Jesse Itzler's Exact Playbook For Creating HIT AFTER HIT

Go wreck! The countertops. Олволикер стоит. And then go to Nabisco or one of the big boys and be like Hey, guess what?

I own ten thousand. Countertops. You want a widget there? You wanna put your fucking widget there?

Keep the money walk, keep the money walk! I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'll put my own in it like a day so I'm gonna be able to get it. We have Jesse Itzler on the pod today, very fascinating guy. Started a bunch of different companies, um the biggest one being Marquis Jets, which we got into some of the economics of that business. And Then he's done a bunch of other things. You see him on social media, he's done a lot of stuff, but like his life advice was actually really amazing.

Um We went deep into some of the numbers behind some of his businesses. We um learn about his early career and there's like a a ton of takeaways. The pod was only supposed to be sixty minutes long. But Sean and I were like so into it that we went over I think we went w like ninety minutes, something like that, because his story's super fascinating. If you like the Rob Deirdick episode, which a lot of people did, it's I think our most listened to episode of all time, I think you're really gonna like this one. Um this was pretty spectacular. I left feeling good

uh about it. And if you're watching this on YouTube Do me a favor, hit that subscribe button and make a comment because We've had a ton of people comment on our videos lately and a ton of people subscribe. We see the data behind it. So it's awesome that you guys are doing this. And it means a ton of us. We actually text each other all the time when someone makes a funny comment. So let us know. And if you're listening, on iTunes or Spotify, hit that download or the subscribe button, whatever it is on those pl platforms, because we get notifications about those too. And it's awesome. We're killing it. We're growing a ton and we appreciate the army of people who are supporting us.

All right, enjoy the episode. Let us know in the YouTube comments what you think. Um Alright, well welcome. We got Jesse Itzler here. Um Also known as

I think you might be the richest runner, white rapper in the country. So congratulations, my friend. We uh we we are excited to have you here. I love that. If you keep adding categories, I could be the richest in the world if you start adding like, you know That have four kids that Hello.

Yeah. Eat plant based, et cetera, et cetera. So Right on. So you know, I'm excited to talk to you'cause you've done A bunch of amazing things. We've talked about you on the pod. And uh we sort of spoke it into existence. I think we talked about it, somebody might have sent you a clip. I'm not sure.

But you uh you reached out and said, Hey, I'd love to come on. You have I'm just gonna read a couple of these things. So I'm gonna flatter you real quick just so that the audience uh understands kind of just your background. So like we said, started out uh trying to make it as a rapper and ended up creating a a a jingles company. So you were making jingles for for sports teams. Ended up selling that then created

Uh, Marky Jets, a fractional jet owning company, sold that to Berkshire Hathaway, which Warren Buffett obviously runs and owns. Uh, you're married to Sarah Blakely, founder of Spanks. You are an epic sort of fitness athlete yourself, so uh Prolific runner. I read your book. Uh the r the day I got really into you is when I read Living with a Seal, which is the story of you living with uh David Goggins for thirty days.

Um I can't even really listen. I gave David Goggins for thirty minutes on a podcast. Uh so living with him for thirty days, respect. And um Yeah, you've created a bunch of companies out outside that partner with Zico Coconut Water and and doing a bunch of prolific things. So You have a

A very prolific current. But The start was uh like anybody. It was Humble, humble beginnings. So

Talk about the early days when you were You were trying to do the the uh let's start with the jingle company. You um You told me you were you were sleeping on couches at the time. Try to make it and uh describe kinda what was going on at that time in your life. What was the plan and w what were you going through and how did you come out of that?

Well, I grew up in New York in the eighties when Rap and hip hop was starting to emerge in a bigger way. And That it that was the intersection of of that happening and me going to college. So I was really into music early on.

And while all my friends in college were writing resumes and going on job interviews, I was like, I'm making a rap record. Like I I'm why would I waste my time Making a resume. I want to make an album. So it was like kinda that's the direction I wanted to go in. Uh right away. I ended up signing with a record company called Delicious Vina.

Everybody passed on me. And this one little record company Gave me a shot. And I didn't have m Like I wasn't super connected, I didn't have like a loy I no I did it all, I shopped it myself.

But I ended up getting dropped from the label shortly after. And I got into Writing um jingles or uh for companies and theme songs for sports teams. And that was kind of my first entree into

you know, I pivoted. It it didn't work out for me in the music business, but I still loved music. So I stayed in there and I started doing jingles and um Yeah. That's how I kinda started out early on. Sleeping on couches.

Um, try to make it And somebody offered you A tempting deal. They said I'll give you ten thousand dollars if I can get Ten percent.

Of everything you'll ever make. How how did that happen and w what was your answer? Right. So I was I was writing theme songs for sports teams. I was twenty two, twenty three years old. And my business model was to write a song on spec.

And then Cold call a professional sports team, try to get a meeting with them, try to like, you know, get in there and then If I was able to get that meeting Convinced them that they needed a theme song. And that was my business model.

And at the time I was I was I was bouncing around from couch to couch. I wasn't Homeless, but my friends were I just moved to New York. From Los Angeles. And my friends were putting me up as I tried to figure out how to do it. I had no money to go in the studio to write any more songs on spat.

So I needed money to fund That Production. So a music manager said, You know, I I I believe in you. I'll give you ten grand for ten percent.

But I wanna own you for the rest of your life, basically ten percent of anything you make. And I was like I'll take it. Because I needed the money to go with the studio. I thought it was a deal of the century. You're gonna give me ten grand And all I'm gonna do is pay you if I make it? Like that sounded amazing to me.

At the time I was living on my friend Melissa cats. uh couch. I met her actually at a bar and she had given me her number on a napkin and said, If you're in an emer she asked me where I lived and I said, As of Monday, I have nowhere to live. I was getting kicked out of my friend's house on Monday she said if it's an emergency you can come live with my roommate and I Monday my friend kicked me out'cause his parents were coming for a week and I'm like, This is an emergency.

So I was living at Melissa's house and I told her about this opportunity. And she said, Well why don't you go talk to my father? before you give away ten percent of your future earnings. And as it turned out, her father was a very successful entrepreneur. He owned the company called Kinney Park in Parking Garages in New York.

And was um I think the second largest shareholder of the New York Yankees. You're like, Melissa, your apartment is really nice. What was amazing about that was it really wasn't. And that's why I really was taken aback by I knew her dad was an entrepreneur. I didn't know the extent. And um

Sho you know, she said me on By the way, his name is Luke Katz. He passed away a couple of years ago. It was an incredibly influential guy in my life. And this was my first encounter with them. So I went to not to belabor this, but I went to see him and it's it's really relevant for anyone listening what he said to me.

As a twenty two year old. He I told him my dilemma, I'm gonna take ten grand for ten percent of my life. And he said to me, it is exactly what he said to me. He said, Jesse You know, will you make this business work without the ten grand?

I said Lou. I'm onto something. I know I can make it work. There's a m I know I can any He took his notebook and he literally threw it on the ground. And he said, I didn't ask you that.

I didn't ask you can you, I said will you. There's a big difference between can and will. I know you can start a podcast, I know you can be a millionaire, I know you can run a marathon. I I said will you, son? And I said, Yeah, well, Lou, I will.

He said, Well tell him to take the ten thousand dollars and shove it up his ass. Don't make it work. And I did, you know, like it was a really powerful lesson and like you know what? I signed up for this journey as an entrepreneur. Let me go figure it out.

Let me go that's what I wanna do. Let me go figure this out. And he keep H blew that flame into me. At an early age.

And um It's really been a theme throughout my life in all the buckets of my life. The the all will verse can Notion. You know? And why why is that so powerful?

The Wilverse can't. Well, because it's It really puts the pressure You know, Billy Jean King at a book. Pressure's a privilege.

And it is. Like entrepreneur, we play for pressure. Sean, like as entrepreneurs, that's what we want, man. And um You know

I recently did a race called Ultraman. It's a six point two mile open water swim. A two hundred and sixty five mile bike and a fifty two point four mile run. And I thought to myself before the race that exact thing like I think I can do it. But I'm never gonna know unless I sign up for the race.

where something incredible can happen or not, but I gotta put myself in that situation. And now it it's up to me, like will I get it done? You know, will what am I willing to do? Am I willing to suffer for that one day?

For to have The next Th three decades. have that in my memory bank and have it on my resume. And and I and I am will and I am willing to do that. And and I did. So you know what's really funny? Uh after you told me that so I did a call with you the other day just prep for the for the pod. Hey, you know, uh

We're gonna talk about I'm thinking about talking about this, this and this, you have any good stories. And you told me this this will versus can thing. And uh the next day my wife was literally like She's like, Hey, can you take out the trash? And I was like, No, no, no, baby.

Thought about can I take out the trash. I will take out the trash. And she has no idea what I'm doing, and I've been doing it all weekend. I've been 'Cause it's once you see it, it's actually everywhere. Uh, Ben texted Ben who's listening on this thing right now. He text me this morning. He's like um He's like, Hey, how'd you eat this weekend? We're we're both like on a uh fitness kick. He's like Can you stay locked in from now till Thanksgiving? And I just I was like, Oh, Ben.

Yes, it could be Cam. W we don't ask can questions anymore. As of meeting Jesse It star, I no longer ask can I. It's will I or won't I. That's it. Well, think about how many times in your life someone said you you you say something that you've done like, you know, I did, you know, rim to rim, I'll I'll take physical activities or I climb Kilimanjaro and You explain to someone like, Oh I c I can do that. And I you're like mu in the back of your head, you're like

Yeah, you probably can, but You know, will you do it? You know? There's just like it's a huge difference between like oh just checking the box because you said to yourself I can. versus actually going through And doing it. Jesse

I have one other story that you you don't know about. Uh so you used to go to something uh at least you went once. Called Coach K's fantasy camp. Is that correct? I've been there for uh uh eighteen straight years. Okay, perfect. So you went to this thing. So for those who don't know Coach K he was the the greatest college basketball coach at at Duke.

I went to Duke. And um my roommate Trevor Burrus Used to volunteer at Coach K's fantasy camp. And volunteer was literally volunteering. I was like, So what are you you're staying over from break'cause it's like during some break and he's like, Yeah, I'm not going home. I'm gonna work this thing. I'm like, Cool, how much you getting paid? He's gonna he's like, I don't think we really get paid, but uh you know

Whatever. Like you just said, put himself in a position for something good to happen. And so he and what I what he didn't know and what I didn't know was The only people who go to this camp that costs like ten grand to go to are basically like business ballers trying to like live out their dream of like oh As if I was an athlete.

And He's he so he w all he was doing was driving the shuttle. back and forth between where y'all were staying and the thing and he's like, dude, it's amazing. He's like Just hearing these conversations, what they're talking about in this like nine minute shuttle ride. He's like he every night he would debrief with me ideas that he heard. He's like, Oh, this guy said that he does this thing over here. This guy said he does this.

And He told me, he goes, I met this guy Super charismatic. Like this guy. He love this guy's energy. He goes, and he tip me a hundred bucks for this like 10 minute shuttle ride. And he later I told him he I told uh I was mentioning to him that you're coming on the pot, he goes, That was the guy who tipped me. So I don't know if you remember this or not, but

We took that tip. And uh we had a business idea at the time. And we needed to convince this uh famous chef in LA to come fly out and partner with us. We had no money. And so you you plus w a little like side job that I had became the money we paid for for the ticket to fly that guy out, which definitely Into the trajectory of our life. So

Little did you know. I l I love that. And um yeah, I've been going there for since I'm thirty five. It's for guys thirty five and older. And it's not to chase some Some crazy dream. It's a combination of you know, um meeting amazing people and also kinda like

There's not a lot of times. I'm fifty five, so I'm I'm older than you guys. And Um I can't stop that clock. You know? Uh time's undefeated, it's always ticking.

It's it's the six days. a year the five days I go there that I get to feel like an eight year old again. And it's really one of the few times in my life That I get that chance. And I love it.

I don't know, man. I follow you on Instagram. It seems like you live like an eight year old a lot of times. I do, I do, I do, I do, I shouldn't say that. I'm pretty I'm pretty sure I just saw you like in an R V with like eight friends just like Running around the country. It seems like you Yeah, it seems like you got the eight year old life kinda nailed down. I like to give myself that excuse, Sam. I guess yeah, but you're right. It's more than once a more than five days a year. Yeah, I I think I think you've done that all right. You uh and then w was your first um kinda major business, Marquis Jet. So you went from did you go from Jingles to Jets? Yeah, so interestingly I had uh so the jingle thing turned into a real business. I found an opportunity

I started out doing jingles just for anyone that would pay me anything. to do anything. Um I was doing jingles for like I I honestly like Turbo bubblegum is like bubble book gum company that no one ever heard of. Like just anything that we've got. If you wanna dust it off, yeah. I I I got you guys.

And um And then I start and then One of those jingles. gave me an opportunity to write a theme song for the New York Knicks. I had done a a commercial a radio ad for a company called In the In the Pain Clothing. It was owned by

Um Yeah. Nancy Grunfeld, Ernie Grunfeld, the GM of the Knicks. Wife. And she really liked what we had.

And she said Um yeah, if you have any other ideas, you know, let me know. I said, Well I'd love to do something for the Knicks. You know, like write a theme song and we could shoot a video, they can sing it in the arena. So I I approached the Knicks. To do this song called

Don't you earn out. And um The Nick's paid me four thousand dollars to buy the song outright. I'll never forget it. Like.

Um Ashley borrowed money to go in the studio to do this. to do the song. I didn't have enough money to go in the studio record it because They were paying me thirty or sixty days later. And by the time I paid the studio, the engineer, the lawyer that I had, the singer.

the producer, it cost me forty eight hundred dollars to actually deliver the song. That they were paying me four thousand dollars for. And when I look back on it. You know, for most people may be like that's a terrible business model. It was the best business model in the world for me because

When you start out You know, people buy into stories. momentum in people very often more than the products. Like I was the business plan And I would have paid the Knicks ten grand.

To say they were my customer. Because once I have the next Those phone calls to get unto the other sports teams became very easy. And that became my calling card. So I built a business around that.

Sean that actually I I ended up doing theme songs for almost every professional sports team. And turned it into a business where we were selling CDs like the s I would take the songs they play in the arena. And my original song.

with great moments in the team history and sell'em at retail. I sold that company. to a public company called SFX. And that was my first I was twenty seven. We sold it for four million bucks and then we had there was an earn out for another

twelve or sixteen or something. Which we earned out. And that was my first kind of like Get off the couch moment. I was no longer on Melissa's couch and I moved into my own space. What was your take home after that? I had a partner.

And at the end of the day, I think the on the first four million I made like A million and a half or by A million and a half dollars to me. All the money. I was Elon Musk.

Before Musk was born, I was walking around like I was Musk. A million and a half dollars. I would go to the Wake up at the eight and go to the ATM. I would get my a print out. Of my balance. Swear to God.

Then I would wake up the next morning and be like Are you fucking kidding me? I have three hundred more dollars. Than I had yesterday and I was sleeping. Oh my god, dead. I'm going back to that.

Shot me more money than that. My partner convinced me to take all One point three million dollars that we both cleared after taxes or whatever it was. and reinvest it to s to to get like exclusive deals. And

all the s like we made the business we in reinvested it in the business And actually made the business a lot bigger and we got our own out. And then I then everything changed a little bit for me. But you know, I had no idea how to manage money. My parents never talked about money. My dad owned the plumbing supply house.

Uh my mom raised four kids. The The thing the I had no relationship with money. That might sound weird, but like

People talk about relationships with in terms of their relationship with their kids or their significant other, but not in terms of The relationship with time, which is very important. And your relationship with money. Which is equally as important.

I had no relationship with money. So when I got money I didn't know how to save it. How to spend it. How to use it, how to act around it.

I was very immature around New money. And You know what happened to me then? I lost it. Because I didn't know anything about it.

And Fortunately I I was able to bounce back through having other successful businesses. And failures. But No one ever told me about it. How'd you lose it?

Just over spending or what'd you do? Overspending, thinking like oh that was pretty easy, man. I could just I could do that again, you know. Um What did you buy? It wasn't like so much what I bought. It was just

You know. helping my parents, spreading it out. I wasn't abusive with it, like But just I didn't know how to really handle that. That's pretty common, right? Like, you know, Sean and I have a bunch of friends that, you know, we're both about thirty four, thirty five and

We have a bunch of friends and ourselves as well who had exits at a young age and The thing about selling a company, it's different than Th there's usually two types of people I've noticed. It's people who have cash flow businesses or they're like a lawyer or something like that, or they want a law firm. Something where your like income is going up a nice amount every year and you get used to having that cash flow. And then the other group of people are typically young folks who sell their company. And typically those people are like me Where I paid myself twenty thousand dollars year one, twenty thousand dollars year two, year three was fifty thousand dollars, year four, I sell it and make a lot of money, and you're like This is just overwhelming. I don't know what to do with this. And it's a pretty

That's like a pretty common thing is I I don't think I don't I don't know if most people blow it. But I think it takes about two or three years to accumulate uh and kinda get used to and learn what to do. But there's no one to teach you. The problem is I o I'd always been taught Oh, if you're a mil like a millionaire. was was the No, but I've been no I've been thought the opposite. Like if I saw a millionaire, that was like the pinnacle, like he's a millionaire man.

So I was thought like oh I have a million dollars. That's all I need to have for the rest of my life. I'm a millionaire at twenty seven. And that's that was the relationship. That was wrong. Right.

Yeah, you could spend that you could spend that easy. Yeah, you go on to have a four thousand dollar dinner when you were eating when I was basically eating A ninety nine cent bagel for Seventeen years. You know Things change quick. You um I'm I'm a big believer that most of life uh most of your life kind of is a result of this the conversation you have with yourself in your head.

Do you remember after you kind of had that first hit? and you see the money and you still have you're only twenty seven, you still got all your life ahead of you. Do you at all remember like the conversation you had with yourself? Like all right, Jesse, so like Now X. A good

Conversation with yourself or misleading one? Do you remember what What the conversation you had with yourself at that point in time was? You know, it's interesting. Cause Sean, I was living in New York and most of my friends were working on Wall Street. They were working at hedge funds. They were making they were making a lot of money around there's a lot of money around me. And you know, it's very easy to get caught up in what's he making versus what am I making.

And it's very easy to like you start having those conversations with your yourself. You can go down uh and spiral downward very quickly. And you know What I was making what it took me years to make and build and sell and my journey to get to that point. Was crazy.

I was selling carrot and cell celery sticks door to door. That didn't work. I had a t shirt company. That didn't work. I got dropped from a record label. That didn't work. I still I cleaned meat chops. That didn't work. I sold chicken, shrimp, and meat door to door. That didn't work.

I mean company. I It went on and on. So You know, I had really worked So hard.

And at the same time, like I'd invested so much Not for the money, but just like I just wanted to Get a record deal, man. I didn't care about the money.

I just want everyone said you can't do it. Everybody. And it was It was such a driver if I remember I listened to a podcast where one of you guys W with Waird Hamilton.

And you were saying how that a he was saying how that you know, you one of you guys was saying you need that anger to Inspire you like Some kind of fuel, you know. So Um I had that. I still have that.

Don't get me wrong, I still have that and I'm I never want to lose that underdog mentality. I never want to be like I'm at the top of the mountain. Uh I'm not. I consider myself back of the pack everything. back of the pack sales, back of the pack entrepreneur.

There's so many better entrepreneurs than me. Um so many better salesmen than me. But I I But I love that feeling of I gotta prove myself. So when a the money happened, it was just like oh

Steve Stark is making so much more than me when the same basketball run, like I gotta catch Star you know. The um The Marquis Jet thing that's interesting though,'cause that's like totally out of left field. So you and that seemed like a a a way bigger win than the jingle business. Same partner, right? Same same co founder? Yeah. Same partner.

Um it was a much bigger win and it wa like most things in my life Um Mm. Most of the businesses that have That I've been involved with.

Warren Plant. You know, and most of my successes in life haven't been in my business plan. They've been opportunities that presented themselves, you know. My whole life I've been taught When opportunity knocks.

You know, and I'm not I don't wanna sit around waiting for opportunity to knock. I like to create my own my own opportunity. And I was a guest on a private jet.

With my partner. And I was like you people fly like What is this? What? Is

This that I'm on. And We it led to some research, like there's only really two or three ways to fly privately back in the nineties when we started Marquee Jet. You can buy your own airplane if you have fifty million dollars, you know, or something like that.

Well that's out of the question. You could get a fractional. Be in a fractional program like NetJets, but Even that is a really big commitment, both in capital and time. It's a five year commitment. Lot of money up front.

That wasn't I mean Yeah. Wasn't an option for us. Or you could charter. And there were a lot of questions around, Well who owns the plane? Who are the pilots?

You know, do I feel comfortable on that? What if the plane doesn't show up? So we found a little white space there. Said, you know what, we only want to fly like twenty five hours a year. I bet there's a lot of people like us. That don't want to own an airplane, don't want the responsibility. But they just wanna be able to have

The um Have a plane available on short notice. And that was the idea around selling a twenty five hour check card that were worth like work like a debit card. So if If you and if you and Sam Sean flew two hours, you'd have twenty three hours left.

And then we partnered with NetJet. Again. Part of being an entrepreneur is figuring out how to get from A to B the fastest. And for us For me in my life, many times it's been through partnership.

We partnered with N Net Jets, they ended up buying us to use their airplanes. partnered with Coca Cola at Zico. at Zico Coke and Order, they ended up buying us. Um So

But anyway, that was that's what happened. We were a guest on the plane. And you know. Walking around. Eyes wide open, looking for opportunities. And said wow, this could be really interesting.

And uh and then started the journey of figuring out how we could pull this off because we had no aviation experience. Very little money. And you know, I was younger than you guys. I was twenty eight, twenty nine years old. And um figuring out like man we need a lot of airplanes. Where do we go for airplanes?

And uh and then started that journey of of building this company. So you walk in you walk into NetJets. You're like, Hey. Uh, I'm Jesse, former rapper, Jingle And I would like for you to give me your most valuable assets, your planes for this new

membership program. How did you convince them to do that? Well, at first we didn't. They kicked us out of the office. In the first meeting. After about twelve minutes. And um

Backing that up. The bigger question is how we even get in the room. Forget like what happened at the meeting. How in the world Did a multi billion dollar company let two kids that didn't break a thousand on their SATs into a room? To pitch them the idea.

A year before that I was a yes guy my whole life. I I I was I I've I've kind of and I still try to pride myself When people ask me for things to deliver

If I can. But never asked for anything in return. You know, like I'm not like oh stand, I'll do this for you, Sean, but like Can you do this from like I don't know if that BMO.

I got a call a year before that from someone that said that their daughter this is a true story and it's the craziest story ever This guy was having a his daughter was having a sweet sixteen. And Chris um a famous singer was performing in his hometown. His daughter wanted to bring her sweet sixteen. To the event. The guy says, I know you know the manager.

Can you help? This guy gets some tickets and do anything special. Turns out I get the the guy's daughter as a back up singer for one song with the mic off. Everyone in school the next day's Well she's like the hero of this like what happened? Oh my god, they're freaking out. The guy calls me up he goes

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you have what you do. But m you lit my daughter up and if you ever need anything, let me know. Like Turns out He w I can't make this up.

He's the president of NetJets. A year later I need six hundred and fifty airplanes. I call them off like Jim. You're never gonna believe this. Tic tick. Guy got your door on

I have an idea for a thing, he gets to me the beaning. We get thrown out of the meeting twelve minutes because they're like we're not giving two kids access to our six hundred and fifty airplanes. And this guy Jim Jacobs comes up to me after the meeting and goes You know what?

That was amazing. I said, We got thrown out in twelve minutes. What do you mean amazing? He goes Rich Santulli, my party, he doesn't give anyone twelve minutes. He goes, this thought that he come back next week and bring this thing to life. Repitch it. I need more information. So we came back the next week and we realized we can never sell them in a power point, which is like but every guy sees a hundred power points every year.

We brought in our own focus group. We'd eat people in the lobby. Mm-hmm. And they walked in one by one. And they stood up and said that they would never buy a fraction of an airplane. What NetJets was selling.

But they would buy a twenty five hour jet cart. And at the end of the meeting they literally said If you guys raise money or put up your own money, if you can figure it out We'll give you a shot. And a a couple of years later we had more customers than NetJet.

That's crazy. You showed him the market. You were like I could either put up a chart or a pie chart right here. Or I could literally walk the market into the room and have them say, I need this product. And it turns out that eight people saying I need this product to your face.

Makes a bigger impact. than a pie chart that says eleven percent of the market needs this. When I think back on this moment at twenty eight years old. And we had like Carl Banks from the New York Giants. I think Run from Run D M C was there, was right behind me on the wall.

Um these guys' Yeah, we brought we brought him in. We brought him in and when we said when when when we They got up one by one and explained Why this card would work. And

You know, I think what they realized was They had been pitching to a a much older corporate Client. And that they what they realized, I think, in the meeting was here are these two twenty seven year old And by the way, remember I said people buy into people, stories, and momentum?

This had nothing to do with our product. The decision maker looked us in the eye and said, I see enthusiasm. I see someone that's no matter what, even they have though they have no heviation experience. Is gonna make this work. And I'm willing to bet on these two guys.

It wasn't There was no power point, it was us. Like you're the business plan. You Or the business plan.

So At the end of the meeting, he literally said to us After we got the deal and like year one we did a I think we did like Close to two hundred million in sales year one. And I remember going into his office and and asking, I said, Rich Santuly.

Who is like He knighted me, man. He knighted me. I said which Wha how do we how do we end up here, man? And he looked me dead in the eye and he goes, You guys remind me of me when I was twenty seven.

And bringing in this focus group. Yes, they came in and they explained why they would buy a card and yes, they saw a much younger demo That someone could be a lifetime customer. Now at twenty five versus a lifetime customer fifty.

So they saw the lifetime value of what we were bringing in. This younger generation of Athlete entertainer. You know, young mogul, et cetera. That they wanted that.

Because that's incredibly valuable to get that person on their plane at a young age. But at the end of the day. They he So I start thinking My Penny and I, my partner and I

that he wanted a bet on. And you know, I just want to say this for for anyone listening here, because I know this is primarily a business podcast. By the way. It took me thirty seven minutes to warm up, but now I'm fully here. He's here. I'm slow I'm slow today, but I got it now. Um You know.

Like I said, that was never in our business plan. Oh, we're gonna bring in our own focus group to start a company that does five billion in sales. It's like It's the things that live off. Yeah. the business plan that make the biggest difference.

And when you have a chance Y you know, you don't get a lot of big me m meetings like that. And I remember twenty seven. walking in there and saying to my partner like this is as big as it gets because you know what? There is no one else that has six hundred and fifty airplanes.

This is it. And um You have to bring that meeting to life. You have to stand out. You have to

You know, not in a gimmicky way. Well you have to make that memorable, man. And um Fortunately we were able to do that. And it worked.

And then we had an amazing amazingly fruitful relationship and partnership with Net Jess. Until we exit it. Are you um So like I I I I think that all three of us might be a a a bit similar in in business relationships where we're like we bring the passion and some of the creativity and the zero to one stuff. Where you good at running that company or were you or did you have a good partner who was running it and you were great at

kinda bring some of the deals to fruition. I can only run marathons. I can't run any business. I'm not running anything. No, I'm a terrible operator. I'm a terrible manager. But I'm really good at knowing that I'm terrible at that. And being okay with it, so

You know. We were able to hire a CEO right away. Um And then which allow me to focus on sales, which I was which I was better at. Buzz, which I was really good before the inst before Instagram

I'm not so good at the it uh now with Instagram but back When there was no Instagram I was good at creating pureable opportunities and and Talk worthy events.

And um For my year that was really important. So no. Um I have never I've never been the CEO of a business. I've never ran or operated a business.

But I've been a founder I think five times. And how'd that model work? Is it like a Costco model where you were breaking even on the two hundred million in sales, but you ch made money off the uh a membership? No. So we The original deal with NetJets was

We were leasing time on their planes, but I wouldn't have to we wouldn't have to enter into the a long term lease. Until we stole this, so we had no risk. They were carrying all the paper. So if I bought if you and If Sam showing you guys bought a hundred hours, we go by a hundred hours. And it was marked up.

So we were just a marketing organization. They owned and operated the planes. And we were leasing it. As we got big all of a sudden We have Yeah.

four thousand members we're doing a billion dollars a year. Then the model changed and we had to start buying our airplanes. But by that time we had you know, significant cash and we were able to do that. So it started off

With Literally, it was an incredible deal for us. And for that. Um it was a true Um no los

For both parties. And that those headline numbers are really big. How big was that exit? I mean, that's a that's a pretty big thing. How big is NetJets? I don't even know. Uh I don't even remember what NetJet sold to Berkshire for. I'm sure it's public. This was before Bercher owned it? Is that right? Let's just sold it to Berkshire prior to us and then

And then we went to now we're part of Net now Chi Jet's now part of Natchez.'Cause that would've been a good stock to just get in the deal. I know, right? No, we didn't. Net Chet sold for seven twenty five, seven and twenty five million and ninety eight. Um and half of it was paid in stock. So that was um if if That was a good deal for that jets. Depending on if you I don't know what the revenue was, but that that's a lot of money.

You um you snapped your fingers and you were like, uh we did first year we did whatever. I forgot what you said, two hundred million or something. Two hundred I don't know what that means. What what is two hundred million there? That that's not that can't be membership dues. That's that would be insane. No, it is. Yeah. No,'cause our our average Our average customer spent Cl I think it was two hundred and fifty or two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a year. Gotcha. Okay. But and it's more like uh GM V so'cause you have to

So your take is some spread between that and then whatever next Okay, gotcha. So Yeah, I guess like on on on that model, what's the income on two hundred uh let's just say a hundred million, what what can your profit be on that? Well, this is thirty years ago. So how about I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was enough that I was now off the couch and living a very good life. And uh And by the way

The best ROI in that deal is I met my wife there. She was a customer. Of ours. And that's how I met my wife. Um you you said you t you told me something which was about getting the first customers. So before your wife was even a customer

Uh you know You're like, I'm on this plane. I'm like, holy shit, this is an amazing way to fly. I'd love to do this. I'm sure other people would love to do this. You come up with the idea. Cool. How do you go get

those first people to give you two hundred thousand dollars to be a part of this, right? That's like a h a huge Like Where did you go find those customers and and tell the story of kinda how you got it off the ground? Well we were start we started out You know, I think the first thing that any adjunct

most entrepreneurs at least in our position and at More key j is we had to establish credibility'cause if I was gonna sell you time on a plane And you said who flies with who flies with you guys? That would be my first question, or one of'em. And I said, Oh, my dad and my next door neighbor, you probably would leave, but if I was like, you know, Oprah Bill Clinton.

You'd be like, Wow, they must have vetted this, you know. So we started out looking for athletes, entertainers, and and high profile people. Um, which was not easy for me. Um But

I had to go where wealthy people congregated and I heard about this you know, they could afford time on the jet. I heard about a conference in Monterey, California. That was just getting some traction called T. So I grew out to Monterey and um Yeah, I told the guys like, Hey, I'm gonna go get my first sale.

I'm going to thing called a TED Talk. They were like, What He's tied. And it's in Monterey, California, you gotta like you can't even get there. You have to like

I connected through Chicago into whatever, rented a car five hours a minute, right? I get to the Ted. It's like Fort Knox, man. Everybody has a credential. Like

This like huge and I'm like, You need a credential to get in here? There's no credentials to be found. So I'm thinking like how am I gonna Sneak in, buy someone's past, like Go into the room where all the qualified leads are.

I'm in this coffee shop plotting like you know My my My entrance or how I'm gonna do it. And every two hours the weave of people come in and they're buying they have these credentials I'm like, Oh, this is where they come on their break.

And they're all buying lattes and muffins and these lattes and muffins and whatever. Lattes and muffins. So the next morning I got up at five and I bought all the muffins from the I controlled all the muffin inventory. In Monterey, California. And I literally just waited and this is a true story, by the way. And

It's it's been verified. You can walk so Two hours later, this guy uh the first wave of people on the break walk in. And the guy orders a latte and a muffin, I stop'em. Uh they tell'em that that they could give them a latte, but they're all out of muffins. It's like

Fucking nine in the morning. Like you're out of muffins. The guy starts walking, I stop I'm like sorry. I overheard you. I actually have an extra muffin if you want a muffin.

And uh he's like, You got an extra muffin. I'm thinking, like, I got every single fucking muffin under the table, man. What do you need? And um I started talking to him, he's like, you know, what do you I'm here for the conference? I'm like me too, what do you do? I tell him what I do. He said, You gotta be kidding me, I'm in the market for a private jack card. And his name was Josh Copham and he owned a company called Half.com. Famous VC.

Oh, it's a name. Now he is. I bumped into him like three years ago. At uh At a retreat. And and we were we were talking about this. And anyway, he was my first sale.

He was my first down. And and that is not a story of me being a good sales rep because like I said, I am truly back of the pack. But it is an example of me putting myself in a situation will versus can of putting myself in a situation

Where I could attract that kind of luck. You know? And and um He was my first sale though, showing to answer your question. And and you know what happened after that?

I'm gonna tell you what happened after that. I service the hell out of'em. I did what everybody listening would do, but I did thirty percent more. So when he went to Mexico He expected me to return his call and

D every EM, DM and all that. Of course I did what everyone here would do. But he went to Mexico, he didn't expect a list of pediatricians that I vetted in case his kids got sick. He didn't expect me to make reservations every Wednesday at at every night at eight o'clock. During spring break in Mexico and Kiss he and his wife wanted to go to dinner. And And and after a couple of months of doing that

What he didn't expect me to do. He gave me the magic word. He gave me a referral. And That was rinse and repeat for for five years.

Until we grew this So no, I was never the CEO. I was never The the the operator. I was never the COO. I was I wasn't even d I don't even think I was on the org chart. So I'm I'm I'm looking at your check this out. Well you're on the website. I'm looking at I use web archive. I'm looking at the night uh the two thousand five version of MarkeyJet.com. And I'm looking at your about page.

And what's interesting, it looks like your senior executive team was not only awesome, it was like amazing. Cause Ken Austin, I see, was your executive VP. Is that the same Ken Austin? That went and started Is it Avion, the Tequila Company, and most recently started Proper Twelve with Connor McGregor. Is is that the same Ken Austin? And the Tequila Company with the Raw. Yes. You've done a good job of hiring.

No, we were the Boston Celtics, man. We we were the Boston Celtics. We From like the old we we the Talent. At this company. was

Exceptional. Ken Austin. is an exceptionally I don't he could be them he is such a talented Guy.

And um I learned so much from Ken. And you know, we had great sales reps and we attracted really good talent because We built a really good culture. Well, it's also a sick product. I mean you said you met your wife there. It's like that's like the greatest line ever. Like, Oh, do you you you're here at this jet company, so I know like you're of someone or you're I know you're someone interesting. Definitely. Just so happens I I work here Or I own the company. I mean it's like a that's that's a it's a pretty uh wonderful experience, I imagine, to work at a private jet company.

It w it w it really was, and you nailed it. But the only thing I would say to that is I think there were like sixty five private jet companies that put a flag in the ground. From when we started to when we sold. And I think we were the only one that made money. I might be wrong about that, but it's

Including uh Garrett Camp, the guy from Uber. He created he tried to do an Uber for Jets. Uh that didn't work out, right? It's it's very very difficult. And if we didn't have Net Jets as a partner. Mm.

You know, it wouldn't have I'm sure it wouldn't have worked as well. So l I'll have things lined up first. And uh I think this is interesting'cause now we're seeing a pattern. The first is You're picking businesses in like categories that

They're not in the NBA curriculum. Nobody's thinking about Oh, sports teams need slogans and CDs that'll increase their fandom. Nobody even realizes that that's a niche You can go into the Yeah. To do you know, this membership model for private jets. M nobody's even looking in that area at the time, right? Very few people are even thinking about that, and he's just not

Common. Then you go coconut water. So now you're Consumer package goods. in a beverage category that's non existent really at the time. Um, and I think Zika was pretty small when you found it. It's not like it had like You know, tons of momentum.

Um, so talk about Two things. Number one Finding these niches. Like what what is it that that you what is your operating philosophy that leads that seems to consistently lead you to these? That's the first question. And the second is The key partnership that got it off the ground. I heard an amazing Matt Damon story. I want to hear the full version of it.

What was Zeke up? Yeah. Yeah. I spent a year trying to figure out how to have my own coconut water company. I went to Brazil, I went to Jamaica. What

Try to figure out this is there were no there was no coconut water in the stores. D. This is I'm so let me back it up even further. I was running a hundred mile race. And I did a lot of

trick when I was doing my training, I did a lot of research. Around Hydration and nutrition. If I'm gonna run for arguably twenty four hours How many calories do I need to eat it drink an hour? Um

How many calories do I need to take in an hour? How much fluid ounces do I need to drink in hour? How much salt do I need an hour? And my research led me to coconut work. So I ran this race powered by coconut water. And I finished it in twenty two hours and thirty minutes. When I was done.

I'm like This is gonna be this is the new Gatorade. No one knows about this. On the human guinea pig. I'm bringing this to market.

You know, it's a better option, it's all natural, one ingredient. You know, it rains. God sends it up a tree. We crack it open and we drink it. Like this is I mean, are you kidding me?

So I spent a year trying to figure it out how to import it and I realized like I did get a nine eighty on my S A T. 'Cause I couldn't figure it out. Well I knew I could market and sell it. I knew I could.

So Again, same model, same formula. I took it the idea to Coca-Cola. The president of Koch's emerging brands division Um

was friends with one of my customers at Marquee Jack, he got me a meeting. I pitched the meeting. Uh I in the meeting I pitched this idea of coconut water. He takes a liking to me, but he says We don't buy power points.

Or Coca-Cola. We buy brands. He goes, but if you partner with another company or something, you know, maybe we can Then up. That that's out there that's proved that they can

Make the product, ship the product. Get it in stores or whatever. We'll come in we'll partner with you. So I went to Zico and that's how we formed the partnership. During the meeting.

But Um About a week before I was at um Matt Damon's house. And Matt was also a customer of a Marquis Jet and I did the things that I did for Josh Coppelman.

With Mad and we became friends. And I said to Matt, you know, he'd asked me if I wanted to spend the night, they were going out, and I said, I'm going to Brazil in a day or two I can't see he goes, What are you doing in Brazil? I said, I'm starting a coconut water business. He's like, you gotta be kidding me. He's like, I love coconut. I have a coconut tree in my backyard.

Ha ha He's like I drink. If anything happens. What, you know, with this company, let me know. I may want to get involved. A month later in the meeting at Coke.

Like the meeting is going so bad. I'm showing this power point, you know, like And and out of nowhere, I I know I had to change the whole feel of the I just turned to the president, the guy at Coke, and I'm like, You know, my partner, Matt Damon and I and the guy That team is your partner. I s I didn't mention that?

What are you talking about? We go all the way to the one yard line, I leave and I call Matt. I'm like, Matt, I need a favor He's like I'm like, can I come over with a cat? Can we climb up your tree? Get a coconut, chop it open. You know, go in the kitchen, put a straw in it.

You know, um turn to the camera and say Mutar, Mutar Kent, the CEO of Coke. There's gotta be a better way than this, he's like All right. He filmed this award winning Friggin'

Thirty five second short film of him getting a coconut, chopping it open. And saying there's gotta be a better way. And and we got the deal. And the creek you know what's interesting about that is Obviously who's gonna get you know

Uh a megastar to come it. That's not the point. It's it goes back to what I said. Um, will you make it work? Putting yourself in a situation where you can get lucky. Here's the other pattern, Sean. You're talking about patterns. And making me making yourself

stand out and be memorable in a meeting. Now I stretched it a little with this one. But But um But it ended up it ended up working out. That's an amazing story. That's amazing. That's a good one. I love that story.

I love that story. You That's wild. By the way, Coke bought it two years later. Hundred percent. Did you uh when you bought did you buy into Zico at the time? Like did you uh Was that like a And have you made

Bet you felt like financial bets that were risky, like, you know, Elon does this thing where he sort of rolls all the proceeds into the next business. And sort of regoes all in each time, which is, you know, probably not advisable to most, but like What's your strategy been now that you have some chips to play with? Do you

Do you make big financial bets? Are you saying, No, no, I'm gonna add value strategically? Do you start things from scratch? What do you what do you like to do with the chips that as you accumulate them? How do you how have you used that to to your advantage? Well I fa I've realized that I've got as I've gotten older that more isn't better, better's better. And I really don't make a lot of bets. I have four kids. Um, what I'm most proud of Sean in my journey at fifty five is that I've been I've I've exited five businesses.

But I've been able to keep build a family, keep my health. you know, be a really good son to my parents. Um I've great friends, so

I really aren't I'm not Uh, and I'm not using Eli as an example. You you brought him up, not me. But I'm not trying to roll everything in or Um, I'm really proud of what I've been able to do and I I'm really proud of the life that I built. So I really don't I really say no to mo

I have this thing. At this point in my life. If it's high aggravation for high reward, I'm not doing it. If it's And that goes for anything, money, friends. I don't want high aggravating friends.

I'm on friend reduction right now. Come on, friend reduction, man. I want low aggravation. We're doing layoffs. Yeah. Excuse me Mr. David, can you step out of my office? There's a separate package three more times, but then that's it. We need to have a discussion. But I'm not trying to, you know, push you really. It's like I it's based on in food my enthusiasm for something.

Um, how's it gonna impact my life, meaning like day to day. Um I walked away from several ideas that I think could be really good. 'Cause you're like just'cause you have a good idea doesn't mean you should do it.

And I've Um Sarah said that to me. I had an idea. Now I see people doing it now. About eight years ago I said, Sarah, I have an idea that's bigger than Marquis Jet.

Like Marquis Jett was the biggest thing I'd done. You know? And um I t walked her through it and she goes, That's an incredible idea. Don't do it. What was it?

I wanted to take Commer th this is going back eight years ago. So now it might sound like Oh, well people are doing it now. I actually pitched this to a major airline. Now.

Um that's doing it. But I wanted to make commercial travel For people.

I felt like there was a bit And there still is an opportunity for people that would pay up. The fly commercial? But they want an experience that's more private. So for example, if I'm flying from New York to California. And I'm by myself.

I'm on a global or a gulf stream. And I'm going round trip. That's a Expensive flight, man. That is an expensive flight.

Um, where I could just buy a first class ticket for maybe fifteen hundred bucks. So instead of let's say that that caught that flight cost me, if you chartered it, maybe it's gonna cost you let's just say fifty thousand dollars. It might be more, it might be I've no, I don't even know today what it is. But I could spend fifty thousand dollars on a private flight. Which is amazing.

Or I could buy a first class ticket for fifteen hundred bucks. I as a fifteen hundred dollar ticket holder What Gladly give you another fifteen hundred dollars United American Delta Frontier whoever.

If you can walk me through a back door and make me feel like Mick Jagger and escort me onto the airplane. Through the back door. And um no one was doing it. No one was doing it. And now they are doing stuff like that.

That's smart. It's like you like unbundled the private experience. It's like okay, there's the jet part of it, but then there's the walk onto the plane, walk off the plane. 'Cause when once you get on an airplane, do you really care? Yeah, it doesn't matter. I'm in one A. No one's bothering me in one A. And in some regard, the commercial jet is safer. You have more amenities. So yeah, like I but I've been on a I flew first class uh from New York to LA one time for like some meeting. I w I had never flown first class, but I did it because I had it was overnight and I had to be ready for a meeting. And I get on, I was one A And one B or sitting right next to me was Stephen A. Smith.

And I was like How the fuck do you go in the plane before me? And I like looked it up and apparently there is like a private door, I guess if you're famous. Uh what is that? Well, I think now several airlines have it and there's services that do it outside of the airlines it as independent services. But my point is

So I had the idea. But I also felt like I had the buy side that I could deliver to the airline. Because you know, I'm involved with the M with some NBA players and Um I'm part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. And I so I have

I have And my friends are all doing really well. That are that are all doing really well. I thought would want to have this service. So I have the idea and a significant part of the buy side.

private fires onto their mother ship, which is the domestic part of their travel. But um but anyway, to answer your question, so things like that. Good ideas, lucrative, but does but for me at that point in my life To put I feel d I don't know if I have the energy.

to do it's gonna take away from Tuesday's flag football game, I'm not doing it, and I don't know if I had that. If I still ha I don't. I don't. Still have that. Well, you you but you can't turn that switch off, right? Because I saw you on Instagram like, you know, I don't know, a year ago or six months ago or something like that. And you were like Pickles.

It's yeah, you're like, uh guys Pickles. And you know, it seemed like you know the guy who was saying coconut water when nobody was talking about coconut water He's talking about pickles. So me and me and Ben start paying attention. We're like, Hey, what's Jesse it's doing with pickles? Well, okay, he's kinda right. There's no brand in pickle. And so describe this pickles opportunity that you see now. Currently, this is present day now, right? We're done with the past. Now we're talking present and future.

Um what do you see in the pickle market? Well, two hundred and forty five million Americans eat pickles every year. It's like seventy five percent of our population eat pickles. And again it goes back to the to our running Conversation. А старті сі а рац.

pickles at the con at the at the aid stations, they never existed ten years ago. Pickle juice never existed ten years ago at At the eight stations of marathons and your local five. Yeah, so that made my intention. It's i was that it has a lot of salt in it. When I grew up, all my black friends would say that they would drink pickle juice in order to avoid a hangover. Oh yeah, in Russia it's a it's a you know it's a big remedy for

Hangovers. But My point is like it be it put my antennas up. Like what is this? You know? Just like when I saw

The first thing of coconut water on a shelf of like what the hell is this? I just went on I'm gonna So So I started doing so I started thinking about it. And I'm like, you know what?

I can't even name. Three pickle companies. And I I love pickles. I don't even know what this is by the way, this is the part where he's gonna bring in a focus group of ten people and he's gonna say, Name a pickle company and nobody can do it, and he's gonna be like, That's the business plan Who isn't?

So I I I Research like the seven best tasting pickle. And of the seven best tasting pickles, I think it was like uh the Today'd show did a something. Someone credible did it. Um

I only knew one cup one of the companies. So I'm like if I only know one of this top seven best tasting pickles There's a problem in the marketing of pickles. It's a marketing problem. And I'm a good marketer.

So And I'm like This is a category with no innovation, no fun. You know? Seventy five percent of Americans eat pickles.

The average American eats like ten pounds a year. That's more than cereal. And I'm like I like it here. I like this space. I I'm a I'm a pickle guy too, Jesse. Same. Is it Clausen like the big brand? Is that right? I like Clausen. I like Mount Olive. Is it called uh

Valsic or V Vlasic, I I like that company. But I think Mount Olives is the biggest ones. I always get the little ones that look like a witch's toe. I've got to be. I'm not looking right I'm not big I'm not big this isn't big pickle around with a Clatterson No disrespect to that company, right? I don't even know. But I'm just saying, like you ever see anyone wearing a hat and Oh my god, it's like I'm convinced in fact We're texting Mr. Beast right now. We're we're gonna come into this market too. You you just made a mistake, my friend. You're we're bringing our cr our influencers into this market. I I believe you on this opportunity.

Why do that? Let's just let's get the beast on the phone let's partner with the beast beast pitkles. That's right. That's right. Who needs Matt David? Yeah, where's David? I need it Go get Ben Affleck. He seems like a good pickle guy. I need to talk about Beast's low aggravation, though. I only want the low aggravation part. Mount Olive does uh two hundred twenty million in revenue a year. Privately owned. It sounds it sounds doable, man. Sounds like our money. Right guys? Yeah. I want to thank them very much for it.

Yeah, phone. Shoot a text over to CEO of all of them. Just let them know to keep that money for us, all right? We'll be there soon. What other ideas you got? You'll get this because you know, you're a You know, you're a rap guy. When you go on certain shows like The Breakfast Club or Sway in the Morning, there's like an expectation like okay, if you come on here, you gotta freestyle. And we're trying to do that of the business realm where it's like you come out here, you gotta bring fresh ideas. You can't just Only talk about your history. And you go you tell me you go

I got fifty ideas of my top drawer. I said all right, say no more. But you hinted at me. The pickle names sound like a rap name. Sweet Gherkin. Bread and butter.

Kosher Dill. Like these are all rap names, man. Yeah. Yeah. We're about to have a Nigo's pickles. Um All right, tell me tell me about this idea. You you gave me three words, I don't know w what the idea is, but you said Ready made eight ounce drinks. Wha what you got in mind? Yeah, so I mean I I've been accumulating ideas In my in my top draw for thirty five years.

Um I love starting things. Sean, you know, but Um Yeah, that I mean and I don't I don't mind by the way, if you guys wanna run anyone wants to run with this, you can.

I'll think of one penny. Royalty and I'll give it to charity. Um No, I think like I go back to Five hour energy.

The brilliance of five hour energy is they took a Yeah, twelve ounce. uh energy drink, they shrug it down to two and a half ounces. Right. That's what five hour energy was. And

Why did it work? They they only I believe I believe they only are predominantly sold. Stores that would put it On the countertop. When they started out.

So like it wasn't buried. a GNC on the bottom shelf and it was like on the countertop. at check out ImpulseBy. They were selling ten million two and a half bottle ounce bottles. Every week.

Ten million. When I look aro when you look around retail At the counter at checkout of retail. The Countertop is incredibly crowded.

At you go to Whole Foods, there's gum, there's mince, there's this, there's that, there's chocolates. Everywhere you go, gas stations, there's lottery tickets and that. The only place That I found like where there's Open area.

Are liquor stores. If you go into a liquor store You don't see the the in the the That Self state of the stands and The crowded space and all the chasch and stuff.

that you see at gas stations and at at grocery and and and other retailers. And um I think there's a a tremendous opportunity. I was gonna call them quickies. Um to have like ready made shots Same thing as as five like of your

Woo woo lemon drop. Whatever your favorite kamikaze ready made drinks are. Right at the countertop. That are already made, fresh ingredients. You know?

Where people could just come And grab and go. and have a ready made cocktail that they can bring to tailgate. Parties. Et cetera.

I'm not saying it's gonna it's gonna be great goose vaca. But I see an opportunity. And if not that Someone should go make a deal in and in a very fragmented Now you got me thinking Sean. Now I'm not this wasn't even on my radar, but here we go.

Like the freestyling shit we were talking about. Um Really even a better idea would be to go it Liquor stores are that is the most fragmented Market.

out there. They're all mom and pop. There's no like chain of liquor st I mean now like you know, you go into your local liquor stores like the guy My neighbor owns a liquor store. I go there and I get the wine and this and that. Do a roll up. Go pay someone for the Go rent. The countertops.

Of all the liquor stores. And then go to Nabisco or one of the big boys and be like Hey, guess what? I want ten Thousand.

Countertops. You wanna widget there? Yeah. You wanna put in your fucking widget there? Keep the money while I'm gonna get it.

Oh I love it. Yeah, the real estate. We could probably talk for fifteen minutes about the opportunity and come up with ten ideas around that. Yeah, that's where it starts.

It starts with just like bad idea or better idea. The idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it uh you you're kinda like I think the background of rap I'm not I'm not joking about this. I I think the the way the brain can sort of Like not censor itself and wait till it has a fully formed perfect idea.

But actually just start to go and then know that oh I'm gonna hop from this to this to this to this. There. Yeah. That'll be the line. And that's all I need to do is get to that one that one line. I'm gonna show you this too. This is this is something I'm selling now. This is I don't know if are we on are we just on YouTube too. Are we on here or no or video, video, video? This is by twenty twenty four all planned out.

This is next year. Fully almost fully b What my year looks like. My races. What's orange? There's a lot of orange on that. What does orange stand for? So

When Sarah sold spank, she wanted to do a lot of travelling. So this year we committed as a family to go on the road. So all the orange As crazy as this looks, it's all travel. We're going to Africa, we're going to New Zealand. But it's all mapped out. Yellow what's yellow. What's yellow and what's what's green or or blue, whatever that is. Yellow on my races and events.

Green is my speaking. Uh green is Oh birthdays and stuff. This thing's dope. I wanted to ask you about this because You are Super legit as far as like what you've actually been able to accomplish.

Your level of success. And you do stuff like this, you have like the big ass calendar club or whatever. It's like that thing is called big ass calendar. That's a product you make. It's like a course you have. And um I'm always surprised that you're doing those things. And you know, what what's your thought process on like or the running club? Or the running club. Like how do you pick projects? Yeah, I mean I think this goes back to the earlier question you asked me about reinvesting

in other businesses and stuff like that. Um How old are you guys? How old are you, Sam? Thirty four. I'm thirty five.

So I got I got two decades on you guys. Um and But I got I got the most experiential decades, I believe, on you guys, your the forties and fifties. Thirties, forties, fifties.

Um You know. For me. There's I'm in I'm in a coaching space.

You know, um Um I speak a lot, I have coaching programs, the calendar, but even the events that I do, the run running races and this kind of stuff. It's it all has an element of Getting people

To do more than they thought to inspire people to do more than they thought they could. But but to answer your question And the reason why I just said that Is Um

The gal who works with us in our family office was looking at all the businesses and Um and asked me like I don't have a sales rep. Um on my payroll. I don't I'm not going crazy on the marketing and this and that and

It's really word of mouth and She looked at the numbers and she's like, You know, Do you want to scale this and what are you doing wanna Why don't you just go do the liquor's idea or the airplane idea? Or this idea or that idea, or any of the ideas in your draw. And I pulled out my phone.

And I said Ken Law. All these are from today. All of these messages are for today. Pick one. Read it.

I said, I can't and it was like you changed my life, or this has really inspired me, or you you know, I did this, or I saw my parents I haven't seen my parents in a long time and you know I talk about the importance of that very often, you know, about not Losing sight of what you already have while you're chasing your entrepreneurial dream, your health, your family, your friends.

There's no business in the world. That would give me the return on investment. that I'm getting right now. There's nothing I could do. What, build another marquee jet? Work twenty hour days.

I mean like that's not gonna give me that sense of Impact. Legacy for my kids. Um and just the feeling, quite honestly, that I have. I mean I It's indescribable.

A wire's a wire. You get the wire and it's like The same feeling you get When when you sell a business Is the same feeling you get when you finish the marath a marathon

You walk an old lady across the street. Well, you do anything that makes you feel good about yourself. I swear to God, and I have the right to say that'cause I sold five of them. I have the right to say that. It's the same feeling. And for the for

For very very for a lot of people. Chasing that. Waiting twenty years to sell a business or something to have that feeling. When I feel like I get that Every single day.

And that's a really powerful place to be in your life at fifty five. And and that's the reason, man. And and so you're right, I had these businesses and You know There's no real plan around them. People like what she would I don't I don't know.

I'm just enjoying How it's making me feel right now. And what's wrong with that? I gotta scale just to scale. Because everyone told me I had to scale. I don't want to do that, man. I did that.

So a question that we like to ask people is It's a really simple question, but we we learn a lot, which is like what do you do with your money. So like you have a really interesting lifestyle. I agree with you. I'm not I I don't like the Elon Musk path of uh all these sacrifices and uh Um doing things for the sake of humanity. I'm like, I'd rather have a fun life and you have a really sick life. I mean I I I I'm I'm a

Former College athlete runner. So I I like watching what you're doing. Um and I like the work out and do these podcasts and have a lot more fun.

Then just work. What do you do with your money um And um When you're Financing it, thus are you just

Are you using your speaking fees to finance it? And then you have your marquee jet money in just one big account in the in the markets. Well how how's your portfolio set up and what are you doing with your money? Well just you know, it's um I don't know, man, like we we we never really think about it that much. I know that's I don't want to delittle it or sound in any way a noxious in fact I'm incredibly grateful, but like it goes back to the relationship with money.

From the beginning of the conversation. Um We're not trying to triple it or quadruple our money. Like we don't really think about it. Like It's spread out. Strategically and

We live our life. What's your monthly burn? I mean, wha what does one need to spend uh per month to ha to to do that? I like to ride my bike. I like to run. I just swim.

I like to speak in public. I like to be around my family and friends. What whatever that cost me, Sam. Is what I'm gonna spend on it. How's that for an answer?

Yes, Sam. Uh I wanna ask you about something that You have talked about that I really liked, which is uh around your life philosophy. So you have a few of these that have made an impact on me.

You um I don't know where I saw it, some TikTok clip or something. You were talking about like This three minute Daily thing. You go, three minutes and I forgot exactly how you phrase it, but it was like comp you go I I can network

In three minutes, right? I I can I can invest in my friends, my five my network. In in just three minutes a day, and I'm always interested in anything that's like You know? six minute abs. I I I I tend to be interested in the like, you know, shorter time frame type things. And you go, compliments?

What was the other ones? You go compliments, um Complimenting, congratulating, consulting. Explain that that philosophy'cause I've been doing that now where I I basically go through my text list and I'm like, Who's somebody I could compliment? Boom. Send it out. And they love it because they're like, uh you know, I'm thinking of them. We haven't talked in a little while. It's really simple for me to do.

This is like kind of like a a actually like a very effective Little tip. I want you to share it with here. Well in my twenties I didn't have a way to to I had no I was really out of Super tight budget. I was writing ten handwritten letters. I went a year. Not every single day, but pretty much.

Writing about ten handwritten letters a day. And that was my entire marketing strategy. And I realized that You know. It it's a great way to get through the

the clutter of email, DM, social you know, all this stuff. 'Cause a lot of people don't check their emails or their assistant does or whatever, but everyone reads a handwritten letter. So I The three minutes a day. Is

You know. I have sent the text. You mentioned the K Academy, Coach K. I sent a uh fluent to Carolina Um, not too long ago.

And I said Koch attacks. Thanking him for having the event. And I said, You don't have to respond, I just wanna let you know, like it makes me feel like an eight year old for five days a year. I wanna thank you for for doing this. I know you don't have to do it. And

It took and like I realized like he might share that with his team, like we're having an impact. Like look at look at this note. Or tell his wife he might do nothing, but now If I see Coach K, I have permission to go over to him and say, Coach I send you a text, like I don't know if you got it, but like I have that permission to do it. I'm not coming out of left field.

Like, oh hey coach. You know, like Well you just So that took me forty five seconds to hit sent. Write it and it's that.

So I was like okay if I did Three of those a day. And just to Three minutes. And just started hitting friends.

suppliers, manufacturers, influence whatever. Over the course of a year I've find a thousand I will plant a thousand Permission slips. All over the country and world.

Three minutes a day. So in Carpool Line when I take my kids to school or pick'em up. I just fire off a couple of emails or call'em or whatever. So that was that theory. The compliment congratulated consoling. Is

Really just kinda Three things that I I like to To remind myself to do To maintain and build Authentic relationships.

Authentic relationships, not relationships. authentic relationships. If you have somebody in your life that's greeting. And you don't reach out to them? And you guys are young, but

You'll see in the next ten years. Friends will start to get diagnosed with stuff, parents Grandparents are gonna pass away like Your life's gonna change, man. If you have someone that's grieving and you don't reach out to them, they will never forget it.

Building new. Oh the the It you can't human nature you can't even help but take inventory. Who reached out and who did? You're just aware.

I just lost my father. I know everybody that called me. I know everybody that didn't call me. And the people that didn't call me don't get a pass. They don't get a pass. So you always want to consult.

The people that It you know, something happens to a friend in your life that's great, you wanna congratul. You know? And then you want to cop on it. You know, Sean Man, Sam.

Listen. You guys have an a amazing podcast. You did it yourself. You know, you guys decided to like sold some businesses and here you are you know, bringing on inspiring people

To inspire entrepreneurs all over the world And um I just wanna congratulate on you on your success, man. I'm not you know Uh You just call someone out of nowhere. You default to calls or texts?

Either way. I just think I personally like handwritten letters. Here's one. Um Because I feel like the intent

It takes a little longer. But to actually get a stamp, lick it, go to the mailbox. Put it in the mailbox. It's received completely different than just sent. But

You know, so by like in the pecking order, but you don't have The ability to do that. It takes too long. But at the end of the year I do like to write twenty five to fifty handwritten thank you letters every year.

I have a whole close out the year process. that I kinda teach people, but like and that's one of them. You know? But you compliment your graduately in consult. And you do that to people and like if I Sam, if I hit you up

God forbid you had something bad and and and I don't even know I just met you for the first time. Other than the question about how my burr rate, I love you. Ha ha ha. So if I if I were to call you up after one meeting and say, Sam man, I heard about XYZ. Man, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

And then four months later I call you up and say, Sam, man, you guys just hit five million download a day. Congratulations, man. And then I call you up again at the end of the year and say, Sam, I just wanna let you know, man. Damn question you asked me about about my burry. You know?

I re thought it and I wanna compliment you because You ask the tough questions, and you know what? That's the seat that you're in. And I give you credit for asking Questions like that. to people on the other end. And I really admire you for that.

I do those three things in that year. You're gonna think differently about Well Sean. You laugh about that, and we're laughing about it, but let me ask you a question.

Who doesn't want to be a hero? You're right. Who doesn't want to be a hero? We Like

If you're telling me I don't I don't have to run into a building and save save someone? I can just do that and I could be a h quote unquote hero like You know what? I build my career doing that. Well, so this is about relationship but you also have others about skill building, life experiences. Explain some of your other kind of life rules, because I think these are really worth sharing. You know, people I think will be

Entertained and inspired by the business stories. But my hope is that that actually was just buying the right to drop a little wisdom on them at the end here,'cause this is the stuff I've liked the most from you from your story. Um, so so tell talk about, you know, the the sort of misogee or the the uh Kevin's rule like these are Pretty foundational.

Yeah, well that goes into kind of the planning that I showed you on the calendar and Um, I really ha I do do two or three things every year. Um At the beginning of the year, this is actually perfect timing. I don't know when this is gonna air, but like November, December, when you look into twenty twenty four or the next year. I try to have one big year defining thing.

on my calendar every year. Last year was my bike ride across America. Twenty fifteen was Living with the Seal, the book I wrote. Twenty seventeen I lived on a monastery, twenty sixteen or something, I started twenty nine of twenty nine, this company with my partner.

So there's an old Japanese ritual call the Misogi. And we took the liberty to kind of create our own version of what that means. But basically It means that every year you do one well the way w I've interpreted it.

is you do one big year defining thing. And you had you should have something to show for it every year. By the way. If you're thirty five years old, I don't I don't just rounding up here. Um and you live to be eighty five.

So you had that would be fifty year defining things between now and the end of your And at the end of your run. That you have on your life resume. That's pretty damn incredible. The second thing I do is something I call Kevin's rule.

Named after my friend Cabot. Um Which is every other weekend. I do something I normally wouldn't have done. Like

Instead of watching like a Georgia the Georgia football, I might take my kids fishing. I might go to a conference. I might You know, um Watch up spend a couple of hours learning something I I didn't know. Um I coined it Kevin's rule because Kevin and I were camping at Mount Washington with our kids.

And it was like there I go, Cad, there's eight it's like the winter, it's snowing, we're sleeping outside in a minus forty sleeping bag, minus twenty sleeping bag. I'm like, Cat, there's eight billion people in the world, man. It's only us on this mountain. You know It how often do you do this?'Cause he invited me. He's like oh every other week He's a police officer. I do so every other month. I do something I normally wouldn't have done. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, So at the end of the year, I got six mini adventures.

If you're thirty five and you live to be fifty five and you have six mini adventures That's three hundred mini adventures. And it Thirty. Fifty, I'm sorry, fifty you're defining things. You're Masogee.

And three hundred mini adventures. Sean. I don't care how much money you have or how little money you have. At the end of your run. If I go to you and you're eighty five years old on your deathbed.

And you're like, Jesse, man. Thank you. I took your advice listening to my podcast. And I now have Fifty unbelievable adventures I've

Done the Grand Canyon. I've taken my family here and I've Three hundred. Mini adventures that I've done. And by the way. It only took

Six days of the three hundred and sixty five days of the year. Seven days. Of the three hundred and sixty five days of the year. It's a two percent. Is that two percent? Six percent. What is that? We have a rule here. We don't do public math, so don't worry, you're off the hook.

Yeah, yeah. That's a great run. That's a great run. Have you ever hung out with Rob Dierdick? You you guys are really similar. We had him on, um and I I think I've said publicly, he's one of my favorite people.

Uh and you have the similar quality. Where you just have a framework. And you know what you like and you stick to it and you're really intentional and I live life on your terms, which is what why I think the highest calling thing we respect on the pod is Somebody who defines their own terms and then lives on'em. Even if you don't even if somebody doesn't know,'cause even successful people don't do that. Yeah like even people who are wealthy, they're like

I fucking hate my life because I'm tied to this job that I actually don't like doing. And you're a great example. definition tends to be exciting and awesome because you're doing all these adventures, but it doesn't matter what your your definition of of like your framework is, you've done a cool job of defining it and sticking with it. And I appreciate that. Well one cool thing that's different is Rob's is all about maximizing

He's like efficiency. How much How do I use my time, how do I allocate it, and how do I get the most done in that time? Whereas I feel like Jesse's Almost

Mike. It's a different relationship with time. It's like how do I have the maximum number of Oh. Incredible experiences. Um and amazing relationships and moments.

Whether that moment took five seconds or you know, five days or f five weeks, it doesn't really matter. It's like Maximizing kind of like the squeezing the juice out of out of the fruit, you know, versus versus uh, you know, trying to Optimize every moment. It in in in in a generation of hustle and grind, which is so obvious.

No shit. You gotta work hard. That message gets lost. And you don't want to give up your twenties and your thirties. And your forties and certainly not your fifties.

If you can avoid it, just grinding and chasing something. That you can get the same feeling. Doing something else. Well, we feel lucky for having having you on. Uh Very early on on the podcast, Sam introduced me to a guy, Mike Brown, and he said one line on the pod that changed my life. He goes, uh

He goes, Yeah, my theory of life is find the people that you love and then do life with them. And I just thought, Oh, if there's a North Star for me, like that's the new North Star. Uh you know, maybe something maybe something more wise will come take its place, but that's it. And uh that's the pot. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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