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Joe De Sena: Every Man Dies, Not Every Man Lives | E102 · In Search Of Excellence

0:00
Joe De Sena: If you want to be the best in the world, you're gonna have to outwork everybody you're gonna have to out prepare everybody that requires sacrifice. There's no way to have it all. Your family is going to have to suffer a little bit your fun is gonna have to survive is saying, Save the fun for later. Yeah, so death rates could be exactly that we could we could have a 26.2 mile barbed wire crawl, we might have folks do 3000 burpees out in the field, we might put them in a bullfighting ring and release a live bull. We we just come up with crazy, all meant to be insane.
0:41
Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Joe de Sena, the CEO of the global fitness and wellness brand Spartan, which has a community of more than 10 million athletes around the world. If you haven't yet listened to part one of my awesome conversation with Joe, be sure to check that one out first. You still had your pool business while you were at Cornell. And when you graduated, you moved from Ithaca back to Queens. At that time, the business had 750 customers you were making 200k a year, which back then 30 years ago was just a shit ton of money. Can you tell us about the entrepreneurship class, you took a Cornell and the entrepreneurship competition on your tough hoodie with the metal spikes. And how one of the judges there change your life forever. And then go into the syntax Roche merger where you invested $140,000 One day you made $100,000 The next day?
1:35
Joe De Sena: How the hell do you know all this? So I'm graduating Cornell. And I find out about this class, this entrepreneurship class at the Business School and the possibility that I could do a five year program get my MBA, here's a kid I didn't even get accepted. Could you imagine if I get my MBA? Well, it turns out as an undergraduate, you're allowed to take the entrepreneurship class. So I took the class. And one of the challenges one of the core components to that class was create a business from scratch.
2:09
Joe De Sena: Present that business and we'll have a competition and the riuniti wind family will then choose who wins a $5,000 award to start that business. So my business you know, I looked at sweatshirts on campus. I looked at sweatshirts at other campuses. I was studying textiles at the time. I really liked the SAT and letters in the Cornell champions sweat, you know, champion was the brand.
2:35
Joe De Sena: But the way those sweatshirts are made with a champion sweatshirt was purchased. Some women sewed the letters on locally. And I think back then it was like $21 in cost, I think for those shirts to be made with all that handling. And I said well, we could just make those sweatshirts in Asia. And we could sell the letters on an Asia and we could actually enhance the sweatshirts and make them a lot cooler a lot tougher.
3:02
Joe De Sena: We could put you know spandex in the wrist bands in the waistband so they don't blow out. We could do really cool stuff with these sweatshirts. Anyway, we made our pitches. I won the award. And I became friendly with one of the judges. One of the judges was Italian. The buddy of mine was talking to him last night. He's at 80 some odd years old now.
3:25
Joe De Sena: And we got to know each other and he said what are you doing when you graduate? And I said, Well, if I don't if I don't get into this MBA program, I'm gonna go back and run my business. He said you're an idiot. I said Why am I in it? He said you you have a personality you have what it takes to do well on Wall Street and I said I don't really know Wall Street. I remember the 1987 crash. I don't think people are making money there anymore. He said you're an idiot. He said you gotta go to Wall Street. You gotta cross the river from Queens. Get to Wall Street.
3:54
Joe De Sena: Anyway, I didn't listen to him.
3:54
Joe De Sena: I didn't get into the five year program. Graduated went back to the neighborhood. I was actually going backwards in some ways, right? And I ran my business every month for 48 months in a row. This guy Alka Pucci called me every month Hey, Joe, Tao.
4:08
Joe De Sena: You go to Wall Street yet?
4:12
Joe De Sena: Looking for a job? Yeah, to sell that pool business. Owl. Love you leave me alone. I'm not leaving the neighborhood. I'm getting close to all these organized crime guy like things are going great for me. I'm the big man on campus. I know back home now and bobcats and tractors and trailers and trucks. Call me the next month, the month after on the 48th month. He called me said Joe, I want you to buy this stock. I want you to buy this stock syntex drug company. I said well, I don't appreciate it. I don't have an account. Anyway, later that day, I was going to pick up a big cheque from a customer of mine Eli Novak. I got to Eli's house and knocked on his door he owed me whatever$150,000 I've done a lot of work.
5:00
Randall Kaplan: You pick up the check for 150k that
5:03
Joe De Sena: I picked. So I picked up the check for 150k. I said, Eli, my friend wants me to buy this stock syntax. I know you're a pharmacist, he said, I can't believe you're bringing up syntax and he's towel drying his hair. He said, I'm about to sit down. And by I forget how many shares but quite a quite a bit of shares. And he sits me down and he says, Joe, you're single, you're making a lot of money, now's the perfect time to make an investment like this. And he calls up a broker in front of me. And he convinces me to buy 10,000 shares, $140,000 $14 stock 10,000 shares. It was crazy. It was bold. But it shows in life, you need to open up your mind and to the universe.
5:49
Joe De Sena: The next day, the company got taken over, and I made $100,000.
5:53
Joe De Sena: And I said, this is the greatest business ever. I am selling my pool business getting out of Navy putting down the chainsaw and heading to Manhattan. And I went and found the job. And that was that changed everything.
6:06
Randall Kaplan: We sold the business for $500,000, which is again just a ton of money. I mean, when you think about it, you're doing better than your friends who had gone to Harvard or Cornell who are working in investment bank or as bankers at these incredible firms like Goldman Sachs. That's a ton of money. What what do you do with all that money at the young age?
6:27
Randall Kaplan: Are you the kind of guy that saved it? Did you spend it? Did you buy yourself a Porsche?
6:32
Joe De Sena: I never bought things right. I was never a believer in superficial things.
6:33
Joe De Sena: I I always loved that little Mercedes at that time, the SL, but I would never buy it. But I admired it. I loved I loved seeing a Humvee you know, I admired it, but I would never buy it. I would look at land. I guess my father taught me at a young age I, I would look at opportunities to invest in in things that could spit spit off returns shame shamefully, for me that 500,000 plus the money I had saved, once I got to Wall Street, I quickly thought I was as smart as my buddy owl. I started investing in stocks. And I basically blew it all. In retrospect, it was the greatest thing that ever happened because it taught me what not to do at a young enough age that I can recover. You've
7:25
Randall Kaplan: had a number of people who have changed your life because they saw something in you they want to help you they want to mentor you. What are these people seeing in you?
7:38
Randall Kaplan: And why did they do it?
7:40
Joe De Sena: I think they see what you and I talked about as I sit here and I talk to you I think about my own children. And I think what they see is that person that's willing to lean in that doesn't have his handout that's willing to listen, that is, is so basic, as you said earlier, and I said like these are normal skills that every human being should have. But because most don't, I stand out, you stand out. Right? I wake up earlier, I go to bed a little after, you know, after the work is done, I lean it like these are just simple things. They
8:17
Randall Kaplan: are simple. And I've had a lot of people who believe in me as well over the years, and I'm grateful. And I remember every single person that helped me along the way I to an amazing mentor, David Paige who passed away now I think 15 years ago, he was the head of Detroit's biggest and most prestigious law firm, this firm, you could make partner there in four years interest free home loan. And I remember sending him as a first year law student, where you can't get a job your first year, even if you're working or you're going to a very prestigious school. I went to Northwestern think at the time was right, the 11th best law school in the country.
9:00
Randall Kaplan: And I remember sending him a list of things 243 firms on Excel spreadsheet which I really didn't know how to use and saying hey, I sent these letters. Do you know people here who can help me get a job but I didn't tell them that I'd created the list. And he said to me, did you create this list by yourself? And I knew him because he was my brother's best friend's dad and it was my brother's literally baseball coach and I known him since I think I was five or six years old. And at that point, he saw what I had done. And he was very impressed and that's when he told me you're getting a compliment from Mr. Page. And by the way, I call them Mr. Page.
9:48
Randall Kaplan: Once our company had gone public and I thought okay, I was 33 years old I think maybe now it's it's time not to call Mr. Page and I call them by first name David. And it is interest thing.
10:01
Randall Kaplan: Eli Brode, who was my boss at Sun America, after I had completely failed in my career, hired me as one of three guys who had started to Fortune 500 companies back then. And I wrote him this crazy letter. We could talk about my letter some other time, hopefully we'll have time.
10:16
Randall Kaplan: And when I went in to me than the first time, he said that I've never taken a meeting with a cold letter. And I was so prepared. He said, you have the biggest set of balls I've ever seen in my life. But he liked me. And he saw something in me and He gave me a chance. And so I think, like you, I did it.
10:37
Randall Kaplan: It's really so important. You earn your mentors in life. And I think it's really important to earn mentors in life. What what are some of the, how do you go out and get a mentor? Let's say, Joe, you're a really well known guy. You're famous in the fitness world, people would love to work with you. What would it take for you to mentor someone you didn't know? You
11:02
Joe De Sena: know, first of all, I love that saying, I got a great saying or two every day from somebody and I just have to start remembering them all earning your mentor is fantastic. There's a young kid Max, who I'm going to connect you with who's in LA, are you in LA now I'm in LA. I'm gonna connect you with Max. Max as earned his mentorship with me.
11:26
Joe De Sena: He was relentless. He missed a few meetings in the early days at 16. I hung up on him. I blew him off, because I was pissed.
11:37
Joe De Sena: But he has since bounced back.
11:37
Joe De Sena: And this kid Max is fantastic.
11:43
Joe De Sena: And because he brings value to me, number two on our list from bananas, right? Because he brings value to me. I take his calls. I give him I gave him great advice yesterday, I said, Max, you are so good at connecting people, you're 17 years old. I said I don't like the fact that you woke up late this morning. Because he texted me like it must have been noon, Eastern Standard Time. So it was up at nine right? As it actually should be up at six. I said, because you're such an amazing networker. Here's what I would do. Here's a device, I gave him some Max, I want you in the next 18 months to build 300 incredible relationships like you have with me, you are going to be known as The Networker.
12:29
Joe De Sena: And as you're doing it over the next 18 months, I want you to write a few paragraphs each day for the book, that you're going to teach to other people on how you did it. And you're going to get to know Joe Dissenters' birthdate and his family's names and what problem he's trying to solve. For 300 people, you're going to do this. And as you're writing the book, it's going to force you to think about what you did today to move towards that goal. What you did today that made you better as a networker. And he took he took notes. This was last night I said this to him. He took notes.
13:09
Joe De Sena: And hopefully today he's on it.
13:09
Joe De Sena: And so when you say how do you earn your rent, the fact that he listens, and he does what I say, makes me feel like I'm adding value. I'm not wasting my time.
13:21
Joe De Sena: Here's a kid that's getting after it. He's not afraid to text me call me I need you on a phone. Right? Like, you know what I mean? Like he's earned that mentorship with I like him.
13:30
Joe De Sena: I like the kid. I'm gonna connect you,
13:32
Randall Kaplan: I love to meet him. I'm excited to meet him.
13:34
Randall Kaplan: You know, in today's day and age, it's easy to do an email, it's easy to do a zoom, it's even simpler to do a phone call.
13:43
Randall Kaplan: Why don't people take every meeting they can get or get on every phone call. And I tell people if you can do it in person, do it in person. If the flights $400 And you think that person can change your life over the course of your lifetime, was$400 go there in person, show them that they matter show them that their time matters. If you have to travel, you got to pay for the flight hotel to do the research. I have so many students and mentees who have the attitude, Joe? Hey, that meeting is going to be a waste of time. I had so many meetings I had complete failure as a lawyer. I wrote 300 letters to 300 CEOs of big companies asking for meeting. There was no Google back then I want a service called LexisNexis. I went back research 20 years of newspaper clippings and magazine clippings. And everyone said, You're not going to get a single meeting. And at this point I had nothing to lose. I took every meeting I got at meetings the CEO of Disney Sumner Redstone, CEO of Marriott, every studio in LA. And when people suggested a meeting with me, even if it was someone who wasn't a CEO I took every meeting, why are people not doing this? And why are they so lazy? By getting on a fucking phone call or a zoom call, instead of driving around for 20 minutes or getting a five hour drive? What's going on there?
15:14
Randall Kaplan: You
15:16
Joe De Sena: You said it before you asked the question. You said, Joe. I don't understand why he said don't ask for money don't have your handout. By taking the meeting. By taking the meeting, where you don't know the outcome. Those people that don't do it, are basically putting their hand out and saying, unless I get something for that meeting, why would I go? And what banana was saying and what we're saying what you and I are saying is no, take the meeting, you might add value to their life, they might add value to your life. And when I made money in my life real money, it usually came from the most unlikely place. It was like some person I met randomly. What was what was the one that happened?
16:03
Joe De Sena: Oh, you're gonna love this. Last week. I'm in Denver. Here's the reason to take the meeting, right? Last week, I'm in Denver.
16:11
Joe De Sena: And I shout out to Denver, it's obviously a pain in the ass. I gotta get on a flight. I gotta shoot out the download, do the meeting in person. And what Lupino foods, the penal foods in Denver makes mozzarella cheese.
16:28
Joe De Sena: And they're showing me the factory. And I'm questioning why the hell I'm out here, but they're nice people. And turns out, they're the biggest mozzarella cheese manufacturer in the world. Old Man Lapena was in the office. 70 years ago, he started and I'm thinking about the mozzarella cheese in Brooklyn and Queens where I grew up, and all these savvy Italians and organized crime. But how how could it be that in Denver, where there's no real Italians, I'm sorry, if you're in Denver and Italian? Like, how could it be that this guy became the biggest in the world? It's impossible. And he said, Well, he said, I took a meeting that I wasn't supposed to take many years ago. And in that meeting, a guy said to me, I want to start this thing called Pizza Hut. And I need some cheese. guy makes 2 billion pounds of cheese now this like a year, because he took that meeting. So. So again, again, you could either you could either vet every meeting and say what am I going to get from it before I commit to give my time, we just take the fucking meetings. And you never know where it leads. It might it might be Pizza Hut on the other end of that, on that phone
17:45
Randall Kaplan: call. When you were making good money at the pool company, you're saying to yourself, I'm sure I'm making 200k a year. And I gotta give that up to go do something else.
17:58
Randall Kaplan: And again, as part of my coaching as part of my professional coaching, where people pay me a lot of money.
18:03
Randall Kaplan: And again, I love changing lives. They said to me, you know, Randy, I'm making $500,000 As a lawyer, even if I want to start my own company, I've got a kids. I've got kids, I've got a family, I've got a mortgage. And basically I'm stuck. I have golden handcuffs. When's the right opportunity for someone thinking like that? And at what point what's the right level of risk to pursue your dream?
18:34
Joe De Sena: Well, it's very hard to leave the shore. When you're on your beach, and you got your little database there SandRidge database, you know, your biggest database, your you you got your huge Sandy database that's missing. Howard Beach, we got it. And Joe,
18:51
Randall Kaplan: we got, I'm gonna send you the link when we're done.
18:55
Joe De Sena: And, and you're asked to leave the shore that's uncomfortable, that's scary.
18:58
Joe De Sena: It's very comfortable being in that job earning that money, have those golden handcuffs but but if you're capable, if you know, you can land on your feet, if you know you, you add value that you show up early, that you can get any meeting you want, that you've got a reputation.
19:19
Joe De Sena: Who cares? turn the boat around, come back to shore if you have to. But take the chances because because you don't want to get to the annual I don't want to get to that in my life and say I should have done this. I should have done that. I can't believe I missed this. So you got to take the shots. And you got to know that you could always come back can always come back. It's your ego that typically doesn't allow that because you don't want to be embarrassed. You
19:48
Randall Kaplan: had a very successful tenure career on Wall Street. It was during this time, you began pushing yourself and enduring endurance challenges you completed 50 elite endurance races by the time you were 40 years old. Can you tell us about a coffee table book that your wife Courtney purchased just after you started dating, and the picture of a barn on your trading desk. And what happened next?
20:12
Joe De Sena: Crazy story. Crazy story. I had a barn on my trading desk. I knew someday we'd buy a red barn. someday I'd buy a red barn. I didn't know my wife at a time when I had that picture on my desk, I met my wife. And I knew she was the one and I just started looking. We just started looking for a barn for a farm. Couldn't find anything, I didn't even know where to look, I was looking in Idaho. We're in Wyoming. We were in Connecticut. We were in upstate New York. And her grandmother gave us a book America's greatest barns. Sheet my wife then wrote, you know, don't worry, someday we'll find something together and the inscription. A year later, we found this barn for sale in Vermont, which Vermont was not on our list. We ended up buying the barn and the farm in Vermont. And then I found that book, which again, I had gotten a year earlier. And it turned out right across from the inscription. Don't worry, we'll find a barn together someday was the barn we bought was absolutely crazy. You
21:20
Randall Kaplan: move there, and you started a company called Spartan? Tell us what it is. And for a lot of us, people are going to look and see the story of what you're going to explain in a minute. And say you are fucking knots. And I'm never going to be able to do that.
21:39
Joe De Sena: Yeah, so look, the idea was, can we get people outside their comfort zone, can we get people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do all in an effort to be healthy. climb ropes, crawl under barbed wire, run three miles, five miles, eight miles, 10 miles, just do things that you just would never do. And it would force you to start to live the life you should be living, it'll force you to go to bed early, and force you to wake up early and force you to take a cold shower to force you to put down the cookie. Because you know, you got to date on the calendar, you got this race coming up with fire and rope and barbed wire, and you're doing it with your friends. You don't want to be embarrassed. So that was the idea 24 years ago. And for most of those years, that didn't work. People don't want to buy discomfort. They want to buy comfort, they want to buy easy, they want to buy fast. But eventually Facebook came to be a lot of folks were coming back from the Middle East, you know, after serving doing some tours at war, and the perfect storm occurred and 700 people showed up to a race more than I'd had the entire decade before. And then 14 120 500. And before you know we're in 45 countries 300 Plus events, 10 million people have done one of our events somewhere in the world. And the way I get paid is Hey, Joe, I'm back on my husband, I'm back on my wife, I lost 200 pounds, I gave up drinking, I no longer do drugs. I didn't kill myself. And so I've got literally 10 million stories of life transformation that I get paid by or paid with.
23:14
Joe De Sena: Let's
23:18
Randall Kaplan: get into the details here because people are gonna listen to this stuff, Joe, and they're gonna say why? Let's talk about the Death Race, which I believe you started in 2004, which I think you have to sign something, a waiver that says you may die. That
23:36
Joe De Sena: race is like our Navy SEALs or Delta Force of events. It's our toughest event, it could go 72 hours ago, 100 hours, and it's really meant to break you. In that process. You look in the mirror and find out who you are, you get to build those resiliency muscles. So somebody that's done a bunch of our other races, eventually works their way up to Death Race, the granddaddy. I've got one going on this week I have to leave this this interview, I leave this interview and go to a winter Death Race on the farm of Vermont actually, where we're going to absolutely torture people in the snow and the ice.
24:13
Joe De Sena: And, and the goal again is to get them to quit and see the last man or last woman standing.
24:17
Joe De Sena: That's not the race that we put on, you know somewhere in your neighborhood somewhere around the world. It's this is our most extreme version for folks that really want to test their grit.
24:29
Joe De Sena: People that come out and experienced Death Race, they might go on True story. They might go on and row and row, a rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean or go climb Everest or you name it. It's really a leveling up tool.
24:43
Randall Kaplan: Can you describe some of the details I want to talk about doing a marathon under barbed wire tell people some of the things you have to do and then also tell people what what the normal Spartan Races and what that's about and what they have to do because I want people listening who want to do that. to know, what's what and hopefully, you're gonna get some more people to sign up and change some more lives.
25:59
Joe De Sena: Yeah, so death rates could be exactly that we could we could have a 26.2 mile barbed wire crawl, we might have folks do 3000 burpees out in the field, we might put them in a bullfighting ring and release a live bull. We might have them swim three miles in frigid cold water where almost everybody becomes hypothermic. Could be an 18 mile canoe carry. We just come up with crazy shit. All meant to be insane. And break people. And if we see that they're doing really well, we might bring them into a local church, sit them down and have a listen to a two hour sermon where they fall asleep. Only to wake them up again and get them back out on the mountain. So So yeah, it's it's it's a crazy event now a regular Spartan Race, like I said, three miles eight miles. 13 miles, could be a tough mudder event another brand we own, it's gonna be get you dirty. It's out in the mud.
27:04
Joe De Sena: You're climbing over obstacles, you know, climbing walls, crawling under barbed wire climbing ropes, jumping over fire. All in an effort to get you like I said uncomfortable but, but better prepared for life.
27:20
Randall Kaplan: You've done well, you've had since 2010 hosted more than 800 events in 42 countries, which is amazing.
27:28
Randall Kaplan: Congratulations. Like so many businesses, Joe, you started things don't go? Well. It took a long time for things to kick in.
27:34
Randall Kaplan: These are expensive things to host I think some of them cost 600k. To start. You're in serious danger of your business failing. Tell us about what happened in Japan. And the sacrifice of you moving your family there. And what's your advice to people who are in their last leg? Who said gosh, this isn't going to work and I have to throw the Hail Mary in there? Yeah,
27:57
Joe De Sena: well, I mean, the entire existence of Spartan especially what I just went through with the pandemic, there's touch and go moments where I just say I gotta pack it in like it's just not gonna make it. We can't make payroll, we're out of money. But But you keep fighting to live another day.
28:14
Joe De Sena: The low point for me outside of COVID, three years of Hell was in Japan, I woke up I couldn't see one morning. so stressed out, building this business stretching into 45 countries and ended up in the hospital. Turns out I have a hole in my heart.
28:31
Joe De Sena: 20% of the world has a hole in their heart. And with all the air, the flights I was taking that week, had a little bubble in my leg, jump over one of the billion from one side of the heart to the other, travel up into my brain and block, a little vein that controls part of your eyesight. So I couldn't see basically a stroke. young doctor and the Japanese hospital saved me threw me on an MRI machine, quickly got my blood thinned out. I was in the hospital for 30 days. They told me Look, a part of your brain died. It's never coming back. I decided to not accept that answer. I started standing on my head in the hospital every day, I started taking cold showers. I was doing burpees I was running up and down. I was disconnecting all the wires and all the tubes that they had on me every time I did it, they thought I died.
29:23
Joe De Sena: They ran into the room because everything had flatlines they disconnected everything. And you know, 6090 days later, when they get a scan. My brain was back to normal. Somehow I got it back.
29:36
Joe De Sena: So that was a low point. I was Japan and you save your business,
29:47
Randall Kaplan: save
29:47
Joe De Sena: my business, save myself and somehow still standing. A
29:52
Randall Kaplan: lot of your customers clients do call them customers or clients, people who do the race. What customers customers come back again. Why are they coming back? And why are they coming in the first place.
30:08
Joe De Sena: You know, you can't turn iron into steel on the couch watching Netflix. You got to heat it, you got to pound it.
30:15
Joe De Sena: You got to drown it. That's how you transform it. People out there can listen to a podcast.
30:20
Joe De Sena: They can read a book they can go to a conference. That's not going to change you. If you want true change. You've got to be heated pounded and drowned.
30:31
Joe De Sena: That's the deal. And when people come out, and they feel that transformation take place, even though it sucks while you're doing it. It's addictive. I used to happen to me I was doing these races all over the world.
30:45
Joe De Sena: I'd be in the middle of the race and this is so terrible. I can't believe I'm doing this as a sucks. I'm never coming back As soon as I cross the finish line for next one,
30:55
Randall Kaplan: let's talk about your philosophy on life, which I think is amazing. What's the crux of it? Tell everybody what, what your philosophy is.
31:06
Joe De Sena: I mean, at the center of it, it's basically nobody cares work harder. It's this idea that we should just be getting after it all day, every day. And then making sure you optimize your health and wellness to, to be able to operate that way. You know, if you don't take care of yourself, like my dad didn't take care of himself, and you push the limits at 100 120 hour weeks, something's got to give something breaks. So my philosophy is, wake up early.
31:39
Joe De Sena: Take care of yourself all day, do the hard things. add value to yourself, your the people around you the planet, and and rinse and repeat and do it. Do it until you can't. So many
31:54
Randall Kaplan: people are afraid to do things is starting a company, maybe they're afraid to do the race, they're afraid of failure? How do we overcome our fear of failure and our perceptions about failure and what happens? True?
32:11
Joe De Sena: I would just change the word failure to learning.
32:14
Joe De Sena: Like I love I love Thomas Edison, when somebody said, you know, you, you tried to make a light bulb 998 times and you fail. He said, I didn't, I didn't fail. I learned how not to make a light bulb 998 times, right. So like, I would view it as a learning opportunity.
32:30
Joe De Sena: Again, if it's not fatal, if that failure is not fatal, then then you're just learning dust off, get back in the game. And by the way, the greatest stories of our time, the greatest books, The Greatest Movies are a folks that go into valleys and come up to peaks. They're not flat line stories, flatline stories are boring. They're boring for you, they're boring for the person that hears about him. So you gotta go into those valleys and you got to climb those peaks.
33:03
Joe De Sena: You
33:04
Randall Kaplan: said that a lot of our fears fiction, what do you mean by that?
33:08
Joe De Sena: It's bullshit. It's not right. Oh, my God, this is gonna happen. This is gonna happen. This is gonna happen.
33:12
Joe De Sena: And you know, you speak to elders that are on your deathbed. And they say all those things, I was worried about all those things that were concerning me. None of them came true. Just a waste of energy.
33:22
Joe De Sena: And so it really is, in 99.9% of the cases fiction.
33:31
Randall Kaplan: Our fears are never as bad not never. But often, most of the time not as bad as the reality. Most of the time, let's talk about the ingredients of success. What do you think are the three most important ingredients for us to be successful in our lives?
33:49
Joe De Sena: Well, definitely is this idea of persistence, which we've been talking about, probably the most important.
33:56
Joe De Sena: personality or communication skills. You've got to be able to communicate, sell your ideas, sell yourself. Right. And then gratitude. Yeah, I would say persistent personality, and gratitude. Be grateful that you get to do this. Oh, my God, it's so bad. You get to do this.
34:18
Joe De Sena: You're not living in the Gulag right now. I
34:24
Randall Kaplan: tell people something a little different. I have my own list. And one of them is work ethic. I put that at the top of my list. There's a lot of other things as well. We share some of those we talked about. Elon Musk said we should work 120 hours a week we got a Jack Dorsey who said no, you shouldn't do that. Does extreme success require extreme sacrifice? And what's the level of hard work that most people should do?
34:51
Joe De Sena: Depends what you want. As far as if as far as what level of hard work you should take on what is the outcome you want? If you want to be the best in the world, you're gonna have to outwork everybody you're gonna have to out prepare everybody so that requires sacrifice sacrifice there's there's no way to have it all.
35:08
Joe De Sena: Your family's going to have to suffer a little bit your fun is going to have to survive is saying save the fun for later.
35:15
Joe De Sena: Save the fun for later right you've got to be able to sacrifice all that stuff in the pursuit of your goals is a great blog. It's called will it make the boat go faster? I was telling max this yesterday I'm gonna connect you with this kid Max. I said, Max. As UK rowing team, there is no way that we're going to win the goal. They weren't good enough they had 18 months to train. The coach said every decision we make we will ask ourselves this question Will it make the boat go faster? Hey guys, we had a great day. Let's go have ice cream. Will it make the boat go faster? No, we're not having ice cream. Hey guys, we had a great week. Let's go hang out with the girls will Make the boat go faster. No, we're not hanging out with the girls. If it doesn't make the boat go faster, you don't do it.
35:55
Joe De Sena: But that requires sacrifice that requires delaying gratification that requires saving the fun for later. If you're not willing to do that, you're not going to be one of the best.
36:09
Randall Kaplan: There's a saying about that, that someone told me a long time ago. And again, this is part of my coaching because so many of the younger mentees, people who are either graduated college, or they're in their mid 20s, I said, and they focused on money. And I said, my advice is learn in your 20s earn in your 30s. And I think a lot of people are just not focused on learning as one of the most important criteria in their careers, they want to get rich fast. Agreed.
36:33
Randall Kaplan: We talked about what it takes to be successful. You mentioned preparation. I have a topic that's made me successful called extreme preparation. When someone prepares one hour for something I'll usually do 10 I want to be the most prepared person who's ever walked foot into any room, or podcast. Can you talk about an example or two of how extreme preparation has contributed to your success?
37:02
Joe De Sena: Yeah, I mean, I think about a lot of examples of stories, I've heard around extreme preparation and how this person won the Olympic trials or you know, you've got to go down the list. But in my own life, and my own life, you know, I don't take weekends off. I don't stop working. I'm constantly in my mind under threat from the competition from whatever it may be. So I'm in constant preparation. Like it just doesn't stop. I don't, I don't take a pause and say, Hey, let now let's just focus on preparing for what, like, I'm always preparing, I'm preparing for the worst. I'm preparing for the best. I'm just always preparing. Does
37:54
Randall Kaplan: that mean if you have an important presentation, or meeting that you're waking up at four in the morning when someone else is waking up at nine in the morning? So you walk into the room, you know that?
38:02
Randall Kaplan: Every single question that's coming away, you're gonna nail it. It's
38:09
Joe De Sena: worse a month, I'm preparing months ahead. I start working on things I back into my driveway, rather than pull in front, because I'm preparing for when I leave.
38:22
Randall Kaplan: Because those extra seconds of backing up, were you making the three point turn you're doing that? What are you doing that 2000 times a day?
38:28
Randall Kaplan: Really?
38:32
Joe De Sena: It adds up? Let's try. So
38:34
Randall Kaplan: what is your ultimate dream? My
38:39
Joe De Sena: ultimate dream is to get the government not just of our country, but but every country to have our children, I'll do like a year of some form of military service post high school. My dream is to get everybody to eat a little more salad. My dream is to disconnect all the hot water heaters. My dream is to have burpees at the front door of every school before the kids walk in. And I'm serious about like this is stuff I get excited about, like if we could institute those things.
39:21
Joe De Sena: I'd be really excited. You
39:23
Randall Kaplan: talked about working weekends and hard work.
39:25
Randall Kaplan: I know you work your ass off.
39:25
Randall Kaplan: But you also have a family of four kids. Your wife, Courtney, I know you have a great relationship with her. What's the appropriate work life balance? And why do you only let your children watch TV if it's in Mandarin?
39:43
Joe De Sena: Well, there's no such thing as work life balance.
39:45
Joe De Sena: I mean, if you want a great family, wherever you want to be with your family all the time, well, then your work is going to suffer. If you want to have a great career you want to build your bit then your family's going to suffer a little bit. So I call it work life integration.
39:54
Joe De Sena: And I try to integrate both so I'm doing business in the house.
39:58
Joe De Sena: I was doing it this morning so I can hang out my kids and other half hour my wife this balance thing, it's just not possible.
40:06
Joe De Sena: Not not if you want extreme success in some area
40:13
Randall Kaplan: of your life. A lot of people are not willing to make the sacrifice and they wonder why.
40:19
Joe De Sena: That's exactly right.
40:21
Randall Kaplan: How many women do your race Spartan Races and how many have done the Death Race?
40:29
Joe De Sena: About 500,000 women a year do our races around the world? Probably if I had to guess from 2005 to 210 years, probably been three or 400 women that have competed in our Death Race.
40:47
Randall Kaplan: Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask some more open ended questions. I call this part of my podcasts fill in the blank.
40:51
Randall Kaplan: Excellent. So you're ready to play.
40:55
Joe De Sena: Let's do it. The
40:55
Randall Kaplan: biggest lesson I've learned in my life is nobody cares work harder. My number one professional goal is
41:03
Joe De Sena: change 100 million lives.
41:06
Randall Kaplan: My biggest regret is
41:10
Joe De Sena: biggest regret. I don't really have any regrets.
41:17
Randall Kaplan: Because we learn from every experience I wanted.
41:20
Joe De Sena: I wanted more kids, my biggest regret would be I wanted more kids. I've
41:24
Randall Kaplan: got five kids.
41:24
Randall Kaplan: It's the best thing in the world. I live for my kids. And there's nothing more enjoyable than hanging out with my kids.
41:29
Randall Kaplan: It's it's probably the greatest thing I've done in my life as well. The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time, but haven't done is
41:39
Joe De Sena: running the Great Wall of China. The one physical
41:43
Randall Kaplan: challenge I've dreamed about doing for a long time, but haven't is
41:47
Joe De Sena: running the Great Wall of China.
41:50
Randall Kaplan: The craziest thing I've ever done is did a ride by foot. By the way, do you know who Mike Horne is the world's greatest explorer? Yeah, he was on my show some of the shit he has done is just crazy, great stories. If you could go back in time and give one piece of advice to your 21 year old self.
42:12
Joe De Sena: What would that be?
42:12
Joe De Sena: Patience young grasshopper.
42:15
Randall Kaplan: If you could be one person in the world, who would it be?
42:20
Joe De Sena: Shackleton
42:22
Randall Kaplan: if you were the president of the United States, what are the first three things you would do? Not including the things you mentioned? When I asked you about your dream,
42:35
Joe De Sena: I would tax the hell out of ultra processed food. I'd subsidize super super healthy foods, veggies, veggies and fruits. I put every kid I have to say I put every kid in the military for at least a year. I'd move all the retired generals and colonels and senior enlisted folks into running neighborhoods that are having a tough time in schools that are having a tough time in United States. I turn off all the hot water heaters. And I put lights out at 8pm Everybody go to bed at eight.
43:11
Randall Kaplan: The one question you wish I had asked you is
43:14
Joe De Sena: what is the one? Do I ever cheat? Do I ever cheat?
43:20
Joe De Sena: Right and I I will have a scoop ice cream here and there. What's
43:24
Randall Kaplan: your favorite ice cream?
43:25
Joe De Sena: Vanilla?
43:26
Randall Kaplan: Joe, you've been someone I've admired for a very long time. I love what you're doing on the fitness side.
43:31
Randall Kaplan: You've changed millions of lives. I love the fact you've got 10 million people in your community. I'm looking forward to watching your progress watching your success. How can people find you? And is there something on our show right now before we conclude that you want to promote?
43:49
Joe De Sena: A couple of things.
43:49
Joe De Sena: One is just shoot me an email joe@spartan.com But I'm on Instagram. I'm on all the channels. We have a race coming up. I believe it's 24 March weekend, la Dodger Stadium. You and your audience are all welcome. You've just got to capture a bunch of emails from me on who wants to go, it's on me. I'll figure out a way to fit in and race is pretty much sold out. But I'll get in. I believe that comedian Bert lightsheer Is that his name? That comedian.
44:21
Joe De Sena: He's gone. He's going to be racing. A bunch of famous folks in your la crowd going to be out there. And then I'd love to see anybody if they have kids, bring them to the death camp on the farm, which is in June and find a Tough Mudder find a Spartan whatever, if you can't make LA, Feb. 24 reach out to you and I'll hook them up. That's
44:47
Randall Kaplan: awesome. Joe, I appreciate all your time today.
44:50
Randall Kaplan: super motivated is one of my favorite podcasts that I've done in the three years I've been doing my show. So thanks a lot for being here. Appreciate you.
44:58
Joe De Sena: Thanks for having me. You're awesome.