the screenplay as well.
What was your very first oneand how was that process?
Chris Kahn (19:57):
Well, I think what happens when anybody has some
success at something, theycontinue to go at it right
Because it gives you the rightdopamine and serotonin
neurochemical stew.
It creates a cycle of success.
One of the first scripts I everwrote.
It was a finalist in theNichols Fellowship, which is a
(20:18):
screenwriting competitionsponsored by the Academy, and
that script got optioned and Iwas excited.
We went through the process ofgetting directors attached and
Kevin Bacon was attached at onepoint, so that was so all of a
sudden you get into that andthat's what.
That's what keeps people comingback to that trough, right?
Because because you get excitedabout these things and, oh my,
(20:38):
this could be the movie, andI've been.
This has happened to me dozensand dozens of times with my
projects and the frustratingthing is that none of them have
ever been made into the bigscreens.
But the process, again, if youlike the process and I do, I
like the process of storytellingit's, in some ways, it's like
chess with emotional characters,right, you have to figure out
(21:00):
if you have an idea.
Like one of the first scripts Iwrote, I had an internal theme
about gun violence and I thought, well, how can I tell a story
that shows the importance of thefact that picking up a gun is
not a good choice to resolve aproblem?
So I have a deeply emotionalattachment to an issue and then
(21:23):
I think about.
Well, how can you highlight theboth sides or the aspects of
that issue through the means ofstorytelling platform?
And so then you have to havestrategic thinking about okay,
well, what's the plot and how dothey get from A to B and how
does that change the characterand what would the relationships
?
How will those relationships bealtered?
(21:44):
So I like that part of writingand storytelling is figuring out
the whole of it and, at thesame time, bringing forth
something that's emotionallygratifying, something that's
compelling, might have sometheme to it, some message.
I try not to write messagemovies, but there's always some
type of a message, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Daniel Koo (22:03):
There needs to be some sort of driving force for
the story.
Chris Kahn (22:07):
Yeah, like I have a script right now.
It's interestingly enough, juston Wednesday that we might have
a major director gettingattached to.
It's called Glass Bullets, andI was so outraged by the
financial crisis of 2008, howthey perpetrated this tremendous
fraud that wiped out so manypeople, and none of the
perpetrators of this fraud, thisDerivatives scam, went to jail
(22:32):
none of them there.
All they all still have theirhomes in the Connecticut and
their apartments in Manhattanand their big salaries, and they
went on to work for other WallStreet firms or private equity.
The little guys were devastatedAll the mortgages that went
under right.
Right Now some of them deserveit because they used liar loans
and they didn't really have themeans to own a house.
(22:53):
But the system itself was alittle bit flawed.
The system was rigged.
It wasn't flawed, it was riggedand it made me so mad.
So I wrote this screenplay andit's a really kind of an action
movie.
You, this screenplay, it's areally kind of an action movie.
You know the ex-Special Forcessniper that was dishonorably
(23:15):
discharged for a nuclearsuitcase deal that he was
supposed to stand down on.
But he executed the deal and hegot court-martialed, finds him
and blackmails him intoassassinating the seven heads of
the too big to fail banks whenthey make this big announcement
down on Wall Street aboutrepaying the TARP money.
Basically, I read all three ofTony Gilroy's screenplays for
(23:35):
the Jason Bourne movies and Isaid, OK, I'm going to write
this like it's the fourth Bournemovie and so it was all very
much written.
If you were looking at thestyle of the screenplay and you
read it in sequence, you'd think, okay, this is pretty close to
what Gilroy does with Bourne.
So I wrote that.
But the whole point of that wasit was a catharsis for me.
It was like you paid noconsequences for ruining the
(23:57):
lives of hundreds of millions ofpeople.
You're going to get shot.
Daniel Koo (24:02):
I think that really shows the creative side of you
and I see a lot of artiststrying to really draw on from
their own lives and that'sreally interesting that you have
such a creative outlet therethat turns into movies and
scripts like that.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how writing like a fiction
novel and screenwriting, howthat's different?
Chris Kahn (24:24):
Yeah, there's almost like two schools of thought.
Like, I write under a pseudonymfor novels, ck Brewster, and I
chose that intentionally becausethe literati in New York, the
publishing world, the publishers, tend to think that
screenwriters can't be novelists.
And then the screenwritingcommunity thinks that novelists
(24:44):
can't be screenwriters.
Oh, classic, right.
So in order to avoid that trap,I said I'll just use a
pseudonym.
So I write novels as CKBrewster, but the novel, the
form of the novel, remember.
So this is a really easy thingfor writers or potential writers
out there.
The screenplay is a blueprintand you're really telling the
(25:05):
audience.
In your writing you're onlyshowing and telling what's going
to be on the screen.
So in the writing of that youdon't have the chance to get
into any internal monologue ofthe character.
That's not in a screenplay.
That's what's in a novel isthat you get to understand the
inner workings of yourcharacters through the book and
(25:25):
you have the liberty of superintense description and dense
description or kineticdescription.
You've got to keep all that outof the screenplay because that
just boggles down the read andremember who reads the
screenplays Producers, studioexecutives, actors and actresses
and directors.
They want to see the movie,that's it.
They don't need any extradescription.
Daniel Koo (25:47):
Oh, interesting.
Okay, yeah, that actuallyreminds me of.
I've read some of Dostoevsky'swork and the internal dialogue
or actually I mean theirmonologues really is extensive
and the novels are so long justto really accurately describe
what the character is goingthrough.
But I guess that doesn't reallyshow up in movies, as you said.
No, it doesn't.
Chris Kahn (26:08):
And that's two things.
Number one the talent of anovelist is to be able to
clearly and compellingly deliverthat part of it, the depth of
understanding the character andwhy they're doing what they're
doing.
And in novel writing there's asaying that plot is character.
So a lot of Dostoevsky.
(26:28):
He doesn't lean on that toomuch because he's spending a lot
of time on internal monologue,whereas John Grisham is spending
a lot of time on plot.
Okay, but whatever thecharacters choose to do, it
tells you a lot about who theyare.
So plot is character.
But in the novel you have thechance to extrapolate on the
richness of character.
(26:48):
And you could say the samething about a script, because
what people do in the movietells us a lot about who they
are.
But the reason streaming serieshave become so popular is
because they've kind of beenable to do a little novelistic
thing cinematically, becausethey have more time to develop
the character.
So you see longer scenes andmore establishment of atmosphere
(27:12):
.
If you take a Bridgerton, theytake a lot of time to build that
world for you Would have beendifferent if it was a movie.
Daniel Koo (27:17):
you're saying yes because you have two hours.
I really like this movementbecause I know a lot of my
favorite movies.
I wish there was just more ofit, you know, and I guess that's
.
Chris Kahn (27:27):
And that's what makes you know how many times
you've heard people say oh, thebook was so much better than the
movie, exactly Right.
Well, that's because they don'thave enough time really to give
you all the goodies from thenovel.
So that's why streaming isfabulous.
I mean, you're young, you'regrowing up in the era this is
the golden era of storytelling,and it all started with the
Sopranos, the Sopranos and theWire.
(27:49):
So it's really only 22, 23years.
You can go back and see allthose great movies from the
second half of the 20th century,but the best storytelling is on
these great series now, do you?
Daniel Koo (28:00):
plan to write scripts for TV shows as well, if
you get the chance.
Chris Kahn (28:05):
What's happening now , getting back to persistence,
is, even though I didn't meetwith success, really huge
success.
I kept writing and I had amentor years ago and I was
complaining about not havinganything made and he said just
keep writing, produce content,content, because you never know
(28:26):
when that content is going to bein vogue.
And sure enough, the very firstnovel I wrote between 96 and
2000 quantum profit is the nameof it that is being looked at as
a potential streaming seriesnow, now.
Now, oh wow, because the themesof that novel then were proper
stewardship of the planet, right.
(28:47):
Very relevant now the theme ofthe book is that the Earth is a
sentient organism, it has itsown consciousness and it
deplores the parasite known asmankind.
And so it speeds up all theevolutionary processes, the
tectonic plates crashing againsteach other, hurricanes, storms,
electromagnetic interference,so the Earth is basically
(29:08):
remaking itself, trying todestroy mankind.
And you have a hero character, afemale who has these special
gifts, that understands why thisis happening and she trots the
globe throughout the novel tohelp restore the balance in the
earth.
And so that was the novel backin the late 90s and I read again
(29:28):
my passion.
I read Bill McKibben's book theEnd of Nature, and then another
book by James Lovelock calledGaia, and those books really
resonated with me and I thoughtwell, those are academic books,
right, those are very dry,talking about the status of
things and with evidentiarypresentation.
Very few people are going toread that kind of a book and get
(29:51):
anything out of it.
So if you want to try to tellpeople that we need to be better
stewards of the planet, you gotto tell it through a compelling
story, something that peoplecan emotionally connect to.
And so I created this novel asa way to put these themes into
an emotionally encompassing,identifiable arena.
Daniel Koo (30:09):
I must say that story is actually very ahead of
its time.
I feel like it's something thatI could definitely see as a
movie now, or even a TV show.
Chris Kahn (30:17):
So I'll tell you a really interesting tidbit about
that book.
One of my clients at the timewas Ray Manzarek.
This is your personal training.
Daniel Koo (30:25):
My personal training clients.
Chris Kahn (30:27):
He was the keyboardist for the Doors right,
and so those guys in the 60s,acid, lsd, right, all that stuff
.
So he was one of the first guysto read the book, the first
draft, and I remember he came in.
I gave it to him on a Thursday.
He came in on Monday morningfor the workout and he looked
right at me and he goes Were youon?
Daniel Koo (30:50):
What the hell were you on?
Chris Kahn (30:52):
when you wrote this book, I said nothing.
And he goes you're kidding.
That's the way your imaginationworks.
Extremely creative yeah, so Isee that as a very backhanded
compliment.
Daniel Koo (31:08):
No, I think, as a writer and a creative, I think
that's one of the best thingsyou can hear.
I want to talk about yourmentor that you've mentioned.
I was going to ask about werethere any influences in your
life for your writing career andhow you were able to be
persistent for that career?
Chris Kahn (31:24):
I had a good screenwriting teacher at UCLA.
It's very difficult to finish ascript.
I mean because you just getbogged down and it just gets
frustrating.
I can't tell you how manythousands of hours I've been
staring at a computer screenwaiting for the inspiration to
come.
And they always tell you aboutall these tricks.
Well, just start writingsomething right, and never.
(31:47):
Here's another trick forwriters is when you're finishing
up on something and you'vewritten three, four pages, stop
in the middle of a sentence.
All right, right, just thinkand then pick it up from there.
The next day.
It's much easier to continuefrom a mid sentence right, full
right yeah, another great thingthat I was taught by my by Bob
Adams, might you still ascreenwriting teacher was
(32:08):
amateur screenwriters.
They tend to think that a scenehas the beginning and an end.
But but he said wherever yourstory's going, whatever you
think the first two or threebits of information that are
necessary for your audience,just eliminate them.
Jump right in, okay, and letthe audience catch up to what's
happening in the scene, insteadof trying to set the table for
(32:30):
them with the scene.
Jump into the scene and letthem catch your coattail and go
through it right.
Daniel Koo (32:34):
I see those are some strategies that potential
writers who are listening, Ithink could really take
advantage of.
Chris Kahn (32:40):
It just makes things more concise too, because you
just eliminate the unnecessarybuffering and the bulk of
something and you get right intothe nitty gritty of what's
happening.
Daniel Koo (32:49):
So I think for your writing career it seems like
it's always been there andalways being kind of persistent,
as we say.
But I think it being like that,I bet there's a lot of moments
where it was discouraging andmaybe would have felt a little
bit of imposter syndrome.
Did you ever face that kind ofchallenge All the time?
Chris Kahn (33:09):
Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you any time.
Why am I even trying to do this?
Daniel Koo (33:15):
What's something that helped you get over it and
keep on pushing?
Chris Kahn (33:19):
Well, I'll tell you a really interesting story.
I met a guy who was an agentfor years and years and he was
in packaging and I wasexpressing my frustrations to
him.
Interestingly enough, I wasmeeting with him for potential
investment in Treever, oh Right.
And then we were talking aboutthe screenplays.
And I was meeting with him forpotential investment in Treever,
oh Right.
And then we were talking aboutthe screenplays and I was
expressing my frustrations andhe said well, send me a script
(33:39):
and I'll read it.
And so he read the script.
And then the next time I sawhim, I talked to him.
He looked right at me and goesthis script is amazing.
Why the fuck aren't you JJAbrams?
And you know, it was one ofthose moments where, okay, yeah,
I can do this.
Daniel Koo (33:56):
There are people in your life that are directly
complimenting your work.
I mean yes.
Chris Kahn (33:59):
I've had enough compliments and success along
the way getting into the WritersGuild, having some deals done,
being hired to write something,All that stuff tells you that,
yes, you're talented enough,right, but I haven't been able
to make a living as a writer.
But I'm fortunate Again, all bysort of accident, random
accident, having the base of avery successful personal
(34:22):
training career as an income hasallowed me the liberty to
continue to pursue writing.
Daniel Koo (34:27):
So for writers, what's a kind of success metric?
Because for writers, when yousell a movie script, you're
completely losing control of thescript.
Chris Kahn (34:36):
Most of the time, that's what happens, yeah.
Daniel Koo (34:37):
So how does a writer kind of measure their success
in the movie industry?
Chris Kahn (34:42):
Well, I think what happens is you sell something
and you get sort of anentry-level position and then
you get a quote, right.
So it was this kind of a movie.
It was for a streamer or it wasfor a studio.
It had this budget If it was $2million budget, the WJ had
certain scale, like the minimumsyou can be paid for certain
type of product that you'recreating.
(35:03):
If your budget for your movie is100 million, different scale,
right.
So based on the scale, paymentfor the project, you get a quote
.
So measuring your success isthat each subsequent thing that
you write, you get paid more, soyour quote goes up.
I see, and I think the ultimateis when you and I haven't
(35:24):
gotten here and I hope somepoint I might be able to break
through to this is when you gethired to rework somebody else's
script and and these the guys atthe top of the business they
can get paid a million bucksjust to take some journeyman
writer's script who had a greatstory and some great characters,
(35:45):
but it's got plot holes orwhatever.
But we know you can deliver, weknow you have that skill, so
we'll give you a million bucksjust to rework that.
Now, that's the top of thelevel, but a couple of successes
, that I could conceivably be ina situation where there'd be a
couple hundred thousand dollarsfor a few weeks work Right.
Daniel Koo (36:01):
That's amazing.
I think that's definitelysomething that people can look
forward to as kind of a Northstar when they're starting out
their writing career.
We can get into how you'rebalancing personal training,
career and writing and being afounder.
So what is your day-to-day kindof schedule look like?
Chris Kahn (36:18):
Well, I'm very fortunate that I start very
early with very high net worthclients and I'm done by about 11
o'clock every day, so I've mademy nut right Right in the
morning.
In the morning and I have therest of the day, so then it's
writing and it's researching,writing and taking a lot of
meetings.
There was a period of timeputting Treever together where I
(36:39):
was going up to Silicon Valleyand meeting with people in New
York a couple times some ofthose founders events,
networking events, et cetera andthat ultimately, when I look
back on it, was quite a lot ofwaste of time.
But you know, I learned and Igot a chance to talk to people
and I have an idea of how itworks.
(37:00):
So we're in a position nowwhere we're very close to
getting a significant amount offunds where we'll be able to get
to really ramp up the team now.
Daniel Koo (37:10):
To kind of backtrack from your personal training
career.
How was being a triathlete andreally pushing as an athlete
like, and how did that kind ofgive you lessons on how to live
your life in the future?
Chris Kahn (37:23):
Well, the interesting thing about that is
you spend a lot of time planningyour strategy for improving as
an athlete.
So there's a lot of goalorientation there.
So you want to do a certaintime.
You have a certain set ofprotocols that you have to do X
amount of your heart rate forthis period of time.
This much recovery, right?
(37:43):
So physical execution for beingable to achieve the goals along
the way, set the goals and worktowards the goals.
But that's also for anything.
Same thing for screenwriting,you know, trying to get through
that scene and trying to solvethat problem.
Same thing for business.
You know what I mean.
We have a goal of raising Xamount of money.
Well, how are we going to getto that goal?
These things.
(38:04):
So the physical fitness part ofthe triathlon, it had the goal
setting.
Part of it, it had thediscipline because you got to
get out there and do it.
And the other big thing isyou're putting yourself into
distress on a regular basis.
Daniel Koo (38:18):
So how are you?
Yeah, on purpose, voluntarilyright.
Chris Kahn (38:22):
So by learning to handle a physiological stress,
it helps you, I think, handleother stresses too.
Daniel Koo (38:27):
I think that's really true.
I have a mentor who used to bemy manager actually,
interestingly enough, he's oneyear younger than me, but he's a
great resource for engineeringcareer right and I think during
his college years he tried tocycle in the Tour de France.
So when he was training he wasincredibly tenacious, like he
trained so much every day and,as we know, tour de France is a
(38:50):
couple of weeks of cycling andyou know, hundreds of miles a
day.
So I see a pattern for a lot ofathletes being really having a
lot of perseverance and beingpersistent.
I think that's reallyinteresting.
So one thing that wasinteresting was you mentioned
you trained Steven Spielberg andhis family.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that?
Chris Kahn (39:08):
Yeah, that was a great experience.
So I had been trainingentertainment industry people
and ended up training Stephen'swife, kate, for a couple of
years at that point and gotinvolved in the Spielberg family
because it had a lot of littleones at the time and I'm pretty
good with kids, so you knowthey'd come into the gym here
(39:28):
and there.
And when Stephen decided tomake Schindler's in Poland they
wanted to know if I would gowith them, because Kate's
daughter, jessica, and herfriends they were going to do a
semester in Europe kind of thing.
So they were going to befinished their junior year in
high school in Poland withtraveling around on the weekends
to different cities and gettingsort of a historical flash
(39:51):
party in Europe, and so theyknew I could handle some
physical activity for the kidsas well, because the whole
family went.
So we had two nannies and I wasthere for the personal training
for Kate and Stephen when hewanted to train, which was very
seldom and then doing someactivities for the kids.
So they hired me specificallyto do that and so I went over in
(40:13):
advance and set up a gym.
They had a big compound inKrakow that they rented for the
six months and I went over thereearly and set up a gym in that
compound.
Wow yeah, and because this wasjust after this was 93.
So you know, 89, the wall camedown and so Poland was still
Eastern Europe and there was noreal cutting-edge industry.
(40:35):
So all of the equipment had tocome from West Germany and we
put it in there and I was thereto train Kate, do the activity
for the kids and Stephen and anyprincipal actor who wanted to
work out as well.
So I ended up working out withRalph Fiennes and the
cinematographer Janusz Kaminski,and that was great.
But it was great because Iwould have a certain amount of
(41:00):
obligation for everybody'sphysical fitness and then the
rest of the time I was on theset watching Stephen make the
movie, and so for me it was likethe ultimate film school and I
got to meet a lot of thecreative people, the editors and
the production designers.
Because I was Stephen's person,they actually had to talk to me
.
So it was like it really trulywas a very immersive kind of
film school.
Daniel Koo (41:20):
How do you find all of these high net worth
individuals and how do you growyour network?
Chris Kahn (41:30):
It's all word of mouth.
So whoever's listening to thisin your life, if you do a really
good job at what you're doingand you're really skilled at
what you do and you're reallypassionate about it and
intelligent about it, peoplewill want to hire you and
they'll want to work with you,and so I think that's really
only it, that I was doing agreat job with client after
client after client.
I haven't had to solicit apersonal training client in 30
years.
They just come.
Daniel Koo (41:52):
Did you have a mentor in the personal trainer
career and what were some of thechallenges that you faced and
how did your mentor help youthrough?
Chris Kahn (42:00):
that?
That's a good question.
I don't know that I had adirect mentor.
I had a, I guess, a friend ofmine.
Kevin at the Phoenix AthleticClub is where I kind of started
that.
So he was in charge of thefitness program there and he was
very knowledgeable, he had aphysiology degree and so I just
sort of picked his brain and myvery first client was over there
(42:22):
.
That Kevin knew I was workingout there myself and he knew
that I knew all that stuff andso he introduced me to somebody
that I trained there.
So I actually got my firsttaste of training somebody
before I even came back to LA.
So I actually got my firsttaste of training somebody
before I even came back to LA.
So I would say that Kevin wasvery influential in encouraging
me and I think at one point hesaid that when you have
knowledge, people will pay forit.
(42:44):
Right, and he was actually veryprescient because this was in
the mid 80s and he was sayingthat health and fitness oriented
service industry is just justgoing to explode and I think
that stayed with me.
And then when I came back to LAI was just working in a gym and
then I saw the beginning of thepersonal training program
happening.
(43:04):
And then I was very luckybecause I was working at a
sports connection in Encino andthe owners of the sports
connection they wanted to buildthe most premier gym and health
fitness facility in the UnitedStates and that was the Sports
Club LA.
And they interviewed all thetrainers from all the different
clubs around Southern Californiaand they picked the 10 best to
(43:25):
come and launch their flagshipfitness and I was one of those
10.
Daniel Koo (43:28):
Right, Wow, yeah, I guess the skills kind of speak
for themselves and that's howyou're able to kind of push that
.
So the skills kind of speak forthemselves and that's how
you're able to kind of push that.
So, as we kind of near the end,I want to ask a couple of
questions.
So the question is around towhom would you not recommend
this career or, I guess, in thiscase, careers and to whom would
you recommend this career?
And maybe I think we could talkabout even having this like
(43:56):
split career, as well as theindividual, the three careers
you've had in parallel, right.
Chris Kahn (43:58):
So I think it takes a certain kind of personality.
I read a Deepak Chopra.
I read him years and years agoand I remember one of the
biggest lines that stuck out tome was he said learn to live
with uncertainty.
And that is so true.
It's very powerful, powerful,and people who can't live with
(44:19):
uncertainty, they're not goingto be able to handle all of the
anxiety that comes with thesethree.
Trying to spread myself out toothin, perhaps some people might
say I can hear my mom sayingthat right now.
Or just not knowing like apersonal training career.
When the pandemic came, we werefreaking out because we weren't
(44:40):
going to be able to be with ourclients in person.
Our income could have gone tozero, right.
But again, the pivot,persistence right.
We convinced, I think, about80% of our clients that we could
train them effectively throughZoom, and so we worked very hard
, and the most interestinglesson about that was we had to
(45:03):
become super effective andefficient communicators, because
you're not doing for them inthe gym.
They have to do for themselves,but you have to give them the
instructions, not just whatmuscle groups they're focusing
on and their breathing.
And all that.
No, when you pick that dumbbellup off the rack, make sure your
knees are bent Right.
I mean you have to get thatspecific when you're training
(45:25):
somebody over Zoom.
So we were able to pivot likethat, thanks God, and we were
able to maintain that income.
So, anxiety, that's anuncertainty.
Boom, tomorrow there could be apandemic and your personal
service job could be gone.
Now that's anxiety.
And then writing a script thatgoes to a studio and there's a
(45:46):
lot of anxiety.
Are they going to like it?
Is it going to come together,all of that stuff.
So there are plenty of peoplewhose personalities should be
indicative of them.
In a corporate job wherethere's benefits Like all of my
sisters have jobs where theyhave benefits.
They're teachers and they'readministrators, so they have set
hours, everything's sort oflaid out for them.
(46:07):
They have benefits.
None of that works for me.
It doesn't work forentrepreneurs.
Daniel Koo (46:12):
Do you believe that a lot of these skills are innate
, or did you feel like youdeveloped them over time?
Chris Kahn (46:16):
I think I'm always an 80-20 guy 80% genetics, 20%
work and 20% lifestyle and 20%choices.
Right, I mean, my efforts to bea high-level triathlete were
absolutely that I had a certainamount of genetics and the 20%
(46:37):
where I was going to apply everypossible scientific and
training advantage to myselfbecause I knew what they were
and how to implement them.
It still didn't make up forthat shortfall in my genetics.
Daniel Koo (46:49):
To summarize some of the things that we talked about
today.
I think persistence has reallybeen a key movement throughout
your life and we can see it inevery part of your journey.
And something I personallylearned is, you know, having
that perseverance and being ableto really push through until,
even though there's no immediatereward, you know there's I mean
call it delayed gratificationor perseverance, but I feel like
(47:12):
if you have a vision in mindand constantly pushing towards
that, even though there's nosomething immediate, that takes
a lot of work, but I think itreally gives you a massive
reward.
I think later you know.
Chris Kahn (47:24):
I'll add one thing to that when certain situational
things come up, my wife, beforea social gathering, she'll say
well, chris, tell us how thebrain works.
And because it's like, why dothey do that?
Or whatever, because I'm a laystudent of neurobiology and the
interesting thing is that we ashuman beings are
(47:45):
dopamine-seeking creatures.
That's it.
Whatever you're doing, you'reseeking dopamine.
And we religion, we have sex,we have drugs, you have
carbohydrates.
But one of the leastappreciated dopamine producers
is goal achievement.
And what the interesting thingabout goal achievement is that
it secretes a little bit ofdopamine over a long period of
(48:08):
time.
So each time you get a littlecloser to your goal, you you do
get that dopamine rush right,and because you're getting
closer and closer.
So it's just some sort ofelongated dopamine delivery.
So goal orientation is a bigpart of that.
Again, that's persistence isclearly necessary if it's a
long-term goal, I guess.
Daniel Koo (48:28):
To wrap things up a little bit, I want to ask you
for one last piece of advice.
Is there something that youwould like to tell the listeners
?
To kind of wrap it up.
Chris Kahn (48:36):
Probably the most famous student or a teacher, I
should say of mythology andunderstanding mythology is
Joseph Campbell, hero with athousand faces, and one of his
constant invocations is followyour bliss.
And that's great, and I havelived a life of following my
bliss because these things haveall mattered to me, but at the
(48:58):
same time I'd put an addendum tothat Follow your bliss, but be
smart about it.
Daniel Koo (49:06):
Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
I really appreciated all ofyour insights and also your time
, my pleasure.
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