The Rich Roll Podcast - Joe De Sena Turns Quitters Into People Who Commit

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Do hard things. Become unbreakable. Let’s end the year on a high note. It’s time to turn quitters into people who commit, courtesy of one of the toughest people on the planet. Fire ready aim! If the name Joe De Sena strikes a familiar chord, it’s likely because he’s the entrepreneurial mastermind behind Spartan—the obstacle course racing series that became a global phenomenon. Fewer know he’s also the evil genius behind Death Race—perhaps the most absurd sufferfest ever conceived.  Under appreciated is just what an utter machine this guy is. An absolute endurance freak, in a mere one week period, Joe completed the Vermont 100 mile run, Ironman Lake Placid, and the Badwater 135. In addition, Joe knocked off 50 ultramarathons and 14 Ironman events in a single year (a certain kind of insanity that must be some kind of record). To top it off, on a whim, he once ran from New York City to Vermont. A man of questionable masochism, Joe knows hustle. But his relentlessness isn’t limited to athletics. It begins with business, servicing mafioso swimming pools as a Queens high schooler. It appears in academics. It took him four attempts to secure admission to Cornell. And, most importantly, it shows up in service. At his Vermont farm, Joe freely welcomes all who dare join in his legendary daily grind. Everything Joe does—be it Spartan, his books or public speaking—reflects his genuine commitment to helping millions of people live healthier more fulfilling lives. Today he shares his extraordinary story. This is a conversation about commitment to an ideal. How to manifest the better self within. And pay it back in service to others. It’s about Joe’s colorful life path. His Goodfellas-esque upbringing. His natural-born entrepreneurial inclinations. His insane endurance feats and unique relationship with suffering. And the impenetrable focus required to accomplish lofty dreams. But more than anything, this is about turning quitters into people who commit. It’s about why doing hard things makes you better, happier and healthier. And it’s about the potential we all possess to catalyze radical transformation. From the heart, Joe is bullshit-free and 100% authentic. His message is powerful. Entirely experience-based. And paired with practical tools fundamental to shattering stagnation. The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. May his words propel you to craft your own challenge for this impending new year—something extraordinary. So let’s dive into it headfirst. Or, as Joe says, fire, ready, aim. Peace + Plants, Rich

Well, so I'm a big subscriber in this idea of fire, ready, aim, right? Just get started. Just take that first step. Just go outside. You know this. I think we all get stuck sitting around. Subconsciously, our legacy hardware and software is avoiding discomfort. Like it kept us from falling off cliffs and freezing out in the snow and drowning.

And the sooner you recognize that that's just like old hardware that you don't need, because you're not going to get attacked by a lion when you go outside or drown in the rain. And so if you can change your mindset to like embracing tough stuff and committing to it, you just have a better life. Just take that first step. And that first step leads to another step. And before you know it, you get it done. That's Joe DeSena. And this is episode 567 of The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, what's happening?

Happy holidays. Welcome to the podcast. The gift-giving season is upon us. And although I'm both sad and amazed that we are temporarily sold out of my new book, Voicing Change, we should be restocked in the next few weeks. At the same time, I happen to have just the thing

for your secret Santa or stocking stuffer needs in the form of our Plant Power Meal Planner gift cards. Kind of a perfect way to help your loved ones finally and enjoyably customized and delicious plant-based recipes, access to nutrition coaches for all the handholding you need, and full integration with automatic grocery delivery. So everything you require to prep and cook the selected recipes magically shows up on your loved one's doorstep. So fret not to learn more and grab your discounted gift card today. Click meal planner on the homepage menu on my website at richroll.com or go directly to meals.richroll.com. No promo code required. Okay. Okay. So those of you who've been with me for the long haul know that I like to end the year and begin the next year on a high note with some solid inspiration, some bankable life advice, and just the right amount of kick in the pants to reboot the operating system and get your body, mind, and soul correct, aligned. So you can actualize the best of what you've got, finally convert those aspirations into reality. And this year is no different because today's guest

is undeniably one of the toughest humans, one of the most accomplished endurance athletes, and one of the most successful entrepreneurs that I have the good fortune of calling friend. His name is Joe DeSena. And if that name sounds familiar, it's likely because he is the mastermind behind the global Spartan race phenomenon. Some might also know that he is the evil genius behind the death race. I'll let him describe that one.

I think, is just what an utter machine this guy is, an absolute endurance freak who in the period of just one week completed the Vermont 100-mile run, the Lake Placid Ironman, and the Badwater 135 Ultra in one week. Think about that. He also completed 50 ultras and 14 Ironman events in a single year, which is a certain kind of insanity and has to be some kind of record.

And he once ran from New York City to Vermont on basically a whim. But this hustle, his relentless pursuit to push the envelope of possibility isn't limited to athletics. It shows up in all areas of Joe's life, in business, beginning in high school, cleaning Mafia Don swimming pools in Queens. It shows up in academics. It took this guy four times to get into Cornell. It took this guy four times to get into Cornell. And it shows up in service by way of this kind of beautiful open-door policy that he maintains at his Vermont farm, where he puts all comers, any who dare, through what can only be described as a layman's buds program. It's kind of like a brutal routine that we talk about today.

program. It's got like a brutal routine that we talk about today, as well as this commitment that he has to leveraging his race series platform to help millions of people live healthier lives. Joe is truly an amazing human. Again, he's a friend and his extraordinary story is coming up. But first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can

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When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because

unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, support and empower you to find the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you.

I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Joe, Joe DeSena, the man, the myth, Joe, Joe DeSena, the man, the myth, the legend, the questionable masochist.

Today's conversation is, of course, about Joe's journey. It's about his insane athletic accomplishments, his passion for endurance, his unique relationship with suffering. And it's also about Joe's colorful life path, his Goodfellas-esque upbringing in Queens, New York, his natural-born entrepreneurial inclinations, the car wreck that redirected his life, and his impenetrable focus when it comes to accomplishing his dreams. But more than anything, this conversation, which I think is super relevant as we enter into the new year, is about turning quitters into people who commit. It's about why doing hard things makes you better, happier, and healthier. And it's about catalyzing radical transformation. This, my friends, is a no BS zone. Joe's message is 100% experience-based

and paired with the many practical tools I think you'll find fundamental in helping you shatter stagnation and beat analysis paralysis. My hope is that his words propel you to craft your own challenge for this impending new year, something extraordinary perhaps. And more than anything,

I hope you dive headfirst into it, or as Joe says, fire, aim, ready. So it is with that that I give you the one, the only Joe DeSena. Right on, man. So good to see you. We've been trying to make this happen for so long. It's taken forever, man. I don't know how many,'ve been trying to make this happen for so long. It's taking forever, man.

I don't know how many, it's gotta be three or four years. Couple years. I think the last time I saw you, I did your show when you guys were hosting an event at Dodger Stadium. Yeah, I think I like a last minute, hey, Rich, can you come over to the stadium? And we caught you, we did some filming

and we knocked out a podcast. Right, we did a podcast and then I did a little shooting with you for that documentary with Cal Fussman. What happened to that documentary? It's done. Is it? And off the editing room floor, however you'd say it and getting ready to be pushed out.

Uh-huh, what's it called? What the fuck is your exit strategy? And the idea is, and it probably pisses, I know it pisses you off. What are people thinking when they don't eat healthy, when they don't act healthy? And so like, what should, like we talk about exit strategy in business,

what's your exit strategy from the planet? Like, do you plan on living in a hospital for the last 20 years? Like, and that title came about because Cal, a mutual friend of ours, Cal Fustman, famous writer, invited me to breakfast with Larry King one day. And so I'm sitting there and I'm eating a salad. At Nate and Al's?

Yeah, so I'm having a salad and Larry is pouring, I mean, pouring sugar all over this bowl of cereal. And he's like, ah, kid, what are you doing with the salad? And he goes, I eat like this, I got a colonic every day. And I just thought, fuck, like what's the exit strategy? This guy. And it came from there. So is Cal like the protagonist?

Is he the, he's who we're like taking this adventure with? Yeah, we took the adventure with him and he was impossible to deal with. And unbeknownst to me, you know, 20 years earlier, he did it, maybe 30 years earlier, he did it with Jack LaLanne. And I think Cal's really good for an article or for film, but then go, like most people, falls off the wagon

when there's no reason to be taking care of yourself. I just remember him being sort of obstinate in the interview, like pushing back. And it's like, come on, man, what do you, what do you, you know, get on board here. Listen, I fought my in-laws when I met my wife. My mother, by the way, my mother in the 70s was into yoga, meditation, all the stuff you're into.

And she fought the whole world. And so there were no Whole Foods or yoga journals back then. So I watched the pushback and it's, I mean, it's pretty, maybe not in California, but the pushback is massive everywhere to this idea of just take care of yourself. Yeah. I mean, look at COVID in the US versus everywhere else.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you, I mean, it's gotta be brutal right now for you with Spartan. Like how are you keeping this thing from capsizing? You know, when it first happened, I became friends two years ago skiing with the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue. He owns a Hudson Bay Company, which is the equivalent of Saks in Canada, Saks Fifth Avenue.

Incredibly successful guy. And when it was all going down, I was with Gerard Butler. Check this out. I was with Gerard Butler. I was in Sparta, Greece for the 2,500-year anniversary of Thermopylae. The movie was based on the battle at Thermopylae. And Trump closes the border. And at that moment it became very real

because up till then we had closed a few races in China. I closed a few races in Japan, but it was like, no big deal. This thing will be over in a jiffy. And I'm in Sparta and the country gets shut down. And I call my friend from Saks and I'm like, what the fuck? And he says, he goes, you gotta preserve cash. He goes, you gotta preserve cash. You gotta protect the employees that you can.

And you gotta stay in touch with your customers. And thank God I had that phone call on March 13th, 14th, because I would have just like, I mean, we had 501 people working for us. I got 325 events shut down overnight around the world. And you can't keep paying people and bills and all these things and lawyers, and you know better than anybody, lawyers,

and not have revenue coming in. So, you know, I'm ashamed to say, I thought, I didn't listen to the advice of him. I didn't listen to the advice of my friends I didn't listen to the advice of my friends that run hedge funds. I thought, come July 1, we're back. Right. The world is back.

Well, we've never seen anything like this in our lifetimes. There was no reason to think that we wouldn't be able to get over the hump and get back to some level of normal. And I'm an optimist. I mean, our whole business is based on optimism, right? And I just thought, yeah, well, here we are. So did you have to lay off a bunch of people?

350 people furloughed. And I think we just did a few more. Silver lining in all this is we became a lot more efficient as an organization. There were a lot of deficits in our company that we never tended to, technology, CRM, e-comm, go down the things that we just didn't have time for, put on 325 events.

And so we're becoming much better in those areas, but it's really a race against the clock. It's, you know, if we're back on next year and we're allowed to put on events, it's gonna be great. Yeah. But I just don't know. I mean, China, we just, two weeks ago, had 10,000 kids at a Chinese event. it's gonna be great. Yeah. But I just don't know. I mean, China, we just, two weeks ago,

had 10,000 kids at a Chinese event in China. China's back in business. They got vaccines. They cost $30 USD. You and I could go up to the corner store and get a shot in our arm. But outside of that. Yeah. So you can ramp up in China.

I could ramp up in China, but the US was 50% of our business. Europe was 25% of our business, right? So China does not offset. But it gives us hope that if China's back and they were three or four months before us and shutting down, maybe three or four months from now, we'll be back. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Who knows? Who fucking knows, man? I know, it's so crazy. Well, what I've noticed in you just from a distance

is this kind of pivot into really a media company, like a content platform. Like suddenly you're vlogging all the time and suddenly there's videos from you like every single day. I know, I've gone a little nuts. I apologize for that. We locked down on the farm in Vermont. That's where this whole thing was started.

My wife and I had our four children. I don't know how to say that politically correct. She birthed four kids on the farm. I think you're allowed to say that. Yeah, in Vermont along, we had cows and chickens and goats. And that's where Spartan was started. I think you're allowed to say that. Yeah, in Vermont along, we had cows and chickens and goats. And that's where Spartan was started. As soon as I got back from the Thermopylae thing I just described in Sparta, Greece,

landed on the farm, holed up with an Olympic wrestler. That's another whole story. A video team, a bunch of people on the Spartan team, trainers and so forth, 12, 13 of us. And we just started filming every day because there was nothing else to do. Preserve your cash, protect your employees and stay in touch with your customers.

So just film, film, film, film, film, because I like to work and we couldn't put on events. And so that's what we did. Yeah, you keep the brand strong and you keep people excited about what Spartan is and they hear it put on events. And so that's what we did. Yeah, you keep the brand strong and you keep people excited about what Spartan is and they hear it from you directly. Yeah, so just lots of filming. But as you know, it drains your energy levels

because you, like right before we just started this podcast, anybody listening or watching, Rich and I were talking regularly. As soon as the filming started, you perked up, your chest came out, yeah. And you were like on. I'm trying to be normal, man. I want this to. As soon as the filming started, you perked up, your chest came out. Yeah, and you were like on. No, I'm trying to be normal, man. I want this to be as relaxed as possible. No, but we both did it.

And you don't even notice you're doing it, right? So it just sucks energy out of you. Well, I just noticed, like this is, I think this is the fifth podcast I've done in the last seven days. We're on a bit of a tear and it's draining, man. Like, you know, I don't know like how Rogan does, you know, four or five of these things a week. Maybe it's because, man. I don't know how Rogan does four or five

of these things a week. Maybe it's because he doesn't prepare, but I prepare, I put a lot of energy into it. I want it to be this amazing experience. And when it's done, it's kind of like an athletic event. Then I go home and I crash. There's no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, it is its own kind of endurance thing.

And it does take, even though it's not physical, there's an emotional energy toll that it takes. It'd be easier. I think you'd agree with this. It would be easier to go for a run. Oh, for sure. Right? Yeah. And your mind is working, but your body,

you're breathing, you're sweating. And this is- Also I can control that. With this, it's sort of like, there's an aspect of trying to have guardrails up and direct it in a certain way. But at the same time, you have to like let go and allow it to be what it wants to be. So there's a vulnerability with that

that's different from going out and pushing yourself where it's just you and you. No doubt. And so I just went through, let's call it 120 days straight of filming on the farm every day. And something cool happened this weekend you might not know about is once we realized,

hey, this is gonna go on longer than we thought, this is gonna be much more painful than we thought, we gotta lay off more people. I said, you know, we need an event. We need one event, something to show our community, 7 million people that like we're still here and shit's still happening. So this past weekend, we brought 12 women, 12 men from CrossFit, from triathlon, from the NFL, Spartan.

And we brought them all together to find out who's the fittest of them all. And we held a, and my team came up with the whole thing. I can't even tell you all the names of the athletes that were there because they, my team organized. I just wanted to have a Spartan event and they came up with this whole thing. And they actually,

they actually wouldn't allow me back on my own farm because I needed another COVID test. So here I was outside my own farm while this was going down. But we had a Highland games type event. We had an ultra run. We had a triathlon swim. We had a mountain bike. We had a DECA. We had a mountain bike.

We had a DECA event, which is our almost gym product, if you would, a combination of the airdyne bike and the rowing machine and all that. We had a race to the top of the mountain and we had a Spartan race. And I don't wanna give anything away, but you would think that the specialists in each one of those areas would win their area. And I'll just leave you with this, they didn't.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. That's fascinating. I would suspect that the person that comes out on top has a lot more to do with their mental fortitude than their physical prowess or their athletic gifts. It's so funny you say that because I was thinking, and you correct me if I don't have this right, but I thought, all right, let's measure,

let's set some, what are the items we're gonna measure? Strength, speed, endurance, athleticism. And then I said, wait, but you gotta also measure resiliency and grit, right? Because some of this is gonna require resiliency and grit. And when you look at, without me giving it away, who the winners were,

they were the ones with the resiliency and grit. Yeah, 100%. Cause I don't know how long this thing went. Five days. Okay, so that's gonna separate the wheat from the chaff. That's like a reality show. It was so freaking- Like battle of the network stars or something.

It was so freaking unbelievable. I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll get you some, nobody's seen any of this stuff. I'll get you some clips for this podcast. Oh, can we weave it in? That would be great. And you can weave it in that no one's seen before because it's just so unbelievable. You can't even imagine what went down.

It's a show. Yeah, that's cool. Well, I wanna take it back. Your backstory is so epic. You can't even imagine what went down. It's a show. Yeah, that's cool. Well, I wanna take it back. Your backstory is so epic. I mean, it's cinematic. It's like its own movie. It's just a crazy fucking story. It's a crazy story.

And you're quietly like such a beast in terms of like the endurance stuff that you've done. Like it's insane. I feel like that gets overlooked, but let's go back to the beginning, back to Queens. So if anybody's back to the beginning, back to Queens. So if anybody's seen the movie, Goodfellas out there, raise your hand. Most people have seen it, right? Ground zero for that movie was the block I grew up on. I'm trying to remember the exact address, but 84th street, 149th Avenue in Lindenwood, Queens or Howard Beach, Queens, Jamaica. And for whatever reason,

a bunch of wise guys located on this particular block and their game, their profession was stealing from Kennedy Airport. And that's what's portrayed. That's exactly what's in the movie. That's exactly what's in the movie. And so there wasn't a morning that went by where I didn't wake up with my sister

and we'd go down into the garage and there was a new big box on a pallet of things there. Like it could be leather ski gloves, 500 pairs. Could be Adidas superstar sneakers. Just heisting the cargo trucks that are coming in and out. Yeah, and so it was very common to go shopping. We were young, my sister and I at this point, my friends, but you'd go shopping in someone's house.

It wasn't like, you didn't have to go to the store. You went to someone's house and there was all kinds, but you don't know as a kid what this means. Anyway, we grew up in this crazy neighborhood. My parents are getting along, everything's fine. Your dad part of that or just the neighbors? So the way I'll answer it is my dad had a trucking business in the airport, eventually a fairly large warehouse

and air freight business. And it was hard to be in that business unless- You couldn't be in that business unless you have some relationship. You have some relationship with it. But I will say my dad, no BS, my dad was amazing in that his thing was, if you go in that direction,

you waste so much energy and so much time, and you can't spend the money because it's not legal. Like you'd be better off putting all that time and energy into a legitimate way, a legitimate life. But I'll say that, like, if you grew up there and you come from that place and you're in that, but it's pretty hard to not be in it. It was nobody not in it in that neighborhood.

And I can't go deeper than that, but- I got it. You got it. So, and there's very few people left. So anyway, my parents are getting along. My dad starts making some real money and we move 15 blocks south of where we were, which is a better area. And our neighbor is the head

of the Banana Organized Crime Family, 15 blocks up. And around the corner is the big boss of the Gambino's and there's four of the five family heads are living just around us in this area, 15 blocks south of where I first grew up. And my mom goes into, her mom dies of cancer. My mom goes into a health food store to just explore, like, is there another way to live rather than, you know,

granolis and raviolis and pizza. And she just didn't feel healthy. And she watched her mom just die. She walks into a health food store. She's probably the only health food store on the entire East Coast at this point. And there's a yogi, like an 85 year old yogi that just landed at Kennedy airport,

probably from India in the store. And she starts talking to him and somehow he convinces her that she's got it all wrong and she's got to become vegan. And she's got to start meditating and she's got to take up yoga and how to breathe and cold showers, all the stuff we talk about now. And she comes home and she throws out the sausage and peppers and like literally transforms the house,

which ultimately leads to divorce. Your dad's losing his shit with this. Everybody, we were as kids, because if you're listening to this, this sounds somewhat, it was not. No, not at all at that time. She might as well have just landed from Mars, right? That's how crazy the stuff was that she was preaching.

And so they get divorced and she moves us back north to that 15 blocks, right? So my sister and I are down there for about a year. My dad's at the other house, and then she's just not fitting in. Nobody's getting this thing that she's preaching. And she moves to Ithaca, New York, because that was like where the hippies were,

and they were educated. She's going Moosewood. She's going Moosewood, exactly. That was a big part of our life. And I'm kicking and screaming, my sister's kicking and screaming. We don't wanna leave our friends in the neighborhood and any kid would feel this way.

And I'm attracted as a young boy, I'm attracted just like all the other boys in town are to the guys with Cadillacs, the guys with suits on, the guys with rolls, a hundred dollar bills in their pocket. Like we kind of know what they're doing and who doesn't want to be that? Right, and what is the difference between the wise guys you see in the movies,

whether it's Goodfellas or the Sopranos versus like your real life experience with these guys? There's really no difference. I mean, from my perspective at that age, no one's ever asked me that. They were a lot more quiet in real life, but a film has to give you the behind the scenes. And so I didn't, you know what I mean?

I wasn't, they were a lot more quiet. They didn't have to say much. They earned respect. You kind of, you just didn't mess around, right? Like you would imagine. But very much the same. In The Godfather, in Goodfellas, in A Bronx Tale, you go down, like they did a really good job.

If you're like from there, like they really captured the mannerisms. Sopranos, not as much. I didn't feel it in The Sopranos, but in those other movies. And the thing that you get is this idea that even though they're outlaws, they still have these rules and this code that they live by.

And there's certain aspects of that ethic that are laudable, right? It's not all bad, right? And so as a young kid who's impressionable, you see the bling, but you also see there's a value system there that you can kind of hang your hat on. Definitely hang your hat on it.

Things got taken care, like everybody runs into a problem in life. Everybody runs into a problem. And so here, if you're sitting in- The community's taking care of each other. Like I remember running to the boss next door as I got older and I'll, let me go backwards. Mom moves to Ithaca.

My dad falls on hard times, the 87 market crash hits, all the things he's working on are starting to fall apart a bit. And the neighbor sees this and he says, and I'm probably 12 years old, and he says, "'Come over and clean my pool Saturday.'" So that's a big deal, getting tapped on the shoulder and the boss wants me to come over and clean the pool.

So I go over and clean the pool and he sits me down and he gives me three lessons that day. And he says, look, if you're gonna be here at 8 a.m., you show up 7 45, on time is late. You think I'm at Stanford, right? He says, yeah, if you're gonna clean the pool, I want you to clean the lawn furniture, the shed, the windows, whatever it takes, make yourself invaluable.

All right, that seems fair. And three, never ask for money. You'll get paid if you do a good job. Don't have your hand out. And unbeknownst to me at that moment in time, he's grooming, he's seeing, here's a hardworking young kid, right? Right.

And then he gives me another customer, you know, two houses over, who happens to be connected to him. And then he gives me another customer, you know, two houses over who happens to be connected to him. And then I got another boss's house. And before you know it, I've got 700 customers. Right. I pay for my own college. How old are you at this point?

Well, I started at 12. By the time I graduate college, I'm 20, 700 customers. It's a multimillion dollar business at that point. And it's all these guys. That's crazy. I could walk in anybody's house. And so I'm feeling, this is great. Right.

Like everybody trusts me. And you're taken care of. I'm taken care of. Do you get in trouble? So that was my point. So my dad is telling me, and he's right, stay away from that life. But you find yourself,

even if you push back on that life, make fun of that, let's say that's ridiculous, those guys are terrible. You find yourself in a situation where like somebody owes you money or you did, whatever it may be. And then all of a sudden it comes okay to ring their bell. Right, and say, hey, I need a favor. Right. And then you're in it.

Once they do that favor for you. You're in it. And technically, because he got me in the business, like, I mean, I couldn't say no to anything. Right. Right. But once you, did you call upon those guys to do some favors for you?

And then did you find it difficult to then extricate yourself from the whole thing? Well, so yes, I asked for favors often because people owed me money. And I remember saying to Joe once, a guy owed me $60,000 and he said, bring this bottle of champagne over to his house and just let him know it came from me.

And so I go over to the house. I don't ask for the money. I just say, hey, Joe asked me to drop this off for you. And he literally goes over to the wall, takes a painting down, opens a safe, like in a movie, grabs 60,000 in cash and hands it to me. There wasn't even, we didn't even,

I didn't even add, it was, it was, and there were a few incidences like that. Now to the second part of the question, did you find yourself beholden? I guess I got lucky in the sense that Giuliani came to be. And then one by one, all these guys, bad for my business, they all started to go to jail. And so I didn't have a long tail and it was good. I didn't know it at the time. So where does Cornell come into the whole thing? So-

Like kind of in the middle of the pool business, right? Yeah, so I'm running this business. I'm feeling great. It's growing. I buy a backhoe and a bobcat and I got a building and like it's a real business, right? And my mom's living in Ithaca, so I have to spend a lot of time in Ithaca,

that's where I live. And I'm going back and forth, running the business by my dad's house, going back to mom. And I'm leaving high school in Ithaca, going back to run my business, no intention of going to college. I didn't have like most families where they bring you on a college tour. Even was no, even though I lived in Ithaca

where Cornell is low, no one told me anything about school. And my grades weren't that good. And my friend says to me, "'Hey, why don't we go to Cornell?' And I'm two months from graduating high school. And I said, well, how would we go to Cornell? And he said, my dad's a professor. He'll get us in."

And that made perfect sense to me because I grew up in the neighborhood where you'd have a guy and he would get you into a restaurant or whatever. So this is like, yeah, he'll get us in college. So we both get dressed up. We do our interviews. We do everything we're supposed to do.

It's gonna be a shoe in and neither of us get accepted. And now I was intrigued. Like, oh, we have a guy and we can't get in. And now I'm intrigued in this thing. Tell me I can't, now I gotta do it. Where does that come from? Because that's just born and bred into you. Probably a neighborhood thing.

Like when we, let's go back to your conversation about resiliency and grit and those athletes. Like when we, let's go back to your conversation about resiliency and grit and those athletes. In this neighborhood, these guys went to jail, they got killed and that was just part of the job, right? And then if you were running a somewhat legal business, you owned a local pizza place or a trucking company or whatever, you hustled.

You were up at 5 a.m. The diesel trucks were running, the pizza place was second generation, third generation. They were making, you knowled, you were up at 5 a.m. The diesel trucks were running, the pizza place was second generation, third generation. They were making, you know what I mean? Like everybody just hustled. So probably comes from that. It probably comes from just seeing this like, you know, fuck that, I'm gonna get this done.

Kind of like, there's no, there's no no, right? Right, so you get the no. We get the no, and I'm debate, now I wanna go, and I'm debating going back to run my business, and my friend says, listen, my dad just said, we can go extramural. We could take three classes each. When everybody else gets matriculated into Cornell,

we could take three classes each. They'll do five. We're not official, but if we do well, they have to let us in, logical. So I said, okay, you know what we'll do five. We're not official, but if we do well, they have to let us in. Logical. So I said, okay, you know what we'll do then? I said, when I go back to Queenstown, run my business this summer, I'll go to St. John's. It's in my route anyway. And all the pools I clean and the work I do, I'll stop in St. John's. I'll take a couple of classes. I'll learn how to study. And then when I'm going to Cornell, if we get in, I'll have gotten my five classes done.

I won't be behind the other kids. My friend says to me, that's ridiculous. If we're gonna hustle in September at Cornell, why don't we go to Vegas all summer and party? Right. Right? And that was a divergence right there. And that was a real big lesson for me

on like delaying gratification. So he heads to Vegas. I head to St. John's, I run my business, we both meet up in September, we do our three classes, we do very, very well. I get two A's and a B and for me, at an Ivy League school, two A's, I never got two A's and a B ever.

And reapply. Definitely getting in now. They don't accept us. Right. And now I'm even more invested. I did my classes at St. John's. I just studied my ass off and they didn't accept me. And the woman, the admissions woman says to me,

listen, we'd have everybody and their brother, you know, trying to get in here if this was allowed, you're gonna have to go to another school. And then after three years at like Ithaca College or somewhere else, then apply. And I was like, maybe you didn't hear me. I'm going, you know, I want to go here. Right?

So I'm going to do it again. And then she's got to let me in. And so he diverts, my friend taps out. You go back to Vegas? He goes back to Vegas. He goes to UNLV. And I go back, do another semester, do well, reapply. They don't accept me, do another semester.

I do well, don't accept me. My fourth semester, I'm broken. I finally hit my limit. My business- This is your own death race. Yeah, it's my own death race. And I'm just feeling like my business is doing well. I got all these, like, I don't need this.

Right. I don't need the headache. And I tell my mom, you know, I'm gonna pack it in. And she was probably bragging for four semesters. Her son was going to Cornell, even though I technically was not a Cornell student. And she says, go meet my yoga. She teaches yoga, my mom at this point in the living room. And she says, go meet my yoga student,

Professor Anita Racine. She might be able to help you, I don't know. And my mom was the last person I would have asked like for a connection, because she was crunchy and Bohemian and my dad would have had the contacts. So anyway, out of respect to my mom, I go meet Professor Anita Racine.

She sits me down, looks at my grades, asked me a bunch of questions. She says, you know, I run a department within one of the schools at Cornell, textiles. We study textiles. And there's 92 women in the department. There's no men. Do you like textiles?

I was like, I love textiles. I didn't even know what a textile was, right? Like I'm in. And so she finally accepts me in and I ended up spending the rest of my time at Cornell studying textiles, which if I had to do it again, I would do, because I could watch any movie from any era

and tell you based on hemlines, what time, you know, when that was. That's amazing. Yeah, when that happened. What years were you at Cornell then? I entered in 86, graduated in 90. Uh-huh, so you left right before I got there, because I went to law school at Cornell. Okay.

The law school is beautiful. So I was there 92 to 94. Nice. So you were out there. And you got in legitimately. You didn't need the full screen. I was, no, well, legitimately sort of. I was the last person admitted

to the law school class off the wait list. Okay. So I showed up like, I didn't think I was going to law school. I got in at the last minute. I was living in New York City didn't think I was going to law school. I got in at the last minute. I was living in New York City and packed a bag and tried to figure out where Ithaca was and showed up. And everybody had been studying all summer. And I was like, what am I even doing here? Because I'd already decided I wasn't going to go. And it was like a very spontaneous decision.

And you liked it when you arrived? I mean, I liked being, I was getting out of control in New York. So I liked being in a structured environment and I like school and the law school. It's kind of like the shining there though, because it's so fucking cold and you're all in this one building and a lot of the 1Ls live in a dorm that's attached to the law school.

So they never go outside. So it gets a little weird and incestuous, but I basically just spent most of my time at Ruloff's. I bar backed at Ruloff's. Oh, you did? Yeah. I mean, I was there like four nights a week. I was gone by the time you got there,

but I think I made $16 a week. Right. And that's tough when you're making, you know, like mid six figures or whatever you're making in the pool business. Exactly, but it was good for me to, it was a way for me to mingle and meet other people while I was, I like to work.

Obviously you're hearing that in my story. And rather than wasting time just drinking, which is the way I looked at it. I was around it while I was working and getting paid. I could have used you in my orbit back then, man. I needed a little discipline at the time. Cool, so then you get out of Cornell, but then it's back to the pool business?

So first of all, anybody listening that doesn't know Cornell, and correct me if I'm wrong, Rich, but the law school to me feels most like Cambridge or Harry Potter, at least from the outside, it has that look, right? So I'm about to graduate on time, which was unbelievable because I was so far behind from those four semesters.

And I take Professor Ben Daniels' class at the Graduate Management School, the MBA program. Right, you did a combined MBA. Yeah, like you get your MBA. I didn't do the combined. They didn't accept me for the combined. It was just, I clearly was not smart enough for this whole thing,

but I was allowed to take a class there. A lot of people took the entrepreneurship class at that school. And as part of it, we all came up with a business plan and we presented that business plan to a panel of judges and I won. I won the $5,000 award that came from the owners of Ryu Needy Wines.

They were awarding at every semester $5,000 to the best idea, best presentation. And the judge, one of the judges was an Italian guy. And being from the neighborhood I'm from, I clicked with him and I bought him a bottle of Sambuca. I brought it over his house and we got to know each other. I didn't buy the winning slot, by the way. I just got to know him.

I got to know him. And he said, what are you doing when you graduate? And I said- Well, first of all, what was the idea that allowed you to win? So do you remember at Cornell and many colleges, they had champion branded sweatshirts with the silk letters sewn on the front, Cornell. Sure. I remember at Cornell and many colleges, they had Champion branded sweatshirts

with the silk letters sewn on the front, Cornell. Sure. And they were $50 or $40. And I just thought the way those sweatshirts were made where people would buy the Champion sweatshirts, the stores at Cornell or any would buy the sweatshirts and then they'd have a couple of seamstresses, because I was studying textiles,

would sew those letters on. And I just thought I could make them in Asia. I could make them for each school. I would change the wristbands. I'd add a little bit of Lycra so they didn't blow out because everybody would roll up their sleeves. You'd wear those things a couple of times and they were done.

Yeah, they would blow out. And so I had this idea for a better cut sweatshirt that was cut and sewn in Asia, labeled in Asia. And they liked the idea. So they gave me $5,000 to do it. It's amazing you didn't go into becoming some huge Garmento. I should have.

Yeah. I should have in retrospect. But so he says to me, what are you doing when you graduate? I say, I'm going back to the neighborhood. I got this business. He says, you're an idiot. I said, what do you mean when you graduate? I say, I'm going back to the neighborhood. I got this business. He says, you're an idiot. I said, what do you mean?

He said, you have a work ethic. I can see it. You can talk. You should go to Wall Street. And I didn't really know much about Wall Street. I just knew the 87 crash. And I just decided that, you know, I want to run my business. Gotti was becoming a really big name back then. And I was plugged into that whole thing.

Yeah. And he stayed in touch with me. So I went back to the neighborhood. I run my business, kept building it up. And he stayed in touch with me. He called me, this guy called me every month on the month. Have you sold your business yet? Have you gone to wall street? No. Al, stop calling me. Every month for like 35 months. Wow. Okay. And finally he convinces me, he calls me one day, he says, hey, I'm gonna give you a stock tip. If you're not gonna listen to me, I'm gonna give you a stock tip.

And I had never bought a stock before. I was busy running my business. And he says, I want you to buy this stock Syntex. So it's probably like 1993, 94. I want you to buy this stock Syntex. Again, I don't have an account. I don't know anything about it. That day, I'm going to pick up money from a pharmacist.

One of my customers is a pharmacist. He owns a pharmacy. And he must know about this pharmaceutical Syntex. Ring his bell. I'm going to pick up my check. And I said, hey, my buddy just told me to buy this stock Syntex. He goes, I can't believe you're bringing that up. I said, what do you mean? He says, I was just taking a shower. I was thinking I'm gonna buy some today. And he brings

me in the house and he hands me my check. He owes me a lot of money. And we had done more than- It was like 140 grand or something like that, right? Yeah. Because then we were not just doing swimming pools. We were rebuilding houses, doing patio work, et cetera. And he sits me down. He calls up his broker and he says, hey, you should buy 10,000 shares of this thing. $14 share, 140 grand. And I, you know, I'm a pretty,

he goes, you're single. If you don't, you know, you're making a lot of money right now. If you lose it, it's no big deal. When you're married and you've got children. So anyway, he talks me into it. I buy 10,000 shares. Next day, the company gets taken over.

I made $100,000 and I was like, I'm going to Wall Street. This is a hell of a lot better than cleaning swimming pools and having to chase my money and bring bottles of champagne to get the safe to open. And so anyway, that was it. I sold my business to my employees. They still run it today. They're multimillionaires.

They're great guys and went to Wall Street. Wow. And had to take a serious pay cut initially, right? Big pay cut. I went down to 35 grand a year and then thought I was a genius and started trading stocks and options and lost most of the money I had accumulated up until then.

But then dug myself out and figured it out and ended up building a business and started my own firm where we executed orders, believe it or not, for the JP Morgans, the Morgan Stanley's, Goldman Sachs, Bank Americas. They were our customers. Everybody says, why? Why would the big banks give business to a pool guy?

And I just learned in the neighborhood how to service customers, how to do a good job, Everybody says, why? Why would the big banks give business to a pool guy? And I just learned in the neighborhood how to service customers, how to do a good job, a better job than whoever they were using. People skills. I had good people skills. We hustled. If we had to take a loss on a trade,

kind of like clean the windows and clean the shed, even though you're only getting paid to clean the pool. Don't ask for money. If we had to lose money, we lost money. And then there was one secret weapon I had, which nobody had. My neighbor who ended up going to jail had a table at a restaurant in Harlem called Rao's, R-A-O-S.

You see the sauce in a lot of stores. Yeah, I've seen that. It's from that restaurant. It's from that restaurant. And that restaurant only has 10 tables. It's been around since like the 20s. You can't get a table at Rao's. Denzel Washington's in there,

the head of New York Stock Exchange is in there, a couple of wise guys, you cannot get a table at Rao's. I had a table because my neighbor went to jail. And so that definitely helped my Wall Street business because I was able to bring potential clients to Rao's and that's, yeah, that's how we- And so where does the endurance impulse start to enter? You got this like guy in your building, right?

Who's running stairs and shit. Like, are you just gaining weight and feeling lazy or where does it begin? Yeah, well, go way back. My mom introduces me to like, she's running marathon. She introduced me to this transcendence run in Queens. I don't know if you know it, the 3100 row. Yeah, I had Sanjay Rawal on the podcast

who made a movie about it. Yeah, exactly. We invested in that movie. Oh, you did? Yeah, we gave money to that movie simply because of that connection to my mom. So anyway, she introduces me to that race. If you're listening, it's 3100.

So was she a devotee of the guy? That was one of her gurus. Right. Yeah, Sai Baba was another guru. And so for those listening, there's a race in Queens, New York called the Transcendence Run. It's one mile loop, 3,100 times,

takes 50 to 60 days to complete it. And about eight people every year attempt it. Right, right. And so anyway, she introduced me to that, probably Ironman, I'm seeing on TV, marathons. But you weren't an athlete in high school. Not an athlete. I BMXed.

That is not considered an athlete by any means, but I was a crazy person on a BMX bike. Like I would bike tens of miles on this bike. And it's hard to do that with one gear on a little bike. So that was the only skill I had, if you could even call that a skill. So fast forward, when I was running the business, I'm mixing cement, I'm laying brick.

We are working physically every day. So I've got that kind of endurance and it feels good. Now I'm on Wall Street and I'm sitting at a desk and we're doing two or three dinners a night and I'm getting heavy and I'm feeling terrible. And I still don't want any part of yoga or any of that crunchy stuff my mom talked about. But one day the elevator is broken in the building

and I got to go up to the 30 something floor. And so I'm taking the stairs and I'm huffing and puffing. And there's a guy as fit as Rich Roll sitting here, right? Not nearly as fit as you. Get out of here. Rich is ripped and he's carrying two dumbbells and he's going up the stairs. And his name's Mike, if I remember correctly.

And we're talking in the stairwell and I'm intrigued. This guy, he's literally a cover of men's health type guy, right? And he's got a shirt off and we got time to talk because we're going up all these stairs and he's carrying the dumbbells and I'm more out of breath than he is. And he says, meet me in the stairs every day, we'll start training. And so that was the beginning. I started training in the stairs. He introduced me to an adventure race. i'd never heard of an adventure race which was a three-hour race where we kayaked we biked uh kayaked biked and ran loved it felt like i was mixing cement again and laying bricks and doing construction work and i was just like went nuts right went nuts like where's the next one where's the next one? Where's the harder one?

Give me the hardest race in the world. And I just chased races for, and it was my way of eliminating some of the stress I had on the trading desk, that insanity. And so I don't know, from like 98, 97, 98 to like 2005, I just went nuts. I mean, you were on this ridiculous tear where you were flying somewhere every weekend

to do something bananas. There couldn't have been that much training during the week in between with the work schedule that you're holding down. So the training and the racing become one thing. But I mean, in that period of time, I mean, I don't know if there's anybody else on the planet who participated in more insane races than you did.

I went absolutely nuts. And I call it the Spartan paradox. And maybe you found this as well, that the training, like you got to embrace the training, right? It's the journey that matters, but like training sucks. Like the actual race is kind of cool, right? And I found that as long as I had a date on the calendar,

I always had, I never fell out of shape. Right. Kind of like, you know, a boxer gets a date on the calendar, he knows he's got a fight and starts training. You're just accountable. Yeah, and so I just- The clock's ticking. Selfishly, I was like, if I just keep racing,

I'll just always be in shape. Right. I just never, I never have to train. But you took it to such an insane level. I mean, there's that one, there was like a one, like four day, five day period. You did the Vermont 100, 100 mile run. Then you get on a plane and you fly to Vegas

and drive to Badwater and you do Badwater for, and Badwater's a race we talk about all the time on the podcast. Then you go to a wedding and then you go to Lake Placid and do the Ironman. You did your- What, like four days? You did your research, yeah. Five days or something like that?

Yeah, the hardest part of that whole week was the wedding. My feet did not fit in the shoes. How do you go from running the Vermont 100 to running Badwater? I mean, the hardest, I mean, I paced Dean Karnazes at that race and it just, it almost killed me just trying to support that guy. Yeah, it was hot.

It was 137 degrees the day we did it. It was hot. My shoes melted, my shirt melted. And I don't know. You know, there's something amazing about the human body. The body gets more efficient. You would think like everybody talks to me about, well, you got to recover or whatever.

And I don't know if this was the 1700s, 1800s, you and I would not like, we wouldn't stop on a mountain with our horse and carriage and say, it's recovery day today. Like, you know, you just keep going. And the human body just gets stronger or it dies. And so I just found for me, just get stronger. Like my fastest time, that hundred mile run in Vermont,

fly to Vegas, go to Badwater. My fastest time in that 235 miles was the last 13 miles up to Mount Whitney. Like that, I was flying. So- That climb is brutal. I ran that whole thing like a lunatic. I probably passed eight people.

And just because your body gets more efficient. I'm no special athlete. All I did was BMX as a kid. I didn't, what the hell am I, you know? So- The best part is how you finished the marathon in Lake Placid though. Yeah, yeah.

Well, what happened was I'm feeling great in the swim. We get there, I sit in an ice tub. How are you feeling great? I'm feeling great in the swim, right? Cold water and I'm crushing it in the swim, right? Cold water. And I'm crushing it. I get on the bike. I'm feeling pretty damn good on the bike.

And I'm like, you know what? This is gonna be great. And within three or four miles on the run, I was dead. I was smoked. And I asked a couple of kids, I said, hey, on the side, do you have any aspirin, Advil? They said, no, we got beer.

And I don't drink. Give me a beer. And I drank, no, we got beer and I don't drink. Give me a beer. And I drank one beer, two beer. So I basically got drunk. I was eating hamburgers. I couldn't consume enough during that marathon. Yeah, but you got that done, man. I got it done.

That is so impressive. And then you've gone on, you did Furnace Creek. You did this crazy like 350 mile thing in Quebec in the winter time. I biked from Vermont to did Furnace Creek, you did this crazy like 350 mile thing in Quebec in the winter time. I biked from Vermont to the Furnace Creek start line. Get out. Yeah, that was a 14 day bike ride. Oh my God.

That was your training. That was my training for that, yeah. Yeah, I went nuts, I went nuts, whatever. It was a year where you did 50 ultras and 14 Ironmans. That's gotta be a record. I was in a, what happened, the reason that happened is I was in a bad car accident and I was thrown out the window at 85 miles an hour.

My leg was ripped out of my hip. So I'm laying in bed and the doctor's saying, you're not gonna be able to walk again. You're not in crutches, wheelchair. And I just kept going to different doctors till I got a doctor that said you'd be fine. And Lisa Smith, I don't know if you know her, she had gotten me into some of this stuff. So she called to say, how, you know, how are you? I heard you got in a car accident. I said, look, it doesn't look like I'll be doing these adventure races

anymore or whatever. She said, why don't we do Ironmans? And maybe I had done one Ironman at that point, or maybe two, and she said, well, just do every Ironman there is. I said, all right, let's do it. Cause I was just out of the hospital. My leg had been ripped out of my hip. And a lot of times when you're hurt, you see those athletes come back stronger, right?

And so that just gave me something to look forward to. And I just, I went nuts that year. It ended, that year ended because my wife was eight and a half months pregnant with our first child. I was at an Ironman. I had just like barely came in walking on the marathon. I was just exhausted, as you can imagine from doing all those things.

And she said, are we gonna have a family or are you just gonna keep doing races? Yeah, I mean, at some point, it's like, what are you running from? A lot of this is so nourishing because it's connecting you with yourself and your potential and there's so much to be learned about what we're capable of, right?

But you can also hide behind it. Like you can run from your life by just being in too many events all the time. I was, I had never been married before, so I didn't, you know, and I'm, I was learning, navigating that. But for me, although you might have better insight into me listening to me,

for me, it was more about like, I was so stressed out in business that whenever I got to a place where I was like just wanting water, food, and shelter, it was more about like, I was so stressed out in business that whenever I got to a place where I was like, just wanting water, food and shelter, it was so nice. And I just liked getting there. Just like, as long as I fall asleep in my soup at dinner, I'm happy. Does that make sense?

Yeah, of course. Like that's what it's all about. I mean, what do you think, like, what is it that that, what is that experience for somebody who's never been in that position before teach you? I guess for me, I needed to meet myself, right? I needed to find out who I am. Am I tough enough? And I liken it to if I had a Ferrari in the garage and I just looked at it and I polished it and, you know, showed photos

of it versus I took it out on the track and I raced it up against the, you know, however you race a race car, you get to see how it handles. And so I was just, I guess, learning to see how, how do I handle, how do I do? Right. And you get humble. I don't know about you, but I gained integrity during all those crazy adventures because I liken that to like a structural engineer that checks the integrity of the parts and pieces before he puts the building together. Like I was testing the integrity of my parts and pieces. And I think when you've suffered like that,

like you've suffered, like I've suffered, it knocks the edges off. Yeah. And it's like, you know, when I meet a really tough wrestler or a Navy SEAL or Delta Force operator, and they've got a somewhat soft handshake, they're that way for that reason. They've been through some tough shit.

They don't need to squeeze your, does that make sense or? Yeah, I get that. I mean, I think when I think of you to like extend the car analogy, like your RPMs are running so hot all the time because when you get back from that race, you're in Wall Street. So you're burning it in a different way.

So there's no like recuperation. Like it's amazing you didn't just completely flame out. Yeah, I had zero recovery. But the other thing is, I mean, I remember flying to like, you'd be able to look this up if my memory's off, but I remember flying once to like South Africa to knock out an Ironman, literally land on a Friday afternoon,

put my bike together, wake up in the morning, do the Ironman. At the finish line, take my bike apart, put it in a box and leave. And then get back to New York, work however many days I had in New York, three days, and then fly back to like Western Australia. It's like crazy.

What are people in the office thinking? Well, it cost me, it cost me a lot, right? Because then the boss, if the boss is always- You can't be fully present. I wasn't present, but that's the negative. The negative was I was showing my people that I wasn't really interested, right? So that was bad for business. But what was good for business was that became my brand.

Everybody else's brand on Wall Street was like drinking and partying, my brand, which didn't exist, you know, at this time in the early 2000s, late 90s, was I'm the adventure guy that takes his customers to do yoga. Right. And on run, nobody was doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We climb stairs for fun. We don't go drinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We climb stairs for fun. We don't go drinking. Yeah, yeah. What's so unique about you, and I'm sure looking back, hindsight's 20, 20, but you're this weird amalgam of street hustler with this kind of blue collar aesthetic and also like the Wall Street pedigree, but you also have the yoga hippie thing

going on at the same time. And all of these things fuse to create this unique individual, like nobody else could be you or do what you do without all of those elements like kind of congealing. Yeah, and what I think about a lot is, cause we have four children now from 14 down to eight years old,

how do you make your, there was a great saying in ancient Sparta, like they need to be better than us. Our children need to be better than us. And so how do you make, how do I make my kids better than me? And they don't have the yoga crunchy mom and the neighborhood and the wise guy next door.

And they have a house where it's so organized for them that it's almost like it's a negative. Yeah. That's the problem with becoming successful. Yeah, it's like not good for the kids in some ways. Yeah, but you're running this crazy bootcamp up in Vermont with all these people coming through all the time. Yeah, so I mean the kids could carry rocks, right?

And the kids could climb ropes, but they don't have a wise guy next door that's- Right, a little street wisdom. Yeah, and so I need to figure that out. They're learning Latin. How old are they now? I've got a eight year old girl, a 12 year old girl, a 13 year old boy, 14 year old boy.

Yeah, I've got two daughters, 16 and 13, two older boys. None of them are interested in any of this stuff. Oh, really? And I can't get them interested. And that's fine. Like I don't need them to be, but I find myself thinking like, they'd probably be better off,

but I don't wanna be the guy who's forcing them to do something that they really just are not wired to do. Well, so I forced it and I continue to force it every single day. And my theory, and we will find out if I completely fuck this up, but my theory is they hate it, they hate it, they hate it.

And then all of a sudden they score a goal at a soccer game and they see they're more fit than their peer. And then they hear from, "'Hey, you're in pretty good shape,' the coach said." Right, like, and then maybe it starts to stick. It clicks. And I think I'm seeing that happen, but I might be seeing what I wanna see.

So, but I force it. I force it every day. And I've been forcing it since my oldest was four years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, let's take it to you. So basically at some point you, you know, rip the parachute ripcord and you're out of New York

and you decide to move to Vermont and it's gonna be retirement. Yeah, so I've got a picture of a red barn on the trading desk, probably because in Ithaca when I was a kid, I saw some red barn in a field. I mean, Ithaca's pretty, I feel like it's pretty nice. And that's what I'm visualizing the country to be.

And I meet my wife and I'm like, I wanna find a place like that. I don't wanna be around the craziness I grew up in. I wanna get away from all these crazy people on Wall Street and we're gonna find a farm. And so we find this farm in Vermont. Vermont was not in our plan. And the mistake I made was I associated,

and this is like a JV mistake. I associated country, like Ithaca was country, with like, but there's academics in Ithaca, right? There's a university there. You run into professors. Like it's a little more developed that like anywhere in the country would be like that, but it's not.

And so we found a farm in Pittsfield, Vermont, a tiny little town, 400 residents, eight miles from Killington, Vermont, the East Coast largest ski resort. And there's not a university there. And so there's a lot of negatives. There's some positives to not a big crowd, but it's very hard to make a living there.

And so we bought this farm. My wife was willing to move up. We got cows and chickens and goats. And I started putting on races. I put trails on the side of the mountain. I mean, we did unbelievable stuff, but it's hard to convince people, even though it's only a gas tank away from New York, it's hard to convince people to come up to Vermont.

But it ultimately led to me putting on a race we call the death race. Right, right. So let's talk about this, because this is crazy. And it still exists, right? Still exists. And what happened was,

I was in Lake Placid Ironman one year. I don't know when it was. It was pouring rain like you read about. I mean, crazy rain. And for whatever reason, I think I had just gotten done with the Eco Challenge in Fiji where it rained like nonstop. I was at some race where it rained nonstop for 10 days,

nonstop. And this is not gonna make sense. I'm gonna sound like I'm bullshitting, but like I did that Ironman, it rained. I didn't even feel, I did not even notice it was raining. I had just left, you know, 12 days straight, whatever it was of rain. And I saw a bunch of top athletes,

men and women quit that race in the middle of it. Is that like 2008 or 2009? I remember there was one year where it rained like crazy. It was craziness. It had to be before that because death race started before that. So I said, this is ridiculous. The name of the race is Ironman.

Doesn't say like Ironman except if it's raining race. Right? And I grew up with a mom who meditated straight for 30 days. Like, this is ridiculous. You'd quit because of the rain. So I'm looking for ways to bring people to Pittsfield, Vermont anyway, to our new farm. And I'm like, you know what?

We're gonna have this race called the death race and it's gonna emulate life. And it's gonna, there's gonna be no rules. And it'd be like, if you get out of the swim in this race and you get to your bike and the bike seat is missing, so what? You gotta do it without a bike seat. That's gonna be what this race is, right?

Because that's what a CEO would do. That's what a startup would do. But the mind fuck goes way further with this one. The mind fuck goes way further. So first year, we, Doug Lewis, Olympics downhill skier shows up, the Ashley brothers, two guys from Vermont. I don't know any of these guys.

Two guys from Vermont who eat barbed wire for breakfast, grew up on a bad-ass farm where the dad made them chop wood for heat. They're all like just tough guys. A teacher, a female teacher and a kid I convinced from Wall Street to show up. It's about eight people, just like the transcendence run. And they don't know when it's gonna start.

They don't know what it includes, but it's like hand sawing through a log, right? 12 chunks. So they're there for like three hours hand sawing through a log, right? 12 chunks. So they're there for like three hours, hand sawing through this log, splitting that wood, crawling through a culvert. A culvert is a hole under the ground.

This was 120 feet long, that water rushes through that they could barely fit in, putting together a wheelbarrow with Japanese directions and no tools. But the thing is you don't tell them when it starts, how long it's gonna go for, when it's gonna end, or even what they're gonna be doing. And no idea, no idea what they were getting into.

And the two rugged Vermonters and the Olympic downhill skier are battling for first. And the teacher is, everybody else quit. The T the female teacher who's in dead last by like five hours. And we're trying to get her to quit because I can't manage the front of the pack 15 miles away from this woman in the back. And she says, you'd have to kill me. Like she literally just would not quit. So ultimately the skier wins and the brothers come in second and then the female comes in third after the two brothers.

And the race just became this thing. The New York Times picked up a story and they came and filmed it and the world got excited. And then all of a sudden, 300 competitors every year would descend upon Pittsville, Vermont. And the race got excited and then all of a sudden, 300 competitors every year would descend upon Pittsville, Vermont. And the race got tougher and longer and crazier

with every year. So every year you're throwing something new at them, right? Like it's never the same. Well- Didn't you have like a bus where you would stand there and say, you can get on the bus and quit? Oh, you have no idea what I did. So what happened was-

Just toying with them. What happened was the two brothers who I've since become great friends with, the two brothers from that first race, they had done lots of big races throughout their life. They had, these are tough guys, crazy races in the tundra. Like they would have done really well in the 1700s.

And they took on the persona of the death race after doing it that first year. They started to make little skull necklaces. They got tattoos. Like they were just into this. And I started to see some of the videos they were creating and they were training specifically for what we had just done that first year.

And I said, I'm not gonna, they're not gonna do the same stuff the next year. I'm gonna change everything. Right. And it broke them. It drove them crazy because they had just trained for eight or nine months, whatever it was, to do exactly what I could.

They could put a wheelbarrow together now. You're trying to figure out what their weaknesses are so you can throw something at them that's just gonna derail their whole plan. Exactly. And so every year became, what are they expecting? What are the competitors expecting versus what are we gonna throw at them?

It's diabolical. It was diabolical. And so, you know, they would roll into town, let's say on a Thursday night, getting ready for a Friday afternoon start and they'd check into the general store and they'd have khakis on and shoes and they'd be with their family. And I'd say, race starts right now.

They haven't even signed a waiver yet. We're going right now, grab an ax and we're going. And so it just became this mystical thing that still goes on today. Right, and there was a TV deal on the table at one point, right, that didn't end up panning out. Yeah, we had many, many TV deals. We've had so many TV people come up

from the Discovery Channels, the NBCs, and invariably, everybody gets really nervous with that word, you know, death race. And it's a crazy race. People have come really close to dying. And so it- How ironclad is that?

Is that wafer? We make them in the waiver. It says, we will bury you on the property. So we might not even tell anyone. How is it, you know, it doesn't get like a lot of media though. You know, you don't hear that much about it. It did get a ton of media, like 2007, 2008,

but then from there, Spartan was born. Right. And Spartan took over and then Tough Mudder and Spartan took over. I mean, Spartan's really born out of this idea. How do we take what's great about the death race and make it accessible for the average weekend warrior and then scale it up. And formalize it and standardize it.

Like you're not gonna find wood chopping at one. It was more military based, like standardized for Spartan. But death race is my baby and I love torturing people. How many people show up these days? Still about 300 people. And how many people finish? Depends on the year, what kind of mood I'm in. I like how it's up to you.

It's really up to me because we could go till Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and we could say, all right, we only want three people finishing. So imagine you're four days into this, just hypothetically, Rich Roll is four days in, you can't see straight. And there's still 12 competitors. And I say to all 12 of you, I say, guys, I'm here. We'll go as long as you want.

But until we're down to three, it doesn't end. And people start dropping right there. It's like hunger games. Like you're overlooking the whole thing going, how can I fuck with these people and improvise. It's so easy to break people once. And what have you learned about the people that break last? Like, does it go back to that grit and the mental fortitude

that is more important than their physical conditioning? No doubt about it. You could tell right away, the big muscular guys, they're out first, they're out first. And it's a CEO, it's a mom that just waits everybody out. You must get Navy SEALs and guys like that coming in. I lost a Greenberry out there once, literally lost them. We had search dogs, the whole thing.

We found them in the attic of one of my barns sleeping. We had shut the whole race down looking for a Green Beret. We've had them all. We've had every form of military, MMA, all of them have come out to try to test themselves. But a lot of them quit in the first three, four hours. Wow. Just like, this is insane.

This guy's nuts. Right. So Spartan Race begins. I mean, you're up in Vermont kind of trying to be semi-retired and instead you build this empire. Yeah. So I'm done.

We're having children and this was gonna be like my time to recover. We talked about recovery. And Death Race leads to this idea of Spartan race and 700 people show up to that first event in Vermont. And I happened to have Discovery Channel. There's a guy from Discovery Channel at that first event. And he's seeing people cross this,

it's just a three mile race. And they're crossing the finish line. He's like, oh my God, you're seeing these transformations that take place. And I'm not really paying attention to that because I've got logistical problems. Any race organizer, you're dealing with other stuff, toilet paper.

And he's like, this is unbelievable what's happening here. And that gives me the impetus to, all right, we're gonna put on a second race and a third race and a fourth race. And then 1500 people showed up and then 3000. And then Tough Mudder came onto the scene. And so then I'm a pretty competitive guy. Then it was like-

That's like not getting into Cornell, right? I gotta bury these guys and be the best. I'm gonna win this thing. And so if they were in the US and Australia, we're going to Slovakia. We're gonna be, I'm gonna go to, you know, I'm gonna go anywhere they're not. And we're gonna, we're just gonna win this war.

And really that battle between Tough Mudder and Spartan, I think drove both of us, the founders, me, and the founders of Mudder to really build an industry, build a sport out of this thing. Yeah, the difference from my perspective is that with Spartan, there's this elite aspect to it where you're able to tap into a different caliber of athlete. And that allows the weekend warriors to compete alongside

like these people that are like, you know, who become the Amelia Boone's and the like, who became really celebrated. Yeah, I mean, that was the difference. The difference was they, Tough Mudder went out and branded it, it's not a race, right? This is an experience. And we're actually gonna laugh

in the face of people wanting a medal at the finish line. We're gonna give them an orange headband. Like that was their shtick. And our thing was, if I'm gonna do this, I wanna make it a real sport. And honestly, it was a business mistake on my part because it was harder to build what I was building. It was easier to build.

They were much more inclusive. Like, right, a bunch of guys high-fiving, they could skip obstacles, and they could just earn a headband and drink a bunch of beer. I was asking people to like train and work hard. And if you didn't do an obstacle, you had to do 30 burpees.

Who the hell wants to do that? So I was losing the battle for a long time, but because I'm such, just don't quit. We ultimately won. Yeah, we ultimately won. That is your superpower. Just you're the ever ready battery. This is never going to run out of energy. My team, my Spartan team says I'm very much like a battery on your phone. That's like just out of juice, but doesn't die somehow. Like you're always at 6%. Yeah, exactly.

And it just doesn't die. That's funny. The other thing that's cool about what you do is, I mean, it would be normal for somebody like you who's so focused on building Spartan and all the things that you're involved in to just be focused on that. But you really opened up your farm

and you have all these people that come through. It's like this open door policy, like, hey, you wanna come here, we got a bunk house, stay as long as you like, but you're gonna have to do what I tell you to. So you're still doing this kind of one-on-one coaching and mentoring. And there's been some pretty extraordinary success stories

that have come out of that. Yeah, I do it. My wife hates it, right? Because I'm invited one, I think I invited 3 million people to the farm once, but people don't really, you know, it's a little Tom Sawyer-ish, right? It's a little karate kid, right?

What was his name? Mr. Biagi. Yeah. Right? Like you come here, you paint the fence and do this and that. And people don't really want to do it. They might not be happy with their life.

They want to lose weight, whatever it is. They're trying to clean up things and they think they wanna come. But in most cases, when they get there, they tap out. Yeah. There's a few unbelievable success stories. The apples guy, right? The apples guy was an amazing success story.

Truck driver, 300 pounds. He probably should have been 160 pounds. I got him down to 200 pounds in 30 days. He shows up with a little wheelie suitcase. He's like, all right, you know, where's, you know, where am I staying or whatever? I'm like, up there, up where? Top of the mountain. The rafter. He takes the wheelie suitcase and literally climbing up the mountain with his thing for like four or five hours, gets up there. I got him in a stone cabin. He's like, you know, where's the shower, the kitchen?

There are none. And a big bushel of apples. All you're getting is apples. We're hiking every day, lost a hundred pounds in 30 days. Obviously extreme, obviously easy to bounce back from that. But like, that's the deal. Like, like you can't, they can't do it on their own. And so I provide that ability to do it.

Structured environment and strip everything else away. Take the phone away, take the food away. And yeah, if they give me their keys and they give me their wallet, we can get them to succeed at anything they wanna succeed at. But as soon as they have a plan B or a way to escape, I can't help them.

Right, so the recidivism rate, you can't control. I can't control. I mean, I had two guys show up two months ago, big jacked guys during COVID. I had a bunch of kids come, family friends. They sent all the kids, I put them through hell. And two guys wanted to come. I said, you can come while the kids are here. I'm putting on a 14 day.

Yeah, no problem. And they spoke with like military lingo. They were not military guys and they were gonna crush it, three hours. Kids stayed 14 days. These guys made it three hours. Wow. So what's the differentiator there?

They could leave. Yeah. They could leave. I mean, when you can leave, you take that option. And I learned that, you know, in this town, we didn't talk about, I rebuilt a general store that had been around from the 1800s. I rebuilt a farm that had been around from the 1800s. And I envisioned finding some entrepreneurs like I was back in the neighborhood to come run these things. It'd be cool to come run a general store, right? And you're not gonna have to get a mortgage and all that. It's all paid for.

It's all ready for you. Turnkey, just walk in. And this farm has a tractor and cows. All you gotta do is walk. You just gotta do the work. You're gonna crush it because you don't have the strains that any other entrepreneur has

where you gotta borrow and you gotta figure out ways to make this work. I even have a place for you to live. They all quit. And they quit because- They're not invested you to live. They all quit. Hmm. And they quit because- They're not invested personally in it. They're not invested.

Like when you write a check and you sell your kids and do whatever you have to do to make it, you have no choice. And so that's the big difference. You know, with the death race, they were all quitting. And then one year I said, here's what we're gonna do. If you wanna do the death race, you have to get an article written in a local newspaper

that says you are doing this race and you're gonna finish. And all of a sudden finishing rates went up. It's that easy. Yeah, yeah. Right? That's amazing. All these people that have come through the farm, all the people that you've seen compete

in these Spartan races, all the athletes that you've run shoulder to shoulder with over the course of these races. Like what are the lessons that you take away from all of these experiences that can inform the person who's at the starting gate of a journey like this? Well, so I'm a big subscriber in this idea

of fire, ready, aim, right? Just get started. Just take that first step. Just go outside. You know this. I think we all get stuck sitting around. Our brains are wired to avoid discomfort. And so I find myself.

I know every day I got to take my cold shower. And I find myself looking at my phone. And I'm like, why the fuck am I looking at my, oh, I'm looking at my phone because I don't want to get in a cold shower. Subconsciously, you know, my brain is telling me to avoid that pain I'm about to go deal with. So just take that first step.

And that first step leads to another step. And before you know it, you get it done. And that might be signing up for something that might be telling a friend you're gonna go do something or maybe just having a friend ring your bell in the morning or having your shoes out next to your bed, that is just take that first step number two and i'm doing this a long time so i think you have to have a frame of reference that you could you could fall back on when the going gets tough so what do i mean by that like i always go to a place when

and i say well it could be worse. Like I could be in Siberia. I could be missing an arm. God forbid one of my kids could be like, I go through this place where it's like, it's not so bad when I refer to some other thing that could be my reality. And I think when you do that, you have gratitude for where you are versus resentment. And that's important to understand, right? There's a lot of people that resent, like, oh, I should have what he has or she has or this or that.

I never think that. I think like, thank God I have what I have because I don't have what they have, which is worse. You know what I mean? And is it the result of all these experiences that you've like, you know, basically brought upon yourself that allows you to tap into gratitude in that way?

No doubt about it. If I didn't feel the pain and suffering, I wouldn't know how bad, like as bad as it's been for me or you, when we've done these races, which are really just manufactured adversity, we're still not in the Lewis and Clark expedition. You know what I mean? It's not Donner Pass. It's not that the Lewis and Clark expedition. You know what I mean?

It's not Donner Pass. It's not that bad, right? Right. But you wouldn't know that if you grew up on Park Avenue, you pampered your whole life. Right. So that's probably why the MMA fighter and the Navy SEAL,

that's probably why their handshake is a little softer and they're more humble, because they've seen hell. But with success, now you're flying around, you're managing this huge business, you're trying to direct all of these races. I know for myself, I'm sitting at a table having conversations with people more than I am getting out after it. As a result of the things that we're interested in, we create a certain largesse in our lives that actually makes it more difficult.

Like I found myself having to exercise, you know, stronger boundaries and challenge myself more to get out of this comfort zone that I've created for myself. Do you feel, I mean- No doubt about it. And now you got kids

and you can't go do 14 Ironmans in a year and all of that. Like, do you miss it? And how do you stay connected with that impulse to be in discomfort? I feel like it would be selfish of me, certainly for my family, if I did my, go back to the old days

and Saturdays were my 12 hour day. If I did that on a Saturday and I stayed away from my kids, that would be selfish. And then the other thing is I'm so fortunate. I get these emails all day, every day that you wouldn't even believe that I'm back with my husband. I'm back with my wife. I lost 200 pounds. I left my job and started a business because of Spartan. You can't even believe the emails I get all day, every day. And so, yes, it'd be cool to go hike a mountain or do something, but like, and I get asked by all my old friends,

right, we're going to climb this, or we're going to do that. You want, no, I can't. Yeah, you can't do it. I got a family and I got a business and we're doing great work here. So I wake up early, I wake up super early. I get my workout in, I sweat every single day. I take the cold showers and I run.

And you told Rogan that you bring a, you have like a 44 pound kettlebell that you travel with. Did you bring it here? I did not bring my kettlebell because the last three flights, I don't know if it's because of COVID, maybe there's less people working at the airlines, they're losing it.

So I ended up landing somewhere where the get, where some like you are expecting to see it and I got to run and go buy one locally quickly to, so I just didn't, I didn't bring it. But, and that stems from, that kettlebell stems from one of the people that came to the farm, Chris Davis was 696 pounds. And he wanted to get down to in the 200s.

And I told him, as you lose weight, I'll carry weight. And so he got down the first 100 pounds. I was carrying 100 pounds in a sandbag. Wow. And it was, as you could imagine, difficult. And it's another whole story, but we moved to Asia as a family right after that. And so I had this hundred pound sandbag that I was carrying

because I made that commitment to him and they confiscated it at the airport. So when I landed in Japan or Singapore, I said to my wife, can you order on Amazon? Can you get a kettlebell? I don't need a hundred pound. I'll carry just to keep it going. I'll carry like a 20 pounder.

It came 20 kilograms, which was 44 pounds or whatever. So that became my thing. And for the last four or five years, I've pretty much carried it everywhere outside of COVID. Yeah, that's gotta be a trip though, when it comes through on the baggage claim or trying to carry that thing on an airplane. It almost took out, yeah, it almost took out

one of those security officers once, you know, coming down the ramp. In India, they stuck it in somebody else's suitcase. Once I checked it in, I had to open somebody else's suitcase to get it out. In the Middle East, they use a term to mean it's up to God whether or not it'll be there when I land. So it's been a trip carrying

this thing around and it's become a shtick. Yeah. So how many people do Spartan pre-COVID? How many people- Pre-COVID, so I don't know if you know this, right before COVID, we purchased Tough Mudder. We bought Tough Mudder. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So pre-COVID, if you look at Spartan and Tough Mudder, we're probably 1.6, 1.7 million people around the world. During COVID, we're like 20,000. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucking disaster. But it's a big number, 45 countries, 325 events,

the two companies combined. And yeah. Right, and you have this mission statement though, that you're gonna impact 100 million people. Our goal is to change 100 million lives, gets us a free pass to heaven. And I'm excited about that. So how do we scale this thing up?

I mean, you've got your books, you've got the podcast, you got the documentary, you've got the races. I don't know what else you can do to impact people at scale other than what you're already doing. Like at the same time, when you canvas what's going on in America and across the developed world, we're dealing with a health crisis of untold proportion. Obesity rates are through the roof,

childhood obesity rates are through the roof, diabetes, heart disease, all of these lifestyle illnesses that are just felling millions of people unnecessarily. There's still so many people that are suffering and challenged to find their way, you know, to a healthier way of being. Yeah, no, I'm in the wrong business for sure. All the data-

I don't think you're in the wrong business. Well, I'm in the right business because it's something you and I are passionate about, right, getting people off the wrong business for sure. All the data- I don't think you're in the wrong business. Well, I'm in the right business because it's something you and I are passionate about, right? Getting people off the couch and doing these things. I'm in the wrong business and that the data is going in the wrong direction. More and more people are eating unhealthy. More and more people are sitting and watching Netflix, especially post COVID.

It's gonna be even harder to get people pride off the couch. So I would say if we could snap our fingers sitting here and do anything, we would have to get to the White House and convince them or the Pentagon and convince them that they have to work with us to mandate this kind of physical activity.

It's the only way it's gonna work if you wanna get to 100 million people, because most people look at me and I'm sure they look at you and say like, why would I do that? Why would I do that? I'm like Netflix, I can lay naked in bed like Gary Vee talks about, right?

And do nothing. So it's a tough, it's a very tough sell outside of the, let's call you and I the hunter gatherers outside of the remaining hunter gatherer genes that still exist, it's a tough sell. Yeah. Remember when we were kids and there was the presidential physical fitness thing?

Yes, we need that. Does that even exist anymore? I don't think so. Just go by the way of the dodo. And it wasn't that big of a deal, but at least it was something. You need that. And now we have like lip service

to like corporate wellness programs, which, you know, I question how effective they are. It's like getting people excited about going out and walking around for standing up every 10 minutes or something like that. Like, how do you have a soft enough touch that you can get that person who's never experienced anything hard to at least get interested in it, but not come at them so hard, like with your kind of super hardcore sensibility that they're intimidated and scared and never do anything. It's tough when you, that's why you need programs that it becomes part of, it's normal, right?

When my mom got into all this stuff, it wasn't normal. So it didn't get accepted. And so we just need to make it normal. When I've lived on the farm. We moved to Asia. We moved to Japan, Singapore. When did you do that? And why'd you do that?

We did that because the business was growing fast. I needed to beat Tough Mudder. They weren't in Asia yet. And the kids were still young enough to move. So I said to my wife, why don't we move? We'll go Asia light. We'll live in Singapore first, easy to do. We'll land there. We'll start putting on Spartan and then We'll go Asia light. We'll live in Singapore first. Easy to do. We'll land there.

We'll start putting on Spartan and then we'll expand from Singapore. And what an amazing experience as a family. So, but the reason I bring it up is because when I lived in those places, the neighbors right around us started sending their kids to me early in the morning to work out with my kids.

So I can do it if I have close proximity to people. I could rope them in, give them the olive branch, lighten them a little bit, you know, and get them to do more than they would willingly do otherwise. But you know, when they're five degrees separated, as you know, it's hard to get them to do stuff. Look at the size of people.

Look at the data. It's not going, you know, they'd prefer Twinkies over this. Right, so a cabinet position in the White House for physical fitness. You can't say whether you like Trump or Biden, it doesn't really matter. You can't have a tagline that says, "'Let's make America great again

without making America fit again. You have to, you agree. 100%. It's logical. Anybody listening to this, we have to make America fit and it has to be a policy-driven thing. My friend ran New York City Schools food program,

$1.1 billion budget. He's just like you and I. He did it because he wanted, he left Goldman Sachs. He did it because he really wanted to make an budget. He's just like you and I. He did it because he wanted, he left Goldman Sachs. He did it because he really wanted to make an impact. He left. He says, I got the potato lobby.

I gotta have the French fries. I got the soda lobby. I gotta have the soda. He goes, I finally, finally I convinced, I was able to get wheat bread on the hamburgers, right? He goes, so I put wheat bread on the hamburgers, the bun, none of the kids will eat it. So then I gotta put a wheat bottom with a white top

to hide the wheat. So he just couldn't take it anymore. Well, you have to change the entire political system to get the lobbying efforts out of there that keep everything entrenched with the shitty food, because there's too much money involved right now. So it's impossible for a guy like that to come in and make any changes.

I mean, look at how Michelle Obama just got shellacked. I know. Just saying maybe we should eat a little bit healthier. I know. Somehow you gotta have a politician or a group of politicians that get it. You and I have to run for office. I mean, that's the only way this is gonna work.

How is your mom rubbing off on you in terms of like the yoga and the spirituality and the diet, like what's that look like for you these days? I went crazy with the yoga, but it had to be hot yoga, as you can imagine. I had to be sweating. I couldn't be like sitting still and like chanting. So I went nuts with the hot yoga,

probably did a thousand classes or something. Love it, haven't done enough of it lately. And on a spirituality front, I don't know. My mom used to say, look, no matter what religion, you just gotta be a good person. So my thing is just be a good person. Is she around still? Gone, didn't make it.

And she died very young. Her mom had cancer, as I said, she got cancer, her sister got cancer, her cousin got cancer. We lived in that neighborhood I described. Within a 15 mile radius, there was a big garbage dump and massive incidents of cancer around that garbage dump. Oh, wow, wow. So diet, she preached more plant-based.

She introduced me to a guy named Fred Bishi. I don't know if that name. Yeah, yeah, he's John Joseph's boy. I don't know. My buddy, John Joseph, New York City, hardcore Ironman, vegan, punk rocker dude, but he's all about Bishi. Talks about Bishi all the time. Guy's like, is he still alive?

Yeah, he's still alive. He was at my wedding. 92, 94, something like that? 93 probably. He's a good friend. He was texting me today. And so I subscribe more to plant-based, but that doesn't mean a little bit of animal protein

doesn't slip in to my diet. It shouldn't, but it does. But I'm mostly, I'm probably 75, 80% plant-based and I should be more. And I fight with everybody over it, including my own kids. Right, it's interesting because Spartan, which is sort of, you know, kind of a cousin of like the CrossFit movement. There's a cross pollination of those people.

It feels like raw meat. It's very like, yeah, it's very kind of intertwined with the paleo community that's now pivoting towards this weird carnivore diet thing that is confusing. I know, I know. But that's kind of the sensibility of a lot of the people that are participating in your races. And it's interesting that you're coming

from a different place. Yeah, I mean, Bishi, first of all, I tested it on myself. I did very long distance races, like crazy races. The Iditarod by foot, right? And I would carry like carrots and olive oil with me and all kinds of stuff that like doesn't, they don't make any sense, but I perform best on that. And so I'm just not a believer.

That said, maybe based on where you come from on the planet, maybe some people need a little more meat than others. I don't know. But Bishi's thing is you wanna outlive your competition. And if you subscribe to that, I promise you Plant Base is the way to go. Yeah, Bishi was like a weightlifter or something. He was a weightlifter. He was younger.

He was a weightlifter. And he younger. He was a weightlifter. And he said, he said he was gonna try a different way. He's 55 years in right now on raw fruits and veggies. Wow. 55 years raw fruits and veggies. Yeah. What are the big obstacles that you face for yourself now? Like what are the things that you struggle with

dealing with and overcoming? Well, my biggest obstacle is I got 20 years of my life invested in this thing. I levered up right before COVID and bought my competitor, Tough Mudder. And my whole life is upside down right now, financially. So how are you maintaining your sanity? Is there so much you can't control, right?

Netflix and Twinkies, man. Right, what are you doing in LA? I came out to LA. I have a thing tonight. This is a funny story, actually. Anne Rand and Atlas Shrugged, you know the book, Atlas Shrugged, Your Fountainhead. I get asked on podcasts like this,

like, what's one of your favorite books? And I'm like, Atlas Shrugged. So I guess there's an Anne Rand society that reached out to me and said, I know that your favorite book is out the shrug. So can you come to this thing? So Laird Hamilton, Gabby Reese, maybe Peter Thiel, some people will be there tonight.

And they said, I promised pre COVID I would be at it. So I gotta go to this thing. That'll be an interesting crowd of people. It's gonna be interesting. Yeah. How does, how you look at the world and, you know, think about people and potential effect, the kind of people that you hire for your business?

Like when you're looking to bring somebody on into your organization, like what are the qualities that stand out to you? You know, in the early days, because I just didn't have enough funding to do what we were trying to do, size and scale, it would be if they had a heartbeat, they were good enough to work for us, right?

Because I was paying like $2,000 a month for the first hundred people to make this thing work. The expenses were just insane. I would say now, if we really narrowed it down a much more professional approach, you gotta be really enthusiastic person. You gotta be like relentless. I don't even care if you have domain expertise or not,

cause you can learn that. But if you're just relentless and 24 seven and just like not gonna accept no, and you're honest and you've got integrity, that's good enough for me. Yeah, the specific skillset can be trained. I don't care about that. But it's more about the disposition.

Yeah. I just, I want, you know that, what is it, Pareto's principle, right? 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I just want more of those. I just want more of those 20s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll wrap this up

with some thoughts for the person that feels stuck, who's inspired by what you just shared and is looking for, you know, that little dose of inspiration to just start, to get out of that cycle of analysis paralysis that, you know, keeps you on the couch scrolling for the best pair of running shoes. You got to sign up for something. It could be learning a new language. What about when we can't sign up for anything right now? Signing up for something could be as simple as saying to your friend and then screaming it from the rooftop so you're committed, you're on the hook,

we are gonna walk six miles on Saturday. I mean, that could be the thing you sign up. It's just gotta be, it could be, we're gonna learn a new language by this date, right? It's gotta be, this is what we're going to do. And by this date, we're going to be held accountable. And then I would say, you know, we have a prayer at Spartan. We have, our brand has a prayer and we stole it from a World War II French paratrooper who they found in the field dead. They pulled the prayer out of his pocket.

And basically he was saying, look, God, everybody is asking you for the good stuff, right? They wanna get back with their spouse. They wanna get home, a warm shower, a meal. You probably don't have any of that left. So I'll just ask you for the tough stuff, like the turmoil, the toil, suffering, and just promise me you'll keep it coming

and you give me the strength to deal with it. So like, if you can turn your thinking around to more like that, like I might, you and I, I might text you and say, Hey Rich, I hope you have a shitty day. And that's like, it's a worthwhile day. I gotta fight through today, right? We don't want a complacent, easy day.

And so if you can change your mindset to like embracing tough stuff and committing to it, you just have a better life. And what do you think is the main obstacle that gets in people's way? Well, I think subconsciously our legacy hardware and software is avoiding discomfort. Like it kept us from falling off cliffs

and freezing out in the snow and drowning. And the sooner you recognize that that's just like old hardware that you don't need because you're not gonna get attacked by a lion when you go outside or drown in the rain. You gotta do this stuff. Look, I have a friend who runs the largest hedge fund in the world.

He doesn't need to do anything. Okay, he's fine. And his theory was no pain, no pain. Instead of no pain, no gain, no pain, no pain. Why would I want any pain? And lately he's come around to my way of thinking, which is, and your way of thinking, which is, you know what? Look, he came to Japan when I was living in Japan and they had all these five-star hotels, everything all lined up to do. And you know what I did? I took him and his family to the waterfall monks

and it was freezing, it was winter time. And there was ice on the mountain. The waterfall is coming down and we gotta go down to nothing, take all our clothes off, get down to basically nothing and get under that waterfall and hold these metal chains while the Japanese in their language are pulling the demons out of us. And he said that was the best part of the whole trip.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, he's not gonna forget that. That was the best part of the whole trip. It wasn't the fancy hotels, the fancy, like that suffering was awesome. So just do it. Way to stick the landing. Powerful Joe DeSena, thank you, my friend.

It's great to see you. You're awesome. Yeah, it was very cool. Appreciate it. If you're digging on Joe, pick up his book, Spartan Up, Spartan Fit, The Spartan Way. Got the Spartan Up podcast. We didn't even talk about the SpartanX leadership stuff

that you're doing. We got leadership stuff. We got all kinds of stuff. Shoot me an email, joeatspartan.com. And if you come to the farm, just don't quit. It would suck. I mean, it would really ruin Rich's reputation if you came to the farm based on this talk with Rich

and you were one of those ones that quit right away. Yeah, that might be me. I might show up. You're just gonna push me too hard and I'm gonna be out of here and my whole ship's gonna sink. Hopefully not. All right, thanks, man.

Thank you. Peace. I dig it. Chances are you do too. If that doesn't leave you motivated to get after it, I don't know what to tell you, man. Share the love with Joe himself at RealJoeDeSena on Instagram and Twitter. Check out his podcast, Spartan Up. Crack his book of the same name

and dive deeper into his world by perusing the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. Finally, a reminder that we video all of our podcasts, which you can watch on youtube.com slash richroll. And we recently launched a second channel just for short clips. It would mean a ton if you would subscribe

to both links in the show notes. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the program, the single most impactful thing you can do is subscribe. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. I love it when you share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com slash donate. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition was created by Blake Curtis.

Graphics by Jessica Miranda. Portraits by Allie Rogers. Sponsored relationships are managed by DK David Kahn and theme music by my boys, Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for the love. See you back here next week until then fire aim ready peace plants Thank you.