The School of Greatness - 699 Stop Being Comfortable with Jesse Itzler

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

When you feel like you’ve reached your limit, you’re only 40% there. How often do you listen to your body when it says, “I’m done?” We get tired, our muscles get sore, so we throw in the towel. We’re wired to stop every time we start to feel pain. But if we ignore that, we can push ourselves to a new limit. Unless you get uncomfortable, you won’t know what you’re really capable of. That’s why I’m excited to revisit a conversation I had with a new friend who is always pushing himself to the next level: Jesse Itzler. Jesse is ultramarathon runner who is also a bestselling author, award-winning rapper, and an original partner for ZICO coconut water. He is the co-founder of Marquis Jets and a co-owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Jesse was able to take on everything in his life by putting himself first. Like Jesse says in this episode, “So much of business is a reflection of you, and so many of us don’t invest in ourselves.” Learn how to push yourself past your limit to achieve what you never thought possible on Episode 699. In This Episode You Will Learn: About the 40% Rule (1:42) The one time Jesse reached his limit (3:20) How Jesse gained control of his time (4:47) Why Jesse sets aside 3 hours of his day for himself (5:34)

This is 5-Minute Friday! I'm so pumped for this episode because it's with my new friend, Jesse Itzler. Now, for those that don't know who Jesse is, extremely impressive human being, an incredible entrepreneur. He is the original partner of Zico Coconut Water, which is coconut water I used to drink all the time and still do. He's also a co-founder of Marquee Jets. He's an Emmy Award winner and a best-selling rapper and also the co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks NBA basketball team. We went down to the gym five minutes into our 31-day journey.

And he said, I want to see how many pull-ups you can do. So I said, all right. So I guess to kind of get a level of where I was at. And I am not a strong guy. So I did maybe eight pull-ups. And then I dropped down. And he said, all right, wait 30 seconds and do it again. So I waited 30 seconds, got back up on the bar. I did like six. He said, all right, wait 30 seconds and do it again. So I waited 30 seconds, got back up on the bar.

I did like six. He said, all right, one more time. And now I'm starting to feel it. I don't think I can even get back up on the bar. And I get three, but three like kicking, getting my chin over, like whatever I could do to get over the bar. So I said, all right, what's next? He said, what's next is we're going to stay here until you do 100 more.

Oh, my gosh. You're doing one at a time, essentially. Yeah, and I'm like, come on, man. Like, that's great on paper, but I physically can't do 100 more. That was our start of many lessons that I learned because I ended up doing it one at a time. And what he taught me was that so many of our limitations are self-imposed we set something up in our brain we program our brain one way and that's our limit and until we can get past that and see what we're really made of and like get uncomfortable and experience pain

you can't really you don't really don't know what you're capable of. So that was a really good lesson for me. Every day was a lesson like that. He has this thing called the 40% rule which is basically when your brain tells you you're done, you're really only 40% done. But the reality is we're all wired.

So the first time we experience pain or discomfort, our brain sends a signal and basically taps you on the shoulder because it doesn't want you to get hurt. But if you ignore that tap on your shoulder and keep going, you can do so much more. Sure. So that was a really good lesson. And I kind of learned that with the pull-ups.

But when's the limit the limit? Like once you do that 60% more or 40% more, you keep going until you break an arm or until you go to the hospital or... It depends on who you are. Did you ever hit that limit where you had to find out keep going until you break an arm or until you go to the hospital or it depends on who you are did you ever hit that limit where you had to go to the hospital i hit the limit where i physically just physically could not go on like we were doing push-ups one day and i just i just just physically couldn't get up you know like do another one like i just i just couldn't do it my mind wanted to do another one i just felt like i just couldn't do it yes but um could he kind of read your energy and was like okay now's enough well we went into the we I just couldn't do it. My mind wanted to do another one. I just felt like I just couldn't do it.

Did he kind of read your energy and was like, okay, now's enough? Well, we went into the steam room once because some of it was just psychological stuff. So we went in the steam room one day and he set the maxed out on the steam to the highest temperature. It was like 130, but it felt like it was 180 because it had to be a broken – it was definitely harder than 130. It was hot. How long were we in there for? Well, he said, we're going to go in for 30 minutes with one glass of water. And at about 19 minutes, he's like in the corner like literally like whistling to himself. Shut up.

And I'm like – I said to him like, Goggins, I got to get out of here. He's like, we got 11 more minutes. I'm like, I got to get out of here. And before he could answer i opened up the door and he came in he came out and grabbed me goes get back in wow and then he looked at me he's like you don't look so good i'm like man i don't feel so good and i was kind of drifting into la la land yeah yeah and he said we're boarding i'm like we're boarding a boarding we're boarding so he didn't he didn't putort! So he didn't put you back in.

He didn't put me back in. So he kind of saw the limit. He saw the limit. He also watched me sit in that chair for about three hours. Afterwards, to recover, drinking coconut water. Yeah. I mean, we just ran. I was so out of whack from everything we were doing.

I wasn't sleeping. And then we went into this heat. I was dehydrated already. The steam, it was gross. Oh, my gosh. I couldn't breathe. Plus, you're also mentally, I'm assuming you didn't put, you know, you didn't put your life on pause during this. No, I was working full time.

Working full time on multiple businesses, right? 12-hour day, like full time. Then you're full time with your son, right? Oh, yeah. And your wife. So it's not like you're just. And traveling. And at the time, And building a house.

It was crazy. But one lesson that he taught me was so important is I was able to take on all that he was putting on my plate and do more without getting rid of anything. Because what I did was he basically, after a week, looked at my life. It was like a life coach in a weird way. Right. And said to me, I was filling up my calendar with so much non-essential stuff. Non-productive things. Because I felt obligated to say yes to lunch meetings. You meet this guy for 15 minutes, we take this call. And I just didn't want to be like,

oh, Jesse's an asshole. He won't take this meeting. So I would just do it. And I realized I was losing control of my own time. I lost control of my own time. So I just said, I started saying no to everything, canceling everything that wasn't going to really, that I didn't need to do. That was other people putting demands on me. And I really started focusing on me. I mean, I think so much of business is a reflection of you. And so many of us don't invest in ourselves. So I drew a little pie chart of my time, of how I want to spend my time in my 24 hours. I broke it up into four different sections

and I make sure that every day I have three hours for me. So I can, because I think it's just so important that we put ourselves first. And we really don't. So many of us don't. You get all these arrows shot at you every day, bills, bills, problems,

friends need this, work. The plumber has to come because this is broken. This thing won't start. It's like, you're always dodging arrows. Right. There's no way around that,

but if you don't take the three hours to at least separate yourself from the constant attack of arrows, you're crazy. Bonkers. Yeah.

So, you know, we're going to get out of shape. We're going to feel like you don't have any self-worth or something. Right.