How to STOP BEING REALISTIC and SHOOT FOR THE MOON | Jesse Itzler on Impact Theory

The people that you meet in your 20s rise up in their 30s and are in great positions of power in their 40s. You don't know when you're 20 in your 20s who's going to who's going to make it and who's not. So, you know, you treat everybody properly and respectfully and you stay in touch. And very often those relationships merge their heads years later, decades later. Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is a wildly successful entrepreneur with a net worth measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but trying to understand him by his financial success would be to entirely miss the mark. What makes him fascinating isn't just that he managed to turn a 900 on his SATs and no formal business training into a business empire that spans travel, food and beverage, music, and even sports. It's that he has one of the most fascinating life resumes on the planet. Here are just a few of his highlights. He's a former MTV rapper who used to be labelmates with 80s hip-hop icons Tone Loc and Young MC, and despite being white, he convinced said record label to listen to his demo by first pretending to be a well-known black rapper. He co-founded and built the world's largest private jet card company Marquis Jet with no previous experience in aviation, and when he launched it, he got sales by hoarding muffins. I'm not kidding. He's rented an entire mountain, hired a Navy SEAL to toughen him up, turned his failed career as a rapper into a successful company writing theme songs for sports franchises, and now he's actually a co-owner of an NBA franchise himself. He helped launch the coconut water craze with Zico, which later he sold to Coca-Cola, and he's run 100 miles in a single day. He's also climbed the vertical equivalent of Mount Everest over a weekend and actually summited the most deadly mountain in the US, Mount Washington. In short, this guy does not take the easy road anywhere and he's proven that fearlessness and tenacity count for a lot more than experience or family money. So, please help me in welcoming the New York Times best-selling author of Living with a Seal, the man who introduced the world to the legendary David Goggins, the author of the upcoming Living with Monks, Jesse Itzler. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. That was an amazing intro. Your life is crazy. Absolutely crazy. And this whole concept of the life resume, you really sucked me in and I I had written an original draft of the intro where it was my more typical like he does this and then this and then this. And I thought that's really to miss the point. And so, let me start over and really look at it from that resume perspective. Right. And the crazy like broad stuff that you've done, almost always with no experience, is really pretty incredible. When did you start thinking about that? Well, I realized that experience takes too long. Takes I don't have I don't have enough time for everything I want to do to get experience. Um no, I just realized that I'm an adrenaline junkie. I love newness. I love challenges. I mean, that's what makes me feel most alive. And I discovered that early on when I was trying to get a record deal and just getting rejection and I didn't I had no connections. My dad owned the plumbing supply house in Long Island where I grew up and we weren't connected to the music world. And I just loved the thrill of trying to do what everyone said I couldn't do. Mhm. There's no way you can you know, and every All my roommates in college were writing their resumes and sending it out to all the companies. They're like, why aren't you writing your resume? We're all like typing our resume. Why aren't you working on it? I'm like, cuz I'm going to get a record deal. Obviously. When they said no, you can't, it just fueled me more to want to go out and get it. So, in that moment and if you can get people to understand this, like you will help so many people break through. Because it is that moment where people tell you that you can't do it and you don't just thrash and say watch me, watch me. You really go out and do it and get really clever about it. And so there's two stories to me that parallel. There's the muffin story and how you launched Marquis Jet, which I thought was absolutely fascinating. And then there was how you talked your way into getting the record company Delicious Vinyl Yeah. to listen to your demo. Sure. So, well the Marquis Jet story, you know, my partner and I were guests on a private jet when I was 27 or 28 years old. And when we walked onto the airplane, it was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to color. Like people fly like this. This is unbelievable. I want to fly like this. And when by the time we landed, we're like, let's start a private jet company, you know, like definitely, you know, so we could fly privately. Except we had no airplanes. So, we went to a company called NetJets owned by Warren Buffett, the 800-lb gorilla. They had 600-plus airplanes in the fleet and pitched this idea for a 25-hour prepaid jet card, which was called Marquis Jet. How'd you get that interview? Like that time with them? Oh, it's a crazy story. You know, I had a friend of mine who called me up and um prior to that I was putting experiences together for wealthy people. Like impossible to get experiences. And a friend of mine called me up and said that he had a friend whose daughter was turning 16 and he wanted to do something at the Christina Aguilera concert. And I happened to have a relationship with the management company and I got his daughter on as kind of like a backup singer kind of thing with the mic off. And the guy called me up after the concert like the next day. She was the star of the town, you know, everyone was talking about it. And he was like, I've no idea who you are or what you do. But if you ever need anything, call me. Like that was amazing what you did for my daughter. And it turns out he was the president of this company called NetJets that owned all these airplanes. So, a year later when we had this idea, I was like, I I I know someone in this business. You're like, the guy that we had sing his daughter sang at the Aguilera concert. And that's how we got the meeting. Wow. But the meeting actually, when we pitched the idea, the meeting lasted 12 minutes and they they threw us out. And the president of NetJets said, and this is almost a direct quote, he said, you know, cool idea, but if you think we're going to give two kids that didn't break a thousand on their SAT, which Tom pissed me off. I got like a 980, but I've convinced myself I've gotten over it. You're like, keep telling yourself you broke a thousand. He's like, I'm never giving you guys access to our our airplanes. Cuz the the notion was if we could sell and market onto their fleet through this 25-hour program called Marquis Jet, that's how we would piggyback off their airplanes. And they threw us out of the meeting and then we were relentless and we came back and we we realized that we couldn't sell this concept through a PowerPoint because they'd seen they'd seen a thousand PowerPoints a month. So we literally brought our own focus group in to bring the meeting to life. And one by one the guys stood up. We had Carl Banks from the New York Giants and Run from Run-DMC and a powerful real estate mogul and and they explained that they would never buy a fraction what NetJets was selling. But they would buy a 25-hour card if it was offered. And and that's how we ended up solidifying the opportunity. And then to your point, when we started the company, you know, this is back in 2000. So there was I had no sophisticated way to get leads. I didn't know a lot of wealthy people. And the only way that I could really build my database or sell anybody was to go to events where rich people hung out. So I heard about this conference called the TED. I didn't even know what it was in Monterey, California. So I flew commercial, you know, transferred three flights, drove six hours when I landed to get to TED to try to pitch this idea to anyone that would listen. But when I got to the TED conference, it was like Fort Knox. Everybody had credentials, double credentials, and I had nothing. And they wouldn't let me anywhere near the venue. So, I went to the local coffee shop and just trying to figure out how I'm going to get in or sneak in or get someone to get me in or get access. And I realized like every hour or two, everyone with credentials was walking into the coffee shop, and they were buying lattes and muffins, and lattes and muffins, and lattes and muffins. So, the next morning, I woke up at at 5:00, and I went to the coffee shop, and I bought every single muffin that they had. I took all the inventory out of the shop. I'm like, "I'll take all your muffins." They gave me like 80 muffins. And I was sitting, and then when the first wave of TED attendees, you know, broke for their break, and they came, one of the customers said, "Um, you know, can I have a latte and a muffin?" And the guy said, "Well, I can give you a latte, but we're all out of muffins." And when he was walking out, I said, "Excuse me, sir. You know, look, I I happen to have an extra muffin. I've actually have 800 of them, you know, but if you want a muffin, um, you can have one of my muffins." He's like, "No, get out of here." I said, "No, I said, "Really?" I said, "We started Well, what do you do? What are you doing here?" We started having a conversation, and he said, "You know, do you mind if I join you?" And I you know, my only thought was like, "You're qualified to buy a card, you can join me." And he was my first sale. He was my first sale. A guy owned a a company that sold it to eBay. And, um, that was the start of the adrenaline rush of, "Okay, let me try to crack this code of, you know, how we can build this thing with um not a big database." How do you teach somebody to look for those opportunities, to create those opportunities? Because everyone's going to hear the no, but 99.99999% of people just accept it. I think it's different. I think when you're young, the consequences don't matter as much. You know, you're just thinking about the end result. It's a little bit different now. I have four children, and I don't think I could take the risk necessarily that I did when I was 21 and living check to check. But at that point the consequences didn't matter. If I had to get thrown out of the TED conference or whatever, it it it didn't really matter. I would just try again. But um it's always been having for me it's been probably similar to you when you started your business, but it's always having the end of the movie in my head and then filling in the script. So I knew I was going to leave there with a sale. I just had to write the script and the script might change. There might be, you know, call an audible and you have to rewrite the script, but the end of the script was always the same. I'm going to run 100 miles. Okay, well how are you going to do that, Jesse? You know, like you've never you're not like a crazy endurance runner. Well, then let's think backwards of how, you know, but it starts with the end scene in the movie. Even the exit. You know, like okay, we're going to build this to sell. I don't know who I'm going to sell it to. But that's sort of been always kind of the mentality and I think the second point to that is once you get over the fear of being embarrassed you know, no no one likes to be embarrassed. But once you get over being scared of being embarrassed, it's super liberating. And it allows you to go into lanes that you otherwise you wouldn't go into. And everybody's wired differently. You know, everybody's wired completely different. It's hard to rewire someone to take to be, you know, comfortable taking risks, comfortable with being embarrassed. And I think it comes from having a lot of egg on your face and learning along the way. You've talked about I like to get my foot in the door and then I'll figure out the rest later. How have you not let I don't know what I'm doing stop you? It takes a long time. You know, that it's a fast world. There's a it build into that learning curve for me, um 980, it takes a lot of time and I just never had that time. I'm I'm so I've always been like let me get my foot in the door and I will figure it out. I will hire people that can help me figure it out. I can go to experts to help me. But they usually won't help me get in the door. Mhm. So, let me take the first step. And then once you have momentum, you can ride the momentum. So, that's always been my MO, you know? It's always been um in everything. You mentioned Living with the Seal, you know, when Goggins came, all that stuff. It's just been like welcoming the unknown and being open to whatever comes of it and learning from it. So, let's talk about then the the networking that you've done because the the amount of places you've been able to get your foot in the door are pretty impressive. Have you done things strategically knowing like this is going to help me meet people that could potentially one day open a door for me somewhere. Yeah, I mean, well, networking's been a big part of my life forever. When I was 24 years old, I wrote 10 letters a day, thank you notes, to anyone that came into my life that impacted me. And it could be even if I didn't know you, but I saw your show and I was like, you know what? Tommy, you've had some amazing guests I've really benefited from. I would just write you a handwritten note because one, the handwritten note shows intent. You have to buy the envelope, buy the stationery, write the letter, lick the envelope, get the stamp, put it in the mail. That's a lot different than hitting send. Mhm. It's also memorable. How many handwritten letters have you gotten this year? So, I would I literally wrote 3,000 letters in 1 year. And it could be to a doorman, cab driver, it could be anyone. I would just get their card and I would thank them. That was my form of networking the even to this day. I have a hot 50 list that I of 50 people that can help me, that I want to stay in touch with, um that I make sure every quarter or so I send them a note. And I they always comment on it, you know? Like, thank you so much and it's and it's authentic. It's not I'm not just writing it to write it. I mean, they have to really have had an impact on me and I have and it's a meaningful note. It makes me feel great. And it makes the recipient feel attached to me in a different way. You know, at an early age, I understood the importance of that. The people that you meet in your 20s rise up in their 30s and are in great positions of power in their 40s. You don't know when you're 20 in your 20s who's going to who's going to make it and who's not. So, you know, you treat everybody properly and respectfully and you stay in touch. And very often those relationships merge their heads years later, decades later. Well, that's really incredible. One thing that I find really fascinating and super effective about your personality is you'll capitalize and move quickly on serendipity. So, um this audience knows David Goggins very well. Uh he was a phenomenal guest on the show. But what I love in your story is you see him running next to you, you see that moment that's really become a core part of his story where he's got the broken feet, but he still runs the remaining 30 miles, but you reach out to him afterwards and actually make something of that. What was that process like for you and why is that a thing for you to to really you see something you move on it? Yeah, I think well, with Goggins, you know, this is was his first hundred-miler. And I was doing it as a relay race. So, I was doing it with five friends. He had no one to relay with. Like he was his only friend at the race and he was his own team. And immediately I was drawn to him because, you know, he was a super He was heavy set at the time, really muscular. And I was thinking like, how's a guy that weighs this much going to run His goal was 100 miles, you know, and he had no supplies. You know, it was It was a self-supported race. You had to bring all your own supplies. I just sold my company to Warren Buffett. I had like way overdid our supplies. I had like masseuses and a Whole Foods truck pulled up, you know, and like Goggins had a glass of water, a box of crackers, and like, you know, a chair. At mile 70, he went through this he had crushed his feet, you know, he broke several bones there. And um I watched him get up and continue on, and I was like, what the is going on here? And when I was done, I'm like, I got to meet this guy because and no at this time he was relatively unknown, you know, I mean this is 2007, six or seven, I think, something like that. And um I wanted to meet him because whatever drive whatever got him off the chair and said, I want to keep running. If I could teach that to my kids or to my employees or to myself, like I want that secret sauce. And initially, you know, um I went out because I saw a lot of star power in him. I saw just a whole just different world, you know, he represented something I never really seen before. And I realized that I wasn't going to get that secret sauce through a friendship or at a lunch meeting or this and that. And then I asked him to come, you know, would you come live with me? Um And uh basically said, uh "If you're crazy enough to ask a guy like me to come, I'm crazy enough to come." And came came to my house. That's awesome. I love that. Is that something that you do with frequency to you'll see something, be curious, be interested, and do more than just the, you know, the casual hey, it's nice to meet you? It is. I mean, if I saw if I find someone that's inspiring or an event or something, I try to introduce he, she, or it to my life. And that's part of just my own personal development, you know, I learn better through experience than through books. Mhm. I like to be challenged, and I love interesting people. I I like people that are think differently, that act differently. That's what attracts me. That's just what makes me feel like I'm getting the most out of life, you know? And that is I'm on a constant search for that cuz I'm very aware of my own mortality. You know, I'm 50 years old. I'm turning 50, and the average American lives to be 78. And if that were the case and I was average, that means I got 28 years left. Mhm. And that dictates, well, who do I want to spend that time with and what do I want to do? And that's a driving, you know, it's like on repeat in my head. So, to answer your question, you know, that's that's sort of what makes me tick. And you've got a pretty deep obsession with that. At one point, I think you were writing the number of days that you had on your wrist or something like that. doing that. Why'd you stop? I'm curious. Um I'm just so aware of it now, you know, um uh it was starting to freak my wife out a little bit. Uh it's a little depressing, but for me, it's not depressing. Mhm. It's like, you know, I think people's relationship with time, we talk about relationships with humans. How's your relationship with your kids? How's your relationship with your wife? You know, your dad or your parents. But we never talk about our relationship with money and time. And the relation your relationship with time is such a key component of your life because when you get caught in a routine, time goes so quickly. When you understand that there are maybe only 28 summers left, and if you want to truly, you know, get as much out of experientially out of life, it just creates a tremendous amount of urgency. So, uh and the fear goes away. Because you're like, man, nobody on the planet like everybody no one's going to be here in 100 years. Do I care what he thinks? Like he's not even We're not going to even be here in 100 years. So, why wouldn't I take the chance? And it's just I don't know. It's just so I stopped writing it because I'm so aware of it. There's not a day that goes by when my head hits the pillow where I don't say to myself, like, you know, did I maximize the day and am I am and you know, am I aware of my mortality? And it might sound depressing, but it's it's not. For me, it's um it's thrilling. It's thrilling. That does not sound depressing to me at all. I think I'm utterly fascinated by people that are really trying to get the most out of their life humanly possible. And knowing that you're one of those people, the obvious question to me becomes why are you so obsessed with doing the hard things? Like if you know you only have 28 summers as you said, why are we doing polar plunges, running 100 miles? Like what is it about that drive to encounter not only the novel, but the incredibly difficult? I mean, I think easy's boring isn't isn't easy answer to that. I think that it goes to your point of building your life resume. You know, we spend we invest so much time in our work resume, which is important, but I think it's equally if not more important to build your life resume because that's really an indication of who you are and what you're becoming. And that's really a true uh look into your true body of work. How is your obsession with time and um I guess anything else that led you to do what you did with the monks? So, what did you do? What drove you to do all of what were some key takeaways? So, uh I lived in a monastery with uh eight monks, four of which have been there for 50 years. And 50 years. And um I went there for 15 days. I think, you know, the obvious takeaways were just the simplicity of how the how how the monks live uh is something I think everyone can benefit from. I realized immediately you know already what you're going to miss. You're your family and your kids and your friends and some of the comforts. You know, I I don't want to give away some of the comforts that I had. But you also realized how much at least I did in my daily life, how much time I spend and worry I spend on things that are irrelevant. And when I released when I released that, I got so insanely creative and had so much energy because like thoughts, worry, all that it's exhausting. I remember when When when I came home, I said to my wife, um we were doing carpool with our kids, and she was going to take you know, with two cars and she's like, I think I'll take the blue car. I'm like, cool. And then she came back and she's like, I'm going to take the silver car. I'm like, okay, sweetie, take the silver car. And then she came back 30 seconds later, she's like, you know what? I want to be able to park it. I'm going to take the blue car. I'm like, great. Take the blue car. And then I was like, do you know how much energy you just used on something that's like completely But it happens all day long and you don't even realize how much energy you use on like at the monastery, all the decisions are taken away. So, what you eat, you eat whatever they give you. What you wear, nobody can I changed once. I took one shower. It just was super freeing. So, I left there incredibly energized. And and I surrendered a lot of things in my life that just I didn't realize, you know, are time zappers. Uh and that might sound obvious, you know, like, oh, you went to a monastery and you realize, but it wasn't about meditation, it wasn't about so really religion or spirituality. It was just about um simplifying and prioritizing and realizing like what's I already know what's important to me. But realizing like to eliminate some of the things that really aren't important to me and taking away those precious hours. What I found really interesting about the book, and by the way, the structure of the book is phenomenal. Um the way that you invite us in to you having trouble writing the book and that we're experiencing with you the meeting where you have to explain, I haven't written the book and it's supposed to be done and and then as you're reading, you're like, wait, I'm actually already in the book. So, it was like this sort of adaptation, if you ever saw that movie. It was really, really interesting. And I'll just assume this was intentional, but the very structure of the book had that same sense of dropping inside of your mind that I imagine is exactly what happens when you go to a monastery and there are no distractions and suddenly it becomes about what I'm learning about myself. And I could I don't think you ever actually said it in the book, if I remember right, but the the sense was that the struggle in writing the book came from I was looking for the universals that were so present in Living with a Seal, and I found only myself in that. And so, how do I pull forth the the universals by telling these incredible stories? And that was really, really cool. And one of my favorite stories was um Mrs. Sara Blakely. And it it's just a really cool story. Walk people through that because it got to the heart of something that I think a lot of people struggle with. And your ability to both be the the top dog in a scenario and to be a cheerleader is is pretty remarkable. Um so, tell that story if you don't mind. I mean, you know, to that point, I'll get to the end first. It's a key component of a marriage is sharing in each other's successes and rooting for each other. And when the star shines on someone, you celebrate it, and then the other person, you know, they you your partner celebrates it. And um and being on the same page. And and for a guy, that could be difficult if you're married to a gal that's in, you know, um that that has a light shining on them. But I was at a restaurant, and my wife was running late. I was with my trainer, a friend of mine. And there I didn't know the spot with this woman, but there was a girl at the other table, attractive girl, who I thought was was kind of like looking over the table. Cuz she was kind of staring at me, and it was a little uncomfortable. And I told my friend like, you know, I think this girl's like checking me out, man. I I don't think I don't know. I'm not sure, but like, will you look over there and see if she's looking at me? And he looked over, and she's like, "She's checking you out." And um you know, we started laughing about it. And and uh and then she came over to me, super attractive girl, and um I thought she was going to say like, "Can I join you?" whatever, and then she said, "Are you Sara Blakely's husband?" And um he, you know, he laughed and this and that. And I said, "I am Sara Blakely's husband." She said, "I'm a huge fan of your wife." You know, like the whole thing was about Sara. And I thought the whole thing was about was about me. Um and I write about that in the book, you know. Uh um but that that's what happened and it was uh it's a funny moment, you know. But I was I'm so proud of my wife, you know, and I'm her biggest cheerleader. And that's part of my job as a husband is to support her through the ups and there's a little bit of knock on wood a lot of ups, but also plenty of downs. You know, being an entrepreneur and and um is lonely. You know, you went through the journey, man, it's lonely. And um nobody worries about it when you're the founder like you worry about it. And you can give out shares and compensation of this and that. But, you know, it's Tom's bar, man, you know? And um so, there are times where you have to be super supportive and and understanding. And being an entrepreneur, I'm very aware of that. So, I think it's a good it's a good fit. So, another thing you talked about in the book was that you actually in the early days of your marriage, you guys would argue a lot cuz Sara would ask you, you know, "What are you feeling?" And you'd say, "I don't know." And she finally had this epiphany where it's like, "He really doesn't know what he's feeling." Yeah. And what has it been like for you to learn to really be introspective and to understand your feelings? Cuz at least from the outside, and especially having read the book, it feels like you've gotten to a place where you're very in tune with yourself, with your intuition, which is another thing we should talk about. But like what was that process like? Yeah, I mean, Sara would ask me for years. She'd be like, you know, "Sweetie, how does that make you feel?" And I would say, "I don't know." And she'd say, "Well, you know, something would happen." Like a big event would she'd be like, "Well, what are you feeling?" And I would be like, "I really don't know." You know, like and I really didn't know. And she would get angry at me. She'd be like, "What do you mean you don't know?" I'm like, "I don't know. I'm like, you know, I don't know what's going on the hockey game." You know, like I would just deflect it. And um she finally realized like I really don't know. And um maybe that was a defense mechanism for me. I don't I don't know. And I like to stay super happy, you know, and um upbeat and and blow away some emotions that maybe but through this journey through the monastery and through Sarah's like really big into talking emotions, playing you know, she we we volley. She always says like she'll hit the ball and I won't hit it back. And um but now we're volleying a little bit more. And but it's a work in progress for me, you know. My form of communication's been running an hour a day. I've run In the last 25 years, I've run 36,000 miles, you know, I've ran what? 10,000 hours or something, you know, alone. Basically alone. And that's been my meditation. And that's been my release. And that's been my emotional, you know, it's been my creative process. It's been my physical well-being. It's been my, you know, my own form of meditation and and it's been my release. And that's it. I'm good. She doesn't do that. So, you know, I've had to work through some of that. The The book was really fun in in for anybody that's ever thought, "Oh, I must just be bad at meditation." The part where you try to meditate when you first got there and you're like, um I you know, I've got my transcendental meditation. I've been given my word. I can't reveal what my word is but it sounds like a sushi restaurant. And I really wish I had some sushi right now. Right. And I thought that was fantastic for people that think there's like some big mystical moment you if I remember right, you were like, "I was waiting for somebody to say let there be light." Yeah. And so if that moment never comes, what is it that does come from being by yourself for that long? Well, just to just to play on to into that story, when I first got to the monastery, I now went to a room that was the size of where we are, and I had a bed, and a light, and a desk. And um Brother Christopher, the was like, you know, my go-to monk at the in the experience, uh said to me, "Well, we'll start tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. We will start with prayer, reflection, and meditation." And I was like, "Great. It's 6:50 p.m. What do I do for the next 12 hours?" And he said, "Think." So, I said, "Okay." You know, I just got there. I said, "Let me try to meditate." So, I had taken a transcendental meditation crash course years ago, and had a mantra, so I set my timer for 20 minutes as instructed, and closed my eyes, and you know, immediately got bombarded with all the thoughts that would, you know, how are my kids? What's going on at work? How the all this stuff, and I was like, "Why hasn't the timer dinged? I've been here forever. Let me check and see if I actually set it." And I'm like, "No, that would be cheating." So, I continued on with this bombardment of thoughts, and then after what felt like an hour, I'm like, "This is crazy. I'll be here all night. Let me set the timer." And I went to set the timer, and I looked at it, I'm like, "3 minutes and 27 seconds." And I was like, "I'm I'm here for 15 days, you know." And that was my first hour at the monastery, and I felt really alone, and you know, like I felt like I was on Gilligan's Island, and usually like you call your wife, or you send an email. I couldn't do anything. I just sit there and be like, "Fuck." You know? And um I started calculating how many minutes I have left here. And it started really with me, you know? I was like, "What?" And um by day two or three, I was really flipped out. I was homesick. I was bored out of my ass. Um I was like, "Where are Where are the lessons going to hit me? Like, just give me the like give me the Cliff Note version of this." But, I realized like anything else in life, there is no Cliff Note version. The only way for me to get this is to stick it out for the entire 15 days. And until I made that mental cuz in the back of my head I was already I was already convincing myself of outs. 7 days is enough. Who's going to care if I if I live in a monastery for 7 days or 15 days? The book's going to be the same. You know? And I was giving myself an out. Once I flipped it and like made the commitment that like, "No, man, you're here. You're in this for the duration." I eased into it and I started like appreciating the routines of the monks, what they were doing. The lessons became more vivid. Um and it would became a picture for real life. Like, you don't cut corners. And you make a commitment and you know, you're going to have to tough it out. And the lessons are usually in the last You know, like most people do 95% the same. But, the last 5% sure experienced it at quest of times. Like, is where 99% of people quit. But, it's the 5% with the extra five the last 5% when you hit the wall and you finish the marathon where the growth is, not the first 18 miles. So, I realized and once I made that shift the whole experience changed for me. You said being around a master of a craft is always enlightening and the monks there were master dog trainers, which was very surprising. What What were your takeaways from that? I thought a monastery would just be all prayer, reflection, meditation, and a meal a day or something. But, a huge part of it is manual labor cuz they have to keep the lights on. And the monastery that I went to uh which was not It was not Buddhist. It was Russian Orthodox. They were the largest breeders of German Shepherds in this country. And I remember the first day I was My job the first day was to be a distractor. So, they were training one of the dogs and I had to like run in front of the dog and woo woo you know, try to like get him off of his game to simulate traffic in the city or distractions. And the goal is to have the dog be able to walk unblemished, no matter what you throw at him. And I was going crazy. I was running at him. I was like, you know, doing the fart trick, all that stuff. And um the dog didn't waver. It just walked from point A to point B. And uh one of the monks that was training the dog said to me, "It's no different than life." You know, he was like giving me all this like, you know, wax on, wax off But he was saying, you know, you're going to get distracted from your goals. And all these things are arrows are going to come at you all the time. But the same way this dog goes from point A to point B, even if there's a pork chop there, whatever your goal is, you got to get the you have to get there. Even though people are going to say you can't do it, even though people are going to throw different opportunities, you know, you know, I'm sure your friends went out a million times to happy hour when you had to stay late when you were starting your business. I mean, I was in the same situation. Those are the distractions that come at you. But to get to your goal, you can't go to happy hour every night. You have to return emails and you have to check the manufacturer and you have to check the inventory and you have to big sales calls. So, I was getting these lessons, but being around the best at what they do, uh it was just impossible to not have an appreciation and respect. That's really interesting and I think that a lot of times humans respond the same way. When you meet somebody that's really just centered, for lack of a better word, they're not being distracted, they know what they want, they're going after it. There's just an an ease, a calmness about them, which is really infectious. I'm drawn to it. Mhm. Yeah. So, going back to the arrows that you were talking about, how in your life have you stayed the course? How have you stayed focused when you had and and maybe this goes to your why? You know, what was it that allowed you to keep going when your friends were going out to happy hour? Well, I I think like everybody, I feel overwhelmed a lot still. Even though I'm older now and I've had some success and failure, but I still have a lot of arrows that come at me uh all the time. Requests for my time, challenges at work, challenges raising kids, being in a marriage, you know, is not easy. I mean, we have a great marriage, but it's not easy to work. Sure. Um and it's overwhelming. So, for me, I think part of it is always having something big on my calendar that I can look forward to. Uh every every other month, um I try to put something on my calendar for a weekend that I can really look forward to. So, it helps me get through the tough times. And I like to have one at least one really big challenge a year that kind of centers me and and keeps me honest. Keeps me honest. And it that's really helpful for me. And then the other thing that I do that really helps is I I have a journal. And I just take everything that's on my head and I keep it in a master journal. Doesn't mean I'm going to get to it. Doesn't mean it goes away, but it gets out of my head and it goes somewhere else to free up space in my head. And then I'll just work it off or I'll prioritize it from the master list, but just the act of taking all the stuff that's in your head, putting it on paper in one place where it lives is like really freeing and energizing. So, you talked a lot in the book about finding your why. Did you find a why? My family's so important to me. I have four kids under eight. So, my why is stares at me in the face every day. But for for me, going back to what you said at the opening of the show and we touched upon it, it's my life resume. You know, it's um helping people is important to me. And you know, I feel great um being able to help people in any way. I love people. So, I like that's a big part of my life. Um, but my my own personal resume is sort of my why. I just said to my wife as I turned 50, like, let's have a big I want to have a big celebration. This is a monumental birthday and it's really affecting me how I think, you know, it's like I didn't think it would, but turning 50 is having a big impact on me. And I said you when I was 25, I had a big party in New York City where I was living and I want to kind of replicate that. And she said, "Wow, honey, you know, think about all the things that you've accomplished in the last 25 years." And I'm like, I appreciate it, but compared to I haven't done anything compared to what I the potential and what I want to do, you know? And she said, "Well, then think about the things that you love to do over those over the last 25 years. What are the things that you've loved to do and who have you loved to do them with?" And for me, it's been the races, the travel, the this and the that. She said, "Well, look, put as much of that on your plate as you can with the people that you love to do it with in the next 25 years of your life." And that's sort of my mission statement. So, how is turning 50 affecting the way that you think? I'm super curious. It's just realizing that like it went so fast and realizing that there's so much that I want to do and being aware that your 70s are are different decade than your 40s and 50s. Then you have 20 years left. And when you real put it in perspective of how many weekends there are, you know, there's only 52 weekends and you start to look at it like that, you're like, I'm going to be 80 in 30 years. Scary. You know, I got kids. It's scary cuz there's a lot I want to do. I feel like I haven't done anything compared to what I what I want to do and the opportunities. So, you know, it just how do you manage your time? I never thought like that. I always thought I'm going to live forever. And um you know, I'm bulletproof and all that stuff and I'm not. And when you turn 50, happens. Friends get sick, you know. Let me give you an example of of just how it's affected me and how even the modest during this whole notion of time which we've been talking, it's been a theme of this conversation. But like um your parents alive? Yeah. How old are your parents if you don't mind? 70. Okay. And where do they live? In different parts of Washington state. Okay. Do you see them? Yeah. Pretty often? Once to three times a year. Okay. So let's say they live to be 78. Which is the I hope they don't. But let's say that they they live to the average age. So you see them one you said once to three times? Yeah. Okay. No, you don't. It means you're going to see them 16 If you see them twice a year, you can see them 16 more times. When you look at it that way, you're like, what? You don't have eight years with them. You have 16 times with them. And that's the shift in my life. And that's the way I look at things. That's a fundamental shift in the way that I looked at situations six months ago. And it's created urgency, it's created um a need to just like not put stuff off and to recognize like what's on your list of things that you want to do. Yeah, man. That's that's really interesting and the concept of urgency to me has been one of the driving forces in my life is the ability to create urgency even when it wasn't age and I felt like I was going to live forever, that was still a huge driver for me. I need to do this right now and that's been one of the things that's really served me as an entrepreneur. What advice do you have for um you know, the the young upstart whether they're young in age or just new and in terms of going after something for the first time, what advice do you have for them like urgency to actually help them get across the finish line and and manifest their dreams. Not just dream, but really make them come true. I think the first thing is like any goal is is attaching yourself to something that you love to do. And we we've heard that many times. But we often neglect it because there's an opportunity, maybe there's more money. But like it takes a long time to build a brand or accumulate wealth or we hear of these get-rich-quick things and they happen. But they're not the norm. It takes time. So if you're not doing something over that time, and all of a sudden you lost your 20s and your 30s, you never get them back. So I think you want to the first step is to attach yourself the passion has to be to something, you know, um that you like. I think if you're an entrepreneur, you have to understand the passion is around the process as well as the product and what you're doing. People often neglect the process. But um you can't shortcut it. And if that's what you're signed up for, you have to respect it. What do you think about risk and taking real chances? Uh I'm a big I'm a big risk-taker in general, but not I'm not a thrill-seeker. So um I'm an I'm an adrenaline guy, I'm an endurance guy, but I don't go on roller coasters. I don't like I'm not jumping out of airplanes, but um the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. That's really interesting, man. And your life is certainly proof that there are some big rewards for taking risks. All right, before I ask my last question, tell these guys where they can find you online. So uh on Instagram and all the social media. Cool. And final question, what's the impact that you want to have on the world? I just I mean it's person-to-person. It's person-to-person. You know, the world gets small. Your world it's a big world, but our worlds are small. You're going to leave all this and you go to a very small world as do I. So I want to just positively impact the people that are close to me in a way that will carry on, you know, for for as long as they can. Awesome. Jesse, thank you so much for being on the show, man. That was incredible. Thank you so much. All right. Guys, this whole notion of a life resume is absolutely captured me. I think it's really, really fascinating. In his new book, Living with Monks, you are going to love it. Literally, you feel like you're tumbling down inside his mind. If you've ever seen the movie Adaptation, that is exactly what this feels like. It opens with him confessing to his literary agent that he hasn't written the book that he was supposed to be done with by now, and then confessing that he kept a journal, and then you sort of tumble headlong into the journal with the person that his agent, and then the stories that he shares and the exploration that he's going on. I mean, it's just really this fascinating look at one single individual's reaction to having their world shut down from a distraction standpoint. And the book itself becomes this like meditative um practice in and of itself in that you see the universals. You see yourself in him as he's going through this, and it is really incredible. He has such a unique way of experiencing something and bringing it back to people in a way that's useful. And it's even self-reflexive in the book how he talks about that, how there's so many things that you can't learn just from reading that ultimately have to go out and experience it. And the punchline of the book in the end is he said he wants everyone to build a life resume, to go to the website, and to pledge what it is that you're going to do and then actually take action, which is why I was so excited to get him on the show. You guys know my absolute obsession is actually getting people to go out and act, to do something. What this man has done with his life is beyond astonishing. Every time he hits a note to find some amazing, creative, hilarious, and ultimately effective way to get to the other side. It is something that I hope you guys all hear in his story. This is not a tale of somebody who leveraged family money to make it even bigger. This is somebody who started with nothing and built an absolutely massive empire not once, not twice, three and four and five times. It is absolutely astonishing. It's repeatable. It's something you can learn from. So, dive into his world. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.