Joe De Sena - Founder and CEO of Spartan | The Spartan Mindset

Why should everybody join the military at every one of our kids should go to war the military spends three billion a year trying to recruit a hundred thousand kids We probably are getting after Capitalism and we could talk every day about the border we could talk about you praying we go fight over this thing over that thing Let's get our own house in order and we lost a person who we found him 150 miles away he had drifted Everybody's doing intermittent fasting everybody's on this peptide everybody's not drinking anymore So I see it, but it's an entrepreneur proud. It's a totally an entrepreneur proud everybody listens to the podcast If you could look back and you could tell your 20 year old self one thing what would that thing be Welcome to success story. I'm your host scock Larry the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network They supported the show for over two years now and I've used HubSpot for the majority of my professional career One of the most useful tools that is included in the HubSpot suite of products is sales hub Sales hub is an all-in-one platform built with the tools and insights that you need to communicate on a personal level With every lead every prospect every customer It doesn't matter what kind of business you're building sales hub makes it easier to close more deals and drive more revenue You're looking for a better way to acquire customers And we all are because that is the lifeblood of our business You're looking to make smart data-driven decisions increase visibility productivity predictability of your revenue You got to look at sales hub It can organize and sort deals in your pipeline It creates reminder tasks for your most important deadlines and manages leads It automates outreach it tracks and closes deals all in one place and on top of that It's free to get started and it grows with your business as it scales There's 1300 integrations and a ton of valuable add-ons customize it exactly to your needs With sales hub closing deals is no longer a big deal go to HubSpot.com slash sales and try it for free You Joe thank you for coming on. I appreciate it Uh My pleasure so even before we started we're talking about a couple of things that you wanted to go into This one talking point that I thought will really hit home. Why should everybody join the military? Look if this one if this was the ninth early 1900s the 1700s I would say we need more Netflix more penicillinum more couches I would suggest that's what we sell more of In the world we live in today especially in the United States and I have lived all over the world with my family We are fat. We are sick. We are undisciplined. We lack motivation The couches are overused worst with too much screen time It's no wonder everybody's depressed. There's over a half a million psychologists Needed just to like talk to people because we have too much free time. We gotta take these young kids mine included and Give them some purpose give them some discipline have them learn how to make their bed I'm not suggesting for all the idiots that are gonna comment on this that every one of our kids should go to war Like I know that is a you know that is what happens when you're in the military, but There's also a lot of benefits that come out of it as well And when you look at the data and you look at our children today There's not a sidewalk being used. There's no kids playing in parks They don't look like they used to look and you know Whatever I would say put your kid in the middle now if I had my if I could do anything if I could snap my fingers right I would say and I was with a general on Sunday. I meet with a Pentagon. I would say Let's do like a two-year deal where Where kids don't have to commit for six or more years. Let's give them two years right out of high school Pay for their college those two years if they want to stay on longer they can Let's level them up as human beings Let's make them proud of this country. Let's make the country proud of them So layup it is a layup anybody who comments and says that's ridiculous I can't believe this here's what they're gonna say your listeners are gonna say I don't like the current leadership and you know, it's a it's bullshit and and there's people behind the scenes that are That are pulling lever like I get it. I get it. You don't like the leadership But like do you like the kids? Do you like where they're going? Do you think they are the same level that kids were in the 1930s 40s 50s? You think they have not even not even 20 years ago Not even 20 years ago. So like what are we talking about Presidents are gonna change every four or eight years leadership's gonna change Wars come and go and they've been coming and going for thousands of years like we can't do anything about it Eventually hopefully it fizzles out we stop killing each other But in the interim could we level each other up? So we at least know how to make our bed in the morning and how to drink a green juice and go to bed early like I don't understand How did we how did we get so soft in terms of physical fitness in terms of doing hardship? We haven't prioritized those things right like so again, I'm not like you and I and Business people their type a personality is they're getting after it every day We're probably not going to become teachers We probably are getting after Capitalism and business. I'm not saying one is wrong and one isn't but that type a personality that wakes up early Gets in the cold plunge drinks more water each more salad likes to do push ups Most cases mo not it's not you know, it's a generalization They're not the people in academics Sure, there's a PE teacher here in air, but like and so What happened when there was like a budget shortfall Get rid of PE People making the decisions didn't do push ups to begin with so they didn't prioritize They did not optimize for that more math less push ups I get it But when you look at the data and you look at the science and you look at our biology Actually Actually, if you take kids and you have them do more PE and a little less math they actually do better in math It's no surprise that if you move blood around The brain gets a little fresh blood. It's a little easier to understand the math if you sit there all day And you're loaded up on ice cream and garbage and you get any sleep last night and you don't do any physical fitness math becomes a little more complicated And you know that there's a whole bunch of Things that come from competitive sports that help in the business world and the career world in life Like everybody who I know that is killing it at business plates some sort of competitive sport growing up I'm a CEO. I'm a founder. I know a lot of founders. I work for a long time on Wall Street Companies love athletes You hire an athlete from a good school They've proven that they've got perseverance. They've proven that they understand teamwork They've proven that they can go through tough times good times. So like how we don't have A mandate in this country Like like JFK tried to do you know presidential fitness what you know Obama did their thing But it's all it's all bullshit because We could talk every day about the border. We could talk about Ukraine We could fight over this thing over that thing. Let's get our own house in order Yeah, start by making everybody do 30 burpees in the morning. Take a cold showers. Let's start with that You know, it's funny. So that the thought the lens that we look at life through like the lens of somebody who Is in the gym is waking up early is committing played sports whatever That lens skews our perception and I was listening again to some of your origin stories and how you assume that something like 50 000 people would love Doing all these endurance sports and and you know going on these multi-mile hikes and runs and Swims and whatever and that's not the case where that wasn't the case initially that's actually what Really hurt when you were trying to build out Spartan like in its first couple of years And I think that We don't realize how bad it's gotten because the people that can change and the people that do have the you know The the positions of power the people who do other positions influence. They're all type A personalities So their their reality is not the reality of the average person who's overweight and depressed and sad And I don't think they realize that it's as big an issue as as it really is in the US especially and you see that more when you go abroad You see that more when you go to Europe. I don't spend a lot of time in Asia, but you see that. I'm sure when you go to Asia I lived I told you I lived all over the world and Every time I came back to any city in the United States when I landed in the airport didn't matter what city Everybody's three times the size The drinks the drinks are three times the size the amount of food being served is three times the size The amount of steps being taken or three times less We are fat sick and by the way We're so smart as Americans that now we're putting Fat unhealthy people in the cover of magazines and we're showcasing that as okay Mm-hmm. We are idiots We're idiots and and I'm not taking shots and I'm just saying don't normalize that Normalize what it means to do the work and be fit Mm-hmm It's it's a it's a it's a symptom of a lazy of a lazy generation It's people don't want to do the work. They won't hand out Here's the thing here's the thing. I didn't know. I'm sorry. I'm all amped up on this. You used to know No, no, I love it because I you know what kind of spirits But I mean it's something that has to be said Because I I didn't know this Everybody listening listen up the human brain Doesn't it is more motivated to avoid discomfort than it is to chase sex or food or drugs or rock and roll It's the number one motivator for human being is the avoidance of discomfort You go to bed you say you want to work up wake work out in the morning you wake up and you want to make some coffee You want to just scroll on your screen That's your brain trying to avoid the hard work of working out because you're going to expend the energy And that's dangerous for the brain 5,000 years ago Expending energy without knowing where your food was coming from was a dangerous thing to do Our legacy hardware and software has not changed in these 5,000 years We are still being protective of doing hard things eating high-caloric foods because we don't know when we're going to get our next meal It wasn't designed for this this world we live in where we have you know 5,000 calories that are at fingertips all day long And we have couch like there's no there's no danger and go into the gym There's no danger in taking a cold shower and no danger of running outside while it's raining. You're not going to drown so Yeah, it's not the next generation So okay, so no, but how do you so how do you fix that I know I know your story I maybe give the the listener's a little bit of background of of where you came from and I thought it was interesting because Even when your mom adopted an early healthy healthy New-aged lifestyle when you were growing up That was so against what you knew And I'm curious how Even though there was such a I guess a knee jerk adverse reaction to when your mom adopted that lifestyle and brought it into your house You still ended up pursuing a path of health wellness fitness So You've been exposed to both sides of it You've obviously adopted this this lifestyle and you built a business around it Can you sort of connect the dots going backwards as to what Turns you into who you are now with all the different experiences that you that you had growing up You know, I created a video yesterday We'll just send it to that I created a video yesterday and I was thinking Everybody needs to understand what I'm about to say which is How did you get your operating system your lifestyle whoever it is that's listening How did you get to where you are the the way you sleep the way you live the way you eat how did you get there Most of you didn't have the advantage I I had which was my mom and and we'll go into that in a second Most of you including me right we got bombarded With advertisements with companies wanting to sell stuff with somebody really smart on Madison Avenue coming up with a TV dinner Or an advertisement where doctors promoted cigarette smoking or you know Baby formula rather than breastfeeding because breastfeeding was barbaric Most of the things we learn we learn from companies and commercial advertisements Right phones you you like that's where we get our information from we're not sitting around The way our ancestors did with a shaman somebody in a tp Some ancient Chinese medicinal doctor and China teaching us the way of the world and how to operate right We don't we don't learn that way we don't we don't operate that way now my mom Living the traditional commercial lifestyle smoking cigarettes and we were eating raviolis and men that were 50 or smoking cigars and fat and soon to be dead She walked into a health food store in the 70s and she wanted to save her mom her mom had cancer And she ran into a yogi who didn't learn it the way we way I just described he didn't learn it from billboards and magazines and Instagram And he said you're you're living all wrong you want to save your mom you're living all wrong you you got to meditate what's meditation You got to do yoga with yoga you got to become a vegan eat more salad. What's that? Why you got to run this yogi believed in long distance running and and so my mom soaked it all in Came home throughout the sausage and peppers Much to my grandfather and I's frustration I remember the day And completely changed her life around and anybody else you can commence to change your life And so I don't want any too I don't want any part of that. I mean I got amongst my living room with beads. They're chanting I can't explain that to my Italian friends who bring an old rake plant farm sandwiches And we're like we're going to watch jaws on TV Or um Scarfay right like this is a weird shit. I don't want any part of that And so I I pushed back hard For many many years. I went the traditional route. I somehow landed on Wall Street And before you know it I didn't feel healthy. I you know, it became very superficial. I'm sitting there typing sitting in the screen not feeling healthy Getting yelled at by clients or yelling bad whatever it was. It just was not a healthy lifestyle And I I stumbled upon my mother's teachings again and I started doing yoga Oh my god. I came out of a hot yoga class. I was like I feel like a brand new human being is unbelievable And I signed up for a crazy race And in the middle of the race I was like oh my god. I feel alive. This is incredible And and I did more and more and more but I have a very addictive Personality and I'm crazy with races all over the world and I wrote people in friends and family I lied to them. I said hey come this weekend I got a barbecue on the farm. We're gonna do a barbecue and I'd wake them up at 5 a.m And they'd say why are we waking up at 5 a.m. for a barbecue as well We got to carry the barbecue up the mountain and they didn't know they were the ones being a barbecue But we would we would do stuff like that and people would change just like I did And they would feel alive. We did great stories to tell And I thought man, I wonder if I could do this as a business. So 20 24 years ago first race I ever put on was down in the British Virgin Islands Who's what Richard Branson around around his island And we lost the person We had a team setting up rope climb Out of rope climbs out of the ocean. It's called coastal leering And he caught himself and we sent them back to Tortola to get stitched up And unbeknownst to us his engine didn't start on his little dinghy boat And he drifted away and And eight days later The team figured out they hadn't seen him in eight days And we got Branson's helicopter my father-in-law was FBI He jumped in the helicopter Branson's pilot We got the coast guard And luckily we found him 150 miles away. He had drifted And he was on a little tabago which is a deserted island And he was eating crabs and drinking water from water bottles that had drifted there as well And and so anybody smart would have Said I'm not going to put on racist for a living. I'm not good at it and it's too dangerous But I'm a Punishment so I started putting on races won't after the other and here we are today You did this for you did this for 10 years You did this for 10 years before it really really took off Maybe even just walk through some of the things that that you learned in those 10 years probably a lot But more importantly What did work? What was that human Primal instinct that you tapped into that first race after 10 years that I think attracted some 700 people Well, it didn't work again. I didn't understand the biology the chemistry of the human being I was having so much fun with it I wanted to be a part of these adventurous moments But other people were scared they didn't want to do the uncomfortable. They're subconscious was telling them Don't do that too dangerous too scary that's going to require us to wake up early in the morning That's going to require exercise that's going to require eating healthy putting down the drinks Your brain is shutting that Lifestyle down before you can even get it going That's why New Year's resolutions don't last So So I could not and and I had the format all wrong I mean, I was pushing 350 mile races back like it was just way too much for people to get their head around 2010 after 10 years of losing money doing this I decided to put on a a shorter distance race at three mile race much more inclusive much more attainable And it worked and 700 people showed up in Vermont I was more people that was more people than I had in the entire 10 years before that literally and and and and 1400 and 2000 and before you know we were in 45 countries or Doing all this crazy shit I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot Now the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network So if you like this show you'll love some of the other shows in their network One of my personal favorites is the hustle daily show It brings you a healthy dose of a reverent offbeat and informative takes on business and tech news and you guessed it every single day Some of their recent episodes that were my personal favorites How AI is making fake IDs How to meet your favorite CEO for a few thousand dollars And also how TikTok is turning into an online mall And starting to replace QVC If you love business If you want to get it daily Let's into the hustle daily show wherever you get your podcast So you know like you do us you do a shorter race You do a three mile race People come out what what makes people what makes people stick with something like this Like we say I still want to get to that thing that sort of Engrains this and somebody turns it into a lifestyle So it's not just a New Year's resolution You said the first race it's an exhilarating it's it's fun It pushes you to the brink But how do you get somebody to do this? And the reason why is then we're going to sort of Take this and think about how to apply it to society How do we take a lesson that you've learned in in in Spartan and in the Spartan race And I think you've got the death race too when you build the whole You know ecosystem around this That we can sort of take and copy paste so that people are less fat and lazy Well, listen, I've taken the approach. I had a guy come up to me once At a race and he said to me hey, I just want to let you know and he started crying Said I'm a veteran He said I'm a firefighter And I've gone through some really dark moments And I was going to take my life About three weeks ago But I remember that I had this race on the calendar with friend that I said let me at least go to the race So you saved my life So I said listen You're not going to die on our watch you now have free races the rest of your life you always have a race on the calendar I never want to hear you know the story again And so my point is This service we provide I could provide for the entire country To the entire world everybody could come out and race on me I don't they don't need to pay me do I have to get paid to make it sustainable of course I do But you know The military spends three billion a year trying to recruit a hundred thousand kids And they run ads and billboards and I have people in offices hoping somebody walks in Imagine if the military partnered with Spartan and all the races we put on and imagine if they gave us some decimal dust Numbers that they wouldn't they wouldn't even miss right and and we in turn Said to the nation All right, you don't want to sign up for two years. You don't want to sign up for six years. How about one day Could you do one day? Can you handle one day and we got everybody in the country to crawl under barbed wire and climb a rope and just get outside There a comfort zone and in that process maybe they ate more salad they drank more water They went to bed early if we just gave them a taste of what I know is unfucking believable We've got a shot We got a shot a turn in turn in the country, but But you know I the latest numbers I think it's I think it's 80 85% of kids 17 to 24 wouldn't even qualify for the military Don't even qualify So like that number is going to be over 90% four or five years What's your plan? Mr. Mrs. Country. What's your plan? You're gonna get it. I know what parents do. I'm a parent. I know what parents do. Shut them up. Give me a phone Shut them up. Give me an iPad. Shut them up. Give me a donut Like what's your plan? We got to close that border. That'd be great to close the border, but like is that really like We could we could only do one thing today. Maybe Let me get everybody to do a burpee No Well They don't even like there is no right now. I mean you're in this world so you know it. There is no Like national like sort of benchmark for fitness, right? It's like One burpee. Let's do just one burpee. Can everybody do one burpee every day They don't need to do that one. Yeah, and then you got the mental health aspect too. You got mental health aspect I mean of course listen if you eat a bunch of shit food Which is what our country does Bunch of processed garbage food all day every day and you don't move I mean what happens if you take a glass of ice to clean swimming pools when I was a kid And a swimming pool is 20,000 gallons of water human bodies like 13 gallons of water 20,000 gallons of water. It has a pump and it has a filter Imagine if in your swimming pool you got one in your backyard 20,000 gallons Imagine every day if I came by and I dropped french fries hamburgers donuts and coffee in the pool The pool would be pretty green pretty quickly especially Especially if I turn the pump off And I stopped running the pump and filter So now I'm dumping all this shit in your pool every day. I turn the pump off. That's 20,000 gallons You're only 13 gallons You got a pump and a filter too your pump and filter is shut off because you're not moving You're stuffing all that shit in your face every day What's your pool look like you think you're gonna be depressed? Of course you're gonna be depressed Your brain is swimming around a bunch of black crud Sorry, I'm on fire today. I'm like a madman. I don't know what's going on, but I'm pissed No, you well listen dude. It's better to be pissed and to not give a shit I mean I give a shit. I know you do and I get so friggin upset There is not a person in the world that could email me. I give everybody my email josephart.com Hey, Jago, love to do your race. Don't have anyone. I know problem race on me I'll let everybody race. I don't care, right? But but no No, I can't be I got whatever the excuses. Yeah, I I'm gonna get fit once I have more time I'm gonna start eating healthy once I will What's the excuse now? You'll work from everybody works from home now You don't have time. It's just bullshit. It's it's people that they don't want to they don't commit to it I mean, it's it's easy when you've been doing it your whole life like I said like the the lens that we look at life Through is very different not to say that it's hard to start But I mean for us. It's just maintenance for us. It's easy for us. It's routine And it's like that you have to like break people shitty routine and shitty habits to get into it That's what I don't know how to do it seems so simple, but it obviously doesn't work because people like you don't know you're too young We have to make it I didn't wear a ski helmet when I skied as a kid. I didn't wear a bike helmet when I biked as a kid. I didn't want to seat belt cigarettes were pretty normal We figured it out as a society We made seat belts cool. We made bike helmets cool. We got to make fitness really friggin cool and I mean, I'll tell you I'll tell you what could solve it in two seconds if Google really had An interest of Google and Facebook came together they could solve the problem globally in about two minutes All they got to do is have your screen go black Unless you take a three-minute walk speak one word of another language do a math problem and a burpee Screen black get your shit done and you screen goes back on you can still call emergency phone numbers, but suck like It would change the whole world. You know, there's another there's another issue that I'm curious about your opinion Because there's so many health gurus that also Make the issue more difficult than it has to be because everybody has dogmas and everybody has this diet and that diet and eat like this and train like this and Try this and cold plunge and red lights on and this peptide and what and there's so much shit out there That I also think it gets overwhelming. I think it does get overwhelming for people Listen up. That's a really good point. Listen up guys My office here has 40 companies that have, you know, Norma tech boots red light therapy hyperbaric chambers All kind of shit the Adidas founding family invested in these 40 startups. They're really cool Technology and I'll walk around with you if you want and every one of these founders every one of these companies I'll say hey, it's really cool gadget, but sorry customers. You don't need to just sign up for race Hey, that's really cool red light sorry customers. You don't need to sign up for race What you're gonna do is sign up for an event doesn't even have to be my event sign up for any event That's outdoors. That's gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna get plenty of sunlight You're gonna be connected to the earth You're gonna hopefully get really really cold really really tired. You're gonna get a good night's sleep You're gonna eat like all those things. You're just trying to buy your way out of your laziness That's what you're trying to do I want to buy my way out of my laziness. I don't want to do the work Is there anything that you actually Outside of all the gadgets and the diets and the fats. Is there anything that you who lives and breathes this every single day has said This is so important a certain diet a certain thing I keep cutting you off. I'm sorry. I just I'm fired up wake up in the morning. I don't give a shit go for it Bake up in the morning early before the sun comes up Obviously if you work the night shift hopefully you don't you figure it out But but everybody else wake up before the sun comes up before you brush your teeth during a bunch of water Swish it around in your mouth get those microbiomes you get to get the bacteria in your mouth into your stomach before you Poison everything with the toothpaste we use Then then Go if you don't have a cold plunger or river outside your house go take a cold shower first thing Then go do your workout sweat like hell Make sure you're drinking a ton of water Right don't go right to the coffee make sure you're drinking a ton of water Get your sweat on take your shower again afterwards get to work hustle all day eat more salad and get to bed early Now I'm not gonna tell you you can't eat a burger you can't just eat more salad And I'm not saying don't turn your salad into a pizza like everybody does eat a salad Eat more salad. That's it You can still eat you're other things to be look just stay away from processed food the more boxes The more packages the more garbage That's that's it a nutshell like earn your breakfast and eat between nine and five or nine and six every day Don't eat before nine a.m. Try not to eat again change that if you'll be working different hours Your stomach is not like a garbage processing plant that can run 24 hours a day without breaking it needs a break so give it a break And you know, I do believe in some vitamins and the reason I believe in them is you know, we own a farm in Vermont And and the soil on the farm It's it's not nutrient dense. I had to go get seaweed I had to load you know cow manure on the farm in order to get it to be nutrient dense And so the food we're eating even the salads reading these days They don't have the same nutrients that we had a hundred years ago. So you do need You do need those vitamins those supplements That's what I believe everybody says like you know when they go to Europe they eat anything They don't put on weight when they come back to the US They eat nothing and they put on weight So there must be some truth to that that is just completely listen you and I started a company We started a company today We're in the food business We got a contract with the government. We're gonna feed half America We're feeling really good about it you and I take the company public We're crushing it We sit down for our quarterly meeting with our investors We're like, you know if we change that one ingredient we could save four million bucks a year Yeah, I'll probably change that ingredient You know if we bring in that food scientist and he sprinkles a little bit of this magic dust on these chips that we make People are gonna eat five times as many we're probably gonna do it So even with the most altruistic intention you and I had when we started our food company Once we're being measured and held accountable by investors in the system that we live in We start making decisions that again are not driven by the ancient Indian grandfather that knew how to live Or grandma out of China that studied holistic medicine or Japan. You name it. We're driven by business Business we got to make money So what is that mean for the average person though? That's just sound like you make glue All that means that the average person if they're not awake and aware is eating velvet at cheese and scrolling on their phone and not moving so wake the fuck up right and and start moving and start eating healthy and be aware that Just because it's on a shelf doesn't mean it's healthy just because it's in front of you and you see other people doesn't mean it's healthy I gotta how would my kid know my 15 my 16 year old last night Every night he's he's doing business. So I can't really complain He's got this little business where he's buying and selling used wrestling gear, which is absolutely insane to me But so he's you know, he's got an answer formed down I'm doing business But I'm like he doesn't how would he know That it's not good to be staring at the phone like how would he know He didn't sit in a teepee with me and my wife one day where we laid it out the way You know the optimal way to live he's just looking around him He's seeing his friends. He's reading advertisements and this is the way he lives now. So so that whole generation Follow suit I have to ask you um because I'm sure most people around you are are very healthy very fit There probably people that are like very similar to you But I'm very curious why they're not no No, I was gonna I was gonna ask you why you're so fired up because I would have assumed your day to day You're around people that are looking the same lifestyle. I fight with my family every I fight with everybody I fight with friends sometimes I'm walking in the street and boss and pre-pandemic I'd see somebody drink in a soda. I take it out of their hand like I I try my and by the way, I make mistakes too. I'm not by no means am I perfect? but You'd have to like where would I find those people you just described to be around me like there It's like it's a pittance whole foods exists That's a tiny a tiny number of people at shop there It's so wild to me because I know it's even people in my circle like they're trying to be healthy or everybody's doing Intermittent fasting everybody's on this peptide everybody's not drinking anymore So I see it, but it's an entrepreneur crowd. It's a totally an entrepreneur crowd everybody listens to the podcast So I'm I'm I'm biased you're in a bubble you're living I know I am yeah, I know That's not the reality of most people. Do you drink or no? I I Sunday I was with a very high-ranking general who brought who's in charge of all special operations command and and they did a toast for a couple of Navy SEALs that just died Man, I did toast with them because it was the right thing to do, but no, I don't drink um I want to I want to switch gears for a second and just pick your brain about some of the stuff you done with your own brand Because you've built a really good one and you've had a podcast or you still have a podcast you've interviewed What six seven hundred people like a lot of people you wrote a book um What are some of the lessons that you've learned when you've been building out your own brand? What has it done for you? How is it helped? I know you're doing a lot of this during COVID too. You're you're doing vlogs and whatnot so Give a rundown on that because you've done this at an amazing scale people can learn from you too Yeah, so everybody everybody wants to build a personal brand. You got to write a book You don't have to charge for the book. You don't have to get it published. You could give it away for free How do you write a book write a page a day? Right one page day Go back after a year you got 300, you know, edit it shrink it whatever, but one everybody could write a page day Today with the AI you could probably write two pages a day. It's so easy. Just go on book a day if you're not careful Yeah Write a page a day and the reason you need a book is because you got to believe in something you got to stand for something What's that philosophy you have why are you doing what you do and it gets you airtime it gets you the ability to To talk to folks to become interesting Etc. You got to you got to have a book Podcast is great for me because I learned stuff talking to talk to you. I learned right hopefully you talking to me You learn and so selfishly really good for me to have the podcast I don't really have a lot of time To to do podcasts like I kind of squeeze it in Hopefully in the next year I want some fully back on my feet coming out of COVID with this damn company um I'll have I'll have people running the business more day-to-day the way it was pre-pandemic and I could focus more on that on that media um Make videos Make as well, you know, I was that that was a mistake. I made I started doing this a long long time ago I could have been massive on social media, but my instinct in 2007 my instinct in 2007 was you know what I'm the anti-social guy I'm on the farm. I'm on the farm in Vermont You want to learn to you come to the farm. So I just I wasn't into it and and I stood against it, but now I realized that if I do want to change lives I've got to somehow reach people and pull them into you know tickle them get them excited somehow Has it as it I mean like now like a Post-pandemic obviously pandemic just was brutal for for everything you were working on I think You had to lay off a significant amount of people Do you notice that Sort of rebounding from the pandemic like leading into the personal brand has it been a big help to the business or has it been a distraction Like just walk me through all the shit that you went through during the pandemic and after because that's it really I'm still going through it to disaster um, I sold 50 million dollars worth of tickets By the time the pandemic hit and shut the country down. I already sold 50,000 dog with 500,000 tickets I couldn't deliver on those tickets because every race around the world got shut down I have 500,000 customers that wanted to torch me burn me, you know Tore and feather me alive because they had trained and they paid for their race They wanted their money back. They wanted to race. I couldn't believe that I listened to the government. I shut the races down I did the right thing. I gave everybody two tickets I said when the when the world opens back up again in two weeks four weeks max Everybody would get two races for every one race Took me two years to get the races open again Um, what I failed to realize was that I gave away a hundred million dollars worth of tickets So when the races opened back up the first hundred million of revenue didn't come in those were all free That was a disaster So I had accumulated all these bills and all these you know headaches during those two years that then I had to contend with Starting in 2023 Last year the Wall Street Journal cold and I think it was August and they said um Hey, we want to do a story. We heard you're having a tough time paying your bills We'd like to do a story in the cover of the bankruptcy section of the Wall Street Journal I said oh, that's great That's really helpful for society I'm trying to get people healthy starting up for events you want to do a story Around how Joe can't pay his bill so that you get more clicks to your magazine Genius obviously I was upset but then I thought you know It's really just the universe testing me The universe pissed off that I made so many people do burpees all these years. This is just a test universe be grateful So I somehow pushed through Um, we are much much much better than we were when we started Um, the journey coming out of COVID, but I'm not quite there yet, but I mean Listen, like I think that decimated everybody and I don't think there could have been a worse business to be in Then You had it drink of it that like you couldn't do anything. I'm assuming and do anything Yeah, I get it. What's the if you were going to take you know all the shit that you've dealt with over the past say five years Just wrap it into one lesson What would that lesson be? There's a great saying. I don't I don't have it memorized in my head, but um Perseverance is is much more powerful than intelligence Much more powerful than being well-funded Much more powerful in the greatest like if you can persevere and just be the person that doesn't quit You went Yeah, um At one point I had to call the Federal Reserve I looked online. I see if they had a phone number and um they answered And I did a zoom call with the fed And I had to negotiate with them for two hundred and eleven days to help help us get through this thing so like No one would ever thought you could call the Federal Reserve like I had no choice I like Called and they answered the phone some believable Well, you know like you listen. It's like you want to call God and answers It's a testament though because people that people that build impressive shit They can figure it out. It's a certain kind of person and you go down a rabbit hole that that you have to save whatever you've built And that's where you end up on the phone the Federal Reserve But that's that's testament to who you are as an entrepreneur I think I think that's why you're successful in the first place That's what allows you to do something for ten years without really making a lot of money to same attitude I was successful Yeah, and you will be again What do you so you know as you move forward restructuring rebuilding Spartan Spartan race You're building a massive personal brand. I mean You know You say that you were behind on social, but you've been on Joe Rogan Tim Ferris like you've been on some Pretty impressive podcast. So I say you're not doing too bad Sort of what's next for you? What's the next five years look like Well completely nurse this thing back to health. I rode a I wrote a fiction story That takes place in the modern time, but also goes back to ancient Sparta And it's awesome if I do say so myself and some day in the next ten years I'm going to make a full featured film high budget full featured film like Batman begins Around this ancient and modern story of Sparta That that is going to hopefully tickle The universe in a way that gets people doing all this stuff you and I just spoke of I love it because you were even you were in uh, I don't remember the name of the city But you were in that city with Gerard Butler for like the 2500 year anniversary of this battle right? That was the Spartan battle Her mothly was the battle Yeah, and we were in Sparta Greece When I was in Sparta Greece of course, that would be the city Fucking idiot my phone was blowing up from my wife and everybody that they just Trump just shut the country down You have to leave and I was like you know Maybe at my 300 burpees done and I got my 300 burpees. I love my retirement Sparta I have to do my 300 burpees as the sun is coming. It's just It's a great moment and and I do those got my burpees done and then headed to Athens and worked my way home I love it dude. If you could if you could look back and you could tell your 20 year old self one thing What would that thing be? Have patience spend less Listen more Good advice very good advice and then I think the most important thing Where should people connect with you if you want to send them somewhere where would it be I'll put many on Joe at Spartan show at Spartan.com. Shoot me an email make it short. I really can't last land No more than two sentences Yeah, you can find an Instagram real joder to center um Where are you physically located? Where am I I'm Fort Lauderdale. So I just moved down from Toronto. Yeah, so I'm I'm one of those post-COVID transplants Oh nice. Oh god. Yeah And um, yeah, too bad I can't get you to move to Orlando. I got the office here in Orlando um I'm going up. I'm going up at the end of the month. I have a conference that I'm speaking at in Orlando But listen to your YouTube. Yeah. What's the name of the conference? podcast So I'm doing a panel there funny enough Is it where is it in Orlando at the wind wind time? Wind For sure let's get together and what I would challenge you with is um go out to your whole community and have them Send you a note you collect like a spreadsheet Uh, everybody that wants to race on us Anyone should what it'd be cool if you came out and you got to energize your community in person On us by the way If you're listening to this and you own a company or an organization or charity or whatever or you or you personally Know any um I'll give you the title right to that event. So let's say sea brain, which is close to you. I have a race and sea brain Um I might be coming up here and see it is coming up here Um, if you want to name that event you want to get the title sponsored august give it to you You invited everybody out. Yeah, some companies bring some charities. All you've got to do is um You know shake hands and kiss babies while you're there to make yourself look cool. We'll give you a Spartan shirt You don't even have to do the race. We won't tell anybody. No, no, no I want to do that. Listen. I'm not that out of shape I can do the fucking race. I'll I'll do the race round a ton of people up. I will literally change the trajectory of your business By doing like if you lean into this it's not by the way. I'm not asking for anything It will change the trajectory of your business. I'll do it. I'll do it now. This is this is recorded So you got it. So I'll do it. I got a I got listen I got the podcast and then I so since I moved down here I'm building out a network of entrepreneurs of high performing individuals Really because I wanted to build a community around like the work that I do So I got people down here already so that'd be a lot of fun. I'd appreciate that. That'd be amazing Yeah, it's your it's your asset to run with so when we when we disconnect and stop recording I'll fill you in on some more That sounds good Okay, last thing If you were going to look you know, you know look back at all the things that you've accomplished you've had an incredible career uh You are still in the process of building and you will you will build Spartan Spartan race back I I have no doubt 10x what it was before Because that's who you are as a person But when you look to the future what is success mean to you? I just want to change lives I just want to figure out a sustainable way to run this business and change tons and tons alive It gives me selfishly it gives me a ton of energy. It gives me satisfaction It's a great way to get paid. I feel good about it. I can't even imagine if I was selling handbags or cigarettes or Anything that you know, most of us have to sell to put food on the table I get to do this and so I just want to do it more