The School of Greatness - 68 Joseph De Sena: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Peak Performance (Like a Spartan)

Episode Date: May 19, 2014

“Instant gratification kills ya.”For show notes and more, visit http://lewishowes.com/68

This is episode number 68 with Joe DeSena. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Hey, what is up, greats?

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today on this special episode of the School of Greatness podcast. And I'm about a month away from the Pan American Championships with my brothers on the USA national team for Team Handball. And this was a great episode for me to really dive in and connect with Joe DeSena because of what he represents in his mindset, in his philosophy on life and sports. And what he's created with the Spartan race is incredible. If you guys haven't heard

about these kind of obstacle races that have been going around, there's Tough Mudder, there's Spartan race, there's a lot of other copycats, as Joe said, people have created other events after seeing his success, and what he's really done for individuals to get off the couch and live a better, to get off the couch and live a better, healthier lifestyle. And his philosophy is simple. It's to work hard, put one step in front of the other and get the results until you finish. And for me, training constantly with all that I've got going on in my business and life and travel, you know, I've got to continue to stay focused and train and put in the grit as we talk about in this interview. And he's going to dive more into grit and the hard work it takes to achieve the results that we want in our lives throughout this entire interview. So I was so excited to connect with

Joe. It took us about a month to connect because we had so much going on, but we finally did. And I think you're going to really enjoy this episode and all that he has to share. He's got some great stories as well. And without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the man behind the Spartan race, Joe DeSena. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. I am excited about this episode today and this interview because I've got a guy that I've been trying to get on probably about 20 times and we've never been able to connect. His name is Joe DeSena. What's up, man? How you doing?

Doing well. I'm excited about this because we've been introduced by mutual friends a few times trying to get on this interview. And I really love the message of your book, which is called Spartan Up, A Take No Prisoner's Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance in Life. So I'm excited to just dive in and kind of learn about your story about you're the creator of the Spartan race. I'm excited to learn more about that. I've always, I've never actually done an extreme endurance obstacle course challenge just because I'm more of a sprinter. So I've always wanted to learn more about it. My friends

talk about it constantly. So yeah, thanks for coming on. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. I couldn't even get people to talk to me for most of my life. Now I'm doing podcasts. Yeah, I see you everywhere now. So it's awesome. You're doing something right. So tell me, let's start off with why Spartan? What's your definition of Spartan?

Spartan has so many meanings. It's so succinct with those meanings, right? It's like living that lifestyle that's not in abundance, being, I don't know how aggressive I can be in terms of being badass, just getting the job done, gritty. And so when we were coming up with a name, it just, a light bulb went off and it just made perfect sense. I don't think there's been a uh group throughout history that purposely put them through put themselves through such rugged training i mean uh leaders kings and queens would say back back then uh spartans actually get a reprieve during battle when they go to war it's like

relaxation their training was their training was so difficult. So I don't know. Those are the kind of people I want to be around. Right. Interesting. So why did you want to start this in the first place? I think with every generation, I mean, you've heard it over and over. I'm sure back in the 20s, moms and dads were saying, oh, the kids today, and in the 40s, and in the 60s, and in the 80s. In reality, every generation gets softer as we get more developed and we get more stuff. We protect our children more and more, and I think that's a mistake. I have children myself, and it's hard not to do it because you want to protect them, and you want them to have all the things that maybe you didn't have. Information flows a lot more easily these days, so we're a lot more fearful of the environment.

We're less active outdoors, and all these things have a negative effect on people. At the end of the day, we're animals. negative effect on people. At the end of the day, we're animals. Somehow we forgot. We think we're not animals that we're supposed to be wearing bow ties and sipping cocktails and sitting in front of the TV, but our bodies and minds actually perform best in the environment they were designed for, which is outside. I like that. And I love your philosophy. It's so simple. I think it's pretty much the same philosophy that I have. And I wonder if it's because I'm too dumb to think of a better philosophy or if it just makes sense. And yours is to commit to a goal, put in the work and get it done. And it kind of sounds like that's what the Spartan race is all about. It's the goal to finish. You got to put in a lot of hard work and do whatever it takes to get it done. And it kind of sounds like that's what the Spartan race is all about. It's, uh, you know, the goal to finish, you got to put in a lot of hard work and do whatever it takes to get

it done is what it seems like. Yeah. I mean, I w we'd sell a lot more books. I mean, the book is going to launch here, uh, any day, May 13th. And, um, you go back and forth. I've been writing this book for 30 years, by the way, but you say to yourself, um, boy, you'd sell if it was just about selling books, well then having some tagline on it or a pill or a quick fix would be the way, but you say to yourself, boy, if it was just about selling books, well, then having some tagline on it or a pill or a quick fix would be the way to do it because that's really what people want. We always want it easier, faster, cheaper. But at the end of the day, it's exactly what you just said, which is it's hard work.

If you want to be successful, it's hard work. If you want opportunities, it's hard work. If you want to look good and feel good, it's hard work. And so really, the book is just confirming that look at any of the great people we point out in the book throughout history, they work hard. That's why they're great. And, and, and, um, there's a lot of benefits that come from it. And here, here are a few things you can do to hopefully motivate yourself to work hard. Right. And I read on your website that you're on a mission to rip 1 million people off the couch and into a healthy lifestyle. And where are you?

It's bigger than that. We hit our million. Wow. Now I want to go to 100 million. Wow. And where is Spartan Race heading? I mean, it started in the U.S., correct? Yeah, so it started in the U.S. We're in 17 countries this year. We'll be in over 40 countries next year. Wow.

So it's growing like wildfire. It's not easy because there's a lot of these little companies that are trying to copycat and basically ride a wave and take advantage maybe of some of the hard work we put in. And so that's a battle every day, but it's a battle we don't shy away from. I love competition. So that's good. But our goal, unlike a lot of these little guys, is to get it in the Olympics. We think it's the people sport. And what I mean by that is it'd be really hard for you and I, I don't know how good of a basketball player you are, but I'm terrible. And it'd be hard for you and I to just jump in and play at a high level. It'd be hard to do that in baseball. It'd be hard to do that in any of the traditional sports.

And so what we do is we sit on the couch and we watch those sports and we drink beer and eat popcorn. This is a sport, whether you're a four-year-old child or a 74-year-old grandmother, you can jump in and actually play at a high level. The body's designed to climb, crawl, swim, do all these things that, you know, it's hard. You want to go do an Ironman? Yeah, that's good. You're not going to compete at a high level in Ironman unless you're cycling're cycling whatever 10 hours a week it's not realistic for most people this sport you can actually jump off the couch and compete in and how many people do you know what's the average attendance on each event average would be about eight to ten thousand wow now our most interesting market is some of the

markets overseas we'll get 20 25 000 spectators in an event no way yeah unbelievable just like towards the end or at each obstacle or how's it work or just throughout the throughout the entire uh course they'll just kind of walk around and just you know go from place to place interesting wow and how did someone train for this so if you obviously you you should do a traditional exercise we've've all, we've all heard of running, um, get, get into the gym, do some minimal weightlifting, do some body weight exercises. But if, but if you had to, if you put a gun to my head and you said, Joe, I can only do three X, what would they be? They'd be pull-ups no matter how terrible you are at pull-ups, jump

up. If you have to, they'd be burpees, no matter how awful burpees are you doing. It's so bad. I hate those. It would be walking, running. Those three exercises could get you through a Spartan race. As brutal as the Spartan race looks and feels and sounds, even if you found out there was a race tomorrow, you could get off the couch and you'd push through mentally and get it done. But if you want to do well, you do that. And then we put out a daily workout of the day and a daily food tip of the day. And we got like, I want to say 600, 700,000 people now reading, subscribing to those. And those will get, and they're free.

Those will give you great tips. Amazing. Amazing. And why is there so much mud in the spartan races i know you talk about this in your book but why so much no we are first of all we don't define ourselves with mud so so there is my there are some races where we have no mud um but we define ourselves with obstacles and but mud is interesting to me because we have shied away from it, right? Even my own children, my five-year-old and three-year-old, who are a little older now, I had them in their first race, I remember, two, three years ago, and they were running full speed off the starting line. And when they got to the mud, they stopped. And I was confused and I thought, wow, maybe these aren't my kids. And the reason they stopped when I studied to the mud, they stopped. And I was confused. And I thought, wow, maybe these aren't my kids.

And the reason they stopped when I studied it was because what we've been saying for their whole life at that point, five and three years, don't get dirty. Don't get in the mud. And we, all of us, you, myself included, we want to keep our houses clean, keep our shoes clean, keep our clothes. That's not natural. But yet yet it's very natural for the species to go out and get dirty. It feels really good when you touch the environment that way.

Yeah, when you walk around barefoot too. I always feel more grounded and more in my natural state when I take my shoes and socks off. No doubt about it. Just feel the grass or the dirt, whatever, you know? Um, so from, from my understanding, the Spartan race was conceived from the death race. Is that right? Uh, well, kind of, I mean, the, the idea was born, um, out of this death race, but it was really, uh, it was really, how do we create a military style optical challenge? Something that's going to get people natural, help them build obstacle immunity, um,

to the masses. And, and, uh, and Spartan race was really born in my kitchen. Um, and, and, but the idea was we want to reach the masses. Death race is, is an intense, um, The idea was we want to reach the masses. Death race is an intense event that occurs once a year up in Vermont. And then as for really, it's more like an exorcism. I would say that Spartan race is more like a baptism. So what is the death race then? Death race is for those people that already maybe achieved a lot in life, whether it was had a bunch of children

and survived that or built a business or whatever. They're at the top of their career or they just got, God forbid, divorced or had some trouble and they need to clean themselves up. And they're going to enter hell for two, three, four days. And no one's going to pat them on the back. They're going to purposely be broken. And the remaining few will finish it. But even the people that don't finish it are going to learn a lot about themselves. Wow. And you've done this? I did it, yeah.

Did you complete it? I did. I did. You're one of the few. I'd be in trouble if I didn't. And what did you learn about yourself? Well, at that point, this is going to sound terrible, but at that point I had already done a lot of very long distance races, uh, stuff, stuff, uh,

longer than the death race. And, and so coming back and doing the death race, uh, was tough. Um, but it wasn't, it was like, so some of the races I talk about in the book that we did were eight or 10 day events and 30 below temperatures. Wow. The Iditarod by foot, for example, in Alaska. So in those raises, I learned a lot about myself, which was the human body will go much further than you think it can. And really the only thing that's going to stop you is your mind. you think it can. And really the only thing that's going to stop you is your mind. And so if you could figure out, which again, we touch a lot on the book, if you could figure out how to get your

mind motivated and clear and not inhibited with negative thoughts, you win. You win in relationships, you win in business, you just win. So how does someone get a clear mind when there's so much junk in it? You got to have the proper frame of reference. So what do I mean by that? So like, let's say you were from Bosnia and I was from New York city and for you to heat your home, the only wood you could find was your roof. And so you literally dismantled your roof to put it in your fireplace and heat your home. I, on the other hand, had a thermostat, set my temperature, everything was great. When you and I are facing obstacles in our lives,

you're going to approach them a lot differently than I will. Your mind's going to be very clear, I just want food, water, and shelter. And that's really the problem. There are very few psychologists in third world countries. They don't need them. People just want to eat. They just want a bed, a place to sleep, and some water. And they want to feel loved. They want to have family, right?

Yeah. And we get screwed up because we have such an abundance. You know, we studied Shackleton. And amazing story, right? we studied Shackleton and amazing, amazing story, right? The Endurance was the name of that expedition, the famous expedition he went on. And, you know, I think they were stranded for over a year, stuck in the ice. And at some point he and one of his men had to leave and do whatever it was, a two day, I'm sorry, two week trek or maybe two month trek to go get safety for all his men had to leave and do whatever it was, a two-day, I'm sorry, two-week trek or maybe two-month trek to go get safety for all his men who were stuck on the ship. They tried to recreate that trek.

And with $10 million worth of gear, they all quit. They had to be rescued. Shackleton didn't have to. And that's because he had no choice. He didn't have any gear. It was either live or die. And that's the difference between you and my example living in Bosnia and me in New York. Like you're fighting for milk. And so that, you know, if you can get yourself in that mindset, I try to do it on a daily basis, and really Spartan Race is designed to do that for people. Get myself in this place.

Bernard Hopkins, the fighter, he says he fights like he's got no food in the refrigerator. Yeah. Right? That's where you got to get your head. There's no option here. This has to get done. Yeah. That's where you got to get your head. There's no option here. This has to get done. Yeah, there's someone else. I forget the guy.

This famous YouTube speaker guy. He says if you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful. Oh, the rap preacher. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that a great quote? That's my favorite quote. It's great. I mean, it's the same thing you're talking about.

If there's no other option option if you're about to die then you'll do what it takes that's right and you get very clear your intentions are very clear no there's no there's no confusion but that's how you know some people may think that's kind of extreme do i want to live every day in this like stress like if i'm gonna die if i don't do this do you think that's too much for some people or you think that's the mentality we should take a large part of the world lives that way and in reality they're not they're not making it up um i you know i've been to some of those places and those people are very very happy people they really appreciate the little bit they get i i think um i think we i think we in in first world countries that have all this abundance, I think we do ourselves a lot of good if we could change our frame of reference.

As I mentioned in the book, which I do, I do by doing some terrible exercise in the morning, take a cold shower. Now again, some people would say, Joe, you're sadistic. Really, am I? I don't know. It helps me get through the rest of my day. I'll tell you what's crazy. It helps me get through the rest of my day when I'll tell you what's crazy. What's crazy is the person that's upset over silly things, whether it's traffic, whether it's coffee being too cold, whether it's the airline.

The airline charges $20 for a ticket and you see this guy or girl flip out in the airport online over it. And it's like, are you kidding me? That's not normal. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because whenever I go through some of my biggest challenges where I'm struggling in my life from my past, I feel like that's when I'm the most motivated. When my back's up against the wall or when I don't have, you know, there was a moment in my life when I was completely broke, living on my sister's couch for about a year and a half in debt. That's when I was like so driven and focused and clear because there was no other way and i think that that's why athletes like when the athlete gets hurt in the olympics right and then they come back stronger that's why yeah it's sometimes when i get comfortable and uh you know don't get my hands you know dirty uh that's when i start to relax and, you know, kind of take a day off mentally or whatever it may be. And that's sometimes when it holds me back from achieving my goals. So it's interesting your thoughts on that.

Stay hungry. Yeah, stay hungry. And what's the biggest mistake you see people make when trying to achieve a goal? I know you talk about this in the book as well. Yeah, I mean, the biggest mistake is I think they give up too soon. I mean, people don't realize how close they are to a finish line when they give up. If you look at most failure stories, they were so close. Look at Thomas Edison with the light bulbs.

I don't know how many light bulbs he messed with, 1, before he could have given up at 100, 200, 300. He just keeps going until he succeeds. right when you quit something you you're looking for gratification at that moment in time and and instant gratification kills you if you look back if any of us look back and see what mistakes we made in our life it's always tied to just wanting something now and not being able to put in that extra time pain suffering to get twice as much later i've hired people i've been building businesses 30 plus years and um everybody always said I was crazy the way I hired I would people are on audition with me before we hire my resume doesn't mean anything right um interview doesn't mean anything get out and let me see you work in the we're in the rain here in Montana it's uh it's cold right now and um the strong will survive

and and you know there's we started with 20 guys and we'll maybe we'll leave with 10 when it's over but those 10 those 10 but you know put in the time and and most of the time in life you'll get twice as many rewards if you can withstand the pain and push through yeah you know i always talk about willingness to sacrifice and willingness to feel pain in order to get what you want. And I think not enough people are willing to feel and go through the pain in order to get the pleasure. I'll give you a great story. My son, uh, was five and I was, have you heard of the cookie test? Uh, marshmallow test. I think I know where you're going with this, but go ahead.

So back in the 60s, put hundreds of kids in a room in cubicles, gave each kid a cookie or a marshmallow. The child had a choice. He could eat it then or he could wait at some point in the future, minutes, a half hour, whatever it was, and they would get two cookies or two marshmallows. Most kids took it right away. The kids that waited, they followed for 30 years, the ones that waited and the ones that didn't. They found 100% correlation, not 92, 100%

correlation between the kids that waited and better SAT scores, better life, better marriage, better house, better job. Everything in their life was better. And so I tested my son. Got him a scoop of ice cream. It was 10 o'clock at night. I'm scared because you don't know what you're going to get. You might get somebody that, right?

And he takes the scoop of ice cream and I say, hey, do you want one now? Or if you wait, I'll give you two. And we were about three and a half minutes in and he turned to me and he said, dad, how do I get 15 scoops? How long do I have to wait? And that's exactly what we have to learn in life is that you can't get it right now, but we're so used to having everything at our fingertips and having access to anything we want on demand that you um, you don't realize that actually, if you, if you wait, uh, you get a lot more later in most cases. That's amazing. I mean, and this is kind of like the concept of delayed gratification or right. Yeah. Yeah,

that's exactly right. Right. In the Spartan world, what is the key to success in the race and actually doing the race? just in the in the in the spartan world what is the key to success in my opinion just put one foot in front of the other you know somebody said to me once um what do you do if you bite off more than you you you can chew my answer is you just keep chewing so you know you'd be surprised um if you've got to go somewhere figuratively or actually, the only way to get there is just put one foot in front of the other. My son, the one with the ice cream I just told you about, he saw the – we went to one of these events the weekend before the Boston Marathon and they were raising money.

They had a treadmill set up. He got on the treadmill, and if he could make it a mile, the store we were in would donate $100. He made it the mile, and then we met some of the victims from last year's bombing at the Boston Marathon. He's a young boy. He's eight now. He was moved by it. He said, oh, are they going to have another bomb this year at the marathon? He said to me, dad, can I run it? Now, eight-year-olds can't run the marathon. So I said, listen, I have a number. But if you want, I'll walk and run with you.

And we'll stay off to the side by the spectators. Well, the kid went 24 miles. And we were like 17 or 18 miles in. And he turned to me and he said, I don't know. And I said, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Wow. I went 24 miles. So you'd be amazed at what you can do. The only thing that stops you is your mind. Yeah. It's interesting. Angela Lee Duckworth talks about, I know her very well, talks about grit and the key to success. And I'm, I'm doing some research for a book that I'm writing right now as well. And in your book on page 76, you talk about grit as well. And how does, how does,

how does someone develop grit and what is grit to you? I think that's the big question. When I talk to Angela, it's a, can it be developed or is it instinctual? And I believe it can be developed. And the reason I know it can be developed, I don't think, I know it can be developed is because I was not gritty. I grew up, you know, the first 10 years of my life, my dad gave us everything, maybe 11 years. years. And when he lost everything, I went from being a spoiled kid to quickly having to recalibrate, change my frame of reference and figure out how to get ahead on my own. How to, you know, my mother couldn't pay the mortgage. We were going to lose the house. We had no heat. Again, no big deal relative to third world countries, but it was a big change from where we came from.

And I got gritty. And I got more and more gritty as I put myself in positions to win or lose, which I got into the construction business at a young age, swimming pools and construction. Yeah, that's not easy. Well, I keep thinking about, we have four children now, and I keep thinking, what's going to get these kids gritty? And as I'm sitting here- Manual labor. Yeah, yeah. I'm sitting on this construction site right now in Montana thinking, there's no better, when you got a gun against your head to get the job done, because you're going to either make money or lose money. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Machines run out of fuel, machines break. You go to buy a part for the machine that you come back to the site. You've got the wrong part they gave you while four guys stand around that you're paying. It starts to rain. It snows. I mean, it's the perfect grit building environment. So I'm a big believer that grit can be built. Now, if you don't have the opportunity to be doing construction work, every morning when you wake up, jump in a cold shower, do 300 burpees.

That'll get you gritty pretty quick. It will, yeah. My building is under construction right now and some of the days the water is turned off while they're redoing the pipes. So it takes like an hour and a half or two hours for the water to like heat back up for whatever reason because i'm on the top floor and it takes a while and so i've taken a number of cold showers lately and that's definitely a way to uh to get a little gritty um i think i read in your book that you did was it 10 000

burpees is that right yeah these, the kids that work for me, it's funny. Something happened to me last night like that. But these kids that work for me came up with this idea that, um, if, if we hit, uh, I think it was 3 million likes on Facebook that I would do one burpee for every, uh, like or share that day. And it came out to 10,247. It was terrible idea. Oh my gosh. So you did 10,000 burpees. How long did it came out to 10,247. It was a terrible idea. Oh, my gosh. So you did 10,000 burpees? How long did it take you to do?

So I had no plan. This was like on a Wednesday. I happened to be at Reebok for a meeting. And they're big CrossFitters. And I tell them about this situation. Because I'm thinking, well, I could get people to do them for me. It could be like a community thing. And the Reebok guys turned to me and said, you know, if you could do 10,000, it would be like people would fly you around the world. It would be so incredible.

It would be so motivational. I said, all right, well, it's Wednesday. I guess I'll go for it Friday. I figured I'd do it at night. Around midnight, I would start because then when I was getting really tired, the sun would be coming up and I'd get a newfound energy. Oh, my gosh. So at midnight, I start and I tell the guys that are filming me and watching me, do not tell me what number I'm up to because I don't want to know. It'll just screw up my whole head.

Yeah. So I'm doing them. I'm doing them. I'm doing them. And it's about 8 a.m. now. I'm about eight hours in. And I say to him, man, I haven't been able to eat because I keep going up and down and it just screws up your stomach. And I must be, I don't know what I'm up to, but I got to know. And I pressured them and they said, you're just about over 4,000 now. Oh my gosh. 4,050. And literally, I was broken. I was at a point where I had to go down and then kneel.

Crawl up. Yeah, and crawl up. And I thought, if I keep doing them, it's going to take me another 20 hours to do them at that pace. And no one's going to consider them real burpees. So I convinced myself it was okay to do the remaining 6,247 over the next six days. And I did them. And so it took me longer than I planned, but I got them done.

Wow. So you did take about a week or something? Took me a 4,000 and a little over eight hours and then 6,200 and next six days. Oh my gosh. That sounds like hell. Yeah. Before you like exhausted? I mean, what was your body like?

Did you have blisters all over your hands and knees? Or what was it like? No, no, no. That wasn't bad. I just couldn't see straight, and I was nauseous. Oh, my gosh. Well, you must have lost a lot of weight that week, too. Yeah, I did.

I did. That's amazing. Yeah. So tell me more about your vision with Spartan Race. And I know your goal is now 100 million people to get off the couch and into a healthy lifestyle. But where do you see Spartan Race going? And what's your vision for this at the end of the day? We want to be in the Olympics.

We want it to be an Olympic sport at the end of the day. we want to be in the Olympics. We want it to be an Olympic sport by the end of the day. I mean, I sooner the better, but, but we might have to bump, bump ping pong out of the, out of the Olympics to get in there.

Really? I'm kidding. I don't know, but it's going to take some time. How, what's the steps to making that happen? Like how does one even submit for an Olympic sport? So we, first we've got to get the governing body,

which we're working on, and then we've got to get all these countries lined up with little governing bodies around the world, and all at the same time talking to the IOC, which we've been doing, and hopefully we get it done and they accept us. Wow. And then when they accept you, is it like for the next one

or would it be eight? I never built a sport in the Olympics before, so I don't know how it's going to go. This is fascinating. I mean, there were a bunch of new sports in the last Olympics, weren't there, in the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics, right? Yeah. So I guess it's possible.

Interesting. Oh, it's definitely possible. I mean, look, we didn't have snowboarding. yeah so i guess it's possible interesting oh it's definitely possible i mean look uh we didn't have um snowboarding not too long ago right right now what's uh you talked about crossfit and i've been doing crossfit for probably about three and a half years a good friend of mine won it back in 2010 the the games and got me into it and uh you know they've built uh an incredible brand an incredible business and have you know i don't even know how many million people are doing it around the world now but

it seems like it's it's everywhere rebox obviously a big sponsor um what have has their business model inspired you in any way or are you taking on your own business model with taking over the world? No, I didn't know a lot about CrossFit until I had gotten involved with the Reebok relationship. So I would say that's not really been an inspiration. I think it's helped a lot because there's a lot of people doing CrossFit that like to come do Spartan Race. I think we are the place to show how they're living that lifestyle, to test their training. Very few people are going to get into the CrossFit games, so they need another outlet. Spartan Race is one of those outlets. If you come and look at the bodies, those outlets um if you come and look at the bodies male and female bodies at our starting lines um you're blown away i mean they much different than a runner or or even a triathlete

um these people look like spartans in the day really yeah and it's and it's big it's because the training that it gets pretty intense, full-body training. Will you just explain? I know you briefly talked about the Spartan race. You said some have mud, some don't have mud. Can you talk about kind of like a general what it is, how long it is, the obstacles that people face? Yeah, yeah. So this race right now we're setting up in Montana.

There's about 17 obstacles. The first one we're calling Everest. So they're literally climbing straight up a mountain a mile and a half. And then there's going to be low crawls under barbed wire. There's going to be some walls to climb over, giant cargo nets on top of the mountain. There's actually going to be a mental test at one location. Uh, your podcast here will probably air after this race. So I could tell you what it is and I'm going to want them to recite, uh, some presidents in order, not one through 10, because we've done

that before the death race, but probably 11 through 20, which would be impossible. And, and, um, and, but, but there's such a beautiful view from that location that uh when they fail that obstacle they could sit and just reflect for a minute wow which people find a hard they have a hard time doing just sitting still so that's an obstacle in and of itself um and then they've got uh rope climbs all kind it's going to be uh it's going to be an amazing course wow and do you is each course designed by you? Are they always different? No.

We have an amazing Spartan team that designs all the courses. This particular course I do one a year is me out here in Montana. Wow. Awesome. On page 142, you talk about the two most important factors that you've determined to personal success can you explain what those are um for me uh it would be delaying the ability to delay gratification and um and this ability to just continue to push forward um under you know take put one step in front of the other again i i I, I've, uh, I've built a

lot of businesses and building a business is like raising a child. It's just, you gotta be relentless. Uh, you've got to have perseverance. Like I would say if you had your choice, many people ask me, Hey Joe, should I go for my MBA? And, um, you know, education's important. Obviously I'm not, I'm not taking anything away from education, but if the goal is to get ahead or build your own business or make some money, education is closer to the bottom of the list. It's really this ability to persevere and just suck it up and be very detail-oriented, make quick decisions. Indecision is worth than not making a decision yeah so and a lot of people just don't have uh or haven't developed those those traits that the biggest one again if we're only talking about uh top two the biggest one is this ability to just persevere and just be relentless going back they started calling me they said you know

they started calling me fidel all around here because it's not often that i'm running the operation from the field and um because i sound like a dictator now i sent a few guys home today that weren't feeling great and so i'm not like a terrible dictator but the reason they're they're not used to it we put on these races all over the world and i'm i'm not the guy typically driving that that ship at these races but what they're experiencing with me is that is that what we're talking about that person i just hey guys you know what if we stay out an extra two hours i know it's dark and it's raining but we're gonna get this done and and now three and a half days into it they're saying oh my god we we normally take seven days to. I can't believe we've done it in three and a half days. Well, it's not rocket science. It would have been

nice to go home early, but we have a job to do. Right. Now, talking about decision makings, you say you're, I'm assuming you're great at making quick decisions. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to do as well as you've been able to do. So how do you analyze situations then? And I know, like you said. Upside, downside. Yeah, I talk about it in the book. Upside, downside decision making.

So like, what's the upside to this and what's the downside? And you can quickly figure out if it's worth doing this, whatever this is. Like, all right, what's the upside to staying an extra hour and getting this obstacle built versus the downside? The downside is guys will be a little more tired.

The upside is, well, we could finish early. If we finish early, I could let all these guys sleep for a day completely and then be fresh when we put on the race next week. Easy decision. We're staying out an extra hour. And there's lots of opportunities during everybody's busy life to make those decisions. And what I see, and again, we're talking to a million plus people, but what I see is people have indecision. I don't know. I'm not sure. That's the killer.

Indecision is the killer. Why do you think so many people are paralyzed by making decisions? I think they're afraid of the results, i think i think when you make a decision you've got to commit and and um the outcome may not always be perfect and you know i was i was recently with uh the very elite force of our military without giving the unit's name and And the commander of that unit, I mean, this is a unit, this is a pretty serious operation I'm talking about. And the commander said to me, when they're out at, let's say, 40 years old,

many of them don't go on to start businesses. And the reason is, and they should because they have all the qualities and traits. But the reason they don't is because they've been winners their whole life. Everything has worked for them. They don't want to step out of their comfort zone and take that chance. And I think that's why people have indecision. It's hard to live and die by that decision. Right. Can you share a few of your, I guess, mental tricks, strategies, or techniques that keep you going in those, I guess, dark times during a race or during any Spartan race in life, let's say, that people are going through.

Yeah, for me or for anybody else, when you're at that dark moment, here's what's going to happen. Here's the life cycle. It starts out with commitment. You click on the button and you step out of your comfort zone, whether it's a Spartan race or a marathon or whatever it is. Now you're committed. That's the highest level of excitement you're going to see and feel until you come out the other side, whether it's starting a business, whether it's getting married, whatever. You do that, you're feeling great, and then it's all downhill from there. And once it starts heading downhill, you have to delay gratification. You've got to give up the glass of wine on Saturday night. You've got to go to bed a little early. You've got to find some better friends

that have healthy habits. You've got to wake up early. So you're delaying gratification. Then the next thing that happens is it starts to get ugly. It's not exactly what you thought. You can't go any further. You're exhausted. Then people pile on and they start saying, well, I told you I was stupid or you shouldn't have done that. And then you get to this point where it's decision time.

You're at that dark, dark moment. And when we looked at people that quit versus people that don't quit, it really depends on their frame of reference at that moment. Are they fighting for milk like we spoke about earlier? Are they happy just with water, food, and shelter? Or have they been used their whole life to having everything and everything comes easy? And why would they possibly push through and deal with that pain? But when you do push through and you, and you somehow find that grit and finish, um, that's where you learn a lot about yourself. And at that moment, um, you've just got to be able to tell yourself that it's just one step in front of the other.

I can't tell you how many times I've been at mile 24 in a marathon or mile 90 in a 100-miler, and you don't want to take another step. You question why you even did it. This is stupid, right? This is stupid that I signed up for it. But we can't stop time. Time is going to keep ticking away, and it's going to tick away whether we stop and quit or we take the extra few steps to get the extra two miles. And I'll tell you why. Because I've been on both sides of that coin.

Quitting lasts forever. You can't change the result. It just eats away at your brain. And the euphoria of coming out the other side and finishing is um is well worth it and so i think some people just don't know they never experienced it right and it's hard it's just hard for them to uh to take those extra steps so they hopefully listen to people who have and and get it done because once it's it's um addictive once you've finished and push through um you start to feel invincible you want more right you want more you want more pain

yeah i like it now you thought you've talked about your kids um throughout this podcast and also in your book you talk about your children i believe you have four children right four children yeah and what how has parenting changed you and is there a spartan parenting style as well parenting changed me because um i used to go out and train four or five six hours a day and when those little crickets enter your brain when you're in pain like you and i were just talking about how you get through those dark sides i would i would push through i'd fight those negative thoughts and i'd continue and finish my workouts or my training or races when you have children you lose the argument what i mean by that is you're out there let's

say training for four or five hours or even right now I'm in Montana and you're feeling some pain and and what enters your brain is well shouldn't you be home with the kids like and you lose that argument every time because you should be home with the kids right you you got one family you owe it to them and and so I can't train because I can't train and do the races I love to do because I really I don't want to miss this part of them growing up. And then on the other side, I want to make them, I want to give them all the things I wish I would have had, but not monetary, not stuff, but skills and grit. And they train two hours a day. We're lucky enough to have found a Kung Fu teacher from China who lives with us and trains these kids. That's awesome. Yeah, two hours every day.

And then on the farm down the street, there's a wrestling coach that comes in. He does some wrestling with them. So they learn how to do American wrestling, which is great. And we've got them eating healthy. And my eight-year-old pretty soon he's got to start working so um we're gonna get them uh doing dishes at the local general store that's great now in a sense i don't know if i heard this in your you know your conversation just now, but in the sense has parenting made you a little softer? Uh, probably yes. Okay. Probably. Yes. I would say I am now people that watch me parent, I think would say, boy, he's a hard ass, but, um, but yes, I think it made me a little softer. Gotcha. What's your, we got a few questions left. I know you got to get back to building your course.

But how important is team aspect of Spartan racing and also having the right team in your life, whether it be your business, your family? Oh, I'm lucky. I mean, my team, my wife is awesome, right? I mean, I'm out here in Montana. I'm going to be gone for a while. And even the guys are asking me, how do do it and i'm just lucky like going off on a tangent here how many people are in the world eight billion let's just call it eight right so let's just say hypothetically there's four billion men four billion women you're gonna hopefully find a mate and spend the rest of your life with them. Think about how ridiculous that process is that we meet people in a bar.

It's so random and you're going to spend the rest of your life with that person. So, and that person is also a key to your success or failure. So, um, I don't know. I got really,

really lucky. We randomly met at a race. So I think again, going off on a tangent, I think it's important you look for a mate doing things you like to do, because there will be people of the opposite sex at that doing things they like to do, and they'll coincide what you like to do, as opposed to, you know, unless you like drinking in a bar, that's what you want to do with your life, then you probably

should look in a bar. But the reason I said that is the success in your life depends on the people you have around you. And so to have an awesome wife, which I do, and then the kids, the kids, that's your job. It's my job and my wife's job to make sure they're awesome. The Spartan team we have in this business is second to none. And it's along the same lines as what I just said about a mate. The people that can be out here in, you know, 35 degrees and raining in the mountains of Montana, freezing, are the kind of people we want to be around. And those are the people that kick butt and help us pull off this mission. Right i'm a i'm a big believer in finding the right team and uh it's hard to let go people on your team too right who maybe aren't working out

sure for me that's the hardest thing it's very hard yeah i'm a big believer in gratitude and i practice it daily i think it's one of the keys to my, I guess the success that I've had and my constant growth and humility. Do you, and I know you talk about in the book, but I just want to hear your answer to this. Do you practice gratitude daily and what are you most grateful for? Well, I, I do. And, and I'm most grateful for having a healthy body and mind and having a family that has the same. So I'm super happy for that. You know, people say, Joe, you can't sleep in that room because there's two people in there.

You've got to, you know, we'll give you your own bed. Give me my own bed. I'm just happy that it's not raining on me while I'm sleeping. So I'm grateful for all the things we have. I'm super grateful regarding having to be a part of this business. Could you imagine a lot of people don't get the benefit of doing something they love in their job? To be able to help other people really love this life, this Spartan life, and have a business that has that all wrapped up into one. I mean, every day I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be alive.

There's another little thing I do with myself is I could be worse, right? Right. So I want to make sure everyone checks this book out. Before I actually ask you the final question, I've been training and I used to be a former checks this book out. Before I actually ask you the final question, I've been training, and I used to be a former professional football player. I played three sports in college, two sport All-American, decathlon, and football. I'm currently on the USA men's national team

for a sport called team handball, which is big in Europe but pretty much unknown in the US. I train pretty intensely every single day right now for that sport and put myself through hell a lot of the times. And for someone like me, who's got a, you know, a business who's got a passion and plays a sport at a high level, is it valuable for me to do an endurance obstacle course as well? And, um,

I mean, I don't want to put you in that category, but is it valuable for me to try the sport and the Spartan race? Yeah, I think it is in the same sense. I think it would be valuable for me to go learn handball. Right. Like I know. And I say that it's the same thing we talked about with that elite military

unit. We have to all step out of our comfort zone whenever those opportunities exist, because one, it changes you physically.ically, it changes your brain. When you're uncomfortable and you have to deal with an obstacle, the obstacle for you would be doing a sport you're not used to and you're not the best at, like it would be for me doing handball, that physically changes and puts an imprint in your brain. And we and we talk about angela duckworth and grit that's how that happens um so yes i think it'll be extremely valuable uh to step out of your

comfort zone and try a new sport and and i can't think of a better one that's one race not just because i'm attached to it but because it happens to be loaded with obstacles too not just the obstacle of it being a new sport right and what So yes. So what's the next one in Southern California? Um, I don't have dates in front of me, but you're going to have some this year. You think I have a bunch I have, um, in the late fall, I have one in near San Diego. Um, and I think in late summer I've got San Francisco coming. So that's not too far. But yeah, you should definitely do one. Awesome.

And then you have a whole schedule of all the events at spartanrace.com, correct? We do, yeah. And the book is spartanupthebook.com. Spartanupthebook.com. And make sure to check this out. I mean, I went through the whole thing. For me, I'm really inspired by what you've created. I'm inspired by what you write because I think it's – you're keeping it very basic, and it's what people need to hear.

And it's the simple, basic things of working hard, having a goal, and getting it done, what it's all about. It's not about these tricks or these get better fast, instant gratification. Get rich quick. No get rich quick here. Yeah, this is like get down. Get rich slow. This is get rich slow.

We should make a new tagline. I like it. But make sure to check out the book. Again, you can go to spartanrace.com or Spartan, what is it? Spartan Up the book. Spartan Up the book. And it's called SpartanRace.com or SpartanUpTheBook. It's called Spartan Up, A Take-No-Prisoner's Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance in Life by Joe DeSena. The final question, which I ask all of my guests, is what is your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is, and it's going to sound no different than everything we just talked about, but is doing stuff I don't want to do. I can't think of the author's name, but he just came up with leaders eat last. Yeah, Simon Sinek. I had him on the show. Yeah, he's awesome. A leader doesn't want to eat last. He's got to eat last. He's got to put his men first. Um, I don't want to go out in the cold water, but, uh, if we've got something to do, I got to get in. So I've always lived my life just stepping out. I met, I actually met my wife and have four children because I live life that way. I wasn't supposed to swim across a Bay. My part of the job was done. And,

and I looked out there and I said, I really don't want to do this. So I'm going to do it. And when I swam to the other side, I met my wife, boom, married four children. So you'd be amazed at what happens when you live that way. And that's, and that's greatness. I love it. Thank you so much for all of the work that you do in the world, for your vision to inspire now 100 million people to get off the couch, for making the world a better place through your passion. I'm truly grateful for you in this world and the mark you're making. So thank you so much, Joe. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Yeah. And there you guys have it. Thanks so much for tuning in today on the school of greatness podcast with Joe DeSena. Make sure to check out this book. It's a,

it's a pretty interesting read. And again, he doesn't have any get healthy or get rich quick type of strategies for you. What he's got is some great lessons and principles that are time tested and proven. And I think you're going to really enjoy this book. It's really worth the read. It's worth checking out. And it's worth giving to a friend as well if you think that someone needs to step it up in their business, sport or life. So check it out and you can go to all the show notes over at lewishouse.com. And yeah, I'm excited about what's to come. We've got a lot of great episodes coming up. If you guys,

if this is your first time listening to the podcast, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast over on iTunes, on Stitcher and on SoundCloud and check out the previous episodes. There's been well over 60, I guess, 67 episodes now. And there's some amazing guests we've had on here and there's going to be some amazing guests to come. So make sure to check it out. Subscribe. I would love it if you left a review over on iTunes that really helps increase the rankings and gets this in front of more people in the world to get the message of greatness. So I appreciate you for all that you do in sharing this episode, for listening, for being a subscriber. And if you want to say hi, go ahead and post a picture on Instagram and tag me at

Lewis Howes with where you're listening to this in the world right now. And I'll be sure to comment back. So thanks again for all you guys do for being great and make sure to go out there and do something great today. Outro Music