300 Jesse Itzler on Pushing Your Limits & Taking Back Your Time

"So much of business is a reflection of you." - Jesse Itzler If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/300 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is episode number 300 with Jesse Itzler.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Welcome everyone to this episode of a very special milestone. That's right. We hit 300 episodes on the School of Greatness. Now, we have been around for just over three years. We have over 15 million downloads and we're at 300 episodes. I am just in awe and amazed as I reflect back on the idea for the School of Greatness in the first place. The, you know, the reason the School of Greatness came about was because I was at a turning point in my life. I was at kind of a lower moment, a lot of frustration, some anxiety, some resentment I was feeling.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  And I had just moved to LA from New York City and I was going through a breakup. And I remember just feeling like, what am I going to do next with my life? What's next for me? And I was talking to some friends who were podcasting already, who were having success with it. I was stuck in LA traffic every day, kind of a little bit angry and frustrated that I wasn't in New York anymore. And I just said, you know what? There's gotta be a way to share these insights from brilliant minds that I'm spending time with on a daily basis with the rest of the world. There's gotta be a way to tap into their mind, into their heart and their soul and access some of the wealth of this information that they have.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  And then really break it down in a way so everyone can consume it, understand it, and apply it to their lives to become their greatest self. And that's how it began. Again, just over three years ago. So I want to say thank you so much for listening for if this is your first time or your 300th episode that you've listened to, thank you for being here. Uh, thank you for sharing this out with your friends. You know, the way that we continue to grow is by you spreading the word by you posting it on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and emailing your friends and just talking about it, saying, hey, guys, have you heard of the School of Greatness podcast? Check out this cool episode. I think you'd really enjoy it. That's how people get on board and that's how the movement began and how it continues to grow with over

• 2:38Speaker 00

  a million downloads a month. So I just want to say thank you and acknowledge all of you for joining me on this journey over three years in 300 episodes. And I'm excited to continue going to the next level for this show. So there's, there's no point anytime soon where I see myself slowing down. It's only getting bigger, better, and it's all for you guys. So I hope you guys are enjoying it. Again, thank you for being here and I'm so pumped for this interview and 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

• 3:22Speaker 00

  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 bestselling rapper and also the co-owner of the Atlanta Howes, uh, NBA basketball team. And he felt the need to break out of his day-to-day routine. You know, he's a guy who has achieved incredible success in his life and he felt the need to break out of his day-to-day routine and grow beyond his perceived limitations and discover possibilities within himself he never knew he had. So he decided to have a Navy SEAL, one of the top Navy SEALs, uh, in the, in the world, really, move to his New York City penthouse suite alongside his family. His wife, by the way, is a Forbes

• 4:05Speaker 00

  top self-made woman in America. Her name is Sarah Blakely, who's the founder and CEO of the billion-dollar company, Spanx. So we had this Navy SEAL move in and a lot Opened up for him during this month with this extreme Navy SEAL training him every single day and a lot of the lessons we're going to talk about covering how much and how often that you should switch up your habits and routines. Now you guys know I talk about habits and routines all the time and Jesse has an interesting point about habits and routines that can get people caught up in the mundane as well. Also why Jesse needed a big push to go to the next level even though he was already crushing it. How to

• 4:46Speaker 00

  take back control of your time. If you feel overwhelmed, if you feel stressed, if you feel distracted, here's how to take back control of your time. What Jesse does to make time for himself with all the kids, with all the businesses, with all the people that are constantly coming after him. He spends more time with himself than anyone else I know. And why breaking a habit is so hard and how to get through it. We cover those ideas and principles and so much more in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Make sure to head back to LewisHowes.com/300 to watch the full video interview. Check out the book

• 5:26Speaker 00

  that he just came out about this story and all the show notes we cover in today's episode. And without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only Jesse Itzler. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about this. Our guest is Jesse Itzler. Thanks for coming in, man. Appreciate it.

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm pumped for this. I saw this come out. This is the first time I heard about you when this book came out and I remember being talked about. I think maybe your public has sent me the information or someone did it. Ed O'Keefe, a buddy of mine, had you on, I think his podcast and told me about you and I was like,

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Who is this guy? Who's this SEAL guy? I don't know what's happening. But then I started doing more research on you and I was like, oh, I actually want to meet this guy. So I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited. I don't think we've had anyone on here who is like you. So I think it'll be interesting to kind of uncover the things that you've created, what you've done in your life. And you started out from my research as a rapper, am I right?

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  I did.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Okay, so why were you inspired to be in the music?

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Space. Was that always something you loved to do as a child?

• 6:29Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, yeah, you know, I grew up in the eighties in, in New York City and Long Island. Uh, which is a focal point for rap when it was starting out. So I just got at an early age. Had a real interest in it.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:40Jesse Itzler?

  And then when I was in college, I made a demo tape. And like most people trying to get into the music business in, in college or in the late eighties. I sent that about a hundred cassettes. At the time it was cassettes.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:53Jesse Itzler?

  To A and R executives, to, you know, presidents of labels. I called everybody. And I got zero.

• 7:00Lewis Howes?

  Nothing.

• 7:01Jesse Itzler?

  Nothing. Callback.

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  And when was this? What year is this?

• 7:03Jesse Itzler?

  That was in ninety, right?

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:05Jesse Itzler?

  All my college friends were doing resumes and I was sending out cassettes.

• 7:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:09Jesse Itzler?

  And that was my first real experience with like pure, full out rejection.

• 7:15Lewis Howes?

  Okay. You didn't get rejected before then?

• 7:17Jesse Itzler?

  Not like, not a hundred times in a row.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:20Jesse Itzler?

  And, um, but, but it forced me to start to think differently and figure out that, you know what? You really gotta kind of differentiate yourself and separate yourself to get noticed and, and get things done.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:32Jesse Itzler?

  Which was, ended up being a really valuable lesson for me down the road.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. So how did you start to break into the music world?

• 7:38Jesse Itzler?

  So I was in a, uh, recording studio in Queen, Corona, Queens where I was recording at two AM. I would ride my bike twenty miles from Long Island to the studio at the only time I could get studio time, which was two AM.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:51Jesse Itzler?

  And the artist that was, uh, finished recording before me was a guy named Dana Dane. Who was a big, you know, Brooklyn based, huge rapper in the eighties. And on the, the mixing board was an advanced cassette of his second album that no one had that he left behind. So I literally quote unquote borrowed the cassette. I was a fan of his. I wanted to hear it. I took the cassette home and I flew out to LA a week later to visit a friend. And on the plane ride out to LA. I read that there was a label out here called Delicious Vinyl. It was a, probably the biggest independent rap label at the time. They had two artists. Young MC who wrote Bust a Move and Tone Loc who had Wild Thing. And I read that the founder of the company or one of the founders was a huge Dana Dane fan and I had this guy's cassette.

• 8:36Jesse Itzler?

  So when I landed.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  Pre-released cassette.

• 8:38Jesse Itzler?

  Pre-released.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  No one had heard it.

• 8:39Jesse Itzler?

  No one heard it. Impossible to get, like, go to jail if you have it, kind of thing.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Jesse Itzler?

  And I, uh, so I, I cold called the label and, um, through a little bit of New York hustle and confusion. Um, the secretary who took the call. Put me on hold. I explained that I had this cassette. I was dropping it off for Mike Ross, the founder. She came back and she said, Dana, Mike would like to see you at 2 o'clock. She thought I was Dana Dane. So I said, I'll be there at 2. And I got the meeting under the guise that they thought that it was Dana. So I got-

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  Wait, and you had his tape. Did he know you had his tape?

• 9:12Jesse Itzler?

  No, I never met him in my life.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Took it to LA?

• 9:14Jesse Itzler?

  Took it to LA to listen to it myself.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Did he have an extra copy or is this just his only copy?

• 9:19Jesse Itzler?

  I have no idea.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  Were you thinking to myself, what if this is his only copy? Or what happens if I don't bring him back? What if he's looking for it?

• 9:26Jesse Itzler?

  I wasn't thinking anything other than I really wanted to hear it.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, okay. That took balls.

• 9:30Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. So I got buzzed into this office. They said, Dana, come on in. Mike will be right with you. Escorted into his office with all these platinum records on the wall. And Mike came in and said, who are you? And I said, oh, you know, Dana's 20 minutes behind. I have his, you know, he's coming to see you, da-da-da. But while we wait, can I play my demo? He said, sure. And I told him I work with Dana, all the same studio, more confusion. And I put my cassette in and got a record deal.

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Interesting. So through association of someone else credible, you essentially use that as social proof, it sounds like, and built your case up in person?

• 10:06Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  Amazing, man.

• 10:07Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, that was great.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay, cool. And so from there, what happened? Was it just a big hit right away? Were you, you know, in the top charts with every song you had? Or was it a struggle after that?

• 10:18Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I thought, 22 years old, 21 years old, that, you know, they had these great mega artists, that all I had to do was sign the deal, and whatever I put out would be a hit. But, you know, as you know, it doesn't work that way.

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 10:32Jesse Itzler?

  And that was another, that was another quick lesson, that, you know, you really have to do it yourself. The label was so busy with other stuff and, you know, that I really had to, I realized that I should have done more on myself. And it didn't go as I thought it would go. And I didn't get picked up for a second album. And, you know-

• 10:51Lewis Howes?

  Do you know how many sales it did, or?

• 10:53Jesse Itzler?

  Not enough to get picked up. Whatever that number was, it wasn't enough. And, you know, I really, I had no- Nothing on my resume, other than I was a kiddie pool attendant that summer that I was riding my bike to the studio. So now I have no record deal. And the only thing I could put on my resume is kiddie pool attendant and failed rapper. And that wouldn't really do it. So, um, you know, sometimes when you look at something that that's a failure, it's sort of just life's way of tapping you on the shoulder and saying you're off course. And I felt like I was in the right world, but just a little bit off course. And if I called an audible but stayed in it, and I ended up doing jingles. I read that, yeah. For like NBA teams or? I started doing theme songs for professional sports teams. Amazing.

• 11:38Jesse Itzler?

  Which was a niche that sports music that didn't exist. Really created this category of sports music. Which can be profitable. Jingles can be profitable, right? Yeah. I mean, for most, not for me, but for most people they were. Sure. The first song that I did was a song for the Knicks called Go New York Go in 92. And it was a theme song for the Knicks. They paid me $4,000. And it became the number one song on New York radio. It was a huge hit. But by the time I paid the singer, the studio, the engineer, the mix, all the things. You were negative money. Lost $400. And, um, but every team that came to Madison Square Garden would say, how do we get a song like that? And I realized, well, hold on, $4,000, $4,000 times 100 professional sports teams.

• 12:22Jesse Itzler?

  I can, that'll work. I'm not making any now. And I started doing that. That was my little thing. I did about 20 or 30 of them and came up with a concept. Uh, the songs became really in demand. There was no way to get them. They were playing on, played on radio. So if you were a Knicks fan and you wanted a song, you couldn't get it. Hmm. So my partner and I came up with an idea to sell this, our song, this song, with all the other songs they play in the arena, with great moments in team history in between it, like a musical program. And we sold a shitload. Can I curse on this? That's fine. We sold a shitload of, uh, of records. That's great. And, um, And that was my first kind of ta- taste of having a little bit of loot.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:01Jesse Itzler?

  And uh.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Nineteen ninety-one, ninety-two?

• 13:03Jesse Itzler?

  Ninety-three, when Jordan came back, we did a song for the Bulls called Right Back In It when Michael came back.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:09Jesse Itzler?

  Sold half a million Bull CDs.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 13:11Jesse Itzler?

  Which was a couple million dollars. And then took all the money and, which was probably the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Took all the money and instead of going to buy a car or a house, which is what I wanted to do, we reinvested it in exclusive deals with all the sports leagues to do these team-specific compilations and then sold the company to a public company.

• 13:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so that did really well financially when you did all that, that's amazing.

• 13:34Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, that was it.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  Congrats.

• 13:35Jesse Itzler?

  That was a good little.

• 13:36Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't think about reinvesting it back in their brand or their business or things like that. When I'm heavily doing that myself, I'm like, the money I make, you know, I have a $4,000 car that I've had for years and I just like, don't care about the possessions. I'm like, I'd rather build something meaningful that's impacting the world and also creating something cool at the same time, so. Sounds like you learned a lot of amazing lessons.

• 13:57Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, and it's very difficult if you don't have any investors and anyone, you know, anyone to report to. And all of a sudden you have money in your bank account as a business.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:06Jesse Itzler?

  You want to take it out. You don't think that you're gonna have to reinvest it or use it, especially when you're 22 years old.

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:12Jesse Itzler?

  You know, so that was a really tough thing and um, but it ended up being a good thing.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah. It sounds like, you know, up until then you had learned a lot of great lessons. What I'm hearing is the theme and I'm curious, what was the, who was the most influential person in your life growing up? And what was the biggest lesson they taught you?

• 14:31Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, well, it would certainly be my dad without question, but the best lesson I got was from my mom.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 14:36Jesse Itzler?

  When I went to college, my mom told me just to uh, to do everything I could, to try everything at school, like, nothing was off limits. Go to every lecture, do every intramural sport, go to every fraternity party, do everything. Meet as many people and, and just figure out what it is that you like to do. Now, I still don't know what I want to do or what I like to do, but it did give me a, a, a, a different view to just expose me to a whole different world that I didn't see growing up in Long Island. And that ended up being a really good lesson for me. But my parents have both been great influences on me.

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the biggest lesson your dad taught you?

• 15:12Jesse Itzler?

  Um, he just gave me so much freedom to try to do whatever I wanted to do and like, you know, he, I think he really supported my failures and I had plenty, you know, and congratulated me on the attempt rather than the outcome.

• 15:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay. But at some point you gotta make money. So if you keep attempting something and you never make money, you've gotta figure out a solution, right?

• 15:35Jesse Itzler?

  Well, you don't have to make money if you're happy.

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  That's true. That's true.

• 15:40Jesse Itzler?

  But, um, but yeah.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Well, if you're starting a business, you can't just fail over and over.

• 15:44Jesse Itzler?

  Right.

• 15:45Lewis Howes?

  You gotta eventually be profitable, I would say.

• 15:47Jesse Itzler?

  You do.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  Pay your overhead, pay your employees. Yeah.

• 15:49Jesse Itzler?

  Of course.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, gotcha. That's cool though. He gave you that freedom, that courage.

• 15:52Jesse Itzler?

  But the relationship between you and money is an important dynamic.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 15:57Jesse Itzler?

  You know what I mean?

• 15:58Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Very cool. So what happened after the music success? You know, you're reinvesting and you sold the company. Did you stay in the music world? Did you?

• 16:10Jesse Itzler?

  So we.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Branch out?

• 16:11Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we sold the company to a public company.

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 16:13Jesse Itzler?

  And the owner of this, of the public company, a guy named Bob Siliman at SFX, had a private jet and invited my partner and I on a trip. We were the youngest, uh, company that he bought as far as we were 25 or 26 years old. We sold the company and he took a liking to us, kinda like young guys, invited us on a trip and went on a private jet. And, um, as soon as we got on the plane, we kinda looked at each other and like, how in the world do we do this more often? Like, how do we get this?

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:42Jesse Itzler?

  And, um, ultimately that one trip led to a private jet business that we started called Marquee Jet.

• 16:48Lewis Howes?

  Unbelievable. I think I went to a Marquee Jet party at a Super Bowl, the Tampa Bay Super Bowl. There was a party there. It was Marquee Jets. I think it was like, I'm not sure when this was.

• 17:00Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, I remember, I remember.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  Five, six years ago, maybe?

• 17:02Jesse Itzler?

  More. It was, uh.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  Seven years ago?

• 17:04Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  2009, maybe?

• 17:05Jesse Itzler?

  Maybe more. But yeah.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  It was 2009, maybe? When did you guys launch Marquee Jets?

• 17:10Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, oh, one.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh, one. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I remember that. And being like, wow, this is a pretty sweet party.

• 17:15Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, that was like our annual.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  That was cool. Yeah.

• 17:17Jesse Itzler?

  It was really.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. So you just decided that you're gonna launch a jet company?

• 17:21Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we had, we had the idea because we wanted to use it. So like, you know what? Even if no one else signs up for this thing and we can fly on a private jet, that would be a win. But uh.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  It's a completely different uh skill set and business and industry that you didn't have any experience in, I'm assuming, right?

• 17:36Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, that's kind of a theme for me. I mean, I think one of the things that I look back on my life and I was in music, I was in private jets. I've been in coconut water and all these different things, sports, um, is that I had no prior experience in any of that. And it ended up being the best blessing for me because no one taught me or told me how to do it. So it was guaranteed that it would be done differently.

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 17:58Jesse Itzler?

  And that was a, you know, it guaranteed that it would be creative and different and unique. So no, neither my partner and I or I had any background in, I mean, we couldn't even make a paper airplane.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:09Jesse Itzler?

  And we didn't have money to buy a plane, so.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  You weren't a pilot either, I'm assuming.

• 18:13Jesse Itzler?

  No, no, but we had an idea.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  You had a passion for it.

• 18:16Jesse Itzler?

  We had an idea, um, and intuitively, I think we both knew it would work because we knew if we wanted to use this product, that probably a lot of people would want to use it and how could we make it more affordable and bring it to the masses.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. So what did you do? Tell me the problem and then what the solution was you guys.

• 18:33Jesse Itzler?

  Well, the problem was there was only three ways to fly privately at the time. You could buy your own airplane, which is incredibly expensive.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Jesse Itzler?

  It takes out ninety nine point nine percent of the world. You could buy a fraction of a plane, which is like a timeshare, which is also very expensive and it's a long commitment. And that's not, but we didn't want to put a couple of million dollars in for multiple years. We wanted to take like three trips a year with our friends to golf.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:56Jesse Itzler?

  Or you could charter a plane and there's all kinds of questions about like, well, who owns the plane? Who's flying the plane? What if the plane doesn't show up, you know, inconsistencies? So we were like, if we could just offer a twenty five hour solution with none of the responsibilities of owning your own plane, you don't have to manage it, you don't have to schedule it, you just like call on demand, it shows up. Uh, and you prepay for it and just work off the hours, it will work.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  It's like the Uber for planes.

• 19:21Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, but there was one problem.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 19:24Jesse Itzler?

  We didn't have any planes.

• 19:25Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 19:26Jesse Itzler?

  So we, we, once we had the idea and we had it all kind of baked, we had to go find out, find someone that could lend us a fleet of airplanes.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  Right. How many did you want to start with?

• 19:34Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, well, we sat next to each other like you and I are doing it. Uh, my partner asked me, how many people you think would buy this that you know? And I said, I could probably sell fifteen. He said, all right, put me down for fifteen. I said, we need enough to hold thirty people.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:48Jesse Itzler?

  And, um. We went to NetJets, which is owned by Warren Buffett and Berkshire with this idea.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  Are they based out of Columbus?

• 19:57Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  Whenever I fly in, I see big NetJets on the couch.

• 20:00Jesse Itzler?

  And had this meeting to pitch this idea that was going to change my life and they threw us out in about 10 minutes.

• 20:06Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 20:07Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, I think the direct quote is, "Sounds cool. If you guys think I'm giving two 27-year-olds my fleet of airplanes, not happening."

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  You're out of your mind, yeah.

• 20:18Jesse Itzler?

  And, um, but his partner came out after the meeting and said, "That was a great meeting." I said, "What are you talking about? We got thrown out in 12 minutes." He said, "Rich Santulli, the CEO, doesn't give anyone 12 minutes." And said, "If you guys kind of just do this, change this, do this."

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  Come back in a month.

• 20:34Jesse Itzler?

  Let's try it again. So we did, but instead of coming back with the deck, we brought in our own focus group. We literally just lined up like eight chairs of athletes, entertainers, agents.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  People who could afford it.

• 20:44Jesse Itzler?

  Right. And one by one, they stood up and explained why they wouldn't buy their own plane, why they wouldn't buy a NetJet for action. And why they would buy this car.

• 20:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:52Jesse Itzler?

  And we got a deal. And then a year later, you know, we were, I think we had more customers than NetJet.

• 20:58Lewis Howes?

  No way. Oh my gosh. That's brilliant that you brought people in, that you were able to enroll your friends into coming in and supporting you.

• 21:06Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, no, it was, uh, it was great.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  And they're all on board because they wanted to use the product, it sounds like.

• 21:10Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, no, I mean, it was all, it was all.

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  They don't want to buy first class and wait in line for an hour or two, whatever, right? Or pay millions. Interesting. Amazing. That's really cool. And how long did you have that company for until you?

• 21:22Jesse Itzler?

  We, we had it in 01. We, uh, we took, we ramped it up to $5 billion in sales and sold it in 09 to Berkshire.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Congratulations. That's big. I love it. Okay. And so during that time, then you got connected with, with Zico, right?

• 21:38Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. So in 2006, I decided to raise money for, for a bunch of charities that were important to me. And I didn't want to do it, um, the way, you know, at the time, I was going to all these golf dinners for charity and, you know, banquets and all this stuff. And it was just like the same thing. So I decided I was going to run 100 miles to bring awareness and raise money for these charities. And, um, I picked a date on my calendar and said, "I'm going to start training today." And during the process, I did a lot of research on like, well, what do you drink?

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:11Jesse Itzler?

  And what do you eat if you're gonna run for twenty, basically twenty-four hours?

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:14Jesse Itzler?

  And I stumbled upon coconut water. And I became literally like the human guinea pig for coconut water. And I ended up finishing the race and I didn't cramp. And I was like, wow, this is the fountain of youth. Like when other people discover what I just discovered, you know, to like a regular guy that's not a great athlete and just ran a hundred miles, this thing's, this thing's got some legs to it. So I spent a year, I went to Jamaica, I traveled to Brazil, tried to figure out like, you know, can I import this? How does the whole beverage game work?

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:46Jesse Itzler?

  And, and realized that I wasn't wired and I didn't have the energy to start from, you know,

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  So from scratch.

• 22:54Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, from scratch. Learn the ropes, like the category was starting to move too fast.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Jesse Itzler?

  And the learning curve would be too great for me.

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Jesse Itzler?

  And my energy level wasn't there at this point in my life. So I ended up partnering with a guy named Mark Rampolas, a rock star who founded Zico. And

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  So he already had the brand?

• 23:11Jesse Itzler?

  He had the brand. Yeah, he had the brand. They were about, they were doing about, you know, four or five million dollars in sales. And we went to Coca-Cola. I had gone to Coca-Cola with this idea originally to see if they would kind of be my net jets. They could provide

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 23:27Jesse Itzler?

  The back office stuff. Anyway, we did a three-way partnership. Me, my, my company, which was the Hundred Mile Group, Zico and Coca-Cola, three-way partnership. And then we sold, you know, grew it, sold it three years later to Coke.

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  To Coke. Amazing. It's unbelievable, man.

• 23:42Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, it was good. And it was, you know, it was a great product at the right time. And I really believed in it. And Mark did a great job with the company.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  It was a great product, yeah. I mean, there's so many competitors now, there's so many Coke in the brand.

• 23:56Jesse Itzler?

  He has like two hundred and fifty different beverages that use coconut water.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. Crazy.

• 24:01Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  Unbelievable. It tastes so good, though. Like you said, right? So, so tell me, how did you, how did the whole, I wanna own an NBA team come about then? How does this?

• 24:11Jesse Itzler?

  Again, like, wasn't planned. I live in Atlanta. I'm a season ticket holder, huge basketball fan. I had the past experience having, you know, done a lot of these songs for the NBA teams in my past life. And which ultimately became more like ad campaigns and theme and, and Real slogans and way more than just a theme song. So I had a little bit of background and kind of how game operations work and you know, what you do at a timeout and how the inner arena operations work. But I'm a big fan. I have a season ticket holder at the Hawks and I was a consultant to the Hawks for about a year.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:45Jesse Itzler?

  Prior to this.

• 24:48Jesse Itzler?

  And when the team became for sale, I fell so in love with the product, the players, the players, the coaching staff, the employees, the brand, the community, that I just put my hand up really in a big way and said, I want to be involved. And surprisingly, not a lot of people in Atlanta did. And I was just lucky enough to hook up with a small group of friends and we got it.

• 25:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Is it three of you or is it?

• 25:15Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, well, there were four. We started out with, there were four of us and now there's about, I think there's about 14 total owners.

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 25:24Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. So you like raised a fund essentially and there's like a few.

• 25:28Jesse Itzler?

  Yep.

• 25:28Lewis Howes?

  That started, gotcha. And your wife's one of them, right?

• 25:31Jesse Itzler?

  Yep.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  And how did that come about? Were you guys connected?

• 25:34Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, my wife and I?

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Jesse Itzler?

  She was a customer at Marky Jet.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 25:37Jesse Itzler?

  And she came to a customer appreciation event and we became friendly and.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:44Jesse Itzler?

  You know, sort of like how I got my record deal. I had to kind of break through the clutter. So before I ran the 100 miles, I called up her office. She's an entrepreneur. She has a company called Spanx.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Jesse Itzler?

  Which is women's shapewear.

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  It's huge, right?

• 25:57Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. And I called her PR person and asked if she would connect me to Sarah and they said no. And I said, well, could you tell her that I want to run, I'm running this 100 mile race and I want to do it in Spanx.

• 26:09Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 26:10Jesse Itzler?

  To get some publicity for her brand if she's interested. She'll make a donation. And I married her a year later.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. So did she make the donation or no?

• 26:18Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, no, but we got married.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. That's cool.

• 26:21Jesse Itzler?

  Better than a donation.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  So did she hear about it before you went in the race or after you did it?

• 26:25Jesse Itzler?

  Before. No, she, her PR person said, as she would tell the story, Sarah and other lunatics, another lunatic's on the phone. This time it's someone saying he wants to run 100 miles in a pair of Spanx and.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  And that caught her attention.

• 26:38Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, I mean, she's she's married.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Enough. Got you. Got you. Very cool. So did you guys connect before the race, though, or no?

• 26:43Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, yeah, we were friendly.

• 26:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay, got you.

• 26:46Jesse Itzler?

  But we really started dating after the race.

• 26:48Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. She was like, a guy loves my brand this much, I'll go out with him, right?

• 26:52Jesse Itzler?

  Right.

• 26:53Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 26:53Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so I want to talk about the book now. I love your story. I love what you've created. You know, you're like the representation of someone who creates something from nothing with everything you do. And for me, that's really inspiring. And I think it's inspiring for a lot of people that are listening, because most people don't believe they can create something from nothing. And you create big things from nothing, which I think is really cool. And you didn't have like the education for all these things, right?

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  You didn't go to like the school specifically for music or for owning an NBA team or any of these things, right? You just learned as you went, which I think is really cool and admirable. Now, why, why the point of having a SEAL live with you? This is, this book's called Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet. And I watched a few videos and this guy is a freak. But why did you decide to, to have him live with you?

• 27:43Jesse Itzler?

  On theme, it wasn't planned. I was at a race in San Diego that I was doing with five friends. It was a 24-hour relay race where we each turn, turns running a leg of the race.

• 27:53Lewis Howes?

  Is this San Diego to LA and back or something?

• 27:54Jesse Itzler?

  No, it was actually a 24-hour race on a one-mile, unlit, dark parking lot. And we were doing it just to kind of get out of New York and have fun and whatever. And at the start of the race, and the race was unsupported, which means that you have to bring, completely bring all your own supplies. They'd provide nothing.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Right. And so. They provide the track, essentially.

• 28:14Jesse Itzler?

  A track and, you know, a chip in your, in your shoe to clock your time.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:19Jesse Itzler?

  And, you know, I've been, I was coming off a marquee jet, so our supplies were like loaded. I mean, yeah, like Whole Foods truck, yeah, trucks of stuff came up.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Campers, everything, luggage.

• 28:33Jesse Itzler?

  And masseuses and tents.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Acupuncturists up, yeah.

• 28:37Jesse Itzler?

  It was, we had like light some door thing. The guy to my left was running the entire thing alone. And his supplies, he had three supplies.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  24 hours?

• 28:46Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, he had three supplies. He had a fold-up chair that he sat in, one bottle of water, and a bag of crackers. That's it. For 24 hours? Yeah, and he was about 280 pounds and um of like muscle and I'm looking at this guy, I'm like, what the hell? It made no sense. And at mile seven, so I kept my eye on him during the race. And at mile 70 about, uh, because of his weight. Seventy? Seven zero. Yeah. Because of his weight, he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet. Oh my gosh. You know, the, all the pounding. And because he had only eaten crackers, when he sat down on his folding chair, all the blood that, that was from the run rushed down, blah, blah, blah, blah. He had basically a kidney failure. He was peeing blood. Oh my gosh.

• 29:31Jesse Itzler?

  So he was done and till he wasn't done. I watched him get out of the chair, peeing blood and with all this broken bones taped up and run 30 more miles. No way. And I was like, who is this guy and what in the world makes him tick? So I Googled him after the race. Did you say hi to him or connect with him or? No, no, he wasn't a say hi to guy. Wow. He was, he was a don't fuck with me guy. Right. And um, so I got his number off of his bib, looked at the race results, Googled him and learned that he has this like amazing backstory. He was a Navy SEAL. He lost 100 pounds uh, in 60 days

• 30:10Jesse Itzler?

  before he reported to SEAL, to Spuds, to training camp. He gained the weight back and then in, after he graduated and then lost a bunch of friends in a helicopter crash and decided to Google the 10 hardest things in the world to do to raise money for the kids of the fallen soldiers and literally became the best endurance athlete on the planet. He broke the Guinness Book of World's Records for most pull-ups in a day. He did 4,030 in 17 hours. Oh my gosh. He's run multiple ultra marathons, won multiple races. I mean, I can't even explain what this guy. So anyway, I cold called him. I'm like, I gotta meet this guy. Flew out to meet him and like 10 minutes into our, our meeting, I'm like, you know what?

• 30:55Jesse Itzler?

  All the different buckets in my life would be better if whatever this guy has rubbed off on me. Like whatever made him get out of that chair, I want that in work, I want that at home, I want that in my training, I want that to give that on to my kids, like everything. So I just asked him if he would live with me for a month, if he would move in with me and my family and three days later, he's at my breakfast table.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay. And was there a format, a structure, because you're a busy guy, you're traveling a lot, you're, you know, probably not at home that much. Uh, so what was it like, you know, were you like, I'm gonna be at home this whole time?

• 31:32Jesse Itzler?

  Right. So the, the, the rule was-

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Comes to you with work, or he just stays at home?

• 31:37Jesse Itzler?

  He shadowed me everywhere I went.

• 31:39Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere, 24/7, except for bed.

• 31:41Jesse Itzler?

  Everywhere.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  He didn't sleep in the same bed?

• 31:43Jesse Itzler?

  No, he slept in the room next to us, slept in my house. And, um, you know, the only thing he said, the only condition before he moved in was that I had to do anything that he said. And then nothing was off limits. And if I didn't do it, he'd leave.

• 31:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:55Jesse Itzler?

  And, um-

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  Obviously with respecting your family and, you know, nothing like-

• 32:01Jesse Itzler?

  Not really. No, I mean, it was like he, he, I mean, when he first moved in, the first, he comes into the house and he has a little knapsack for 30 days. If I go away for 30 days, I'm checking two bags. He has this little like Huck Finn-

• 32:15Lewis Howes?

  30 days with all his clothes and everything and-

• 32:17Jesse Itzler?

  His whole life in the bag. And I said to him, his name is David Goggins, so if you're listening and you know him or you want to Google him. I said, in the book, I refer to him as Seal, but now, you know, he's out there. So he came to the house and I said to him, you know, hey, here's your room, you know, I'll show you around, make yourself at home. And, you know, my home is your home for the next 30 days. And he said, no, no, no. He said, I don't have a home. And I said, no, make yourself at home. It's an expression. And he said, I don't operate in expressions.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:46Jesse Itzler?

  And that was sort of like, okay, let's start. So that was, that was kind of our opening act.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  No settling in, no, yeah.

• 32:53Jesse Itzler?

  And then we went down to the, uh, gym, five minutes into the, into our 31 day journey. And, um- He said, I want to see how many pull ups you can do. So I said, alright. So, uh, I guess to kind of get a level of like where I was at, and I am not a strong.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 33:08Jesse Itzler?

  Guy. So I did maybe eight pull ups and then I dropped down. And he said, alright, wait 30 seconds and do it again, do it again. So I waited 30 seconds, got back up on the bar. I did like six. He said, alright, one more time. And now like I'm starting to feel it, you know, like I, I don't think I can even get back up on the bar. And I get, I get three, but three like, you know, kicking, getting my chin over like whatever I could do to get over the bar. So I said, alright, what's next? He said, what's next is we're gonna stay here till you do a hundred more.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, you're doing one at a time essentially.

• 33:40Jesse Itzler?

  And I'm like, come on, man, like, that's great on paper. But I physically can't do a hundred more. And, um, that was the 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.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:01Jesse Itzler?

  You know, and we set, 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.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:13Jesse Itzler?

  You can't real, you don't really don't know what you're capable of.

• 34:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:17Jesse Itzler?

  So that was a really good, good lesson for me. And, um, every day was a lesson like that.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so would he wake you up in the middle of the night? Was it, or did you have a boundary in your life from 10 to four, you know, with my wife and dad or?

• 34:32Jesse Itzler?

  He did all kinds of really non-traditional things.

• 34:35Lewis Howes?

  Really? And you just had to say yes?

• 34:37Jesse Itzler?

  I said, yes.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  What about your wife? She was like on board with it?

• 34:40Jesse Itzler?

  She was on board with it.

• 34:41Lewis Howes?

  But he wasn't doing it with the kids or her, it was, they were out of it, right?

• 34:44Jesse Itzler?

  He took the kids, I had, at the time I only had one son and I have four kids and my son was 18 months old and one day he took us, we, we went running with a 50 pound weight vest. And it was in the snow. And when we, we did like, for like an hour and a half and we came back and I was on the couch wiped out. And he woke me up immediately, said, come on, we're doing it again.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:04Jesse Itzler?

  And my wife had left, so I was on kind of babysitting duty. So I said, I'd love to, but I have my son. And he said, bring him.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:12Jesse Itzler?

  And I said, it's 18 degrees out and snowing and he's 18 months old. I can't bring him. And he said, bring him.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:20Jesse Itzler?

  So, put the vest on and. Bumble my son up.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, he would have walked out and left, right?

• 35:24Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. And, and, and we did it. And you know, all, at, at first, when, when he moved in, I was at a great point in my life.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 35:31Jesse Itzler?

  You know, I was married, I thought I was operating at a high level. I didn't realize.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  You've had successful businesses, you've.

• 35:37Jesse Itzler?

  But I didn't realize how much more I had in, in me. And I was in a routine, you know, like all of us, you know, my routine, for me, it was have breakfast, go to work, come home with your family, repeat. And it was great, but I wasn't getting better because I couldn't get out of the, I was so comfortable in it.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:55Jesse Itzler?

  And like to get out of a habit requires really rewiring your brain. And I just couldn't do it at that point. I don't know, I've done it in the past, I just couldn't do it. So I, I, I brought him in to really shake things up. But, um, and when I did it, I emailed 30 friends and I said, guys, the workouts I'm doing are so insane, you gotta check it out. And they started sharing it and a quote on, but what I realized was it was the mental side of it. The, the, what is behind this guy? What is driving him? How, where does this come from? How do I get it? How do I get more, to be more mentally tough? How do I get to be more consistently disciplined? And that's why I wrote the book.

• 36:34Jesse Itzler?

  Because I wanted, you know, I wanted to share more of him than just like, oh, we ran nine miles and then he woke me up and we ran seven miles and I did this many pull ups. Like, you know, that, that comes and goes. I mean, you've had.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  Anyone can do the workouts, but the mindset behind it, yeah.

• 36:50Jesse Itzler?

  Right. I wanted Obi-Wan Kenobi on my shoulder all the time.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So what do you think were the top three lessons that you learned from those 30 days? Thirty one, thirty one days, sorry.

• 36:59Jesse Itzler?

  Well, you know, he, he has this thing called the 40% rule, which is basically when you're, when you're done, when you, when your brain tells you you're done,

• 37:07Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 37:08Jesse Itzler?

  you're really only 40% done.

• 37:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 37:10Jesse Itzler?

  But the reality is we're all wired. So the first time we experience pain or discomfort, our brain says a signal.

• 37:18Lewis Howes?

  Enough's enough.

• 37:19Jesse Itzler?

  Taps you on the shoulder because it doesn't want you to get hurt.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:21Jesse Itzler?

  And, um, but if you ignore that tap on your shoulder and keep going, you can do so much more.

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 37:27Jesse Itzler?

  So that was a really good lesson and I kind of learned that with the pull ups.

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  But when's the limit to limit? Like, once you put that, you know, sixty percent more, or forty percent more.

• 37:36Jesse Itzler?

  You gotta find out.

• 37:37Lewis Howes?

  Keep going until you break an arm, or until you go to the hospital, or?

• 37:41Jesse Itzler?

  Depends on who you are.

• 37:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:42Jesse Itzler?

  I think, uh.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever hit that limit where you had to go to the hospital?

• 37:46Jesse Itzler?

  I hit the limit where I physically, just physically, could not go on. Like, we were doing pushups 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 enough. My mind wanted to do another one, I just felt like, I just couldn't do it.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:02Jesse Itzler?

  But, um.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  Could he kind of read your energy, and was like, okay, now's enough?

• 38:05Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we went into the, 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, uh, maxed out on the, on the steam, to the highest temperature. It was like one thirty, but it felt like it was one eighty, because it was, had to be a broken, you know? It was definitely had to be one thirty.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  How long were we in there for?

• 38:25Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we, he said, we're gonna go in for thirty minutes with one glass of water, and at about nineteen minutes, he's like in the corner, like, literally, like, whistling to himself.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 38:34Jesse Itzler?

  And I'm like, I said to him, like, I gotta get out of here. He's like, we got eleven more minutes. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. And before he could answer, I opened up the door, and he came in, he came out, and he grabbed me, he goes, get the [bleep] back in.

• 38:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:47Jesse Itzler?

  And then he looked at me, he's like, you don't look so good. I'm like, man, I, I don't feel so good, and I was kind of drifting into La La Land.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:54Jesse Itzler?

  And he said, uh, we're boarding. I'm like, we're boarding?

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  A boarding?

• 38:58Jesse Itzler?

  We're boarding? A boarding?

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  So, he didn't, he didn't put you back in?

• 39:02Jesse Itzler?

  He didn't put me back in.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  So, he kind of saw the limit?

• 39:04Jesse Itzler?

  He saw the limit. He also watched me sit in that chair for about three hours.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Afterwards, to recover, drinking coconut water.

• 39:09Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, I mean, we had just ran, we just ran, you know, 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 was like, it was gross. There was, I couldn't breathe, it was just.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  Plus, you're also mentally, I'm assuming, you didn't put a, you know, you didn't put your life on pause during this.

• 39:29Jesse Itzler?

  No, I was working full time.

• 39:30Lewis Howes?

  Working full time on multiple businesses, right?

• 39:33Jesse Itzler?

  Twelve hour day, like, full, full time.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Then you're full time with your, your, your, your, your son, right? And then your wife, so it's not like you're just.

• 39:41Jesse Itzler?

  And traveling, and at the time, and building a house, it was crazy, but, but, what, one thing that he, one lesson that he, that he taught me was so important, is, you know, 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's like a life coach in a weird way.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:04Jesse Itzler?

  And said to me, you know, I was filling up my calendar with so much non-essential stuff.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes, non-productive things.

• 40:09Jesse Itzler?

  Because I felt obligated to say yes to lunch meetings. We 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 like I was losing control of my own time.

• 40:21Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:22Jesse Itzler?

  And like I, I lost control of my own time. So I just said, I started saying no to everything, canceling everything that, that wasn't gonna really, that I didn't need to do.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:32Jesse Itzler?

  There was other people putting demands on me.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:35Jesse Itzler?

  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, don't invest in ourselves.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 40:45Jesse Itzler?

  So I drew a little pie chart of my time, of how I want to spend my time. And 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, you know, because I think it's just so important that we put ourselves first.

• 41:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:02Jesse Itzler?

  And we really don't. So many of us don't. And you get all these arrows shot at you every day. 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.

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:17Jesse Itzler?

  There's no way around that. But if you don't take the three hours to at least separate, separate yourself from the constant attack of arrows.

• 41:25Lewis Howes?

  You'll go crazy. Yeah.

• 41:26Jesse Itzler?

  Bonkers.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:27Jesse Itzler?

  So, you know.

• 41:28Lewis Howes?

  We're gonna get out of shape. We're gonna feel like you don't have any self-worth or something.

• 41:32Jesse Itzler?

  Right.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So what do you do in those three hours?

• 41:35Jesse Itzler?

  It's my time. So I, it could be, it could be nothing and watch TV.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 41:39Jesse Itzler?

  It could be exercise for two hours, getting this on and read the paper. It could be read a book. It could be returning. It's however I want to do it, but it's my time that I control.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Do you schedule that every day? Is it in the morning?

• 41:51Jesse Itzler?

  Every single.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Is it broken up an hour here, an hour there? Is it at night?

• 41:55Jesse Itzler?

  It's three hours together. For me, for me. I mean, I'm able to do that. Yeah, and you know, a lot of times I'll do two, I'll kill two birds with one stone.

• 42:03Lewis Howes?

  No, no one else is around. It's just you alone, or is it your friends?

• 42:06Jesse Itzler?

  No one else is controlling my time.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  So you can have friends in that time with you, working out, or do we?

• 42:11Jesse Itzler?

  Yes, but no one, but I'm not going and doing something I don't want to do.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  It's all your decisions.

• 42:15Jesse Itzler?

  I'm not taking calls unless it's an emergency. I'm shut down.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:19Jesse Itzler?

  Shut down. Now, sometimes, if I'm training for something, or I want to, I'll say, you know what? I'm going to schedule all my calls during those three hours, and I'll go for a run or a walk, and I'll take them with me, or I'll listen to a podcast during that. So I'm like, alright, you know what, I'm gonna go for a three-hour walk, let's just say.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 42:38Jesse Itzler?

  And then I'll knock it all out.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Interesting. Okay, so what are the other three sections of the day?

• 42:44Jesse Itzler?

  Sleep, family, work.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  Sleep, family, work. And how much sleep do you get?

• 42:48Jesse Itzler?

  Six or seven.

• 42:49Lewis Howes?

  Six or seven, okay.

• 42:50Jesse Itzler?

  And then the rest depends on, I mean, for me, my bucket's a little, my bucket used to be ten hours of work, and two, three hours of family, and seven hours, and three, you know. It's amazing how much you can do in 24 hours. Think about it. Get seven hours of sleep, take three hours for yourself, is ten, and work a full day, eight hours. You have six hours left of family time.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Jesse Itzler?

  And like, that's, who is, no one, that's a lot of time.

• 43:14Lewis Howes?

  A lot of time.

• 43:15Jesse Itzler?

  So, you could, I mean, just think about it.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  You've already caught up on everything in an hour, yeah.

• 43:18Jesse Itzler?

  No, but, but my point is, and that's what I got out of this guy living with me. 24 hours is a long time, and we maximize the time. I would get home at 11 o'clock some nights, and we would spend an hour from 11 to 12, working out if we didn't do it, or we had to get more in. Every minute was maximized. It wasn't like we were just gonna go and be like, you know what? Let's just go, you know, whatever. No, it was all about being productive, with my own time, too.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  You know, you talked about habits and routines. What would you say is, you know, and that you kind of got complacent with your routines? Or they kind of held you back at a certain level, right? You weren't able to break through a certain level.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  I talk about habits and routines, about how important they are on this podcast a lot. But it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is that they're important, but every few months or year, you've got to switch it up. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 44:10Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I don't want, I don't want to go against your uh.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  No, it's okay. I mean, I'm curious.

• 44:14Jesse Itzler?

  Wisdom of this, but um, I think there are times where I would disagree and say that habits and routines are great. They are, but they also could be a rut.

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:24Jesse Itzler?

  And you know, um, and once you get to a place where they are a rut and you're not getting better.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  That's when you got.

• 44:29Jesse Itzler?

  There's all kinds of, you know, studies on that. Now, it's all, that also changing it up and changing up your habit also leads a little bit to lit, to means getting uncomfortable.

• 44:41Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 44:42Jesse Itzler?

  Breaking a habit requires a lot, a lot. So if you get in a habit to get out of that habit, requires rewiring your brain. It's just, it's just, that's just a fact. And that's hard to do, you know? And it's no different than, it's just a very hard thing to do.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:58Jesse Itzler?

  So when I got to that place, I couldn't get out of that rut because I was so deep in my habit. I'd be doing the same run, the same this, and that was my day. I had to work out, I had to run in the morning. I went to work and was just couldn't get out of it. So for me, it ended up being a rut and I had to mix it up.

• 45:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. Um, now, why did you choose your wife? I'm curious about this. Why is your wife your wife?

• 45:23Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we both got married, we were both older when we got married. I got married at 40. My wife was 37 when we got married. So it was, you know, for me, the twenties and thirties were fun, super fun. And that's where I was in my life. My head was around fun, work. I had to work at nights. Like nights were really important to me.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Jesse Itzler?

  I just wasn't ready. And you know, there's only three scenarios, right girl, right time. That's the one.

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 45:48Jesse Itzler?

  Right girl, wrong time, that doesn't work. And wrong girl, right turn, right time, doesn't work. So she was right, right girl, right time.

• 45:55Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Why was she the right girl? For you.

• 45:58Jesse Itzler?

  She's, she was, and she still is. She's independent, which, which I needed. She, you know, she had her own career. She allowed me to have a long leash and freedom to do the things that I like, but we still checked in with each other, still check in with each other. Values were the same, you know, all, all, all the stuff that, you know, you check, if you check eight out of the 10 boxes, it's probably a fit.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  That's great. And what's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself through her lens or being married with her? What has she taught you?

• 46:29Jesse Itzler?

  Well.

• 46:34Jesse Itzler?

  You, you go through different chapters.

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 46:36Jesse Itzler?

  So, marriage for us was, before we had kids was one chapter. Marriage with a child was another. Marriage with four is another.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Jesse Itzler?

  But listen, you know, for me and for her, you're, you, you make a commitment, you're in a team, you're in a team. And what I love about marriage is like, no matter what happens, you gotta hug and make up and move on. You know what I mean? Like when you're dating, it's like, oh, you, well, no, you know what? It's not gonna work out. When you're married, you gotta sort it out and figure it out. And, you know, that's hard, but it's also fun.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Wow. Okay. How does she inspire you?

• 47:16Jesse Itzler?

  You'll see, Louis.

• 47:17Lewis Howes?

  I know, I'm, I'm waiting. How does she inspire you?

• 47:19Jesse Itzler?

  If you wanna get on the couch right now, I'm happy to walk you through some stuff.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah. It could be my seal. How does she inspire you to break through your limits on a consistent basis? Or does she?

• 47:31Jesse Itzler?

  Well, she's, she's an entrepreneur that's made her living putting herself out there. So she's always, you know, not been scared to fail, not been scared to take a chance. And she's, she's lived her life on the edge.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:44Jesse Itzler?

  So she allows me to have the same mentality and encourages me to do stuff like that. So I was telling you before we started recording that about a month ago, I invited the 12, 10 most influential, or 10 of the most influential artists, music, music artists in my life that really changed the trajectory of my life when I was growing up and took my, took me on a whole different course. To my house for dinner and they all came and I told my wife, I said, Sarah, next Friday, you might want to circle your calendar. We're having 10 guests come from, you know, some from the Bronx, some from Queens and, uh, you know, she, she knows that that, that's in my DNA and I know that stuff like that is in her DNA.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure. And she accepts you for that, it sounds like.

• 48:30Jesse Itzler?

  Nothing she does will surprise me and I don't think anything I do will surprise her.

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  Right. I got you. I like it. Um, what's, I mean, what's next for you? You've had the SEAL Live with you. You've had these experiences. You've been talking about this for a while now and press and everything like that. When do you know, let me ask you, what's next for you? And how does someone know when they're in a rut and how do they get to get out of it? And how are you going to get out of the next rut you're in? Cause it's going to happen, it sounds like for all of us.

• 48:54Jesse Itzler?

  Right. So, uh, for me, um, you know, I love, it's one thing to, I love reading about inspiration and motivation and, you know, you do it all day long. You encourage people, you motivate people, but it's a completely different thing to live with inspiration and motivation. And I love this because I got so much more out of it than just reading a book.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:15Jesse Itzler?

  That I'm going to continue to do a series of books where I live with interesting people.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 49:20Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 49:21Jesse Itzler?

  So.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  That's brilliant.

• 49:22Jesse Itzler?

  I have all kinds of ideas and thoughts around what will be next.

• 49:26Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 49:27Jesse Itzler?

  But, um.

• 49:27Lewis Howes?

  I think that's a great idea.

• 49:28Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. So.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:30Jesse Itzler?

  It'll be like a kind of living with series.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  I think it's brilliant because this is nothing compared to what you're doing, but I, growing up, I was, uh, you know, my dad had seven different exchange students live with us for six months at a time from all over the world. So these 18, 17, 18 year olds, seniors came to learn English and go to high school in my hometown. And I had all these older brothers and sisters that I learned culture, language, food, everything from, that I feel like developed me as a, you know, a different human being than my peers, right? And where I had these extra skills and perspective. So I think it's really cool that you're going to be attracting, I'm assuming the top people in the world at what they do to live with you and, and continue to develop. So I think, I think it's brilliant.

• 50:09Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, no, I'm excited.

• 50:10Lewis Howes?

  I wish I had that idea.

• 50:11Jesse Itzler?

  That's another thing why I know I married the right woman because she's allowing these people to come into our house.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Now, has anyone else tried to hire him to have him live with him or them for 30 days or?

• 50:22Jesse Itzler?

  He's, yes, yes.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  It's like his job now to like go in and reprogram homes, right?

• 50:27Jesse Itzler?

  You know, we had the right chemistry between us. He came from a completely different background life than I did. We're totally different, black, white, you know, where his childhood was tough, mine was, you know, comfortable.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:42Jesse Itzler?

  It was just like these two worlds colliding were unbelievable and would be very difficult for a lot of people, I think.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 50:49Jesse Itzler?

  And for us, it, you know, personality wise and just where we were, it worked out. So I think we'd have a hard time.

• 50:57Lewis Howes?

  For the other people.

• 50:58Jesse Itzler?

  Both sides, for him and for other families.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 51:01Jesse Itzler?

  And I don't think he wants to do that.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What was it like the day after he left?

• 51:05Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, it was quiet and sad. Well, first of all, he lived with me for 31 days, shadowed me, went to every meal, every meeting, everywhere, every trip, everything. He left me a note. Hey, man, thanks.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  No goodbye?

• 51:20Jesse Itzler?

  No.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  No hug?

• 51:22Jesse Itzler?

  He left. Like, as soon as that clock hit the 12 o'clock, he was out.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  I'm assuming you hired him, so you paid him for the time, right? I'm assuming there was like...

• 51:31Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, well, you know, he never asked me for money.

• 51:32Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 51:33Jesse Itzler?

  Which was very, pretty unbelievable. I did pay him, but he never, we didn't negotiate, like, he was like, I'll come live with you. And I was like, I'm gonna compensate you. And he was like, whatever you want to do.

• 51:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Jesse Itzler?

  Um, so that was, it was sad, you know? And I was tired. I was tired.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  From all the training?

• 51:51Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, so I was kinda glad that it was done, but kinda sad that he left.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 51:56Jesse Itzler?

  Like, if he could've just hung out, we could've watched ESPN for a week, that would've been cool.

• 52:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:01Jesse Itzler?

  But if he had to stay another week with the pushups, probably time that he left.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. So now, how much of this can you consistently do yourself? Obviously, you're not doing the extreme workouts every single day, the way he did it, I'm assuming. But how much of the what you learned are you still applying on a daily basis? How much do you say, you know what, there's still 60, 20 more percent I can do?

• 52:20Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  Let me actually push it? Or are you just like, well, I know it's available for me, but I'm not gonna do it?

• 52:24Jesse Itzler?

  Well, a lot of the physical stuff. You know, I, I, I can't, I wasn't able to keep it up without him because it was just, it was just too much for me. But it was the mental stuff that, that stayed with me and that's really what I wanted. So I still, I get his little voice on my shoulder all the time. If I don't want to do something, if it's cold, you know, listen, if we could all get motivated through our conversation. We could tell, oh, everyone who's listening, we're going to run up 10K tomorrow. Get everyone pumped up and they're fired up. We play Rocky in the background. People are all jacked up and then we said, I'm going to start tomorrow morning. And tomorrow morning you wake up and it's dark, it's windy, it's wet, cold out. That motivation goes out the window.

• 53:06Jesse Itzler?

  So it's that mental toughness that says, you know what, I don't care that it's dark, wet, windy, cold. I'm going to go anyway. That's what he kept, that's what I kept, I kept with me.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Jesse Itzler?

  And in training and in work, you know, I get deal fatigue. I get, I don't, you know, you lose motivation. You go through peaks and valleys. We all do. It's that mental toughness that, you know, hopefully can, can push you through. And it goes to like your last question was, you know, how do you identify you're in, it's, you're in a rut or you're in a, you know, you're just, you're not improving, you know? I think you identify that you're in a rut when you want to get better and you're not.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 53:44Jesse Itzler?

  You know, and it's easy to fall into habit. It's so easy.

• 53:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Comfortable habit that's not moving you forward.

• 53:51Jesse Itzler?

  Listen, I've been in brands, I've launched brands that I thought were great ideas, but required breaking a habit. And that is super difficult.

• 54:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Jesse Itzler?

  And coconut waters want, you're asking someone to go and say, stop drinking what you're, what you're drinking today. Put down your, whatever you're drinking.

• 54:09Lewis Howes?

  Completely change your habit.

• 54:10Jesse Itzler?

  Right. And go try this. Oh, and then do it again next week and then buy it again the week after.

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Jesse Itzler?

  And then go get another person to do that?

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  It's hard.

• 54:20Jesse Itzler?

  Come on, man.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  It's hard. It's gotta be, it's gotta be a great product for that to happen. Yeah. Um, what's a non-negotiable for you every single day? What's a habit that is a must do every, every day for you?

• 54:31Jesse Itzler?

  For twenty five years, it was it was running, not maybe not every day, but you know.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  Pretty close.

• 54:37Jesse Itzler?

  Pretty close to every single day.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  Couple of miles.

• 54:39Jesse Itzler?

  A non negotiable for me is I only eat fruit until noon. Like, so if you said to me.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  Then you don't eat fruit afternoon.

• 54:46Jesse Itzler?

  I do, but I don't eat anything other than fruit until noon for twenty seven years.

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you only eat fruit until noon.

• 54:50Jesse Itzler?

  I only eat fruit until noon.

• 54:52Lewis Howes?

  And then afternoon, you'll still eat fruit.

• 54:53Jesse Itzler?

  If you said to me, yes, tomorrow, let's get up and let's go have pancakes.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Right, or eggs and sausage.

• 54:59Jesse Itzler?

  Right, I would say, Louis, I would love to, but I'm gonna have a banana.

• 55:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:03Jesse Itzler?

  Right.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  Why, why is that?

• 55:04Jesse Itzler?

  Um, I just, I read a book called Fit for Life in ninety, ninety one. Um, and one of the principles of the book was to only eat fruit until noon, uh, because digestion requires so much energy.

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 55:19Jesse Itzler?

  You eat a big meal, or you eat something that's hard to digest, you get tired. Thanksgiving, you're tired, have a steak and potatoes, you're usually tired. Lions eat a lot of meat, big meals, they sleep all day. But fruit, digest in twenty minutes and doesn't is the only thing that doesn't digest in your stomach. It bypasses your stomach.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:36Jesse Itzler?

  Digest in your small intestines, but is loaded in nutrients, perfect sugar balance with your brain, and helps with elimination, so. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a food nutrition, I don't know, I'm not any of that, but I tried it for ten days, like the book said, and here I am twenty seven years later, and I ran a hundred miles, and it's never changed.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:57Jesse Itzler?

  And I've never, I mean, I don't miss, I've missed probably three days of work.

• 56:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:02Jesse Itzler?

  Twenty seven years, so.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  Amazing, I love that. Are there any other non negotiables, or is that?

• 56:08Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, I'm a little, I got a little nutty stuff, yeah, I got some non negotiables.

• 56:12Lewis Howes?

  We'll talk about it afterwards, gotcha. Um, final few questions for you, what, um, why are you so motivated to continue doing what you're doing? I mean, you've built so many amazing businesses, you've tried all these things, you're married to, you know, an incredible woman, you've got kids, you're, why do you keep moving forward? Why do you want to keep creating books, building businesses? What's the drive for you?

• 56:35Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, I think it's two things. One is I'm a big believer in building life resumes and creating memories. And, you know, last year, I probably, and you probably, if I said to you, name five things that happened last year, it would take you a long time to probably think of five things that you really remember. And I bet the five are either the most wild, or hardest, or those are usually the most memorable, and those are the things that make you feel the most alive. So I love creating life memories and challenges are the more challenging, the more memorable and the more alive you feel. And the second thing is, I don't believe in, you know, um, finish lines to the sense that I believe in one day celebrations, like, check the box and move on. You run a marathon, I'm not like, that's great.

• 57:20Jesse Itzler?

  Let's celebrate it that night. Let's show everyone our medal. But let's not sit there and think about it for six months that we ran a marathon. Like, that's great, we did it. What's next? So I've never been someone that like, you know, if you didn't bring up Marquis Jet or Zico, it would never, it's not even on my mind.

• 57:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:37Jesse Itzler?

  It's in the past.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:39Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, subconsciously, it lives in me and is part of my journey. But it's like, I'm like, you know, thinking about what can I do next?

• 57:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:47Jesse Itzler?

  You know?

• 57:47Lewis Howes?

  You want to keep creating.

• 57:49Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, I mean, that's just, it's just you did it.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 57:51Jesse Itzler?

  It's like moving back to your old neighborhood.

• 57:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's great. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 57:56Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, knock on wood and have four healthy kids. Without question.

• 58:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:02Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Um, this is a question I like to ask at the end for everyone. Uh, it's many, many years from now and it's the last day for you. And let's say that all your, the people you love are there. Uh, but every book you've written, all the businesses you've ever created have been erased from time. And all the interviews you've ever done are gone. No one has access to the information you put out there. And your friends and family say you've got a piece of paper and a pen. You get to write down three truths. The three things that you know to be true about all your life memories that you've created and your experiences that you pass on to us for us to use as a guide for the rest of our lives. What would you say are the three truths for you?

• 58:43Jesse Itzler?

  I would just say there's one. I would, I would just say, just to be, if I was telling my kids, like on my deathbed, I would just say, um, to be good to people. I mean, at the end of the day, really what else is there other than treating people well? And you know, one of the best things about success is you get to spoil your friends and family. And that's the most rewarding thing. It's not that you can go and get a bigger house or,

• 59:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:10Jesse Itzler?

  you know, it's that you can share things with your family and friends. Vacations, game, you know, sporting events, big moments. Fly them in, um, and do, and do stuff with the people that you really want to do it with.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:27Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, I mean, and it's hard to say like, live an honorable life and don't lie and you know, we all try to do that stuff. And you do it to the best of your ability. And obviously, there's gonna be little exaggerations here and there and this and that. But at the end of the day, for me, it's just, you know, I've, I've made my living and my life when I was in my twenties, treating everybody exactly the same, from doorman to whatever, because in my thirties, those same people, and I had no idea that this is the case in my twenties, but in my thirties, all those people that I've been nice to, that I crossed paths, you know, met or whatever, were in positions of power. So many of them went

• 1:00:10Jesse Itzler?

  on to be in positions of power. And like, you know, people genuinely want to help people if they were nice and good to them, and have a good taste or feeling about them. If the energy's good between us, you know, you're gonna want to help me, I'm gonna help you down the road, with nothing in return. And I found in my thirties that that was the case. That people wanted to genuinely, if I picked up the phone, and I had done something, or we had a relationship, that I could get something moved forward because of that. Whereas other people could have been an asshole. You know what I mean? Just because you're an asshole, and you might not have that same thing. So, you know, and I try to do the same thing, you know, with everybody. Turning calls, you know, everything.

• 1:00:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure, I love that. One final question before I ask, and I want to acknowledge you, Jesse, for your creative spirit and your nature that you have, and your consistent commitment to redefining who you want to be in the life you want to live. I think it's inspiring to see your whole journey of what you created in the music world and the jet world and everything. You've come with a fresh perspective.

• 1:01:15Jesse Itzler?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:15Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's really inspiring for me to know that people like you are out there, and you're changing the world with each new life memory that you create. So, I want to acknowledge you for that.

• 1:01:26Jesse Itzler?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 1:01:27Lewis Howes?

  And I'm excited about your book. I want to make sure everyone gets this. It's called Living with a Seal. Make sure to check it out. I'll have it all linked up here in a second, tell you guys where to go. The final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:01:38Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, man. Saving that one for the last one.

• 1:01:43Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, man. Well, they say that the definition of success is if you're adult kids still want to hang out with you, you know, as they get older.

• 1:01:54Jesse Itzler?

  You know, anything that you ask me around greatness, because the hardest challenge is being, and you'll find this out, hopefully, is being, uh, do you have kids?

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:02:03Jesse Itzler?

  Okay.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Not yet.

• 1:02:04Jesse Itzler?

  Is being a parent. It's just so, it's just so difficult. It doesn't come with a manual.

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Jesse Itzler?

  So, for me, the great greatness is if you're, you know, evolves around, centers around your family.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 1:02:18Jesse Itzler?

  And, you know, how you can help people. Yeah. Everyone has, you know, the ability to do great things at work. There's so much opportunity in this country. We're so lucky to be born in this country, where you have nothing but opportunity.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Jesse Itzler?

  And you see it every day.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Jesse Itzler?

  And you don't even need a high school or college degree to be a billionaire in today's world.

• 1:02:41Jesse Itzler?

  But you, but you gotta do a lot of things right and great to be a great parent.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Hmm. That's powerful. Jesse Atler. Thanks for coming on, man.

• 1:02:49Jesse Itzler?

  Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  Appreciate it.

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  There you have it, my friends. Thank you again so much for being here on episode 300. So pumped on where we've come together as a community and the greatness community to get to 300. A lot of you have supported by listening, by sharing, by promoting, by just being involved, by buying the book, by buying the School of Greatness Academy, by being in the community. And I appreciate you guys so very much for your support along the way. So many of you have also sent me suggestions for guests that you would like to have on. And we're getting bigger and bigger influencers and billionaires and celebrities and top athletes and scientists and doctors in the world.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  And that's my goal, to get the top 1% in their industry to come on and share their secrets and their information on how to be great and what that means and the lessons. So if you have a good friend who's in that category, who's on the top 1% of their industry, a mainstream name, someone who's really doing great things in the world, email Lewis at School of Greatness dot com with in the headline interview request or interview suggestion and only do that if you actually have a connection to that person or that person's team and you could make that intro if I think the person would be great for the show so don't just tell me hey get Obama on the show and then not have an intro to

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Obama right give me you know an intro if you can that way I don't have to run around and try to make the work happen myself if I don't have that connection so let me know by sending an email to Lewis at School of Greatness dot com if you know someone who'd be great for the show at the top 1% of their industry their field someone who's doing big things in the world and send interview request or suggestion and then let me know who it is and if you have the intro I appreciate you guys so very much if you are here for the first time please leave a review over on iTunes we're almost at 1000 reviews actually so help me get to 1000 5-star reviews it's been amazing to see all the feedback and comments that come through on iTunes so if you go to iTunes dot com slash School of

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  Greatness you can do that there or just if you're on your iPhone right now in your iPhone app the podcast app just tap on leave a review right on your phone and you can let me know what you think and I'll check out your thoughts there I appreciate you guys so very much we've got some big things ahead but in the meantime you know what time it is it's time to go out there and do something great