Chris Chapanar shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Chris, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I have been a Christian my whole life, but specifically in the past couple of years, my wife and I found a church near us that we really clicked with. After just a few services, it started to feel like home. Lately, we have become much more active in the church by volunteering and even hosting a small group to do more specific Bible studies. This has really brought me a lot of joy lately as I’ve gotten to know some of our members a lot better and would even consider them good friends now, and as I’ve gone self-employed, having a loving church family around me to keep me grounded has really given me crucial stability in the more difficult and uncertain times. I’d say involvement at the church has definitely been my favorite extra-curricular lately.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Of course! I am a content creator first and foremost, but I have recently begun some entrepreneurship as well. Content creation is definitely still my main form of employment – I mostly make educational content about whiskey in the form of Instagram reels, Youtube Shorts, Tiktoks, a long-form podcast, and recently, long-form Youtube videos. I talk about everything from “Top 5” lists to tasting tips to the laws that determine what makes a bourbon a bourbon.
In addition to content creation, I have recently started developing products for wine and spirits enthusiasts to make the hobby more fun and help people enjoy their leisure time without doom-scrolling. My first product, available through Just Neat, LLC, is a blind tasting device that allows people to take 2, 3, or 4 beverages of their choice, scramble them, and do an unbiased tasting before finally revealing which beverage is which. The product was the first of its kind (patent pending), and instantly became a hit within the industry. Thanks to that success, I’ve been able to spend some time working on new products that will hopefully help people to enjoy their leisure time better, without being on their phones. I can’t go into much more detail than that, but more good things are to come!
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Whether we realize it or not, the digital age is slowly working wedges between people. Everyone’s mind probably goes to politics when they read that, but I mean something much more subtle – our relationships are moving online and becoming much less intimate. This has probably been one of the largest things on my mind lately, and is actually one of the driving factors behind my passion to design products that get people back to in-person interaction. To put it into one sentence, a slow deterioration of the way we interact with one another – the questions that we ask, the physical contact that we make, unwillingness to reveal our emotions – that is what breaks the bonds between people. That is what has cut down our love for one another over the past few years.
If we want to restore those bonds, I think we need to turn off the phones on occasion and have real intimate conversations with the people around us. Focus on your closest circle, making relationships with 3 or 4 people really bullet proof, and then move outward from there. I should add here, as an educational content creator, SOME phone use is certainly good, and provides us with good information that helps us in the real world. What concerns me is when the phone becomes more important than good conversation. I think we can start repairing that by asking the people closest to us actual questions rather than small talk. It is unnatural at first, and you have to actually plan a few good conversation starters, but it is worth it in the end. In the long run, it’s good, intimate friendships that will restore the bonds between us.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering has taught me that resilience doesn’t come from forced determination – it comes from surrender. I don’t think that the perfect morning routine or the best self-help book is what makes you resilient to suffering. I tried those things for a long time, trying to force myself into success, and I always ended up getting burnt out or lost. It wasn’t until I finally let go of control and gave my worries to God that I really learned how to get through suffering. I’m not talking about some naïve expectation that God is just going to bring me success and money, either. What I mean is waking up, acknowledging the difficult road ahead, determining the best steps that I can take to be successful, and then making the active decision to leave the rest to God. No worrying about whether the plan will work. Just focusing on doing it. With this attitude, my “suffering” has decreased quite dramatically. I am facing the same storms – lack of financial stability, ups-and-downs of my follower count, feast and famine in terms of promotional work to pay my bills – but the storms don’t really bother me anymore. When folks ask me how it’s going, I honestly reply that I am loving it. I am living my dream. I don’t know if it will work or not, but I trust that wherever God is leading me, it’s for a reason… even if that reason isn’t the success that I’m hoping for. For now, I’m just focused on doing the best that I can, and there is real meaning in that.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
If you meet me in public, you are definitely getting the real me. I try to be as authentic as I can and give folks my undivided attention when I talk to them. Now, behind the camera… I am definitely getting better at it, but it’s still a struggle. I don’t think I can say you get a perfect image of me if you watch my videos, but I’m working on it! Something that no one ever tells you is that its really hard to make clear, concise, well edited videos while still making sure your personality shines through. That being said, it is a lot easier to let the real “me” come through in long form, like a podcast. I follow some bullet points on the show, but most of what I’m saying is improv, which makes it a lot more of an authentic conversation.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
A lot of people don’t know this, but I’m actually working on some more idealistic projects in the background. Things that aren’t designed to make money but to (hopefully) influence society for the better. I have been studying lots of philosophy and theology in my spare time and learning how to articulate my views about what is important within the world. I don’t even know what I am going to do with this knowledge, and it may never amount to more than casual conversations amongst friends, but I know I’m working toward something. I’m gathering up a collection of books that I’m working through as if I am taking night-school classes, so it will almost certainly be years before it pays off. In the meantime, it’s a ton of fun and I am finding some real purpose in the process.
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