The Comfort Trap Every Entrepreneur Must Escape | Joe De Sena

:01 - :05 Unknown More than sex, drugs and rock n roll more than food. The brain is avoiding discomfort because discomfort. 2500 years ago killed you got to. You got to create an environment where people are going to push you what they see in the brain. If you take on something hard and finish something hard, it leaves a track. If you take on something hard and you don't complete it, it leaves a gap.

:05 - :08 Unknown But knowing that your biology is going to change one way or another should keep you in the game to get to the finish line. Today's guest is someone who doesn't talk about resilience. He's built a global movement around it. Joe De Sena is the founder and CEO of Spartan, the world's largest obstacle racing and endurance brand with more than a million participants each year across 40 countries.

:10 - :05 Unknown Spartan isn't just a race, it's a philosophy, a system designed to pull people out of comfort and end to something harder and more meaningful. Joe's entrepreneurial story started early building a pool cleaning business as a kid, scaling that into a construction company in college, and later running a Wall Street trading firm. But somewhere along the way, money as a definition of success stopped being the point and challenge became the point.

:06 - :15 Unknown He's also a New York Times bestselling author, a relentless endurance athlete who's finished over 50 ultra events and 14 Ironman competitions in a single year, and someone who has spent his life asking a simple question. So what happens when you choose the hard path on purpose? Hey, Joe. Welcome to the parallel entrepreneur. I gotta hire you to do that more often.

:16 - :11 Unknown That was awesome. I need that every morning, by the way. So I'm. I'm curious about a lot of things. First of all, you've said that you're a business person first and an endurance athletes second. And I wanted you to take me back to that first construction business. How old were you? What did you learn early about how the world works?

:11 - :04 Unknown And when you look at that version of yourself? What were you really chasing? I mean, that was preteens, and I lived. If you if you saw the movie Goodfellas, I grew up at ground zero for for Goodfellas. And, you know, everybody, whether they were doing good things or bad things, woke up very early in the morning. They were all hustlers.

:04 - :19 Unknown Trucks were running at 5 a.m., coffee was being brewed. And I bring that up because if you grew up in that environment, it wired you that way. Last week I was in Miami with some friends and Wall Street guys, and we were doing some exercise at like six in the morning and we went, we stopped at

in the morning, three hours in to get some green juice, and everything was still closed. :21 - :07 Unknown And I for a minute I was like, how could it still be closed? And I thought, oh, this is a very wealthy neighborhood and these people don't need to wake up early. But but in the neighborhood I grew up in, they woke up early, you know what I mean? Everybody was trying to get ahead. So it becomes part of your fabric.

:08 - :05 Unknown And as such, my neighbor was head of a Bonanno crime family. He took me in because I had that energy and taught me how to clean a swimming pool. And he sat me down and he taught me three lessons my first day on the job, he said, on time is late, he said. And by the way, there's a new documentary. :05 -

:21 Unknown It's called The Five Families on Netflix. And the third episode. It's surreal for me, particularly because I grew up in this guy's house. I was in his house for 12 years, and he helped me build that first business. And I mean, it shows imagery of his house and my house next door like it's crazy town. But anyway, second lesson was, if you're going to clean the pool, if I'm paying you to clean the pool, you should also straighten up the lawn furniture, straighten up the shed, clean the windows even though you're not getting paid for that.

:21 - :23 Unknown Go above and beyond. And the third lesson was don't ask for money. If you do a good job, you get paid. And you know that. That third one is a little confusing, but but I operated, you know, from my pre-teens through my mid 20s, you know, under his and my dad's and other tutelage with this operating system. And it didn't hurt that he was who he was.

:00 - :08 Unknown And so if there was any trouble ever collecting money or anything like it got resolved rather quickly. And it also helped open a lot of doors to customers I otherwise would never have gotten. So anyway, that business got built over a decade plus 700 plus customers. But the real win there and you didn't ask this question a lot of people don't realize.

:08 - :16 Unknown And I learned later the real win there, and this is not what I was seeking to answer. The third part of your question, let's go down this road for a second. The real win was I got to meet 700 families, and I got to watch them grow and shrink and, you know, blow up or or succeed for, you know, 13 years.

:16 - :16 Unknown And I didn't know that I was absorbing all that information consciously and subconsciously. Right. And and deciding for later in my life how I would build a family, how I would build a household, how many kids I might have, how I would treat those kids, what I have pets because I was getting all this information, I was I was living in all these houses.

:18 - :10 Unknown I could walk right in and go in the fridge. They were all my friends. People owed me money I like so. So anyway, I got I got all that information. I got an operating system that I've lived by, not only from him, not only from the business, but also from those families. And and then what I was chasing, I probably needed to know at that time in my life.

:10 - :18 Unknown Was I tough enough? You know, if that guy gets you started and everybody kind of knows he's the boss and you're a young kid and you see the people that are successful around him all had to go to jail for two, five, ten, 15 years to earn their rights to make it right. That was college. I don't know if I could do that, and that's a tape that's playing.

:18 - :19 Unknown I don't know if I'm tough enough to be with you, but I want to be. I want a Cadillac like that. I want a nice like. And so this was probably that's what I was chasing at that time because my guess, you know, we all have a hopefully we have a Y or a purpose and and I think it changes over life. :19 - :07 Unknown But for that decade plus a few years, I think my why was was I tough enough. So you in that window of time you applied to Cornell. So this is your business is a grown into a construction company. You apply four times to get into Cornell, and you've talked about your mom and or your dad just now, but your mom encouraging you to connect with one of her yoga students.

:09 - :01 Unknown Yeah. Anita Racine. Right. Professor Anita Racine. Yeah. She was in charge of the textile department. Textile and apparel management. She was the head of admissions at the time, and I had no intention of going to college. No one went to college where college was jail. And. But because my parents were divorced and my mom moved my sister and I to Ithaca, New York, where Cornell University is, I don't know what Cornell University was, but because I lived there, you know, I got an introduction to to this different life, more ascot's and less right.

:01 - :21 Unknown It was different. I, I met a new said, let's go to Cornell. And my grades weren't good enough and it was too late. But anyway, I got a real taste for maybe I could, you know, maybe I could go to a good school. Maybe I could get in. And I fought my way in, and I was going to quit because we all have breaking points.

:00 - :18 Unknown At some point, I was going back and forth to Queens to run my business, and I really just wanted to get back to the neighborhood. But I was now intrigued. I wanted to go to the school, but they didn't. They didn't accept me after four times. This was a waste of time. And my mom said, Meet Anita Racine.

:18 - :08 Unknown She might be able to help you. And I thought, my mom doesn't know anybody that has any. But, you know, she's a yoga teacher. But but I sat down with this woman and she said, listen. She said, I'm looking at your grades. They're okay. Because I had been taking classes at Cornell even though I wasn't accepted. Those classes don't go anywhere.

:08 - :15 Unknown Those credits don't apply to anything unless you get accepted somewhere. And and she said, I'm in charge of textiles and apparel management of Cornell. Cornell is unbelievable. Cornell University is incredible because there's so many things you can study. There's not a lot of universities that have that much diversity in, like, you could be a veterinarian, you could study government, you could study textile and apparel management.

:16 - :16 Unknown Like there's so you could study farming. So, so anyway, she said, I have 92 women in this department and no men. And we're looking for some diversity. And I was like, I love textiles here. This is a target rich environment that is in exactly what I wanted to study. And I didn't even know what a textile was. But so I she got me in.

:17 - :09 Unknown She changed my life. Yeah. Credit, credit where credit is due and why we're at it, you know, textiles and apparel. That's that's another intersection where I'm. I don't know anything about textiles. Not a not a thing. And I wind up starting a sock manufacturing company and becoming expert over time because I was relentless, just like you are. I believe in just the pursuit of excellence.

:13 - :11 Unknown And so I'm curious, you know, looking back, how did studying textiles and apparent and apparel influence your perspective on business, if at all? Very, very lucky? Reflecting back that at that time in the United States and in the world, that entire business, that whole industry was migrating out of the US and going to places like China and and now quotas were being put in, like all kinds of disruption was occurring in that, in that industry.

:11 - :02 Unknown And and we got to study it and I got to understand it. And, and so if I had to do it again, I probably would I would study the same thing at that time. I don't know what it's like now, but at that time it was incredible. It's a super competitive business with a lot of challenges manufacturing in the United States in the apparel and textile industry, and I'm trying to tackle that as we speak with a new product called Happy Overall that my wife and I are collaborating on, just trying to spread joy through wearable art.

:02 - :06 Unknown And we're manufacturing here in the United States. So textiles are not only a part of my interest, but they continue to consume my imagination as a creative platform. My friend Brandon shared a piece of advice recently dress so that if someone dressed up as you for a costume party, everyone would know it was you. Now, that's not entirely about clothing.

:08 - :08 Unknown That's about identity. About showing up fully. My wife, Jenny and I are leaning in on this concept, both in our personal lives and now in a little startup we call happy. Overall, we're making overalls. Each one is made to order as a wearable canvas for art overalls that are comfortable, durable, and expressive. We're sourcing soft 100% cotton. We're partnering with designers and with local seamstresses who love the artistry of a well crafted piece of clothing.

:10 - :11 Unknown We're launching in summer of 26, so check out Happy Overall to see pics and see if anything resonates with you fully. You and it'll happen every time you reach for them. If you want to be part of the first run. Join our waitlist at HappyOverall.com. :13 -

:01 Unknown Your your imagination went from textiles and Cornell straight to Wall Street. Tell us about what what the business was that you were doing on Wall Street. And then what was your anchor for for, for for the pursuit of excellence in that window of time? I'm at Cornell. I'm running my business in Queens. It's growing. I have no intention of getting a job coming out of university.

:01 - :20 Unknown I just want to go back and run my business and maybe apply some of this stuff I learned in university. I feel like I've leveled up compared to the neighborhood kids, to my business, and I get back to the neighborhood, and for 4 or 5 years, I'm growing my business. I'm just I'm getting bigger. I got more trucks.

:20 - :00 Unknown So we got backhoes and machinery, and I'm I'm operating a company that's next door to John Gotti's a bit like I'm I'm in I'm in it. It's happening. No interest in doing anything else. I'm just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I had a friend. I met at Cornell, an older gentleman who managed money, and he saw that spark that I had, that energy that I had, that 5 a.m. thing.

:01 - :13 Unknown And he said, you are wasting your you need to go to Wall Street. And I didn't really know anything about it. And I certainly didn't want to sit in an office in front of a computer. But he drove me crazy for 4 or 5 years. He called me every month, literally took an interest in this young person and just drove me crazy.

:16 - :13 Unknown We're still good friends. He's he's approaching 90 years old and and he got me. He got me to sell my, my business in Queens and and go backwards. Like if I was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for myself. At that point, I took a job on Wall Street for $35,000 a year. He got me to go backwards, and I went from being the CEO and the big man on campus, rubbing elbows with the big guys that were in the newspapers to like being on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and like, crying because I couldn't do the math fast enough.

:13 - :10 Unknown I couldn't answer six phones at once. I had no idea what I was doing, but but I learned it. I had an instinct and a sniff for money and and very quickly I realized, oh, I could I could build a company here. And so I built a firm. And what we did was we traded equities and derivatives for banks. :12 -

:17 Unknown Now why why the hell would Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse? Why would they possibly deal with a pool guy? I, I was really good. And this is applicable to all parts, all businesses, all industries. I was really good at solving problems for folks. Right. And so so if you're a Goldman and you're under tremendous pressure and you're trying to buy 9 million shares of a security or some derivative, whatever it is, you got to solve that problem.

:18 - :08 Unknown And computers weren't completely, fully everywhere yet. Like, like all the systems weren't as advanced as they are today. So there was a lot of manual processes to go, you know, knock on doors and find where those shares might exist that that person wants to buy or where that derivative might. And so you needed a hustler. And so I built a desk of 50 neighborhood guys and gals that knew how to knock on doors and get shit done.

:11 - :18 Unknown And, and so there was no problem too big or too small. We that's. And by the way, we also knew because of where I grew up that many times we might do it for free. We might lose money on it. Remember my neighbor taught me, you know, never asked for money. So like we were investing in long term relationship with these banks, we were honored that the bank would even call us because we were this tiny little business, and we did what we had to do.

:20 - :04 Unknown And it became a very for us, for neighborhood kid. It became a very big business. :06 - :16 Unknown But then I got I just then I met Ian, our mutual friend. You're a friend of my friend, and I. I just couldn't wait to get off a trading desk and out into the jungle. Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about the jungle Spartan. We're going to be talking about how Spartan came to life. But to get there was a long, dark journey of the soul in some ways.

:18 - :03 Unknown So you're. It wasn't like a theory that just came out. You you were doing endurance racing. You're testing your limits in the jungle. Let's talk a little bit about that, because it represents ultimately some failures, a long string of learning experiences, a 6 or 7 years worth of effort. What does that journey feel like today when you reflect on it?

:08 - :22 Unknown Yeah. So mid 90s I'm on Wall Street and not feeling healthy for obvious reasons. Now I'm sitting in front of a desk. I'm no longer out there mixing cement and sweating in the sun, and I. I meet a guy who, first of all, what you're going to hear over and over just occurred to me, as I'm telling you this, if you're listening to this or watching this, what you're hearing over and over from me is I met a guy, I met a person or somebody invested in you, right?

:23 - :15 Unknown Yeah. Like like you have to be in the game. You have to be out and about. You can't just text or LinkedIn or you have to be in the game and and shit starts happening. And I just happen to meet somebody who was climbing the stairs, and he looked like he was on the cover of Men's Health, and he was and super fit.

:15 - :18 Unknown And I was like, well, how do I look? Like, you know, how do I do that? And he wrote me into to doing his fitness regimen, and then he wrote me into doing some adventure races. And I was like, this is unbelievable. This is so incredible. This is like all the benefit I used to get from mixing cement outside without actually mixing cement.

:18 - :01 Unknown I just got to do the fun stuff. This is so much fun. And and so for five years, six years, I ran around the world participating and roping anybody I could in to these crazy adventures and had so much fun. And and then I thought, you know, could I turn this into a business? So you reached out, I think Ian Adamson was your race director and Ian was the our last episodes guest.

:03 - :07 Unknown Yeah. He was talking about the crazy adventures you guys have had down at the British Virgin Islands when you first pulled that off. And I mean that that event was just days literally. I mean, like very, very short period of time after 9/11. So you're on Wall Street, you're making a pivot towards athletic events and trying to become an organizer.

:08 - :11 Unknown Right. An event curator, by the way, is a lot of responsibility. I mean, you have the life, you have people's lives and their health and well-being and physical. They're physically committed to this event, but they're also requiring a little course safety and a lot of thought and how these things are put together. And next thing you know, you're you're in the middle of a global moment in time.

:11 - :21 Unknown Nine over 11 and, and the lights start to flicker. What happens? Yeah, we probably shouldn't have put on the event from a financial perspective, but but I was you know, I was 50 yards away from those planes flying into the Trade Center. And the mantra down there and the feeling was they're not going to stop life. We're going to we're going to continue on.

:21 - :06 Unknown And so put my head down and said, we're going to put on this first event anyway. And we put it on and we lost the guy. We physically lost the guy for eight days, and we found him eight days later on Little Tobago. Thank God he was alive. Clearly that was a signal from the gods that I should not put on more events because I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

:06 - :18 Unknown But we remember, right? Yeah, but we did. And I kept iterating and iterating and iterating for quite some time. And then in 2010, 2009, 2010, it finally worked under the moniker Spartan. And we had a tiger by the tail, and it just has taken over the last, you know, 16 years of my life. So much so that my family and I moved around the world to, to to grow this thing in different locations and build up, build out this giant machine.

:20 - :11 Unknown You were in a photo shoot, I think, in your office on 9/11. Tell me about that experience. The cover, the photos that most Americans, most people around the world saw on the cover of magazines came from my office. On 9/11, we were doing a photo shoot. The first plane flew in. I was staring right at the Trade Center.

:13 - :00 Unknown The gentleman next to me started snapping pictures. Those photos ended up on the cover of magazines that we all saw because we were. We were on the 59th floor of our building, which had a bird's eye view of that plane and that explosion and that fire. It is crazy to think that we were all right back in business.

:01 - :00 Unknown I mean, the phones were ringing here. It was not too far away. People are jumping out of that building. Buildings are collapsing right around us. And. :02 - :00 Unknown I don't know, it's it's surreal to think that we that group of people I had in that office, it was just business, you know, get back in the office 3 or 4 days later, whatever it was, we were using radios to take orders and communicate with the banks because a lot of phones were down.

:02 - :16 Unknown And then for years, we just we stared out our window and just saw the machines doing all that work, cleaning up that whole mess. And yeah, it's a little it's a little strange, right? That that we just like if if we were ants, we just went right back to work like ants do. Yeah. You're you're in a window of time.

:16 - :07 Unknown That takes me back to this whole topic about resilience. And I think that if somebody said to you, you can't do that, I think you would be like, that's silly, you know? And of course I can't. So on the parallel entrepreneur, we talk about people doing more than one thing at the same time. And in most cases we'll call it parallel.

:07 - :21 Unknown And and you are paralleling. You have lots of swim lanes going at the same time. When you start thinking about, do I have to focus on one thing, or can I focus on a lot of things? What are the superpowers that you have been able to discover within yourself or or hone that help you with this multi-dimensional business, enterprise and creative and competitive life that you lead?

:21 - :13 Unknown What's your superpower? Well, as you as you just asked that question, I was thinking, you know, if I was a little more Wharton MBA and focused and number cruncher and pencils in my pocket, we would be a much more successful company for sure, financially and my whole life that would be the case. But I'm a creator and life is really short.

:13 - :06 Unknown I mean, the only asset you and I have is time. And so I think, I think, I think the thing we have to optimize for, not everybody, but guys like you and me, we have to enjoy every day. Like, what's the point of making a lot of money or building a big brand, whatever it may be, if we don't enjoy every day because we're going to spend most of our time in the belly of the beast, right?

:06 - :03 Unknown And battling through and making the calls and trying to make payroll. And that's where we're going to spend the bulk of our time. Yeah, not at the beginning. It's not at the end. It's it's not the medals behind me. Right. And so we better enjoy every day. And guys like you and I suspect we need to create and and the way I think about our business, you know, we've got multiple brands and certainly my board of directors and anybody smart would say why do you have multiple brands focus on one brand.

:03 - :16 Unknown And it's like there just shows really. It's like if you go to Vegas and you go see a show, you know, there's one theater and they just put on all different kinds of shows, and that's what we do. We put on all different kinds of shows. I don't know what's going to tickle that person to get them off the couch.

:17 - :14 Unknown It might be a functional fitness event. It might be a crazy trail race. It could be Spartan. The whole thing was born from from obstacle racing, right? Yeah. But but I as long as it's really hard, as long as it scares the shit out of you, as long as it gets you to go to bed early and put down the cookie and not drink the wine.

:14 - :22 Unknown I want to be in that business because. Because my business is about getting you motivated and disciplined and committed and probably dirty. I would say, you know, one of our brands, DEKA, it's a little too clean for me. I, I don't really want you indoors under fluorescent lights, running in circles. I want you outside dirty, miserable, you know, more Navy Seal, a little less big wheel, write, more uncertainty.

:23 - :23 Unknown You know? Yeah. We talk in entrepreneurship circles. We'll talk a lot about the increasing frequency of black swan events or the increasing routine of uncertainty. You navigate 9/11, you navigate the brand transitions. You you ultimately beat all your tough competition, you know, and you become this dominant brand. And then Covid hits bang. No events, no gatherings.

:23 - :11 Unknown Everything stops. What is the teaching moment? How are you navigating uncertainty in this? In that generation of our time? The human brain is designed to avoid discomfort. It it more than sex, drugs and rock and roll more than food. The brain is avoiding discomfort because discomfort 2500 years ago killed going out in the cold. You didn't have a North Face jacket, right?

:12 - :01 Unknown Like you may or may not eat again. So so you've got to get as many calories like the brain is not designed or optimized for today's world. It's designed for yesterday's world. So you don't know it. You wake up whatever you good intention to do the workout or run the business or do whatever. And the brain is saying, no, it's throwing up, you know, flashing red lights.

:02 - :02 Unknown No, stop. So I learned that a young age how to overcome that. And I think it was when I watched the movie Rocky, and I'm watching Rocky, and I'm confused as to why he got out of shape. Why would a boxer get out of shape and then get back in shape and get out of shape and get back in shape? :02 - :16 Unknown Oh, needed a date on the calendar. The brain is optimized to like, relax and become a slot and become complacent. Right? But then you got a date on the calendar. You don't want to embarrass you. You're going to go to a fight and you got to get in shape. And I just thought, why wouldn't you just stay in shape the whole time?

:16 - :06 Unknown And so my life became for me personally, I just want to stay in shape the whole time. You've built a life around doing hard things on purpose. And for someone who's successful out there in business, maybe they're maybe they're physically fit. Maybe they've learned to overcome that the way you did. But a lot of people are feeling too comfortable in their work or in their job or in their relationships.

:06 - :05 Unknown How do you know that it's time to lean into something harder? You know, I just naturally, I naturally do it. I think I'm constantly monitoring my feelings, my thoughts, my. And by the way, I'm I can't say that all day, every day. I'm not secretly wishing for comfort. I'm not secret. Like I'm just like everybody else. I just do a better job at fighting it.

:06 - :00 Unknown I do it right. I just can't sit still. I feel lazy if I. I have to earn that hour in front of the television. I remember for so many decades, really. Like, I could watch TV and lay down on the couch, but I had to go do 250 miles on the bike first. I had to get myself so damn tired, right? :00 -

:12 Unknown I had to earn it. Holding a date out or holding a goal out and then accomplishing that goal first. Yeah, my grandfather taught me. He said, Mark, if you want to be successful, you got to do what you like least first. Yeah, it sounds like 250 miles on a bike is what you like least first. However, I would say, man, I love doing this entry on a bike.

:13 - :09 Unknown You know, I love I love the being outdoors. I know you talk a lot about that. And we just spoke for a second about, you know, the brain and how we're wired. You have a a perspective on future memory that I find fascinating, and the idea that our brains demonstrate paths and gaps. Could you walk me through that?

:10 - :21 Unknown How does future memory actually work? Yeah, I met Dr. Mark McLaughlin. I'm actually writing a book with him right now, and I was holding every year I put on this thing called a Death Camp on our farm where young kids, family send their kids terribly branded. But but it motivates the kids. I had Mark on a zoom call, doctor Mark, and he was teaching us because he cuts heads open for a living.

:21 - :00 Unknown He's a brain surgeon, and he was teaching us about what they see in the brain. If you take on something hard and finish something hard, it leaves a track. If you take on something hard and you don't complete it, it leaves a gap. And gaps make it easier to not complete things in the future and quit. And tracks make it easier to finish things in the future and not quit, and especially in children.

:00 - :06 Unknown So the more hard things you can give your kids and make sure they see it all the way through, you're going to biologically change that brain just like you would a bicep or a calf or whatever else from doing the work. So, you know, we all want to quit hard things, but knowing that your biology is going to change one way or another should keep you in the game to get to the finish line.

:07 - :19 Unknown The finish line. We hope it's as far out as humanly possible. You talked with Max King recently and one of my favorite humans, one of the very first professional ultra endurance nutso athletes that we sponsored at Swiftwick years ago. And he really helped. You know, shout out to Max. He helped build the brand. And I, you know, you were talking about peak performance and how that can happen later in life than most people expect.

:19 - :17 Unknown And so I'm curious what what changes in someone that allows them to reach that crazy next level later on. Is it is it a physical or a mental or an identity thing? When I first got introduced to wrestling, I met Coach Cole at Cornell University and Coach Cole said, you know, every season I start all the kids on the treadmill and I put the treadmill up as fast as I can go, and I make each kid gun on.

:17 - :00 Unknown I say, sound as long as you can, and we tie them and we write down the times, and the first kid gets off and he said, coach, I couldn't take another step. That was all I had. And the next guy goes and he goes five seconds longer, and the next guy goes and he goes, 10s longer than that. :00 - :03 Unknown Then the first guy comes back and he goes, so I guess my point is, you've got to you got to create an environment where people are going to push you. Right? Because the brain, as we said earlier, is seeking comfort. Get off that treadmill. This is too dangerous. So you got to you got to surround yourself with folks that are going to push you.

:03 - :19 Unknown They're going to hold you accountable. They're going to stretch you further than you. Just like the guys in the neighborhood. 5 a.m. wake up. Trucks are getting started. People are hustling. If everybody's sleep until nine, that's what time I'd be waking up right now, because that's what I would have been trained to do. So you got to surround yourself with some real tough mofos that are going to push the envelope.

:20 - :20 Unknown Iron sharpens iron. And then and then you got to back yourself against the wall and get that date on the calendar. And because because if you got silk pajamas on and the mortgage is paid and food is being delivered in three times a day to your house, even if you're surrounded by a bunch of wolves, it's going to be hard to really push the envelope, right?

:20 - :09 Unknown So date on the calendar. Stretch yourself like with some tremendous commitments and then surround. Yeah, surround yourself with a bunch of maniacs. You sat down with Richard Branson years ago. I was one of your first podcasts, and you asked him whether the journey is what matters most or not, and I want to revisit that and ask you the question, but with a twist.

:11 - :17 Unknown After everything you know, after everything that you've built and experienced to Joe De Sena. Is it the journey? Is it the destination, or is it the companionship along the way that matters most to you? Now look, I think I said it before, I think I know it's the journey because. Because the start and the end are so small in duration relative to the to journey.

:17 - :23 Unknown In my case, this has been, like I said, 26 years. Right? So it's got to be the journey beyond that. It's it's the community that occurs in that long, arduous nightmare journey. Right? You meet all these people, you build bonds that are unbreakable because you're in a fox all together. You don't know if you're going to make it.

:00 - :15 Unknown I think it's the growth you experience as human being somehow surviving that mess. Yeah, it's it's it's that's the whole deal. And I think that was the difference with what the folks at Tough Mudder versus versus Spartan as we were in it because we loved it and we wanted to change lives. And they were in it because they were looking for a finishers medal or headband in their case.

:17 - :02 Unknown Well you've had a lot of very wild experiences around the world. I'm going to I'm super interested in the time you spent in North Korea with Dave Watson. What did you experience there and what did that teach you? Hey, listen, we've been to some crazy, crazy places, and for me, I just pinch myself. Whoever, wherever I go in the world that I get to do a lot of people, they don't leave their house, their block, their neighborhood.

:03 - :12 Unknown Right. And so to get to go to places in the world, they're the Great Wall, Mongolia, Patagonia, go down the list. It's like I got to pinch myself. This is this is incredible. And and it makes you appreciate the United States because. Because we can complain all we want, whether we're watching Fox News or or CNN or whatever.

:13 - :06 Unknown Like, it still beats most other places in the world. So I want you to tell me a little bit about Project Unbreakable. This is a different window of time. This is after Covid and you're you're starting the world's largest virtual race. This is one more example. Let's just get back on the horse and ride it. I think this is a collaboration between Spartan Race and World Obstacle, and I want to talk a little bit about goals here.

:08 - :22 Unknown This is something that nobody thought you could do. And you're going to do a hundred countries and a million participants. What happened? We didn't know. We didn't. We couldn't hold events. We were losing money like crazy. And and the goal was to somehow keep our audience engaged. So let's just go online and do a virtual race and energize the whole world around it.

:22 - :06 Unknown I don't know how the hell we're going to do it. I don't know if we can do it, but, you know, a big believer in this concept here. Fire! Ready? Aim, right. Like, you could sit around. We could talk about it. We can come up with all kinds of plans. We could aim forever and never take action. Or we just take action and then figure it out on the fly.

:10 - :10 Unknown And. And that's exactly what we did there. And we had a tremendous turnout from around the world. And had, you know, we didn't make any money doing it, but we kept our audience engaged. What does the data tell you that reinforces your instincts? And then where has the data challenged you to make different decisions and like what came from that?

:11 - :05 Unknown I had to give a speech for Norwich University, their board of directors, the oldest private military institution in the United States, and they saw some military sign ups, you know, drift, drift off. And I said, I think you guys lost your way. You could easily see over 50 or 100 years how and how that would happen to an organization.

:05 - :22 Unknown I said, it happened, happened to us where we were getting pounded to soften the product and make it more accessible. And and then I said, you wake up 50 years later and this is not the thing that you started. And so I get it. The data might show that we should make it easier, that we should make it more accessible.

:22 - :19 Unknown There's a much bigger consumer segment if we did. But but that's not who we are. We don't sell Doritos. We sell really fucking hard challenges that require commitment and discipline. And there's only going to be a small segment of the population ever does it. That's the deal. So you just described how difficult it is for an organization, I think, a human organization, to keep their eye on the ball for a very long period of time.

:19 - :00 Unknown And yet you with the data, without the data, you set your vision on taking obstacle racing into the Olympics. You did that like 15 years ago. So this is not just something that you just woke up one day and said, hey, I got an idea. What keeps you committed to something that takes that level of patience? That's a really long horizon.

:02 - :08 Unknown You know, I'm not a sprinter. I can't run very fast, but I could run for a really long time, and I especially could run for a really long time. Knowing that most people are going to quit makes it even easier for me. When I met with the Olympics folks, their original instinct was, no way, you can't go that fast.

:08 - :02 Unknown It's going to take 15 or 20 years. And I had to sit through a frigging meeting for hours listening to these, you know, bureaucratic folks that just were just awful and not business minded. And at the end of it, I said to them, you know, I'm going to outlive you. I'm going to get this done. You guys probably won't even be around.

:07 - :19 Unknown Wow, I, I'm curious about if you could sit down with your younger self and those earliest days you reflect 26 years of my life. But even going back further than that from those first businesses, what would you tell the young Joe to Senate to focus on, and what would you tell them to let go of? I definitely would have said, more patience, young, young grasshopper, I think I think any of the mistakes I've made throughout this whole journey is just not having the patience that I just described that I had in the Olympics movement.

:19 - :01 Unknown But but in those early days, boy, patience, longer term thinking would have had a huge, huge impact. Positive impact. I just I want everything yesterday. How does the passion that you feel about resilience and grit in physical fitness, how is that transferred into your business, and what advice do you give to other people when they're looking for it?

:06 - :18 Unknown Well, listen, if it's just about money. :20 - :00 Unknown It's harder to stay in the game when when going. That's tough. If it's if it's more about something you absolutely love that you just have to do, as is the case with us, then it's easier to stay in the game when the going gets tough and the going is going to get tough. I mean, business is just a tough deal.

:00 - :11 Unknown It's like chewing glass as much as and staring into the abyss every day. So. So just make sure you absolutely love the thing that it's a bigger mission than just money or a or get in and out of it and be that Wharton pencils in the pocket calculator kind of person and just right, get in and out of it.

:11 - :22 Unknown I love what I do. I mean, I hate I hate the business side of it, but I love what I do. You're I think you're trying to build better humans. Also, while you're at it, what is 50 years from now? What is it? What is the perfect healing look like and how are you contributing to that? Well, they've they've they've rejected my perfect humans.

:22 - :14 Unknown 50 years from now, Spartan has anything to do. They've rejected Osmp. They've rejected the cookie. The cheesecake. They're going to bed early. They're waking up early. They're taking cold showers. They disconnect the hot water heater. They're doing burpees every day. That's the perfect human. So Spartans have for 31 BC, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. They they they had it hard and they made it hard.

:14 - :17 Unknown And they, they practiced and played hard. And they also, you know, clearly were successful. They had children. And we got to grow on this population and this, this planet and take care of ourselves and our families. What are we doing now in your mind to take care of the planet? Yeah, I think I mean, certainly in the first world, in, in, in a place like the United States, we're pretty focused on commercials, right, on things that we can gain that are superficial and nonsense.

:17 - :10 Unknown We're factory farming. We're not eating very healthy. We're not taking care of ourselves. Community is absent and screens are at the forefront. So, yeah, I would say a little more salad, a little more farming, a little more, a little less screen. But but we're not stopping that machine community, right? I mean, the Spartan, the competitive athletic community, they really actually support one another.

:10 - :16 Unknown I've watched them compete, but also stop and pull somebody along. It just depends on on the circumstance. Everybody has got some compassion in their passion for humanity. You've got a goal. Let's let's hear what your goal is. When when in 2028 when the Olympics are now including I think it's the modern pentathlon, right. Yep, yep. What's it going to look like and what's your prediction.

:18 - :22 Unknown Well I hope I hope one of the winners, one of the gold medalist comes from obstacle. But the horses are out. The obstacles are in and and and you know we've got to shoot. We've got to run. We've got to swim. We got a fence and we've got to do obstacle. And Yeah, I mean, that's going to be a surreal moment for me to see this thing we created actually actually be part of that legacy.

:23 - :04 Unknown If you were able to just leave our, our entrepreneur audience with a sense of hope, what is it that you hope for most? I hope anybody listening, anybody watching, wakes up tomorrow and starts doing 30 burpees a day minimum for the rest of your life. I hope everybody listening takes cold shower. Like the thing that really gets me going as people pushing themselves to be better, better versions of themselves.

:04 - :00 Unknown That's that's it. That sounds like great advice, Joe. Thank you for joining us on the Parallel Entrepreneur. You're a champion and a gentleman and leader. I appreciate your time today. Thanks for having me. This was fun. Hey, thanks for listening to The Parallel Entrepreneur and thank you to our sponsors, partners, and the amazing team behind the scenes who help make these conversations possible.

:04 - :14 Unknown If today's episode sparked something for you, be sure to follow, subscribe and please share it. Learn about our growing community at Parallel Entrepreneur, including details on our Mastermind and Companion programs designed to help you align, grow, and thrive across multiple ventures. And of course, gratitude to every visionary guest who trusts us to share their story. Until next time, keep building in parallel.