EntreLeadership - #142: Jesse Itzler—Breaking the Routine to Get Better

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

Serial entrepreneur and Atlanta Hawks owner Jesse Itzler joins us to share his story of getting out of a rut and why every business owner needs to do the same. Warning, though: Itzler took it to the extreme. The former rapper and co-founder of Marquis Jet invited a Navy SEAL to live with him and his wife for a month so he could train with the toughest man on the planet. So if you feel like you need to break the routine and continue growing, listen in. This one is definitely for you. entreleadership.com/podcast Dave's High-Performance mp3 Download Infusionsoft's Field Guide to CRM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Here is what's coming to you on this episode. Our feature conversation is with Jesse Itzler. Jesse is so many different things.

Primarily, we talk about his new book called Living with a Seal, 31 days training with the toughest man on the planet. I'll tell you more about Jesse in just a few moments. Fascinating conversation. Really enjoyed this one. You're going to love it as well. And then we have a secondary conversation that we're going to bring to you. And this is with Karen Moore.

Now, she's one of our listeners. She is truly an entree leader. You will learn that. The evidence is vast on that fact. And she's the winner of our Wood Text Shed giveaway contest. So if you've been with us for a while, you know that recently we did a giveaway with Wood Tech, a local company here in the Nashville area. And we had our Entree podcast listeners. We had you submit stories.

Why do you need a shed? And we had terrific response. And Karen won the shed. So we'll unveil that story. What an inspiring entree leadership company and leader that she is. And then, of course, we're going to give you free stuff. Two tools coming to you. One is an MP3 download of Dave Ramsey teaching our team on high performance achievement.

Absolutely relevant to this episode. You'll love that. And then InfusionSoft, who helps us power this podcast, they've got a field guide, a practical field guide that will help you with your CRM customer relationship management. So that is everything coming to you. Let's get right to our feature interview. Tell you the back story on this. Daniel Tarty, who is our VP of Entree leadership.

He's been on this podcast many times, and this guy, I admire for so many reasons, but one is he is a dogged runner, trainer, marathon, triathlon kind of guy. Like, he's always into something. In fact, as we record this today, he's training for some giant group runs, like a 24-hour run through the mountains of North Georgia. It's just insane. And so he has fallen in love, rather, with this book called Living with a Seal, 31 Days, Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet by Jesse Itzler. And Jesse will tell you about the book, and this is great stuff, but they love the audiobook, these guys at Entree Leadership. So they told me about this. This is a great story when it comes to high achievement, just firing you up, helping you break through if you've plateaued in any area of life.

That's the application you're going to get out of this. And Jesse says, there's something to be thinking about. He says, I never want to just be comfortable. I had some good results, but they were the same results. I needed to get out of my zone to continue growing. That's why I brought in a seal. This is a fascinating story. Love the courage to do this.

Jesse has co-founded Marquis Jet, helped pioneer the coconut water craze with the Zico Coconut Water and then sold it to Coca-Cola, and he's now married to Sarah Blakely, who is the billionaire founder of Spanx. And on the side, he's part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. So anyway, there's a brief bio. Let's get you right to my conversation with Jesse. Jesse, it's so fun to have you on the line. Before we get into the book and some of the fun things that you learned there,

I want our audience to get a sense of the true entrepreneur in you. I mean, you are an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. But let's go back. At what point in your life do you realize that you're, before even maybe know what an entrepreneur is, at what point do you begin as you look back to see patterns in your life where you just always thinking of a problem to solve, a new idea. When did that really crystallize for you? Well, I think now they would call it ADD. Right. Of course.

It started as a kid. I was the kind of kid that would like something for a short amount of time, kind of obsess on it, try to master it, and get bored very easily thereafter and move to the next project or thing. So as a kid, I was always exploring. My parents gave me a lot of freedom. I remember when I went to college. My mom gave me probably the best advice I ever had as far as pre-entrepreneur. And that was to try everything I could in college. Go to every lecture, play every intramural sport, go to every class, just see what you like, see what you gravitate towards, see where your passion is.

And I did. You know, I did everything from Enter the Monopoly Tournament to go to the lectures on, you know, public speaking. I mean, everything. And it was really good advice. So early on, I was into exploring and looking at the world a little bit differently and just through different experiences. Okay, so if we span your career, you have been in music, private jets, coconut water, all entrepreneurial endeavors that you've succeeded in. But let's go back and if you look through those different stages, what would you say allowed you to have success as an entrepreneur, this idea of creating something that could be and should be?

be and then you release it and it works. What would be something that you look at and say this is one of the ingredients that allowed me to succeed? Well, I think for me, I think one common theme if I look through all of my past, my track record, is that I had no prior experience in any of the fields that I went into. And for me, that was the biggest blessing because it allowed me to approach things with a different perspective. It guaranteed that I was going to do things differently because no one told me how to do it or show me how to do it. It made me really think out of the box and become, you know, like, how could I stand out? How am I different? And really look at each business like I was the customer. And a lot of times you say, oh, well, I have no experience in something.

Your young entrepreneur, and that fear prevents you from going into it because you say, you know, how could I get into coconut water or the beverage world or private aviation? Like, I don't know anything about that. I'm not going to do that. That's too hard. That's too intimidating. And you know, I was able to kind of get through that by saying, you know what, that's going to be to my advantage. I'm going to do this differently and I'm going to figure out how to do this the way it hasn't been done because no one showed me the path. You know, a lot of times now I say to guys that work from you, a gal's in my office, I'll say

if no one ever told you how to do your job, how would you do it? Right. And inevitably, you know, you're going to get all kinds of new thinking and creativity that wasn't there. What's your greatest strength? And then how did you leverage that in each of these endeavors? I would say for me it's probably the ability to genuinely and authentically connect with people. And, you know, I'm a thousand on my SAT guy.

So relationships have played a really big role in where I am today. And I've been able to stay in touch with people. I like to write personal letters. At one point in my life, I was writing 10 a day before I went to sleep, which was 3,000 plus a year, to people that, you know, touched me, impacted me, motivated me, maybe did something nice. And it was a great way to break through the clutter and build a one-on-one relationship, a lasting relationship. And many of those relationships later on in my career ended up really helping me.

So that's something that I was grateful for that I did early on. But really just Ken, you know, I've been able to stay in touch and build a great network. And I did it in my 20s. Actually, I started in high school and built that network, stayed in touch. And when you go into your 30s and 40s, it's those people and friends in your 20s that all of a sudden are in positions of power and decision making. So those relationships that started super early, I was able to. really, you know, take advantage is a bad word. I don't mean take advantage in the literal sense, but take advantage of the sense of tap into those resources. And, you know, I found that people

genuinely want to help other people. And that's what happens for me. You know, people trusted me, gave me an opportunity, believed in me in different businesses, gave me the keys to try, and then the rest I had to do on my own. Okay. Now, in your personality style, would you say you are a better starter than a finisher? Is there a track record of people saying, oh, he's a great starter, but he doesn't follow through very well. Is that true of you? I would say I'm a better starter. I would say I'm a better starter. All right. The reason I ask that is because a lot of entrepreneurs are great starters. Right. But the reason I'm asking is how have you brought along people beside you who help you finish

when maybe you're more the creative relationship guy and there needs to be that, you know, down in the trenches, operational guy? Has that been a win for you? A win for you? A win. A win. winning strategy? 100%. I mean, that's a theme throughout my life. I've always been, you know, recognize my weakness,

realize what position I want to play and not everybody can play shortstop and hired my weaknesses. Yeah. And everything I've done, that's been probably the first thing and the most important thing is to, and I believe me,

I have plenty of weaknesses and I know what my strengths are, and I just try to play that position. And I encourage everyone as soon as you can afford it to hire people that can fill your weaknesses and stuff that you, it's usually the stuff that you don't like to do.

You know, Jesse, there's two types of vision casting, you know, or visionary skills that I think great leaders have. One, obviously, is casting vision to the team. This is where we're going. This is why we're going there. This is how we're going to get there. But there's another version of visioneering, and I think you're really good at this. And that's figuring out or being able to see into the future and having a pretty darn good hunch that this is a trend that's going to take place. or this is the next.

Would you agree that you're very good at it? And I think I know the answer, but what do you think makes you good at it? And is any of that transferable to people that are listening in? Is that a learned acquired skill? I think it is. I mean, I spend a lot of time working on that. So I spend a lot of time walking around trade shows, walking around supermarkets and stores and looking at what's new on the shelves,

looking at packaging, really trying to figure out getting in tune with myself on what's missing in my life or what could be better, what could be improved. So for me, it's something that I've just built this kind of sense over time just by making myself really aware and working on it. So I do think it is something that you can learn. A lot of it is intuition and gut once you get the feeling like, you know, whether you not you go for it once you have an idea is a lot of that is gut. But to identify an idea, it's being in touch with, you know, what will make your life better, what's missing and looking at what's coming early. When we got involved in coconut water, which is a company that I was involved with Zico,

super early, I stumbled upon coconut water because I was running a hundred mile race. And I did a lot of nonstop by myself. And I did a lot of research into hydration. Like, well, what does someone drink if they're going to run for basically 24 hours straight? And I discovered coconut water. And I was like the human guinea pig for it because I didn't cramp. I finished this race, felt great. And afterwards, I was like, wow, if I could bring this to a larger audience and they can

experience the miracle that I just experienced, this would really work. So a lot of times it's just by experimentation and discovering things early and trying it and believing in it. I want to ask you about landmines. I think one of the things sometimes that we tend to do when we talk to successful people is, you know, tell us about this, that you've done well. and how is this work? But, you know, you have started and sold, you know, multiple successful ventures as you take stock in this conversation. What are some landmines that you could share with us leaders, entrepreneurs that we need to watch out for? Well, you know, this is going to sound crazy, but I think a lot of people don't spend enough time working on themselves. And I think it's so, I do a lot of, I call it the pre-work. There's so much work before success to prepare you for success. And I think business is a great reflection of you. The better you are, the better you will be in business, the better business you'll have.

And there's so many buckets in your life. So, you know, a lot of times you'll step on a landmine or come across a landmine and you can trace it back to your own personal self. How do you deal with it? Were you prepared for it? Why didn't you see it? You know, and how you deal with those landmines is so important. And the more you work on you through the different buckets in your life, I think the better

prepared you are for those landmines. And, you know, we all have arrows that come at us, especially as an entrepreneur. You have bills, you have employees, you have manufacturing issues, you have sales issues, you have, and every day it's like, you're dodging arrows. It takes a lot of time. So how you deal with that and how you prepare for that, to me, it all relates to the pre-work that you do on you. And I think that, you know, that's something that we fail to do a lot of times. Is that something that, Jesse, you come by maybe a little bit more naturally, or have you really had to train your brain to really make sure that you're constantly getting better? It took me a long time to realize that. I mean, it took me well into my 30s to really

realize that. And it starts with routine for me. It starts with, you know, starting the day with a positive, feeling that I cross something off my list. It starts with prioritizing the night before, it starts with preparation. If I'm out of whack early in the morning, I'm a runner. If I don't run first thing, if I don't have, you know, I have a very interesting diet. I only eat fruit until noon. But if that gets out of whack, my day is out of whack. But if it starts off on the right track, like I had a great run, I checked something off

of my list, I had a good meal. I'm ready to attack the day. Usually it's a great day, no matter what the landmine is. But if it doesn't, that landmine blows up in my face. it's just the way it's been for me. Yeah. Curious, why fruit until noon? Why only fruit until noon?

Well, I read a book when I was 21 years old called Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond. And one of the main principles in Fit for Life was that we use more energy for digestion than for anything else. You have a big meal. Very often you're tired after and you want to lie down. Everything is based off energy. more energy we have, the more we can do, the better we can fight illness. And fruit is one of the few things that doesn't bypass your digestive system and digesting the small intestines. It requires very little energy to digest, but is loaded in nutrients for your cells and water and all the

goodness that you need. So in the book, it challenged the reader to eat fruit till noon as opposed to a heavy breakfast for 10 days. So I did. And I felt so. so good. I felt so alive. I had so much energy that it's been 27 years since I've deviated. There's all kinds of nuances behind the whole fruit for noon and, you know, the importance of eating fruit only on an empty stomach. And, you know, and there's a lot of negativity, which I don't buy into. And there's too much sugar and fruit and this and that. I eat, I mean, Ken, this is going to sound insane, but I eat 10 to 15 bananas a day. And I eat more fruit than anyone I know and I just went to get all my level blood work done and my annual checkup

and my sugar levels and all my levels are below what you would think. So I'm a trial and error guy at work for me and here I am 27 years later. I swear by it, man. I swear by it. I swear by it. I love that. That's a personal growth tip. All right. Let's keep moving on here because I love the book. It's called Living with the Seal 31 Days, Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet. And this is kind of like, Equal parts, human experiment, equal parts, personal growth journal. And I think there's so much that you learn from it. So I'm just fascinated. And so I want to start with kind of the frame that we're already in, and that is this idea of constantly growing.

You're a guy that, you know, that you are very intentional. But at some point, you feel like you're in a rut, and you decide that you're going to train with one of the toughest guys alive, clude of this guy's a seal. He's created some reputation out there. And you decide to pull the trigger on this. Right. Take us to that moment where you're at, because you've got, at this point, how many kids, your wife's very successful in business, life's probably pretty crazy, and you make a decision to, like, literally shock your system. Yeah, well, it wasn't planned.

You know, I went out to San Diego to run a relay race, a 24-hour race with six friends, and we were each going to take turns every mile alternating the legs. And there was a guy sitting next to me at the starting line who didn't have a team, who didn't have any friends with him. He was running the entire thing by himself, and he was about 270 pounds, which is huge to run this distance. And at mile 70, because of his weight, he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet and literally had kidney failure. And I watched this guy on guts, will, who knows what, a drive I've never seen finished this race with his broken bones. And I was so inspired and curious that I googled him after the race. and learned that he had, he was a Navy SEAL with an amazing backstory. I was fascinated by this guy's backstory.

So I decided to cold call him and I flew out the next day to meet with him and sitting next to him for about 10 minutes and listening to this guy talk, I realized that if a little bit of what he had in his mind, his mental toughness, whatever was making him tick, whatever he had that made him finish this race rubbed off on me in my personal life, in my business life physically would make those buckets so much better. So I just on the spot just asked him if he would move in with me and my family for a month and kind of train me.

And three days later, he was at our breakfast table. Which is hysterical. At what point does he realize you're not nuts? I mean, did it freak him out at first or was he automatically in? Like, how long does it take him to make this decision if he's moving in three days later? I think the way he's wired is he said, wow, this guy's nuts. I'm nuts. Right.

That equals let's do it. And it's funny because at this point in my life, I'd sold a couple of businesses. I was married, still am. I had a child who was 18 months old, my first son. And I was in a great spot in my life. But I was in a routine. And that was equaling a rut. You know, the routines are great.

But I wasn't getting better because I couldn't get out of my routine. So I wasn't seeing any improvement. So for me, you know, my routine was get up, work out, have my fruit, go to work, come home, family time, go to sleep, repeat. That was my day. And it was great. And I was operating at a high level, I thought. But what I learned was that I had so much more in my reserve tank that by shaking up my routine and getting out of my comfort zone and really pushing my limits, I started to feel way more alive. And I started to operate at a higher level.

And I got in great shape from the experience, but what I really wanted to get out of it was the what makes this guy tick and the psychological side is where the real kind of lasting benefits lied. Yeah, I want to dive into that. But first, I want to know, and I don't think there's a formulaic answer, but I'll put this to you. You were already very disciplined. You're already in shape. My goodness, if you're running 24-hour relay races and 100-mile races and that's how you come up with coconut water. So you're already, as you said, performing at a high level. How often do we need to shake up our routine?

And in shaking it up, do you come back to elements of the old routine? What's the mix there? Well, I was operating at a high level and I was discipline, but I wasn't getting better. And, you know, we all go through ruts and we all go through times where we struggle, you know, like to keep going and to keep pushing ourselves. And, you know, we're so many of us, and anyone listening to this is listening to us, they want to get better. They want to, you know, they have discipline. But to be consistently disciplined is so hard. And he was the most consistently disciplined person.

And I was scared to kind of keep, you know, I would go through a period where I would train for something or I work crazy hours or really hard on a project. And then, you know, I would dip down. And it would be hard for me to get back up to that level of intent. or training or work that I was at. You know, I would get burned out. And at this particular point in my life, I needed to shake it up. I needed to get out of my routine. I needed to look at, I was creatively in a rut.

I was creatively comfortable. I was business financially comfortable. And I needed just to mix it all up so I could look at the world differently. There's so much research around, you know, the benefits of changing your routine, how good it is for the mind and for the spirit and for your body and for your soul. And I was going through a year of doing everything the same way every day. And it was giving me good results, but they were the same results. So I took it to an extreme by bringing in a Navy seal. But you know, you don't have to take it to that extreme. I mean, even today, here I am years removed from when he actually lived

with me. And every day, before I get it to the shower, I make the shower as freezing cold as it can possibly be just to get out of my zone, just to make things a little bit uncomfortable, because it's a little bit of a reminder, but it's also a little bit of like, you know what, I'm going to attack things differently. I'm going to be a little bit mentally, more mentally tough today than I was yesterday. It's just my own little thing, but it works. Here's my concern for you, Jesse. If I can voice a concern. Because now here you are removed, Years removed from, let's just give the listener a real snapshot. How many years since he actually was in the house living with you for 31 days?

Now it's coming on five, six years. Five, six years. Have you been getting a ice cold shower every morning for five to six years? That's what people want to know. I want to know. Ken, you want to know. What's next? Are you going to dodge traffic?

I mean, how do you get even more uncomfortable than an ice cold shower every morning? Well, I'll tell you, one of the things. takeaways that he told me. He had a motto. Every day we have to do something that sucked. We had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I like that. So that is my one little thing. But if it's not that, I try to make it something to do something that gets me out of my comfort zone. And that's really the only way to get better. And you know, we're all programmed to avoid pain. He would seek pain out. Right. And the only way to really get better is to experience is to experience that. So for me, That was a really valuable lesson.

And the other thing that I would add is I love inspiration. I love motivation. I love reading about it. I love listening to podcasts. You know, I learn from what you're doing. I learn from listening to speakers that are, you know, great. And motivation is great. But motivation is a lot different than mental toughness.

And what he had was mental toughness. And, you know, I could say to you today, let's go train for a 10K and get you all excited. We're going to run a 10K, man. We're going to tell the world. We're going to raise money for charity. And then tomorrow we go outside to start at 6 a.m. And we open up the door and it's cold, wet, and windy and dark. And that motivation quickly goes away.

Oh, absolutely. But it's the mental toughness that gets you out of the door. It's the mental toughness that says, you know what? I don't know anything about this field, but I love this product. And I'm an entrepreneur and I'm going to go for it. I'm not scared. It's the mental tough. toughness that says, oh, I stepped on a landmine, but I don't care. I'm going to go keep going

until I see another one, and I'm going to go through it. And it's the mental toughness. So that's what the cold shower represents for me. That's a great metaphor. I got to tell you, because I'm uncomfortable in my warm, cushy studio right now thinking about stepping into the ice cold water. Go dump a bucket of water on your head, Ken. I did it, buddy. I did the ALS challenge on the old Dave Ramsey show. You know what I mean? A lot of people watch Dave dump a bucket of ice water on me, that was painful stuff. I love it. But I love, okay, so let's talk about this, because you let us beautifully into where I want to go, which is, this is a fun book. The back cover of the book, folks, is a great picture. It's Jesse and his wife, Sarah Blakely, who's the world-renowned founder

of Spanx. They're sitting at the kitchen bar here, the island, and the little guy, I guess, is 18 months old, and you've got this Navy seal head down between you guys. It's a wonderful analogy, so he's living with you. And I want to talk about the, the, the things you took away from his, the disciplines, the putting yourself in the psychological positions that you can essentially overcome anything. Is that in essence what makes the seals so impressive? We all see the movies. We see the documentaries. We admire these men and women. Is that what sets them apart that they get their mind to a place where there's essentially nothing they can't face? Yes, I think that's part of it. I think that a lot of the limitations

that we put on ourselves are self-imposed. And I think that SEALs don't do that. They have no limitations, or at least they don't, you know, in their mind, they want to see what their limitations are. And I think that, you know, many of us do it the opposite way and just say, you know, I can't do that. I remember the first 10 minutes into our journey together, Seal, as I refer to him in the book, but his name is David Goggins, takes me downstairs to the gym and he asks me how many want to see how many pull-ups I can do, and I'm not good at pull-ups at all.

And I did maybe eight. And he said, all right, drop down and wait 30 seconds and do it again. So I jumped back up on the bar, and I did maybe six. And he said, all right, one more time, 30 seconds up on the bar. And I squeaked out maybe three, like my head is bright red, you know, barely got three. And he said, all right, we're not leaving the gym until you do a hundred more. And I said to him, that's, that is impossible. I would love to do that.

That's impossible. Like, physically impossible. And he said to me, and it was the first lesson I learned, he said, you know what, that's just the limitation you're putting on yourself. And I don't care how long it takes, but I'm going to show you that you can do 100. And it took me about an hour and a half or two hours, but I did it one at a time. And I left there saying, wow, I just did 117 total pull-ups. I've maybe done eight, you know, prior, 10 in my life. and he showed me that we all have this reserve tank.

You know, he had a saying that when we're done, when your brain tells you you're done, you're really only 40% done. And, you know, we're wired, the human body, that the first experience or the first touch point with pain, we get a little tap on the shoulder from our brain saying to stop because our brain doesn't want us to get hurt. But when we ignore that tap on the shoulder,

and it's true at work, it's true in all different areas of your life. when you would tap that first no or stop or whatever and go past it, that's when the greatness comes. And that's when you can really see what you're made of. And that's what he told me right there. I thought I was done. And I had a hundred more pull-ups left in me. Well, then wait a second.

What else do I have in my life that I'm telling myself that I'm done, that I have more left in me? Wow. Let's stay right here. From that lesson alone, how did you transfer that into other areas of your life? Can you give us an instance? I mean, I do it all the time. You know, at work, I mean, where in the past I would say that I'm satisfied because I think something is great or a product is where I say a product is really good.

I'll say, how do we make it better? Where's that 40% rule as it relates to our product or as to how we're marketing something or how we're approaching something? You know, some of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life have been, you know, releasing a product that wasn't 100% baked. In other words, in my gut, in my heart, I thought it was good, but it wasn't great. And it's come back to bite me. Everything is product driven, as you know.

You have to have a great product regardless of who's endorsing it, who's marketing it, etc. And I've rushed into stuff. So now I'm very patient and I kind of take this 40% rule and I weave it into the DNA of the brands and the products. and the services that I work with and just how do we make it better? We're not done. This could be improved. And it's been a powerful thing to incorporate.

And, you know, also so many times you get deal fatigue, negotiation fatigue, work fatigue. And I always just remind myself, you know what? That's that tap on the shoulder, Jesse. That's that tap on the shoulder. And kind of just continue to push through it. So he's become my Obi-1 Canobi kind of whispers in my ear. And when using your reference, when a landmine happens or when I hit a roadblock, which we all do, or we question our journey, I kind of just look at that tap on the shoulder and say, all I'm going. I love that.

We have a lot of high achievers listening in here, and many of them are in a situation that while the details may be different, the analogy holds, the rhythms hold, and that is they're married to high achievers. You're married to Sarah Blakely. both of you got your own things going on, your individual people, yet you're married, your mom and dad, you got all that stuff going on, husband and wife. What have you learned about balancing that? And, you know, life balance is kind of overrated. I don't know that it's ever really balanced. It's kind of this rhythm, you know, where certain seasons, things are crazier and you kind of move between those seasons. I'd love for you to speak to people on that. What works for you and Sarah as you both, you know, again, try to juggle all those balls, if you will? Well, it's hard, you know, and every day is different. But I think we got married later in life. I got married at 40.

Sarah already had her. The hard, I don't want to say the hardest part of her journey and my journey, but the early stages of the journey were already done. Right. So a lot of that, so she was already in a rhythm. I was already in a rhythm. So we were lucky that we met at that point in our life because Spanx was up and established and Markey Jet was already up in.

established for me at the time that we met. But now, you know, we make sure that we carve out time. We shut everything down at dinners. Ditters are a really important part of our family life, family dinners. We take plenty of vacations. It's for me I have the best board of advisors in the world, my wife. So I have the ability to share, you know, and get good advice and be very open and with her and she has the same for me. So it's worked out really well. But, you know, there's challenging times. There's no silver bullet. And it's something that we spend a lot of time working on. Love it.

All right. Final question for you. One person from history that is no longer alive, you could hang out with them, have a Jesse lunch with these guys or gals. Which one? Who would you pick? That's such a good question. I would have to say it would be a, I'd say Einstein.

Einstein was ridiculed and made fun of. No one understood him. And I would love, and he represents so much of what entrepreneurship is, not caring about what other people say or scared of being embarrassed or scared of going against the grain. That would be an amazing dinner. I will say this, Ken, I recently had a dinner. I was at a dinner with 12 other couples. And before the dinner, they went around the table and everyone had to name three people that were alive, not dead, that they would want to have dinner with. Yes, I love that.

You know, you had the obvious ones, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Clinton and ambassadors and this and that and great entrepreneurs. But when it came to me, and I gave it a lot of thought, I wanted to have dinner with all three of mine were rap artists. And the reason why is because when I was growing up, the music of these artists changed my life and put me on a course that changed my life forever. So after the dinner, I decided I was going to invite the 10 most influential artists in my life to dinner at my house. And a week ago, they all came. That's cool. Are we allowed to know who? It was all the pioneers from the 80s when I was growing up.

It was DMC from Run DMC and Doug E Fresh and Raqam and Kumodee and all these classic amazing artists that changed the way I kind of looked at the world. and I was in the music business for a while, and it really had a big impact on me. So they all came to my hat. It's funny that you asked me the question because I literally just experienced it with those that are living. I love that.

Side note, I interviewed Rev. Run one time. No, I've actually interviewed Rev. a couple times, but they were both in front of several thousand people at a leadership event. One of the coolest cats I've ever met. He is. And he has an amazing story as well. Yeah.

So that's great. That's great that you guys. guys had an opportunity to do that. Oh, fun stuff. Well, man, listen, we enjoyed this. This was great fun and love the book. Folks, this is a great read, a lot of fun. And he can get a lot of personal growth stuff out of this. And Jesse, thank you so much for sharing with our entrepreneurial audience. We appreciate it so very much. Okay, Kent, thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I'm trying to think, I'm talking with Eric the producer. I'm trying to couple of an idea of maybe some 80s rock band heroes that I can invite

over to my house and just see just see if they might show up you know what i mean like bon jovi aerosmith you think i got a shot at that eric you can't see folks but he's shaking his head violently in the no process so there you go uh hey you can go to the one hundred mile man dot com that's the one hundred mile man dot com and 100 is the actual number so the 100 mile man dot com to see videos and you can get the book there the book is available also wherever books are sold And speaking of high performance and achieving high performance over a long period of time, Dave Ramsey knows something about that. So we thought it would be great to give you this resource, really coming out of the context of the conversation we've had with Jesse. And so this is absolutely free.

You know, we love to give you free stuff. It's an MP3, Dave, teaching our team on high performance achievement. And so you can get that very easily. Two ways. The first is to text the word perform. perform to 33444. Text the word perform to 33444 or you can go to ontreleadership.com slash podcast.

Go to this episode and we will have the link for you to download it there as well. That's episode 142. So two ways to get it. And here is a sample of what you're going to hear in the MP3. You're going to lose something to get this. The process is that you're going to give something up. To get to where this organization is, lots of us in this room have given up some things.

We've sacrificed some things. What are you going to give up to do what it is that you're laying out here to do? Because you're going to give something up. You're not omnipresent. You're not sovereign, and you're not in charge of providence. You're going to give something up. You live in a logistic world that is limited by time and space.

There's a limited amount of money. There's a limited amount of effort. There's a limited amount of energy. What are you going to give up to get to there? All right, folks, go get it right now. Text the word perform to 33444 or go to entreleadership.com slash podcast. Episode 142 on the website, and we will have a link for you to download the MP3 there as well. You know, I got very excited about this Woodtext contest because we wanted to hear the stories of you, the listener.

And we had a terrific response. People went to the WoodTech's website in droves. They submitted to their stories. and Karen Moore, one of our podcast listeners, was the winner. And if you're not sure what we're talking about, this was episode 133. Kent Lap, who is the CEO of Wood Tech's, came on. He's an entree leader, been to so many of our events, an alumni of the Entree Leadership Master Series. And we were talking to him about leadership and then came up with this idea.

And so they decided to give away a shed. And Karen submitted her story. Now, this is great, because entrepreneurs create things to solve problems. That's how businesses start. That's the entrepreneurial spirit. And so just a little bit of background here before we share a little bit of our conversation with Karen, the disorder that she wanted to solve was sleep apnea. She actually had sleep apnea and in the middle of trying to treat that. Figured out, hey, there's a problem here with some of this equipment.

She'll detail that out. The company started in 2004. Now, this is amazing. Started out humble beginnings selling five pads. She'll describe this in the conversation, but I want you to grasp the numbers. selling five pads, now 27,000 orders. That is where they have gone. This is great. Here is my conversation with Karen Moore. Karen, it is a thrill to have you on the line. Congratulations on winning the Wood Tech Shed. Thank you, Ken. I'm so excited. We're so appreciative.

Well, this is so exciting. Our audience responded in a big way, and of course you are one of those members who submitted your story. So I'm going to fast forward your story. for our audience several years ago, about 2004, you were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. And of course, this is a blockage of airway, and it hurts your sleep. And this was causing major problems for you. What was the treatment? What did they prescribe for you to help you out? Well, usually they start out with the gold standard, which is continuous positive airway pressure, are CPAP.

machine and it has a mask that's attached to it as well and that helps force air into your nose and your throat and holds your airway open while you sleep and it prevents the apnea's from happening wow and so that's what they gave you and it immediately helped but as all entrepreneurs do they come up with a solution based on some type of problem or need that they've either experienced or noticed and in this situation you're wearing this mask and it It was very uncomfortable. What was it doing to you? Well, the first night that I wore it after the gal set me up with it, I came home and I was bound

to determine I was going to wear it just the way she showed me. And I put it on, and actually she told me to wear it a little too tight. And so the next morning I woke up and I had lovely strap marks on my cheeks. And I'm not a vain person, but I said, I really don't need those. So I made the first pair of pad of cheeks. And I didn't call them that. I've always been a sower since I can remember. So I just grabbed some fabric from my stash and I made some pads and I put them on and it helped my mask and

prevented the marks on my face. And I'm like, okay. Eight months into my therapy, however, after I'm sleeping well, no marks on my face, I'm going, hmm, I wonder if I could help somebody else sleep better with their CPAP equipment. So I thought I'd sell about maybe 10 or so, maybe 100. I don't know. I made up 25 really ugly pair, took them to town and a hand-dust. basket and I walked around and talked to people. We've lived here 25 years, so a lot of people

know me. And I just talked to people about sleep apnea. And I sold five that afternoon. And I went, oh my goodness, there's a market for this. So then I came home and I looked online to see who is making something for sleep apnea padding. And there was absolutely nothing. And I went, holy cow, this is what I'm supposed to be doing now. So I started marketing it. And that's how I got started. I love the story. And you took $1,000. You talked to your husband, got full buy-in from the hubby, and you got to take $1,000 and started what is now Pat a Cheek LLC. I mean, that is quite a story. Fast forward us up to where you're at now. How long have you guys been in business? Well, since 2004, it was the fall of 2004 when I actually started. I formed the LLC in 2009, and I started hiring a few people to help me so, because I was the fall of 2004, because I was the fall of 2004 when I actually started. I formed the LLC in 2009, and I started hiring a few people to help me so, because I couldn't keep up with the orders. Word of mouth kind of got out there too,

and people started talking about Patechique, and so we started getting requests for different items, and I started designing different items, and the manufacturers come out with different masks almost every year, so there's always something new to design. So now we have over 60 products that we make, and I designed them all, and we have four sewers,

and we have five ladies that work in the office with us, and my husband is now the shipping department. Yeah, that is awesome. So this leads us to the WoodTex Ask. You told your story because you're currently 12 years going now. My notes say you've had over 26,000 website orders. You just give it. Oh, I love it. Now we're 27,000 and growing. I love that. But you're doing all your business there at your home. Is that right? That's correct. We've managed to keep it here at the home. We have a room over the garage is where I started. 6,000. 60 square feet of art studio is what it was supposed to be. We outgrew that space, so we put an addition on our house, 550 square feet, and we have filled that up as well. And if you count the storage that's in the basement now, we're over 1,200 square feet that we're using of our home for our business. That's fantastic. So you go to, so you told the wood techs people, what did you tell them you

wanted to do with the shed? What was the, how does that help the business? Well, we're planning on move into a new location and we're very excited about the prospects of having a place to put our fabric instead of having it in the basement. And if I had a nice airtight shed, it would be wonderful to have a wood tech shed to put our fabric in. And you're getting one. And you told me earlier on we talked, you're actually going to do something a little bit more than shed. Tell us that. Yes, we've decided that since the spot that we wanted to put the shed is actually a place that we eventually wanted to build a garage. I talked to the good people at Wood Tech's and said, can we possibly upgrade and pay the difference? And they were excited about that and said,

absolutely. So they're going to build a garage for us. And we'll still store our fabric there, but now we can store our truck in there, too. Oh, that's so fun. And, of course, they'll just bring that thing in and drop it right on the old spot. That's what they specialize in. That's going to be really fun. That's the plan, I think. Oh, Karen, that's so fun. All right, well, before we let you go, you've been listening to the Entry Leadership Podcast, how long? I'm just curious. Oh, gosh. Well, before then, it seems like I caught some of the very first ones. And one of the things that I took from the Entree Leadership podcast that I learned was to go slow, to take your time and not try to grow too quickly. In my case, I started out as a single entrepreneur, and I was making everything myself. And so I had to

learn as I went. And so going slow was really important. Another thing is stay focused. Stay focused on what you're trying to do and not get distracted by things that come along. People go, oh, well, you can sew? Can you sew this for me? Well, that isn't in our wheelhouse. So no, we don't do that. And so to be able to say yes and no to things that really fit into our mission of what we want to do. And our mission is to help people with sleep apnea, sleep more comfortably, period. That's what we're here for. Karen, your story is so inspiring. You really are an entree leader. So this is great fun, really excited about this. And I got to tell you, I want you to shoot Eric the producer some pictures of the garage when it shows up.

That would be fun. We'd love to share that on social media. That'd be great. Okay. I appreciate it so very much. And I'll continue to listen to the Andre Leadership podcast because they're so valuable to me. Oh, and you are why we are here. And this is just so fun to hear your story and to be a small part and helping equip you and your team.

Keep up the good work, Karen. And hopefully we're going to get a picture of that garage soon. Okay. Take care. I can tell you that Karen Moore is the answer to the why. Why do we do everything we do under the Entry Leadership banner under this podcast? It's because of Karen Moore. And I also want to give a huge thank you to our friends at Wood Tech for helping us do this fun little contest,

sharing your stories, and blessing Karen and her company with that shed. Can't wait to follow up with her and see how her growth takes off. Now, I told you the numbers before the conversation. She went from starting out fielding five orders, if you will, selling five pads. Now over 27,000 orders and growing. So Karen and her company are in a situation where they need an effective CRM, customer relationship management. CRM's a big deal around here. It's like we're always putting resources in time into our CRM.

And our good friends at InfusionSoft have created a field guide. This is very, very practical to help you understand what you need to do, how a CRM needs to function so that you can be the most. efficient organization possible. So we want you to go to infusionsoft.com slash field. Infusionsoft.com slash field. Or again, you can go to the Infusionsoft link in our show notes on the website, Entreeleadership.com slash podcast, episode 142.

The link will be there for you to get this very practical, helpful tool when it comes to relating to CRM. Well, folks, as we record here today, we are getting ever closer to our second Entree Leadership Summit event May 22 through 25 at the Omni Dallas Hotel in Dallas, Texas. We told you the 43rd President of the United States. George W. Bush is joining us along with Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Dr. Henry Cloud, Pat Lynch, Union, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, all joining Dave Ramsey on the stage. You can learn everything you need to know about the event at ontratership.com slash summit. That's entreleadership.com slash summit.

Well, another shout out of thanks to Jesse Itzler and Karen Moore for adding so much value to us here on the podcast on behalf of our producer, Eric Anthony. And the entire Entry leadership team, thank you so much for choosing to listen to this podcast. We'll talk with you again very soon.