I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet.

Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more.

On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours.

Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon.

Hi everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to Work in Progress, where I talk to people who inspire me about how they got to where they are and where they think they're still going.

Hello everyone, I am so thrilled to introduce you all to my guest today. He's incredibly insightful, thoughtful, and multi-talented Chris Meyer.

Chris is a former filmmaker and a funeral homeowner, a writer, an entrepreneur, and a licensed New York State attorney who clearly has had a fascinating life path.

Chris graduated from both Brandeis University and Vermont Law School, where he earned a JD and a Master's in Environmental Law and Policy.

However, he'd always dreamt of making films, so Chris began his career by writing, directing, and producing a low-budget film called Black Is White.

After realizing that making a living as a filmmaker came with tremendous challenges, to say the least, he took an opportunity in the funeral home industry and went on to own and operate multiple funeral homes.

Pretty big twist, right? After years spent in the funeral home industry, Chris was inspired to write his first book based on everything that he'd learned watching families go through some of their most vulnerable moments.

It's called Life in 20 Lessons, what a funeral guy discovered about life from death.

It's an introspective, heartwarming, nonfiction story about love and loss and living our best lives from the perspective of a man who was constantly surrounded by death.

Chris went on to write a second recently published novel called The Wood, a raw and powerful portrait of the inner workings of the filmmaking industry.

In addition to his two successful novels, Chris is also a tech executive, most recently having built fun and moving.com, the world's largest exercise platform for lively adults over 65.

In my conversation with Chris, we discuss his early years growing up in New York, his less than traditional career path, his debut film The Experience He Had Building a Life in Los Angeles, how he knew he was ready to make a change,

what he learned from running funeral homes, how this pivot led him back to writing and what it was like to release his first novel. And of course, so much more. Enjoy.

So before we get into how you wound up writing a book about how to live from lessons on how people were dying,

I want to go back, I always like to ask my guests about where things started for them. So where, where did you grow up? What was, what was 10 year old Chris into?

Yeah, so that's, I grew up in Wester's County, New York, oddly enough, a town called Pleasantville, if you can believe that. And it was, it was sort of an idyllic childhood, about 35 miles north of New York City,

suburbia, a lot of men rode the train into New York City, and 10 year old Chris just sports and love, I was the youngest of three brothers, and just love my family always have and had a great mom and dad who, you know, just did the regular things like Little League and Boy Scouts and that kind of thing.

So very idyllic childhood, I'm older than you guys, so I was a more of a child of the 70s, and it was riding bikes around the neighborhood. It was the ice cream truck, the good humor man, it was catching fireflies, you know, it was really, I mean, it sounds savvy, but that was the childhood, and it was pretty wonderful.

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