Today we are joined by Caspar Craven. Caspar is a successful serial entrepreneur, who has 30 years experience in building teams and making things happen. He started at age 14 working in start-up businesses, struggling businesses, high growth businesses, as well as large corporates. He's even built a team on a trophy-winning around the world racing yacht!

But this is not why we had him on the show today. In fact we had him on the show because Caspar, his wife, and their 3 kids had one of the most incredible life experiences and adventures of anyone I've ever heard of – that is, they sailed around the world for 2 straight years, living, working, and homeschooling their kids on a boat.

Crazy, right?

I wanted to talk to Caspar not only about entrepreneurship and teams, but also about lifestyle design, leading a family, and setting up your life, your finances, and your goals so that you can also have this incredible amount of freedom.

But, we went even further than that! We talked about all the different incredible life lessons and experiences that he gained both personally and professionally, as well as his advice for you on how you can create the life of your dreams, even if that is completely off the beaten path.

I always enjoy talking to Caspar and this episode was no exception – I hope you enjoy it as well!

-Jonathan Levi

Every month, we’ll invite top experts to host their own 30-day challenges, solely for the members of this group… Plus, each member will get awesome gear delivered to their home, AND discounts on various of our products! Click on the banner to find out more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is Caspar Craven's incredible story? [4:10]
• How did Caspar's family deal with the seasickness? [6:00]
• What are some of the locations Caspar and his family visited during their journey? [6:40]
• How did educating the kids work on the boat? [8:05]
• Are Caspar's kids reintegrated into the school system now? [9:05]
• The importance of having a shared vision in all kinds of relationships [10:20]
• What are some more of the lessons Caspar learned during his journey? [12:45]
• The similarity between families and businesses [14:30]
• What was Caspar's business when he was sailing the world? [15:30]
• How and why did Caspar change focus in his businesses? [16:00]
• Where do we start with disrupting our own model? [18:45]
• Connecting with what is important for you [20:00] 
• What to do when you think you don't have the resources [21:10]
• What was Caspar's wife working on during their journey? [22:15]
• How do you run 500 websites from the middle of the Pacific Ocean? [24:30]
• What are some of Caspar Craven's top SuperHuman hacks for performing at a high level? [27:00]
• What are some products or services that Caspar can't live without? [29:50]
• Some books that have impacted Caspar's life [30:45]
• Some homework for you by Caspar Craven [32:00]
• How does Caspar approach a new learning challenge? [34:05]
• What is Caspar working on right now? [36:00]
• About Caspar's book [37:55]
• Where can you find more about Caspar Craven? [39:30]
• Caspar Craven's final takeaway message [40:00]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Our previous episode with Dov Gordon
• Vivid Vision: A Remarkable Tool For Aligning Your Business Around a Shared Vision of the Future by Cameron Herold
• Where the Magic Happens: How a Young Family Changed Their Lives and Sailed Around the World by Caspar Craven
• Our previous episode with Shlomo Freund
• The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker PhD
• Human Charger
• Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
• Principles by Ray Dalio
• Caspar Craven:
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • YouTube

Favorite Quotes from Caspar Craven:

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction: Welcome to the award-winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I want to ask you a question. Every single week, we bring you these episodes full of dozens of skills, habits, routines, and strategies to help you become more superhuman. Now be honest, what percentage of those things are you actually able to implement in your life? Of course not. You need accountability and community, and that's why in 2018, I launched the Becoming SuperHuman Mastermind. Every month as a community, we invite a world-renowned expert to lead a one-month challenge.

Past challenges have included environmental design with Benjamin Hardy, hacking your sleep with Nick little Hills, who is Christiana Rinaldo's own sleep coach, and meditation with muse founder Arielle garden. On top of that, we send out a care package with all the gear and goodies you need to complete that month's challenge, and best of all, as a member, you get exclusive discounts to all kinds of events, courses, supplements, and gear, and those discounts alone are worth more than your entire membership. Look as a listener of this podcast, we know that you stand to benefit a great deal from being in the group, but also that you stand to contribute a lot. And that's why we're offering 50% off your first month. To join, visit superhuman.blog/mastermind today.

Greetings Superfriends and welcome to this week's episode. You guys, today, we are joined by Caspar Craven. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has 30 years in building teams and making things happen as an entrepreneur. He started at age 14, working in startup businesses, struggling businesses, high-growth businesses, and even large corporates.

He's built teams on trophy-winning around the world, running yachts, but that's actually not why we had him on the show today. In fact, we had him on the show today because Caspar and his wife and three kids have had one of the most incredible life experiences and adventures of anyone I've ever heard of.

And that is, they sailed around the world for two straight years living and working and homeschooling their kids on a boat. So I wanted to talk to Caspar, not just about entrepreneurship and teams, but also about lifestyle design, about leading a family, about setting up your life and your finances and your goals so that you would have this incredible amount of freedom, but we went even further than that. And we talked about all the different, incredible life lessons and experiences that he gained both personally and professionally, and his advice for you on how you can create the life of your dreams, even if that is completely off the beaten path. I always enjoy talking to Caspar and this episode was no exception.

So it's with great, great pleasure that I bring to you, Mr. Caspar Craven.

Caspar. Hey, my friend, welcome to the show. I'm really happy to have you here.

Caspar Craven: Thank you very much. It's great to be here. I've been looking forward to this and very excited to chat.

Jonathan Levi: Yes. Yes. I've been looking forward to this and also I'm hoping we finally get to meet up next time. I'm in London, you know, two people who travel so much and make a business in practice of traveling, you know, it's hard to sync up and be in the same place at the same time, but I know we're going to make it happen.

Caspar Craven: I feel we are. Definitely, definitely.

Jonathan Levi: So Caspar, for those who haven't met you and heard your incredible story, I guess I should give them some background, which is we were connected, I believe through dove Gordon.

Caspar Craven: Correct. Yes.

Jonathan Levi: And the call was supposed to be a kind of cool, how can we maybe work together?

And I quickly turned the call into me, badgering you with questions about your life because I think you have one of the most interesting life stories I've ever heard. So I want to give the audience the benefit of that and let you just go and tell some of your incredible stories because I would be remiss if I deprive them of the pleasure of hearing it.

Caspar Craven: Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, what a frame-up? So where do we start? So I guess the most interesting place to start is back in 2009, where I guess I had a reasonably normal life at that point, I'd worked in large corporates, came out of that to go and run my businesses. And 2009 was running a small business, turning over a half, a million dollars and, uh, back then with two kids and my wife and I sort of looked at each other saying, and they were is this all there is that has to be something that's more interesting than that to life than this because it just felt kind of hard and not particularly fulfilling. So we decided to just turn things around or just create a story of the future. There was much more exciting than the one we were living in at that point. And for us, that story involved going and getting on a sailboat for two years, getting around the world with our kids, which is crazy for all sorts of reasons that we didn't have the money, Nyla had only been about twice, been seasick both times, we didn't have a boat, so all sorts of good reasons, but that didn't stop us.

And, um, yeah, it was five years. We transformed my business, ends up selling that for seven figures from the middle of the Pacific, and created other successful businesses as well. So August 2014, got on the boat with our three kids, had to get three by then and went off, sail around the world for two years, had the most extraordinary time and coming back and now trying to positively disrupt as many other people as I can.

In a nutshell, that's kind of the story, right? So.

Jonathan Levi: That is so cool. And I mean, I've heard this piece of the story before, but it still blows my mind every different aspect first I have to ask a small practical question. How did you deal with the seasickness?

Caspar Craven: So we figured out, um, the way through that was the moment that, um, so my wife started to feel seasick, she would take the strongest, uh, medication that she could, the strongest seasickness tablets, and then basically sleep for 24 hours. And, uh, she would come through it pretty quickly, her body adjusts to while she was asleep. So, you know, in everything life there's always a solution, just, just going to figure it out, right? So, so that was the solution to that.

Jonathan Levi: That's a pretty easy one. Now, obviously, you weren't at sea for two years. Tell me about some of the countries and travel experiences and cultures that you got to dabble in.

Caspar Craven: Oh gosh. So many. On the back of the book we worked on today, we stopped at 86 different places.

Jonathan Levi: Wow.

Caspar Craven: Yeah, some of the most magical, but probably in, in the Pacific ocean. So, um, the French Polynesia, the Mar Kaeser islands, so the Mar Kaeser islands is fascinating and there's only about four or five years ago that the last reported cases of cannibalism were there. So you need, you go somewhere like that with a little bit of trepidation riots, everywhere we went was pretty friendly and you really are just off the beaten track and you're going to places that they might get, you know, 50 visitors a year go there. And, uh, you're going and meeting people, you're swimming in crystal clear waters and swimming with sharks and turtles and stuff like that. And going one of the magical things for us was going to all these local schools, so whichever country we go to, we try and find the schools and go and get our kids to go along for the day and just go and meet kids from other cultures and just get a different experience. Because, you know, we all end up living in our own bubble of our own worlds, so to go and experience different things, when you do that, you realize that we're all exactly the same. We all have exactly the same challenges and issues, but they're just sometimes in different languages. And, um, yeah, it's, um, it's great to experience that.

Jonathan Levi: Phenomenal. And I imagine there was a lot of homeschooling going on on this boat.

Caspar Craven: There was. So, um, it's interesting. So, so the homeschool and arrays, so before we left, we spent, um, got ages talking to, um, the teachers from the local schools and getting advice, and we had so many school books on the boat, but we found it really hard track to try and follow the English curriculum, so basically we just boil it down so that everyday kids you've got to do some reading, you've got to do some writing, you got to do some maths, and other than that, you just got to go and find the things which will really inspire you and interest you and that kind of took them to all sorts of different places and just to kind of fired their curiosity and their imaginations, which, you know, I feel quite, quite strongly about how do we disrupt, um, our education system.

Jonathan Levi: You and me both.

Caspar Craven: Because I think, you know, we've got a system that was designed for Victorian ages and it's just not fit for purpose now, so, um, yeah. Igniting kids' curiosity. I think it's exactly where it's at. So.

Jonathan Levi: How has reintegrating back into the school system? Have you reintegrated your kids back into the school system?

Caspar Craven: Yeah. So they're back in the school system now. Why? Because, um, to be Frank homeschooling is quite hard work. We did that for two years and while we're working on the next mission and the next set of goals, it's kind of a, it makes more sense for them to sort of be integrated. And also they're a little bit older now as well.

So being around other kids is pretty important too. So, uh, yeah they're back in a conventional system there.

Jonathan Levi: Totally. I'll never forget Dr. Lev, who was a mentor of mine in accelerated learning said, you know, never neglect the fact that one of the most important roles that schools play is their public-funded daycare so that mom and dad can get productive work done and be productive members of society. And that's not a role that we can neglect. I mean, it really is hugely important for us as a productive society.

Caspar Craven: So let me just say this so his half term here in the UK last week, and so we went to San Francisco and we spent the week out there with kids and, you know, it was quite joyful, sort of taking them back off to school this morning and I can now get home things again. So I love spending time with my kids, but equally, I like getting all my things too. So.

Jonathan Levi: Totally. Now, tell me about some of the lessons that you learned along this journey. I mean, what you probably learned so much about yourself, your kids, your wife, but also life. I know you wrote a whole book on this, which I've been dying to read, but tell me a bit about what you learned Caspar.

Caspar Craven: Same thing. What did I learn? I guess one of the, um, the most important things was probably starting in the, in the relationship place with me and my wife, because I think what happens so often is we have our own stories, our own personal stories, which we've nurtured since, you know, We're old enough to remember things, and in a relationship, I think you've got to create a shared story of the future because where we were before, as we were both concerning when RN trajectories, and I think if we carried on doing that, you know, then we might've gone in different directions, but creating a shared story, which unified us was super, super powerful. I think there's an awful lot of people could benefit from that approach, creating a shared story for a relationship, so that was definitely one thing. And by the way, that's exactly the same thing, but works in a business as well. So that's, you know, people always talk about vision and mission and, you know, the words get lost in corporate language. I'm a great believer in boiling things down so that a five-year-old can understand that.

Jonathan Levi: You are so right.

You're so right. Cameron Herold wrote an amazing book, Vivid Vision, which he passed out to all of us at Genius Network and it's about creating a three-year vision in the future language is exactly what you're talking about Caspar, you know, a three-year vision, it's like, we are here, we're doing this, we feel this, we are passionate about this, and then he puts the last chapter of the book is like, by the way, this works in your family too. So my fiance and I have, uh, One meter by half a meter framed vivid vision in our living room, which is a three-year picture and it spells out everything we want for ourselves in the next three years.

Caspar Craven: I mean, that's exactly what we had in our kitchen back at home right? We had a vision statement on the wall and we had a big map of the world and, um, yeah, it's gotta be really visual. I mean, I love what you just said that it's like, it's visible, right? Because you've got to tell people about it. Because the moment you do that, then you make yourself accountable and everyone says, well, how are you getting on with that plan?

And especially when you tell your kids too, because that is the ultimate accountability. So, you know, when we didn't have the money, we said, you know where to go and create all this money. If we got to 0.4 years down the line, so sorry, kids, we can't go and do this plan because we haven't been able to get the money together. It's like, you can't say that you've got to go figure it out. So, um, yeah. Just gives you all the reasons you need.

Jonathan Levi: So incredible. What are some other lessons? Like I cut you off there.

Caspar Craven: So applying the story from personal to business, realizing that it's all about we, not me, and engaging a team to go and do stuff.

So I got to a point in my business where I was before I learned this lesson, wrote driving stuff, save hard and, um, everybody's threatened to leave just cause I was telling everybody what to do. And someone says, you know, he's got to take the whole team with you, can't just be your ideas. And that was kind of one of those light bulb moments that I had to let my ego leave the room and um, yeah, just sort of say, okay, how do we do this stuff together? Build on everybody's strengths, find out why everybody was there, and um, just really get the best out of everybody. Again, the same thing for family. On the boat, as long as it wasn't the business. So, um, you know, the story of where you get together and then, uh, you know, building on each person's strengths saying, you know, why are you here? How are we going to go and do this stuff together? That was definitely another one. And I think probably another one that comes up is it's the whole thing about resilience and learning from when things go wrong, which of course they will. And, you know, we developed this values-based framework. So talking about what was right, rather than what was wrong and, uh, building on the strengths of each person and, you know, that kind of creates what I would call muscle for focusing on good stuff. And when things did go wrong, scale past failure in the middle of the ocean, where our mast almost fell down, then we kind of had this blueprint for how do we deal with things rather than sort of just reacting in the moment and blaming everybody for everything and getting upset and excited and you know, all excited about stuff it's like, okay, let's just be calm and let's just deal with this because you know, this stuff's going to happen. So.

Jonathan Levi: You know, I really appreciate you drawing the analogy between the family and the business, because I had that realization a couple of years ago as well, that these same skills of communication and respect and delegation that they really are the same and it kind of drives my fiance crazy when I kind of manage our relationship the way that I manage my employees. But it's so true, right? These same skills of like listening to people and getting by in and delegating outcomes and clearly communicating those outcomes and it's so powerful when you apply it to a family.

Caspar Craven: It is, I think about it it's pretty straightforward, right? Because like, we're all just people empathy. And let's say you've got to work life and the homeless that's that you've got one life. You're the same person, right? People will say we have emotions and, um, we'll do similar things so, um, yeah. And it's, it's helpful if you can apply that in both places.

Jonathan Levi: Right. And psychology is psychology is psychology. Right? And is Joe Polish's marketing is just applied psychology and the same is true of management. It's just applied psychology.

Caspar Craven: Exactly.

Jonathan Levi: And Caspar, what was your business at the time that you sold?

Caspar Craven: So that business there, that was data analytics. So we did data analytics as a managed service.

So we had corporate customers, so IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, banks, law firms, people like that. So, um, there we to take data from inside of these firms, analyze it and basically help them take better decisions by, by being better informed.

Jonathan Levi: So you got back and you'd sort of this business and you had this epiphany, which is I need to, and I love what you said because I feel like startup entrepreneurs and techies have taken over the word disrupt, but I want folks like you and I to take it back, we're taking back disrupt Caspar, because we're the real disruptors telling people, Hey, you don't have to sit and live your life in a cubicle. That's disruption. Not a new photo editing app that allows you to put emojis over your eyes.

It's not disrupting any paradigms. So, tell me about that journey. I mean, this must've been you're from a data analytics business, you're a technologist, you're an entrepreneur, you're a leader to going, Hey, I just want to touch people's lives.

Caspar Craven: So the journey to that, so we came back from the sailing. Well, actually when we cross back over the Atlantic sailing from, um, South Africa to Brazil, uh, we were asking ourselves, where do we want to live? What do you want to get and do? Because the last business was a tank business. We said, well, why don't we go and sail San Francisco and we're getting set up home at home over there near Silicon Valley? So that's what we did. So we sailed San Francisco and we were spending our time. We'll still split outside between the UK and the U S and I started launching different businesses, so tech business, a food business, uh, various different things. So no, it just following on from where I've left off before. And about six months into that, I got asked to go and do some, uh, give the keynote talk. And I went and stood on stage and basically just sort of shared stories for about 20 minutes, half an hour. And I walked off the stage and the feedback that I got was just overwhelming just by sharing stories, I've been able to make a difference to other people's lives. And so that was the point I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go all-in on this because this is the most meaningful thing that I've ever done.

Yes, I could start other businesses and create other different things, but actually to make a difference to other people's lives, to get people to focus on what's truly important for them because you know, most of us, I think most people live on the deferred life plan. You know, I will do this stuff first, I'll create money and then I will go and do family stuff.

They're not going to do things that are really important. And you know, that was the thing that got us into trouble before. So I actually know w we've done some things here, which are different and it's kind of unlocked everything in our world, relationship, money, family, and it was the key to doing all these things.

So I thought, well, you know what? There's some really cool stuff here. So, um, for the last two and a half years, or two years since then, um, just being on a mission just to share these ideas and get people to think differently about how they approach life and what stories they create and, and how they live things together as a team.

And it's the most fun of it. And you, you know what it's like, right? I mean, it's, it's fun because it's having an impact on other people. So.

Jonathan Levi: So where do we start?

Caspar Craven: So in terms of disrupting, I start the story. I mean, it's exactly what you just described with what you and your fiance you said, had sort of done on the wall at home. You can create that shared story. And, um, that really is the starting point for everything because you unify the energy at home and then once you figure out what it is, you've got to go and do, then you start to go and create that story and figure out, you know, what you're going to do with your family, what wealth do you need to create to serve that need, but it all stems from that first thing of creating that story.

Jonathan Levi: That's so wonderful. And I just today, and I don't know which is going to come out first, this episode or that episode, but I just today recorded an episode with Shlomo Freunde who is talking about releasing your money, anxiety, and how to get a better relationship with money and, and start to feel abundance in your life, which I also believe is hugely important.

And wouldn't you know, it starts with the same thing. Which is coming up with your story and figuring out, Oh, okay. You know, when I talk about living a rich life or what I actually mean is this, this, this, and this and that actually putting the numbers to that and going, Oh, it only takes that much money, I can, I can do that, that's not even that big of a sum, you know, because it's, it's the unknown, evil is always worse than the known evil.

Caspar Craven: Totally. I mean, it was, so if you don't know what you want to do, we almost always have a tendency to overestimate what we need whereas when you actually boil it down, there's it might well be less.

It may be more, but it just gives you that certainty we will talk about, you know, living your life deliberately, specifically and consciously, and, you know, making those choices because for most of us, you know, we're just sort of swayed by the different influences around us, what other people are doing. And yeah, the process that we take people through is to sit down on your own and also with your partner, or whoever's most important to you, it's like, what are the things that are really important to us? And go really deep in on those questions. Because a lot of the time you get through your, you know, your sort of for your thirties, forties, and you've forgotten all the stuff that's really important to you when you were younger. Because has been buried under bills, life, kids' work, whatever else. And it's just surfacing that stuff again because they weren't going away, it'll just be very deep down. And, um, yeah, once you start to surface that every time we've done this at workshops and retreats and stuff with people, people always come out and say, Oh God, I forgot about that, or I never knew that about you, about their partner. So, um, yeah, it's just uncovering the levels of debt and you know, that's what, that's where the tooth, that's where the juice, that's where the excitement is in life, right? Whatever's really important to you.

Jonathan Levi: So phenomenal. Now I know Caspar that there is someone in the audience, at least one someone going well, it's easy for Jonathan and Caspar they're entrepreneurs. They set their own schedules. They, you know, list the other reasons they already have, have made money in their lives or their whatever. And I imagine you have some things to say to that person.

Caspar Craven: So look, when we had the ideas to go and do this, the business that I had. Was losing money. And quite frankly, I would have earned more money stacking shelves at the local supermarket.

We didn't have enough money to buy a rubber dinghy, let alone a sailboats. And, you know, it's, once you become super, super clear on that plan. Then you get resourceful because that's something that really matters. And I don't know what the answer will be for any specific person, but I know that if you've got enough reasons to go and make something happen and find a way you will find that way.

And so that, that's what it comes down to rice. I mean, to say we didn't have the money, but we figured out a way to make it happen. So.

Jonathan Levi: Right now I want to ask, what was your wife working at the time? I mean, you said you were still running your business and you grew it and sold it from the middle of the Pacific ocean. Was your wife also working?

Caspar Craven: So when we had the idea, she was working as an HR manager for a small, um, small company. So she was employed, but over that five-year period, we created where we transformed, not just the data analytics business, but we created two other companies as well. So one was in property and the other one was in online dating.

So back in 2003, I started this tiny little online dating site. And I'd always lost money and I'd never figured out how to really grow that. But as we were going back through our different assets and saying, okay, what are we going to do? We realized that, that there could be something where it's dating sites.

So we just went and found people who are way smarter than we were. And just sort of with a lot of humidity said, look, can you show us what you're doing? So somebody very kindly showed us a different way to approach it. And we got, uh, one dating site to, to make money. We were making about 2000 pounds a year profits, and then basically we've figured the model out.

And then we went from one site to two sites, to 10 sites, to 13 sites, to 23 sites to 500 sites. And basically, we just went all-in on that model because we found something that was working. So that's kind of what I mean about getting results. You suddenly start to see things with different eyes and, uh, and you find the opportunities.

So, um, so yeah, so the 500 was basically, we're making 2000 pounds a year. So we said, well, how do we make a million pounds a year? Oh, well we need 500. That was basically the logic that drove us.

Jonathan Levi: And these were, I guess the secret was that each one was just a very niche website.

Caspar Craven: You've got us exactly that Catholic stating teacher, dating doctors, dating, and seven different countries.

Jonathan Levi: So smart, very smart. And then I imagine you sold it to one of the very few conglomerates in the dating space.

Caspar Craven: Uh, actually we say we actually ran that, um, quite a long time. And actually, that was what provided the income whilst we gained ground. I mean, to use the Ditech word that had that market has been disrupted now by the likes of Tinder and Bumble.

So that market's definitely moved on, but you know, that's for that, for that need, basically. 

Jonathan Levi: That's so cool. Now, a practical question. How do you run 500 websites from the middle of the Pacific ocean?

Caspar Craven: So that's all about the team, right? So the best question I've ever asked myself in a business context is how do we create a business that can run without us?

Because with all the different ventures, I knew that we would be in the middle of the Pacific at some point and be out of communication. And an issue would arise with a customer or a staff member or something of a cash flow crisis, whatever it was. And I wouldn't be able to step in. So therefore I was literally forced to answer that question and I don't think many people are that get to that place of forcing them to ask that question.

They say, well, if it gets too bad, then I will jump in and figure it out myself. But because of that option was not going to be open to me. We had to really get the team thing, right. And the team had to believe that we weren't going to step in if the going got tough. So they would have to stick it out there as takes full accountability, full responsibility.

So with all the different ventures, that's exactly what we did. And I think that helps us to create the best strongest teams. So we followed a values-based approach. We had a really clear mission, the ridiculous story we touched upon all those different components were essential. But, um, yeah, with all ventures, just brilliant teams of people running them.

So, um, we just had emails once a week to see, you know, where things were and how things were getting on, but no input needed for.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. And, and that is the dream. And I just read on the plane ride back from a strategic coach in London, Dan Sullivan's the self-managing company. And I'm all about it.

And my team knows I'm all about it. I'm not surprising any of them by saying my goal is to be useless in this business besides showing my not so pretty face on the occasional YouTube video. I want to make myself as useless as possible.

Caspar Craven: It's funny, whenever I, uh, steps out of my business to start with, and it would make more profit than mine, but I wasn't there.

My ego would take a dent on that initially. And then I realized actually, that's quite a good thing. We want more of that, please.

Jonathan Levi: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And you know, it's, it's like if you're the bottleneck in your business, like get the hell out of the way.

Caspar Craven: Yeah, exactly. So that Dan Kennedy always used to say to me, it's like Caspar, get out of your own way.

And um, you know, that's, that's, that's the right answer.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, totally. Totally. So pick your brain a little bit because you are an avid traveler, probably one of the most avid travelers that I've ever had on the show. Favorite tips, tricks, strategies, and hacks to keep yourself performing at your best, whether at home or away.

Caspar Craven: So it's funny. So my wife and I, we have this whole series of rituals, which we literally have a schedule every week that we have to tick them off just to hold ourselves accountable to them. So what are some of the things, um, cold showers every day, just to sort of the whole Whim Hoff method thing, keeping ourselves.

Yeah. And it turned up meditation every day. Clearing your mind gratitude journal, making sure I was drinking three or four liters of water a day to sort of staying hydrated exercise five times a week. You know, stuff like that, stuff that, you know, lots of people had done before, but fundamentally it works.

Right. So I'm totally. I find that easier to do when I'm at home. So when we were on the boat last week in San Francisco, it was harder to do some of that stuff. So yeah, easy to do a routine at home. I find that it's, you know, the opportunity to recover, whatever I go take a pair of trainers, trainers, and, um, you know, just go and find the local streets and to left-hand rice and go out and run.

Jonathan Levi: So really great. And it is timeless advice. And I just recorded a video today where I basically said like, Hey, if you want to perform, like, it really isn't rocket science, it's the exercise or the meditation, the diet, the nutrition, and the, uh, and the sleep.

Caspar Craven: Absolutely. I was going to say, I should have, let's say I just finished reading the book by professor Matthew Walker while we sleep.

And, uh, I'm in just actually, mind-blowing how sleep-deprived as a, as a world we are and how simple it is. Right. And, you know, they're strapped to their house. So I'm definitely not in favor of all the sort of what I would call the hustle warriors up at five o'clock every morning and sort of just surviving on five hours, sleep at night.

Um, and it's just, it doesn't work right.

Jonathan Levi: Nope. We did a challenge with, uh, your fellow countrymen, Nick little Hills, where he walked everyone through, you know, sleep he's the sports sleep coach. And he helped everyone kind of assess their sleep. And it was amazing. Even people who've been listening to the podcast for years and I've heard all the interviews about sleep, like how bad they actually were sleeping and how much work there was to be done.

Caspar Craven: Absolutely. It's funny. I actually, haven't just flown back from the States. We used melatonin for the first time, and I have to say I've never done that before, but actually, they will only go back here yesterday. And, um, yeah, last night, you know, a good eight hours for everyone in the family and you know, everyone's up and assets.

And, um, as though we haven't been on a plane at all, so.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Yeah, the melatonin. And I also like to use, which you're reminding me. I need to charge them for going to the States next week, but we use the, uh, the little human charger devices, which are anti jet lag lights that you put in your ears to reset your circadian rhythm.

Oh, I've not heard of that. Oh, they're good. Fun. They're really good fun. Which is a good segue into the next question of what are some products or services that you could simply not live without.

Caspar Craven: What are the products or services? I could not. I thought about this question before I struggled with this one a little bit, because I'm not sure there's many things, you know, initially my I'd sort of come up with my stone just generally.

Yeah. But actually, the best time I ever had was out in the middle of the ocean where I was completely disconnected. Uh, that was actually a pretty good thing. So. Yeah, I struggled to answer that, but there's some things that I could, I think I could pretty much live for that. Anything I could sort of quite happy on a desert Island, um, just chilling out.

And so, yes. So not much to be honest.

Jonathan Levi: That is definitely fair. I expected you to be like a satellite phone, but I suppose you go to the middle of the Pacific to get away from all that.

Caspar Craven: Yeah, exactly. Maybe fishing world or something like that. That'd be quite cool. Yeah. That's a good one.

Jonathan Levi: That's a really good one.

Now talk to me about books though, because I know, I imagine, gosh, you must've done a hell of a lot of reading in two years on a boat.

Caspar Craven: He thinks I wouldn't be here. I had so many books loaded up on my Kindle and books on the books. I think I read two books the whole time we were awake because you think you're going to have loads of time there to read, but you don't.

But having said that I am an avid reader, so I read a lot before and I, I read a lot now probably my favorite books. I think Psycho-Cybernetics. By Maxwell malts. It was really sort of the key one in my world and absolutely loving principles by Ray Dalio at the moment, which is, um, know there's so much stuff in there that I agree with the whole thing about, you know, finding the joy as the truth rather than the joy of being right.

And, um, yeah, that man has got so much wisdom. He shared it so well. So those are probably two of my favorite books right now. So.

Jonathan Levi: Really good. I heard a Ray speak in Los Angeles, not too long ago. And I was like, wow, this guy has thought very deeply about building an organization.

Caspar Craven: Yeah, he really has. And what I love is his humility and sharing the stuff that he's learned and his generosity, because he literally doesn't hold anything back.

That's the impression that I get from it. So.

Jonathan Levi: Definitely now on this show, Caspar, we love to assign homework. This is a harder episode to give people homework for, but I have a feeling because you've done so much public speaking and so much disrupting. You have an assignment that people could do, whether it's a conversation or writing, you know, journaling experiment, what's some homework that we could give people before next week's episode.

Caspar Craven: So here's the thing that I would do. I would switch off every device that you girls sit down with pen and paper. It's. My favorite tool is actually by the way, that's the thing I couldn't live without, as pen and paper, because I love just writing. Just ask yourself the question what's really important to you in life.

And then just keep asking and just keep writing stuff down and stuff will come out. That may surprise. You may fascinate you and then to do that with your partner as well. If you have one or people who are closest to in life and just really listen to yourself and to other people because that's where all the juice is, that's where the answers are.

Jonathan Levi: So that's the, I work, I would say if someones. Really, really good do it. And I also have gone pen and paper, although I use a rocket book, which I really like an erasable notebook, so it's fine. So heavy. And I can kind of scan it to the internet if I want to. But yeah, pen and paper, if you need to actually do some thinking, it's not on the computer period is what I've learned.

Caspar Craven: Too many distractions on the computer. Right. So it's kind of paper is just that. So, yeah,

Jonathan Levi: absolutely. Uh, but so lately, and I feel so sorry for the generation that didn't spend years and years and years sitting and writing out notes in a classroom because you don't have that connection and that skill that your best thinking comes when you move your hands.

Caspar Craven: Absolutely. It's funny. So in the business, before we always used to say we were selling B2B companies and I always get my team rather than typing letters to handwrite letters, to send to our prospects and our clients because people read more readily, right. Because people don't do that anymore. And there's something very special about a handwritten letter.

So it's a practice which is, uh, you know, uh, reducing, but I think it's incredibly important to say.

Jonathan Levi: Definitely Def in it li now let me also ask you, how do you approach learning? Tell me a little bit about that because you've now changed industries so many times. Tell me a little bit about how you approach a new learning challenge.

Caspar Craven: Yeah. So, um, I guess my first thing is to try and find out who are the, uh, the real experts. And then he feels because any shale there's, there's always a whole bunch of noise, so it's drilling back and it's like, who's the person who's really the expert behind all of this. And then once I found them go and pay the money.

Can spend time with that person and go and hang out in their company and learn. I learned by, by talking, you know, I've got lots of books and that's good for 'em to start stuff off, but if I want to get decommissioned, I have to go and spend time and just be around the energy and the ideas and just get full on emotion.

So live events always best for me just to go and be there and be present and, um, yeah, just discussing stuff with other people. So that's my favorite reason.

Jonathan Levi: Really good. I like that. And people would think that I am completely autodidactic as a learner. They would be surprised that I do the same thing. I like to write a big check and fly across the world and go to seminars and learn in the room because the stakes are higher, the accountability is higher and it covers all the boxes that we talk about in our super learner programs.

Right. It's experiential, you're changing your brain chemistry when you're changing your location and you're in that heightened sense of awareness. And you have opportunity, right. To engage and make decisions and ask questions. And it really makes a big difference.

Caspar Craven: It does. So just that whole energy vibration and just sort of thing around other people playing at a high level, you cannot help but be insolence and lifted up by it.

So w we, we, we, uh, ran a Swedish event in London the beginning of last week and you know, the vibe and the buzz you get out of a room like that. With smart people. I mean, it's just so much more than the learning itself. It's that whole experience, which anchors it in your brain. I mean, you know, far more about this than I do from your thoughts learning, but that's what I find.

Jonathan Levi: So yeah, I completely agree. Now that actually raises another question, which I neglected to ask. I mean, tell me you wrote a book. Tell me what you're working on now. I mean, are you you're teaching seminars, you're speaking. How are you spreading this message of disrupting your life?

Caspar Craven: Yeah. So I do a lot of corporate keynotes or that have, so that's less about disrupting your life.

That's more about teamwork and leadership and how do you build a super team, but then the disruption message. So with my wife, we run this mission called the brave you, and that's this whole thing thrive at home, thrive at work. So we have some digital products which we're just launching and we run them events and workshops and retreats.

So basically that's the path we're going down. So. 

Jonathan Levi: I love it. I really love it. I think your message is so important because the world has changed and many people have not realized that it's kind of happened while they were sleeping or while they were droning away at a four-year university degree.

And they have much more freedom than they realize. I think it's freedom. That is an exercise is even worse than not having the freedom. It's like a cage bird staying in a cage. Once the door has been opened, it's really sad.

Caspar Craven: Sure. I love the analogy. I mean, that's so true. And the thing that traps us way back cage is the, um, the perception of the culture around us.

I have some friends saying to us, you know, you're incredibly brave. We, for that, you're crazy. When we say we're going to go and do this and all these things, it was like, well, what happened to your career and what will happen to this? What happens to this? And it's like, well, That'll be fine. It's just going to do the stuff.

Cause the whole thing was once you got kids if it will say, well, you know, you can go and travel again, once they've left home and it's like, well, why who set that rule? So yeah, it's just challenging everything and just sort of saying, well, why can't I go there?

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. Absolutely. And people can learn all about that in your book.

Tell me a bit about the book, what it covers.

Caspar Craven: Yeah. So the book is called Where The Magic Happens on Amazon and all good bookstores. And basically, it's a book of two parts. So the first part is the whole sort of life disruption part. So, um, everything that we did to change our world and that we've left in there, or put in there and blueprint as well.

So if anyone else wants to follow the pattern as well, follow what we did. But create your own ventures, then it's literally each of those different steps, creating the story, creating the values. How do you work together as a team? That's the first bit, and then the second part is our adventures around the world.

So all the highs and the lows and the challenges and the less sorts of things. So, yeah, so that's basically what the book is. It's meant to be a practical guide for anyone who wants to disrupt their own life.

Jonathan Levi: Really really cool. And John D Martini said this book needs to be made into a film, which I think could be such a film.

It would be like Castaway Euro trip meets. I don't know what else.

Caspar Craven: It'll be fun. Right? So the, um, I did a radio interview last year and someone said, you know, who do you want to play you in the film? And I said, I don't know about that, but my wife would quite like Colin first to be me. And I think she quite likes be in the film if it was Colin's first.

Jonathan Levi: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. I imagine that, um, Hugh Grant could play you. People have to look at the blog posts to see there's some similarity there. You could go, you could definitely play you well, Caspar, where can people reach out and learn more about everything that you're doing? I'm going to check out your stuff as well.

I've been holding off on reading the book, so I'm excited. I finally get to.

Caspar Craven: Awesome. We're like the, um, the first place is my website, Caspar craven.com, CASPAR Craven, CRAVEN.com. And then the same that, uh, LinkedIn Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all the usual left platforms on there on YouTube as well.

Jonathan Levi: So very very cool. And before I let you go, Caspar, one last question I want to ask, which is if people take away one big message from this episode and they carry that message with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that to be.

Caspar Craven: My message would be that it's encouraging everyone to deliberately specifically and consciously design their lives to work out exactly what you want to have in your life.

Know why, and then go make it happen. Then let life happen to you by accident.

Jonathan Levi: That is the best possible message and beautifully summarizes everything we're trying to do here at the podcast. So I really, really appreciate it. I always appreciate chatting with you and masterminding with you, and it's always an inspiration.

So thank you very, very much for coming on the show.

Caspar Craven: It's been awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you for the great insightful questions has some questions though. I rarely get asked, so that's really nice. So thank you. Love it.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome pleasure was all my, my friend let's talk soon.

Caspar Craven: All right. Thanks Jonathan.

Jonathan Levi: All right. Superfriends. That is all we have for you today, but I hope you guys really enjoyed the show and I hope you learned a ton of actionable information tips, advice that will help you go out there and overcome the impossible. If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or drop us a quick little note on the Twitter machine @gosuperhuman.

Also, if you have any ideas. For anyone out there who you would love to see on the show. We always love to hear your recommendations. You can submit it on our website, or you can just drop us an email and let us know that's all for today, guys. Thanks for tuning in.

Caspar Craven: Thanks for tuning into the award-winning Superhuman Academy Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit superhuman.blog while you're here. Please take a moment to share this episode with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes.

We'll see you next week.