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Meet Lawrence Chen of Salt Creative House & Observe in Downtown Atlanta

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Lawrence Chen.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lawrence. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Right off the bat. I would like to express my utmost gratitude towards my upbringing. I can’t be grateful or thankful enough that I was blessed to grow up in the environment that I did. I was surrounded by genuine love and care. My parents are both immigrants who came to America for the opportunity and from my eyes, I see they’ve earned their successful living through hard work, persistence, and wisdom. I grew up in North Georgia alongside my three older brothers at the time (I have a younger brother now and he’s a great kid). Being the youngest, I was always fighting for my spot which I believe fueled my competitive nature. I remember I was a pretty wild child full of energy. I told my brothers “When I grow up, I’ll become successful and I’ll also be able to beat you guys up.” The latter point, I like to tell myself is true. Some of my personal interest growing up was design, computers, team strategy games, and adventuring around North Georgia’s great outdoors as a skater kid. I messed around in Paint in Elementary school and then picked up Photoshop in middle school from which I got contracted on a game called “Counter-Strike 1.6” to design 3D block models. In school, my electives usually consisted of advanced art, band, video production, and computer classes. I share the classes I was associated with because I realized I’m still along the same path I was as a child. So, to sum it up, I was obsessively playing countless hours of strictly online games, designing, making videos, and living life in North Georgia as a minority. (I didn’t find offline story games fun cause there was no real competition; other than against myself.)

Extending beyond my internal family structure and surface level youth upbringing, I was a minority in almost every situation growing up and the fact I was the youngest of four brothers, it made me feel a little more unique. I had big drawn out pictures of what life was like out in the real world. I thought the world was huge and there was so much to achieve and accomplish. I had big dreams (and I still do). I would like to consider myself a dream chaser because I’m always chasing the bigger picture. Personally, pushing boundaries, jumping curves, and seeing growth excite me! Fast forward, now I have to choose a major as I am expected to obtain a college degree (blessed). I got accepted into San Francisco State for Graphic Design. I was sure it’s what I wanted. I had a one-way ticket and I was en route to my grandmas which is in San Francisco. However, my gut kept telling me ‘Graphic design’ isn’t prestigious enough, nor does it make enough money… “Go pursue Computer Science… it’s high paying and prestigious.” So, I did. I flew back to Georgia and took my offer from Georgia State University and the next thing you know I was loving it. I loved Computer Science. It was exciting and innovative. It’s literally always pushing innovation and I have no regrets that I made that major life decision. I was happy with my major, but what I realized was no one else really was, nor did they know what they major even pertained. Day-to-day as I interacted with my friends, I was hearing “I’m unsure what I’m studying” or “I chose this for the money” which started making me question what I “truly” wanted to do. E. St. John, who received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard, said, “There is, perhaps, no college decision that is more thought-provoking, gut-wrenching and rest-of-your-life oriented — or disoriented — than the choice of a major.” From here, I took an idea I had and executed it at a hackathon. That idea was to Observe.

From here, I’ve become obsessed with education reform and helping people essentially find their “why” and “what.” I started falling out of love with Computer Science and my design side caught up and kicked Computer Science out the door. What also fueled my transition was a phenomenal student organization called “PantherHackers” which I was Chief Marketing Officer for and grew the organization to become the fastest growing student organization on campus. This is when I found a love for marketing and branding. Nonetheless, I believe studying CS was an extreme benefit and I have a general tech understanding from graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. I finished college and the saying “Your dreams die after college” somewhat came true. I said to myself “now what? Is this is it? Now, we just work?” sparking even more desire to deliver Observe. Now, I’m knees deep in creative media and marketing as well as still executing Observe.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
If I had to pinpoint my struggle, I would land on being split-focused. I am a generalist and a passionate learner, so I find myself constantly battling what I want to learn and biting off more than I can chew in every area possible. At least I acknowledge the situation. I am working on two risky ventures (most ventures come with risk) splitting my focus on a larger playing field. On the micro skill development level, I’m trying to learn psychology, marketing, branding, design, UI/UX, cinematography, graphic design, business, 3D animation, immersing myself in education, and many more. I want to learn too many things at once. The idea we all know is you should narrow your focus to grow very far in one area. For example, trees can grow so large because they literally focus all of their energy into one thing… growing. I find Pros and Cons from multi-tasking and trying to develop an array of general skills, but at the end of the day, I believe I’ll figure it out and everything will play out the way it should.

Besides my mind being all over the place, I believe the entrepreneurial journey is pretty rough. It consists of second guesses, doubt, uncertainty, and fear. I’ll hear peoples’ judgment and their advisory on what I should do or need to do. The whole 360 of building something from nothing in a sense, aimlessly, is a lot to endure.

In regards to choosing your focus, I advise conducting Warren Buffet’s 5/25 exercise where you write out a list of 25 goals you wish to accomplish. Once you’ve done this, reiterate through the list and concise it down to a narrow five goals. Now, ignore the other 20 you wrote. Put all of your focus and energy into the five you have chosen until you feel like you’ve accomplished it from a mastery level. Alongside this, I do a bi-annual smart planning/envisioning exercise where I lay out everything I hope to become in detail. I lay out what I want to accomplish, my aspirations, and my general interests so I have a clearer picture of which direction to move in.”A goal without a plan is just a wish” and “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” At the end of the day, you will move in the direction that you please and most likely that direction is of interest. If you can’t let go any of your goals, consider the goal to never be deleted. It’s just postponed. Life is about discipline and habits. Be reasonable.

In regards to the hardship, entrepreneurs have to bear, my advise is to cherish your supporters. Hold them close. Be persistent and have a clear picture of your goals. Think smart and be realistic. Lastly, be willing to be misunderstood. Not everyone will understand your approach on life or your career, so be patient and explain to them with reasoning. If they still do not understand or you find too much stress in communicating to them why and what you are doing, take into account their comments sparingly. The real ones are there to support you and help you grow. The real ones are also the ones who will tell you straight up how they feel and if they are willing to share their views. You should acknowledge their concerns and doubts, but don’t take any of it to heart. At the end of the day, what is there really to lose? As Steve Jobs says, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Please tell us about Salt Creative House & Observe.
I aim to help build clearer pictures for people with uncertainty in life. Essentially, guiding individuals through observation, genuine understanding of their character, and through storytelling which is a backdoor gateway to their subconscious. My goal is to relieve anxiety and depression. I am a frequent reader and I am usually found somewhere captivated by the design of things or simply the aesthetic of an environment. I’ve naturally settled into the fields of marketing, psychology, design, and creative media because of the influence that can be generated from combining them. I find them to be my practical superpower. One of my higher goals is to gain enough influence to allow me to operate through life more freely. For example, the freedom to switch careers, choose the project I care about most, provide guidance and help on a more credible level.

As always, I wish to become better than I was yesterday and to provide a hand in on making the world a better place. The world is full of differences which is beautiful because if we were all the same, life would be mundane. There exists a lot of chaos due to peoples’ lack of patience to understand each other’s cultures. We resort to destroying each other on the extreme scale; instead of educating each other on why we operate the way we do. I would like to be patient while sharing that at the end of the day we are all humans. “Love always wins” and “Your memories are your life,” so create great ones.

I am currently working on building up an innovative production studio called Salt Creative House based in Atlanta. “We don’t have clients. We have a community” is one of the core values we strive for. We work together out of genuine friendship and commitment to telling the right stories to the right audiences. SCH has been invited to New York Fashion Week for two consecutive years by Elbert Ivory Model Management where we had the opportunity to shoot with Alessandro Trincone who was Young Thug’s designer for his album “Jeffery.” We’ve been blessed with many opportunities and continue to push the creative frontier here in Atlanta.

My other venture is Observe which I’ve been wrapping my head around for four years now which is a social growth and awareness network for individuals to gain insight on the work life/culture of job professionals. There exist is a direct correlation between work and life fulfillment. The happier you are work, the happier you are overall in life. We live to learn to work and then work to live. There is a large majority of people who chase the money; however, they do not realize it really requires a personality and genuine interest to even tolerate work minimally. It goes further when you approach companies to work culture. It really requires a specific set of values to be able to settle in and be content. My mission with Observe is to reduce time and money waste from students switching their majors or being sucked into the trap of pursuing a major that doesn’t truly resonate with them; however, they are so deep in the hole due to time and money commitment… “I might as well finish.”

Observe has gained honorable recognition from the Director of Google Cardboard winning first place at KnightHacks Hackathon at UCF. We have also won 1st Place at Georgia State’s Business Model Competition and “The Schulze Entrepreneurship Challenge, an undergraduate entrepreneurship competition that attracted 149 top teams from 110 schools of business and entrepreneurship across North America. The top 25 finalists were invited to Minneapolis (all-expenses paid) for the Schulze Entrepreneurship Challenge.” Observe has reached checkpoints and there are so many more to achieve.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
It’s hard to say. Things played out the way they did for a reason. Every failure allowed me to grow and learn. The failures that hit the hardest truly opened my eyes. The series of events shaped me into who I am. However, if I could pinpoint what I would do differently, it would be to pick up the books sooner. I’ve always loved books, but never really started reading obsessively until college. I guess in high school, I was too busy learning through other mediums and being free of responsibility.

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