025. How to Survive Creative Success, Pt 2 w/ Zack Arnold, ACE

Story Greenlight with Jeff Bartsch

What happens when you’ve reached what everyone else would consider success, and you’re miserable? What happens next?

Zack Arnold, ACE, is an award-winning film and television editor, documentary director, and founder of the Optimize Yourself program. Throughout his career in Hollywood, he found himself editing the biggest show on cable tv, then the biggest show on broadcast TV, and even the biggest show in the WORLD on the internet.

But the toll those achievements took on his family, his physical health, and his mental well-being forced Zack to rethink his life.

In this second of a two-part conversation, we’ll hear what Zack did next – including his four year journey to become an American Ninja Warrior – and what the lessons he’s learned mean for all of us.

🖥 Connect with Zack: www.optimizeyourself.me

LEAVE A VOICE MESSAGE: Got comments, reactions, or just wanna say hi? Leave a voice message for us and we may use it in an upcoming episode: https://www.speakpipe.com/StoryGreenlight
RESOURCES:
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, by Josh Waitzkin: https://amzn.to/3vxhp8c

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, by James Clear: https://amzn.to/39dfRJ3
SHOW NOTES

00:00 Recovering from success

01:26 What’s better than “success?”

03:55 Beginning to optimize

07:17 Learn to manage failure

08:22 The need to fail when you’re young

11:57 Zack’s new definition of success

15:22 Zack’s plan to transition to his new goal

16:56 Stop “playing business”

18:33 Skills to providing value

22:18 Doubling business growth during a pandemic

25:16 The benefits of failure

26:32 The fear of success is real

29:16 Self-identity and the key to real success

30:41 Zack the American Ninja Warrior

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