676: Jesse Cole (Owner, Savannah Bananas) - The Beauty of Obsession, Building a Fans First World, Walt Disney, Mr. Beast, Radical Transparency (Opening the Books), Do the Opposite of Normal, Turning a $6M Mistake Into a Moment, and Creating Banana World

Go to www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by Insight Global https://insightglobal.com/learningleader/. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader https://www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader My Guest: Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah Bananas. He went $1.8 million in debt, slept on an air mattress, and built a business that is now valued at over a billion dollars. I spent half a day with Jesse in Savannah watching practice, and Jesse gave me a personal tour of their entire operation. It was incredible. Notes: Fans First - The sign is on every locker. And leading out to the field, "Tonight is someone's first time seeing our show." Obsessed/Focused - Banana Ball/Serving people is his life. We didn't talk about hobbies, TV shows, or anything other than what they're doing now and in the future. He's obsessed with what he does and super focused. Transparent - Jesse just released their full P&L as a private company: revenue, expenses, player salaries, everything. Most businesses guard this religiously. He's completely transparent. I asked why, and he said, "Fans first. They deserve to know everything." Reps - We went to the field to watch practice. It looked just like a game. Players were dancing all the time. And every single rep they practiced as a trick play (behind the back, through the legs, etc.). They never play normal baseball. You wonder how they are so good on gameday at doing a backflip while catching a fly ball. Because they practice it thousands of times without fans so that when they're there, they put on a great show. Hiring – "Love your people more than you love your customer." 12,000 people on the waitlist to work for the Bananas. When you hire, have them do a "fans first" essay. Then they write a future essay. Always Be Caring, Different, Enthusiastic, Fun, Growing, & Hungry Fans First: The Counter-Intuitive Decision - Jesse sacrificed $6 million in ticket revenue after a system messed things up for fans. Merch – 787,000 fans purchased merchandise in 2025, totaling 1.96 million total items. That means the average person is purchasing ~2.5 items at checkout, with 80% of total sales taking place in person. 621,000 at live shows versus 166,000 online. It's a $50m business! TV: The Distribution Strategy - Giving Away Value - Jesse insisted on free YouTube streaming even when ESPN wanted exclusivity. Jesse is building a zero-profit secondary ticket market. He's literally giving away things other sports properties would monetize. So, even with all of the team's games still airing for free on YouTube, the Bananas averaged 500,000 viewers on ESPN, The CW, and Roku. The team's most-watched broadcast was a July 4th game at Fenway Park, which averaged 837,000 viewers on ESPN, making it the holiday weekend's most-watched primetime sports broadcast. TV networks want exclusivity, but you demand that the games still be broadcast for free on YouTube (in addition to whatever channel they are on) Social Media - The Bananas added 12.7 million new social media followers in 2025 alone. That pushes their total social media following across all channels north of 35 million... Roughly 2x more followers than MLB's most popular team, the Yankees, at 18 million. You have to believe something before you achieve something. Six years ago, Jesse said, "We're gonna sell out Fenway Park," and his team looked at him like he was crazy (they were a college summer baseball team, not even doing tours yet). You have to get through the messy to get to the great. Their first world tour was brutal: the sound was terrible, the show wasn't great, the game finished in the seventh inning because they didn't have a rule to make it go nine innings. See what's best for the guest, not what's best for the business. Walt Disney was the first to go into full-length animation, color, sound, and with Disneyland, he focused on one entrance to control the experience, custom rides, and invested in a castle and landscaping, which made no money. Go where others won't go. Sam Walton went to small towns, and no one paid attention to him for the first five to ten years. It's somebody's first time every night. Fans wait three years on a waitlist to come to a game, so Jesse doesn't care if you're having a bad day. That's their first time. Control the entire experience. Walt learned he couldn't control the experience when people watched his movies at a theater (it could be dirty, and people might not be nice), so he built Disneyland. Who do we work for? Fans. Jesse opened the books completely (numbers, player salary, merch sales, everything) because they have a responsibility and accountability to their fans. We have to feel our mistakes. When they sent a wrong email to 44,000 fans instead of 4,000, it cost them $6 million to take care of those fans with tickets (more than the company brought in their first five years). We need to have bigger failures. If we're not trying things big enough, we won't have bigger failures and mistakes that cost us a lot more in the future. Turn mistakes into moments. After the $6 million email mistake, Jesse set up a Zoom call with all 44,000 people, had everyone turn their cameras on, and apologized while looking at every single person. Build something you wish existed for yourself. Jesse played baseball until he couldn't anymore. He put so much pressure on himself that it wasn't fun anymore, and he was told he wasn't good enough. Design every second of the first-day experience. When players showed up, they went to a parking lot with a DJ at 8:30 AM. Three buses arrived with balloons, hundreds of people lined the streets cheering, Man-nanas served munchkins on silver platters, a custom hype video played, the host introduced from the roof, and fireworks went off. Every player has been told they're not good enough. All Bananas players have been drafted or been top college players, and at some point, they've all been rejected, cut, told to hang it up. Obsession is awesome. If you can find something you're obsessed with, so few people in the world get to have that. Watch the best of the best obsess over details. Derek Hough (one of the greatest dancers) wasn't just focusing on the dance; he was producing while dancing, telling the camera crew exactly where to come, when to hit him, and where he would wink. No one goes home excited about normal. No one says, "That restaurant was really normal, the waiter served it the same way, the food was pretty normal, the parking lot was normal." Whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. Normal gets normal results. There's a lot of normal in the world, but not a lot of extraordinary. Put yourself in the customer's shoes and eliminate friction. Where's the game tonight? On Amazon, Peacock, CBS, NBC? Jesse threw away millions to keep all games free on YouTube because that's a friction point. Your fans will reward you. The Bananas sold over 1.9 million merch items last year because they built something people are proud of and want to wear. If people don't want to wear your merch, you haven't made them feel something yet. One fan gets a new Bananas tattoo every year (he's got six logos on his leg now). Invest everything in the experience, spend zero on traditional marketing. Make the experience so good that fans will share with everyone that this is something they haven't experienced before. Social media growth came from trying and stumbling into learning. In 2016, an intern said he could create videos; they did a lip sync to "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake. It wasn't even well-produced, but they tried. Give energy back because of how good it feels. A woman came up to Jesse on a cruise and said she was there because he gave her a hug at a Sacramento game the day after her sister died. She came on the cruise to give him a hug back. Do what gives you energy. Jesse's entire day is filled with things that give him energy: being with people, rehearsing shows, banana ball youth meetings, broadcast team, and talented writers. Have people who love to execute. You do what gives you energy and have them execute at a high level. Be very involved at the beginning (get the idea and vision right) and at the end (make adjustments).

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

• 0:02Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah Bananas. He went from $1.8 million in debt, sleeping on an air mattress, and has now built a business that is worth more than $1 billion. I flew down to Savannah, spent half a day with Jesse watching practice, and he gave me a personal tour of their entire operation.

• 0:43Ryan Hawk?

  It was an incredible day. I was exhausted by the end of it because Jesse has so much energy. It's obvious that he loves it. During our conversation, we discussed why Jesse sacrificed $6 million in revenue after a system error and what that decision compounded into. Then, how the Bananas, I noticed this when I was watching them, they practice trick plays on every single rep, the backflips, the behind the back catches. Why? Because they want this to become the default setting on game day. It happens every rep and every practice. Then Jesse talked about why he just released his full P&L as a private company. That's revenue,

• 1:28Ryan Hawk?

  expenses, player salaries, everything. Most private businesses guard this information with their lives, and Jesse just gives it out so that all the fans could see. And he talks deeply about why he does this. Then, I loved hearing about him spending time with Mr. Beast to talk about YouTube. Jesse regularly puts himself in rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do. And I think there's a lot we all can learn from that. We talk about that and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Jesse Cole.

• 2:07Ryan Hawk?

  This episode is brought to you by my friends at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader.

• 2:54Ryan Hawk?

  Dude, so we first recorded.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  When was that?

• 2:57Ryan Hawk?

  2019. Okay, so it's been seven years.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:02Ryan Hawk?

  You have all of your people write these five-year in advance resumes, right? This is a part of the.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Future resume.

• 3:08Ryan Hawk?

  Future resume. We talked about it in 2019. It's one of the things you said, we have them write your future resume, not your past or your current. Dude, could you have ever imagined that we would be sitting here seven years later and you are, you and Emily are the 100% owner of a business worth a billion dollars, probably more than that now, that delights millions and millions of fans all the time, puts giant smiles on their faces. Could you have even thought of that on that future resume?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Well, that's the part that excites me. It's the fans. And so you mentioned billion, like I cringe hearing that number. Like I cringe. But when you talk about fans, that's what really excites me. In the beginning, the answer may have been no. But now the answer is yes, as far as imagine this. We had to see things that other people couldn't see. And so if you ask people on our team and our staff, I think it was six years ago, I said, we're going to sell at Fenway Park. And they're looking at me like, what is wrong with you? What do you mean sell at Fenway Park? With what? We have a college summer baseball team. We're not even doing tour. What is this? You have to believe something before you actually achieve something. And so like most people, they say, you know, they might talk about something, but they don't truly believe in it. We believed that we had something that could be more fun, more different and a better fan experience. And then we just had to execute it.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  And we weren't going to be great in the beginning, Ryan. I mean, we were brutal in the beginning. Our first one city world tour was brutal. I mean, it was the, the, the sound was terrible. The show was terrible. The game finished in the seventh inning because we didn't have a rule to make sure it goes all nine innings. Like it was messy, but you have to get through the messy to get to the great. So now I see things in two, three years that people would never imagine. But I believe truly we'll do it and it's going to be messy and it's going to be hard, but we'll get there. And then when you spread that and you share that with other people, it becomes contagious. And when you got a bunch of people believing they can do something, you can find a way to do it.

• 4:57Ryan Hawk?

  What are some of those things? What are you thinking crazy things?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Well, everything starts with the fans. So, so again, you have to, and I learned this from Walt Disney. There was no one better in seeing the future and not what was best for the business, but what was best for his guests at Disneyland? Or best for the people watching his movies? And, you know, he realized that he was the first one to go into, you know, full length animation film. He was the first one to go into color, the sound. He was so far ahead of his time with Fantasia. It wasn't even close. And people at first were like, it was too much. And that, then it became obviously this is where we need to go. And then with Disneyland, they were just terrible amusement parks. You know, multiple entrances, barkers trying to get as much money out of the people as possible. They all had the same rides. He was like, no, I'm going to focus on one entrance. I'm going to control the experience. I'm going to have custom rides. I'm going to invest in a castle and landscaping, which makes no money.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I'm going to invest in cleanliness. He saw what would be a better experience. So when you look at what we're thinking about, there's a multitude of areas where the fan experience can be better. You know, when you think about the ticketing experience and we're already starting to do that. We're building a secondary ticket market because right now people are paying thousands of dollars. They're getting ripped off. There's fees, it's crazy. We're going to work on figuring that out and we're already starting right now. It's going to be messy. That's one area, the youth banana ball. There's a challenge with youth sports. We know it, the people are paying, how parents are feeling, the accessibility, it's brutal. We're going to work on trying to address that. And then when you think about places that we can play. Go where others won't go. I learned this from Sam Walton.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  You know, everyone was like, you gotta go to the big cities, you know, the K-Marts. They're like, you gotta go to the big cities. It's like, no, I'm gonna go to the small towns. We're gonna win the small towns. And everyone thought he was crazy. They didn't even pay attention to him the first five or 10 years. And people still really aren't paying attention to us. They're like, oh, there's just a circus baseball team. And that's fine. Our competitors don't need to pay attention to us. We're gonna pay attention to our fans more than anyone else. And so we'll bring this show and game to places that are, people would never imagine. And we're already starting this. I mean, we're doing 45 states this year. It doesn't make sense on paper to go to Billings, Montana. I mean, like, and I'm not saying against Billings, Montana or North Dakota, but that's 3,000 fans. We're bringing 150 plus people flying them there and putting on a show for 3,000 fans. But it's one fan at a time. And that's what we're obsessed with. And that's what we're gonna try to create.

• 7:14Ryan Hawk?

  It's also, that sign back there, we just walked past, reminds me of Michael Jordan. He was known, like now players, they take nights off. They have load management. Jordan just played every game. It seems like he had a similar feeling that you put up on the wall. This is somebody's first time every night.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:30Ryan Hawk?

  And I love that that's your approach. You live that way. And all of your players, coaches, everyone associated with the bananas and the whole league, it seems this mentality of it's always somebody's first time.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's a responsibility, especially now. You know, we hear constantly of fans that wait three years on a waitlist and they get to come. And I don't care if you're having a bad day. That's their first time. How are they greeted? What happens when they come to the parking lot? When they walk in, every single concession stand, every single place they go. That's the biggest challenge for us. What Walt did better than anyone else is he controlled the experience. He learned that he couldn't control the experience when people watch one of his movies at a theater. It could be dirty. People couldn't be that nice. And so right now, 95% plus of our shows are at other stadiums.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  And that's the concessions, that's the ushers, that's the security who's trying to get fans to leave early when we want to sign every autograph to the last fan leaves. So if you were to look into the future, we would follow the same footsteps as Walt and say, how do you control the entire experience? And so that's something we'll be thinking about as well.

• 8:36Ryan Hawk?

  Is there going to be a banana world?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Banana land.

• 8:41Ryan Hawk?

  Banana land with amusement park and rides and players dancing and music and?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  That's a pretty good vision there. You know, right now, you know, we're done twice a banana land at Sea Cruise. And so what people don't realize is I've learned the greatest leaders, the entrepreneurs, they're not just thinking about their next move. The great show, The Queen's Gambit, and it showed she was playing chess and she could always see the whole chessboard. And so a lot of people, they might see one move ahead and another move. Sometimes moves take years. This banana land at Sea Cruise, which we've done twice now, it's four to five days with no banana ball. We're having to entertain fans for four to five days from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. with no banana ball. What do you think we're learning?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  We're learning how to entertain nonstop and it not just be a show. Do people want this? Are they engaged by all the entertainment? Are they engaged by our players? All of that we learn and it takes years. And so, yeah, there's, there's a world where there's a banana land and it's unlike any sports and entertainment experience in the world. And we will build that at some point.

• 9:47Ryan Hawk?

  You recently opened your books. You're a private company. So I just want to set the stage. I actually get a text message from you.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Early.

• 9:58Ryan Hawk?

  Early. It's a video and it's always a little bit jarring because you're, it's always after you work out, right? And you're not wearing this. You're wearing your workout clothes and you're just like, hey, man, doing something kind of cool. It's new. We're opening up the books. We're sharing. We should talk about it. We should do something. And I, my immediately thought was I literally went on Delta, my Delta app to look for a flight to come down here. But the thought was, why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. This transparency is with public companies because you have shareholders. You don't have that. You and Emily own the team completely yourself. And yet you just completely opened the books, numbers, player salary, merch sale. I mean, everything. Why? Why do it?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Who do we work for?

• 10:39Ryan Hawk?

  The fans.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we have a responsibility. And I think if we want to be truly who we are and what we stand for in the fans, then we have a responsibility to share them. And also we have accountability, accountability to them and accountability to our own team and our staff. When we put this all out, which took weeks, weeks to write, because you know, really, again, every intentionality of every word and what we're saying and why we're saying was was thought of. We have that responsibility to now deliver. Often people don't share what they're going to do or how they're going to do it because if they don't do it, they don't look good.

• 11:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  I'm not afraid of that because there's a lot of things that we're going to try to do that we may fail. But that's part of who we are. But if we have this aspiration, this goal, this is what, hey, these are the areas we need to get better. We need to get better with our ticket experience. We need to get better with our merch experience. Our broadcast has to improve.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  And here's where we're going to go with our shows. When they go out to bigger stadiums, we are going to obsess over winning the upper deck. Because when we play in front of 100,000 fans, I want the fans sitting the furthest away that the best experience they've ever had at any sporting event. When you put that out, put it down on paper, put it in a video and share with your team, it's a responsibility. We better deliver. And fans may call us out. I was sitting in section 405 and I didn't see a cast member. Well, that's on us. We got to be better. And you better believe we'll make it up to them. And I shared what we did last year.

• 11:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  When we messed up and we sent a wrong email to 44,000 fans and we're supposed to send it to 4,000. It cost us $6 million to take care of those fans with tickets. We will do that again if we don't hit, you know, what we believe we're responsible to do and make sure the fans feel something and have an unforgettable experience.

• 12:07Ryan Hawk?

  I was going to ask you about that because you didn't have to take that big of a financial hit. And you did. I feel like I don't hear a lot about, I'm following everything you guys do. I love it. I've been to game, you know, I'm going to come to more games. My family is a massive fan of you and everything going on.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  You were in a march, by the way, which not many people get to be in an actual march.

• 12:26Ryan Hawk?

  My 11 year old daughter is with stilts. She loves stilts. And now I just took a picture of his locker and I sent it to her. I mean, she's in school. Yeah, you've more than taken care of us, but just the idea of, wait a second, we're going to give away $6 million is a lot of money. Like, what happened and why did you do that?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  That was more than the company brought in our first five years.

• 12:48Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  I mean, literally, we were only playing 30 games. We were a college summer team. That was ridiculous.

• 12:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  We messed up. Most companies, they mess up, you're lucky to get an apology. We messed up. We have to feel that. Our team has to feel that. They need to know that, hey, we messed up and we're gonna make it right to our fans. Now, our staff, like, hey, we talked to them, we said, we figured it out. We're gonna have bigger failures and bigger mistakes that cost us a lot more in the future. If we don't, we're not trying things big enough.

• 13:15Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  We need to have bigger failures. And so I remember vividly as I was flying and I see Twitter and emails blowing up. You told we could get tickets for Savannah and it shut down and what happened? I immediately called Jared, our president, and I remember and I said, wow, what just happened? So we said, we gotta apologize. And Jared, who's been with us since day one, 24-year-old team president, now older. He, he, he said, I wanna write this apology. So he wrote the letter and we realized that wasn't enough. And how do you go to the next step? And so we said, well, we gotta take care of them as much as it's gonna hurt. And so we offered, you know, the best seats to the biggest stadiums anywhere in the country. Football stadiums, Fenway Park, you name it. And I remember I was like, we need to turn this into more than just, hey, we're doing this. So we set up, we're all over the country traveling at that point. I said, let's do a Zoom call with everybody.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  And I told everyone to turn their cameras on. And I wanted everyone to see, I wanted to see everyone and everyone to feel like, hey, this is a moment. I want you to remember where we were in this moment and what we're gonna do to make sure we always make it right for our fans. And so, you know, it was probably one of the best $6 million lessons you could ever ask for.

• 14:14Ryan Hawk?

  God, that's wild. Hiring, we talked a little bit about, you talked about the five-year future resume. You went through your values when you were doing the tour and how, that is, I think to do something like this, this special, you have to be, I mean, you're fanatical about everything, but fanatical about the who, the people. How involved are you in that? And what is that process like? I know there's, it depends on the role, it depends on the players, coaches, but we were, I was asking you earlier about players, coaches, how you choose them, very intentional. I think this could be applicable to lots of people who are trying to lead businesses is how you choose the people and the process to bring people in.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think it's important, you know, a lot of times you join a company and you really, you've heard of the company, you may know what they sell, you know their product, but you don't know really who they are and what they stand for. You can see some policy things and letters. Bob Iger learned this from me. We've Close with the Disney company and you know, obviously I've learned so much from them and especially Walt. In Bob's book, he said, you know, he would often lead by press release. He would share the vision of the company where I'm going to say have thousands of employees. And so myself, I'm very open on who we are and what we stand for and I share it constantly. And because as we've grown now to hundreds of employees, I want them to hear it. I want them to see it and it can't always be in front of us. I can't always be in front of them. And so that's intentional. Then we have our team. Marie's been with us since day one. She leads our people department.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Day one, she was right out of college, 22 years old. And so, and then with Emily, Emily's the heart of our business. As much as I want to grow and create more fans, Emily wants to make sure that our biggest fans, our people are taken care of. And so every day Emily is checking with people and connecting with them and seeing and hiring. I mean, she did hundreds of interviews. She's still doing hundreds of interviews constantly. And I mean, as an owner, Emily's doing that because it matters so much who comes into our team, who joins our team. So again, it's intentionality. I think the reality is not like a, we go through a long process of hiring people. We hire a lot of people and fortunately we've had probably less than five people have intentionally left our company in the last 10 years.

• 16:13Ryan Hawk?

  When they come here, they, they want to be here.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Because we're so clear on who we are and what we stand for in the hiring process. And then when you join it, you know, you're not just walking into a company and filling out paperwork. We're going to welcome you. We're going to make you feel a part of this. And you know, like the players example, and the players showed up. We spent weeks crafting and designing every second of their experience. And so when they showed up, we had them go to a parking lot right across the street. We had a DJ out there. We had music playing. It's 8:30 in the morning. And then all of a sudden, three buses show up. They get into the buses. There's balloons and a bunch of things celebrate. There's DJs in each bus. And then all of a sudden, two police cars show up in front of them. Turn the sirens on, do a police escort to the stadium, which it's a quarter of a mile. You're literally going like 300 yards.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  And so police escort, as they make their police escort, our entire staff is lining the streets. Hundreds of people lining the streets encouraging. They show up. Then all of a sudden, we put on a show for them. So we have a big opening. We have walking around, our man, Anna's are walking around literally with munchkins on silver platters and our dad bought. Squad serving them. We put on a full show. They're dancing, they're singing. We welcome them in. Then we have the whole staff again lining them up in a tunnel. They walk to the field. Then we have a brand new custom hype video created with moments from there when they got drafted, when they joined us. And then as soon as that finishes, all of a sudden, video camera goes in on our young professor, who's our host. Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, he's on the roof. He does an entire hype intro from on top of the roof. So they turn around, he's on the roof.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Then each coach gets introduced and we have music going off, then fireworks going off on top of the field. And then we get in, we do one big, hey, baby, streamers go over. That's how they're welcomed. And so the intentionality, and then we had five star, we had carving stations, we had food for each team. We had a whole carnival set up for lunch. It's all intentional. And so do leaders put the time into creating a custom designed, intentional, meaningful experience for their own team members? Is it always just about their customer? And so that sets the tone. So that first day, I think the players know what's important. They know what a first class experience looks like. They know what being a fan feels like. And so if you deliver that to them, okay, I gotta deliver that to the fans.

• 18:19Ryan Hawk?

  That's what I was reading and watching some videos about leading up to this is that intentionality with taking care of your people. You leading with enthusiasm and all this juice and obsession and excitement. It radiates to me and I don't even work here. I'm like, I want to go do this and do that. It honestly makes me think a lot bigger and we've just been hanging out for an hour. I can't even imagine what that feels like for your players. How do you have the juice and the energy to bring it? You're not really ever in a bad mood. You know what I'm saying? Like this is wild to me.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  I'm not a robot. All right. I do have moments where obviously, but again, it's what you surround yourself with.

• 18:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, at the end of every day, me and Emily do our Rose, Rose and Bud. Rose, great thing to happen today and a Bud you're looking forward to. We do it with our kids. And so what's the lens you see things every day? And so like, that is very, very intentional and how we see things and how we view things. So yeah, when it comes to the players, for us, it's just, it's, you gotta set the tone. You gotta bring the energy, you gotta bring the fun, but I put myself in their shoes.

• 19:18Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  You know, you were an athlete.

• 19:19Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I was barely an athlete, but I played baseball back in the day.

• 19:22Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  And you know, I had the big dreams of playing Major League Baseball and I had the dream of playing at Fenway Park. And you know, I was fortunate that some scouts were talking to me and I was getting letters. And then all of a sudden I tore my shoulder and that ended it.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I was told I wasn't good enough as of an injury and I just never performed up to my ability. And the reason why I didn't perform to my ability is I put so much pressure on myself. I was a big scholarship guy at Wofford, as big as anyone the program had ever had up to that point. And I had to perform. And it wasn't about having fun. We played the game as kids to have fun. So every night, I'm putting so much pressure on myself not having fun. Career ends, and I'm done. Not good enough. Can't play anymore. Every one of our players, they've played, they've been drafted, or they've been a top college player. And at some point, they've all been told they're not good enough. They've been rejected, they've been cut. This didn't exist. They were about to hang them up. And then we built this. And now I can put myself in their shoes and say, you've got this second

• 20:18Speaker 01

  chance. You've got this chance now to play the game the way you used to do as a kid. And go out and just have fun, and play it for the right reasons. You're not competing against the other outfielder to try to get called up to the next level. You are competing to create fans, and we're all doing that together. And so this is what I wish I could have built for myself. And I'd still be playing and having the time of my life. And so when you build something for yourself, something that you would truly love, you can feel it with them, and you can every day try to make it better for them. And so now they play with heart, they play with fun, they play with passion, and they play the way when they were five years old, and they went out just to go have fun, and nothing more. That I want to build all over, because that's what it's all about.

• 20:59Ryan Hawk?

  One of the things I've been studying a lot lately, Jesse, is obsession.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:03Ryan Hawk?

  And that's why I'm, I love you. I love what you do is because when you feel a leader who is obsessed with the thing that they do, and it's about other people and serving other people, it is as contagious as anything gets in the world. And it seems like you're doing a really good job also of surrounding yourself with other people who are obsessed. Jimmy Donalds, Mr. Beast, some of the guys you're with this week with what you're doing. I'd love to hear your mindset and your thoughts on not only being obsessed with what you do, but also surrounding yourself with others who are.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, obsession's got such a bad word. Like, everyone's like, oh, you're obsessed. It's bad. It's tremendous.

• 21:39Ryan Hawk?

  It's awesome. Yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  If you can find something you're obsessed with, so few people in the world get to have that.

• 21:43Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  You are lucky to find that.

• 21:45Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  And so I feel I was truly lucky to get the opportunity to have something I'm truly obsessed with. And so, yeah, I think it's, you know, it starts, everyone's like, you know, you're average of the five people you surround yourself with. Well, it's a cop out sometimes, like, well, I don't have those people around me right now. We've got more access than we've ever had in the history. To be able to have every book at our fingertips, to have every podcast at our fingertips for free. Yep. We can listen and hear from the greatest leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, you name it, for free, every single day. And if you're not taking advantage of that, you're missing out. And so I've had the opportunity to surround myself with Walt Disney, probably as much as anyone in the world, with Jeff Bezos, probably more than anyone in the world,

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Steve Jobs, Grateful Dead, WWE, Cirque du Soleil. And I get to get in that world by reading. I mean, I've read some of these books over and over and over again. I literally can know that page will go to this, that. I literally can feel it. So that's who I've surrounded myself with. And now, you know, when, because we've been able to have a little bit more success, we have more people reaching out. You know, being around the best of the best. You know, Derek Hough is an example. So he reached out, one of the greatest dancers. Yeah. And he reached out and danced with us. And I watched his obsession on every part of the dance moves. And he wasn't just focusing on the dance. He was focusing on how it was captured. You know, with our camera crew, which we have a very young, but unbelievably passionate and talented video crew. He's like, all right, no, you come around here, hit me at this moment, then I'm gonna hit you.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  I'll wink right here, then you go around, spin here, and then I'll do it. He's producing while thinking about dancing. When you're around the best of the best, one of the best dancers in the world, and he's obviously around some of the best dancers in the world, you see everything and you see the attention to detail. That's what Walt Disney had. And so now I'm so fortunate, some of these people are reaching out to us. You know, John Cena was another one. John Cena, when he came out with us, I watched his attention to detail on how he came out, what he did, his moments, what he said. He was thinking about all those. He understood production. He understood where the lighting hits. He understood when to look here. That attention to detail, not many people think about. They think about, oh, here's what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna do it. What I'm so grateful that I get to see now is when I'm on the field during the show, I'm thinking about the live crowd, number one.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  I'm thinking about digital, broadcast, social media. I'm thinking about every upper deck. I'm thinking about all of that and saying. And so now our team, we can look at each other. My director of entertainment, Zach, we just look and he goes, oh, yep, got it. We don't have to say a word, because we've worked together five years. It's energy here, music, get a song here. And just start to realize those things. And so, once you're around it, it just starts growing.

• 24:18Ryan Hawk?

  The obsession and attention to details and intentionality, a commonality among leaders I've found over the past 11 years that 11 years, interesting. I've been doing this 11 years.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Good number, yes.

• 24:27Ryan Hawk?

  It's a big number. The hold music.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:30Ryan Hawk?

  Your invoices.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:32Ryan Hawk?

  There's nothing that's just going to be normal. Nothing that's going to be, oh yeah, you just get an invoice or the hold music is normal. Everything, everything. You talk to me about that, like how intention, how crazy stupid, not stupid, how crazy awesome, like you're

• 24:45Speaker 01

  We heard stupid.

• 24:46Ryan Hawk?

  Yo, but how like crazy cool your invoicing process is and what it sounds like, oh my God, it's payday. You get to pay out, you know, all that stuff.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Well, again, all of us to an extent, we're chasing moments.

• 24:55Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  You know, we want to have these special moments in our life. I think more now than ever because of, you know, the phones and the screens. I think people want to feel alive.

• 25:03Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  We're both music guys. Dave Matthews Band. When I go to a show, I get there, our coaches, we've gone the last few years. I'm nowhere else. I'm in the show. As soon as Jeff Coffin starts ripping a saxophone solo, I'm there. I'm in it. I think people need those now more than ever. And so I think about those moments and how to create those moments with everything. And so, it's just, to go back to the point you were making.

• 25:28Ryan Hawk?

  I'm talking about hold music.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:31Ryan Hawk?

  Invoices.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  See, I just got lost in the moment. I'm, I was just literally picturing myself in the moment.

• 25:35Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  So the intention.

• 25:36Ryan Hawk?

  Well, I think of a Dave concert, I was thinking about going to Deer Creek or somewhere to listen to.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. So, so I don't think anyone goes home and says, ah, I just had a really normal experience tonight. It was, you know, I went to a show and it was normal. That restaurant, you know, that restaurant I was talking about, it was really normal. But I got to tell you about how normal it was. The waiter served it the same way. The food was pretty normal. And then when I left, I, you know, no one really said goodbye. It was really normal. The parking lot was a normal experience. No one gets excited for normal.

• 26:03Ryan Hawk?

  So true.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  And so.

• 26:04Ryan Hawk?

  It seems so obvious, but it's so true.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  It's so exciting. So if you want to create a life that has special moments where you feel a part of something, you feel excited about something, then you try to eliminate everything that is normal. And so normal gets normal results. If you do things that are normal, good luck. And there's a lot of normal out there in the world. But there's not a lot of extraordinary. And to do extraordinary, you've got to think of every single little thing that is normal and do the exact opposite. One of our fans' first principles is whatever is normal, do the exact opposite. So yes, you know, for years, we had just regular payment confirmations when you bought tickets, we had regular invoices, we had all of that. And we've got to keep pushing. But the reality is, right now, people will still find lots of things that we still do that's normal. Our broadcast is still normal right now. We're not even close to what we can touch.

• 26:44Ryan Hawk?

  You've mentioned that multiple times. So what is that? It seems like this would be something you'd be on the cutting edge of.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yes. So it's, it's very hard in a lot of things, and it takes time. And also, where's your focus go and energy go? I have put almost all of my focus on the live show. Because that is where our fans are there in person. The broadcast is very hard for me. And to be honest, like, I love live shows. I can go to a theater show, I can go anywhere, concerts, I can go to a live show. I don't watch a lot of TV. I'm not the prime audience right now. So I can't picture myself, I don't even watch much sports on TV. It's all, you know, it is what it is. A team wins, a team loses, whatever. You know, there's some cool moments that are done, but I am not the right audience. So I haven't really been able to put the right energy or time into trying to create something that I love. What I want people to do, I want to disrupt our business and say, it's better on TV than

• 27:33Speaker 01

  a live show, which is almost impossible because our live show is so immersive. So I challenge our broadcast team, what could we do there? So yeah, I think it's still normal at broadcast. And we had to figure it out ourselves. We do it all ourselves.

• 27:43Ryan Hawk?

  One of the things that's not normal, though, is that you've negotiated and probably given up money, I'm assuming, when ESPN or other networks want to broadcast your games, you say, yes, that's great. And it's still going to be free on YouTube. So I don't know anyone else who's been able to do that.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  It's very hard.

• 28:00Ryan Hawk?

  Right. You probably had to make some financial concessions, I'm guessing, and pay for...

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 28:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, everything. But, you know, again, I assume that's a fans' first, and that's why you would do this, right? Instead of saying, wait a second, this is an opportunity, really.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  It's, I say it all the time, it sounds simple, but it's, the starting point of all innovation is just put yourself in the customer's shoes and eliminate the friction points. What are the things that you don't like as a customer and eliminate it? Where's the football game tonight? Is it on Amazon? Is it on Peacock? Is it CBS? Is it NBC? Is it... They're making billions. I think it was like 18 billion, 20, whatever it is. They're maximized. They're the most valuable sports league in the world. I don't want to be the most valuable sports league in the world. I want to be the most fans-first company in the world. And so that makes your decision-making very easy. So that's a friction point. Where's the game? Or, oh, I don't have Amazon. I don't have Netflix. I don't have Peacock. Oh, I gotta do a subscription to get this. So we were willing to throw away millions.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Literally, I have some of the biggest networks that we're not working with because they said, no, we can't do this. No one does this. But here's millions of dollars. It's not... What gets me excited? What gets me excited is our fans being excited to be able to see our show for free at all times. And so, yes, ESPN at first, they never did it. They were like, well, we're not gonna pay you for this. I was like, well, no. And so it was like, all right, now they do. And then again, they came back this year. We're gonna do more games. No, we're not gonna do this. All the other ones, we're not gonna do it. And I said, well, we want to work with you. Look at what your ratings are. You know, ESPN averaged over a half million viewers this past year while having our games on YouTube.

• 29:31Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  You know, CW Roku, monster numbers. So like, your advertisers are getting exactly what they want. They're getting lots of eyeballs. So who cares if it's on YouTube? So, you know, you gotta be firm in what you believe in. You know, yeah, we would have a lot more money if we did it the exclusive way, but it'd be not fans-first, and we'll never do that.

• 29:47Ryan Hawk?

  In order to have a business, though, you do have to make money. So is your mentality of, we focus on the fans, we focus on our people internally, the money will come.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, our fans reward us more than... It's unbelievable. I mean, yeah, I share it. I mean, we sold over 1.9 million dollar merch items last year. So when you think of 1.9...

• 30:03Ryan Hawk?

  Merch is everywhere. Everywhere.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Well, you build something that people are proud of, that people want to wear.

• 30:08Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  You know, I make a joke often when I get a chance, just like you, I get a chance to speak to a lot of companies and, you know, I get in front of the stage and I said, you know, what does a fan look like? And I said, we have one fan that every year we have a new team, he gets a new tattoo. And so he's got six tattoos of our team's logos on his leg. And he goes, dude, you gotta stop adding teams. I go, that's a you problem. Like, that's you, my man. I'm like, you don't have to get the tattoos. But you think about this, no matter what company you have, if you are loved... People want to wear their merch. Like, just like you have an unbelievable podcast. I want to wear a learning leader because it is awesome. You know what I'm saying? If people don't want to wear your merch or rep you, you haven't made them feel something yet. You haven't been so obsessed with them and create an experience that they want to show it off to everyone.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  So the more things we do, like keep all our games free on YouTube, have no ads at our stadium, do these things to go to places that don't make sense on paper. We create more fans and people are proud to wear us. We spend $0 on traditional marketing, but we invest everything in the experience. We make the experience so good, our fans will share with everyone that this is something they haven't experienced anywhere.

• 31:11Ryan Hawk?

  When you go to one of the games, there's so many kids.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:14Ryan Hawk?

  I brought mine. I want to bring more of them to the future games. Certainly want to come down here. This place is magical. It truly is. Do you think a lot of that stems from your social media growth and how focused you guys have been on TikTok and others? And you just absolutely crushed it there. Was that intentional? Did you stumble into it? Like, how did that go?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  I mean, we say a lot of things we have, like some vision and we do it and then we stumble into the learning that happens.

• 31:37Ryan Hawk?

  But you're willing to try a bunch of stuff.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Right. So I'll never forget. It's our first year and again, we had a, we had interns. We didn't think to hire. We were college summer baseball. This is in 2016. So we had interns, you know, you help out with tickets, you help out with merch, but like, we didn't have any idea to like, help out with video because teams didn't have videographers back in 2016. It didn't make sense.

• 31:55Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  And so we had one guy and he was with us and he's like, no, I can create some videos. I was like, oh, really? Cool. And then all of a sudden the Can't Stop the Feeling, we call it Can't Stop the Feeling, but by Justin Timberlake. That song came out that summer and it was a banger and everyone was playing it. And I was like, let's just do a music video. So we had our staff, like we would lip sync and it was so low level produced. We never done a video, so we're just having lip sync. The players, I remember sitting in this corner, were like doing lip syncing, but like, they weren't even into it. It was just like, it was, it was like so like half, but we put it out. And I remember I was driving in from our house and I'm looking at Facebook and it's like 10,000 views every few minutes. And Facebook was where we put everything. It was like 100,000 views, 200,000 views. And our fans were just like, yes. Like they were so excited.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  And from I was like, guys, so we hired him as a videographer and we said like, let's just show us having fun. And so that's how we stumbled on that. And then When TikTok came along in 2020, we were like, let's just start posting. And the big question for our team was, what are we gonna post? I go, I don't know, just something that makes baseball fun. And our first video was our groups director dressed up like Cupid, you know, the Cupid of like the heart. And he was doing the Cupid shuffle. It made no sense, Ryan, and it got 12 views. And so like, all right, let's not do that again. And then so the next day, another video. And then we realized, oh, what can we show the players doing that they don't normally do? Singing, dancing, things on the field. Again, get away from normal.

• 33:14Ryan Hawk?

  Walk up with a bat on fire.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. What are things you've never seen before on a baseball field? And so we said, that's the lens. Make baseball fun, anything that makes baseball fun and shows our players, our cast, our staff, doing things that you normally want to do. And then we said, we're gonna post every day. And we committed to post every day. It's like, hey, a podcast, I'm gonna post every, I'm gonna get it out there every week. Cause you learn by doing. This is one of the biggest things. You don't learn by talking about it. You gotta do it. And so now you've go since TikTok in 2020, we've posted every single day. So you're talking about thousands of posts. And so now you look at the party animals, our second team. They have more followers than every major league baseball team on TikTok. And they're selling out major league stadiums because we committed to just putting something out every single day. And I think that's, it's not always just creativity. It's putting out so you can learn and being willing to try things that might not work.

• 33:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. So you're brought in to speak now, whenever you can in between all the other stuff you're doing. And so there's people in corporate America who would say, well, what can we learn from Jesse Cole? What can we learn from the Savannah Bananas to bring into our business? Like, what are some of the ways? Like, what are some of the potentially portable lessons for a random Fortune 500 company? That is boring, that has, you know, that is normal, right? What are some of the things they could say, well, we could do that. We don't have a baseball team and we don't put on shows, but we have a company and we want to make it better for our people. We want to make it better for our customers slash fans. What are some of the things that you say to them?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I'm fortunate now, you know, before no one, I had to like beg a Kiwanis group or a Rotary group to let me speak. And it was hard, but now a lot more fortunate. But a couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to the National Asphalt and Pavement Convention, their annual meeting. And so exactly where you think I would be like, this is it. And I told them, I open, I go, when I was a kid, I dreamed I'd get the opportunity to be here. And now that I'm with you guys, you've made my dreams come true. True. Fortunately, they laughed at that. But it was very hard because they work with governments. They work, it's B to B. It's not B to C. Yeah. But what I said is we're all H to H, human to human. And we're all, how do we connect with humans? And they're like, well, we can't do things with the government because it's a bid process. I go, okay, but what can you do to create fans? How can you work on the experience every step of the way? Most of the way, most companies, this is the process that they do it.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Hey, for them, it's you do a bid process, you hope they say yes, and then you deliver the road, the street, the parking lot, whatever it is. But how intentionally can you look at every step of the experience? From when you first interact with them, for what happens with when that day you show up? Can you show videos, hey, this is what we're doing today and show the process? Because everyone's asking, are things getting done? They're working with the community. And so, for instance, people in the community are like, how long is this road going to take? You're shut, you're making it inconvenient to me. And what if you actually show what you're doing and the progress and how you're making? You actually do things for the community and put social media share in that. There's all opportunities. Change the lens on how do you grow customers? On how you chase customers, but how do you create fans? And so if you look at everything and say, you meet with a business and it's like, all right, what are ideas that we can bring in an extra million dollars, two million dollars?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  You'll get a bunch of ideas. If you ask the same question, say, how can we create a million fans? They're different ideas almost always. Most people chase, how do you create an extra million dollars? Not how can you create a million fans? And so if you do that, that's how we start with everything. It's like, okay, what does this experience look like? How can the upper deck experience at every stadium be the best sporting event experience ever? I don't care if you're sitting behind home plate. How can we make it even better than sitting behind home plate? And when you ask those questions, then all of a sudden, the business will take off because people will invest in because they believe in you. So whatever the business is, the question is, how do you create fans? And what are the steps? And, you know, I've shared in my first book, Fans First. Eliminate friction, entertain always, which means it's not entertain. The definition of entertain is to enjoy. So like to entertain, enjoy.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  So can you make every step of the process filled with enjoyment? And then next, experiment constantly. You've got to try new things you've never tried before. How do you engage deeply? How do you do for one what you wish you could do for many? You can't do everything for everyone, but can you create a moment? Can you listen carefully and respond creatively to what your guests are wanting? Or what are your customers wanting? And then finally, how do you empower yourself to do things that scare you, that are hard, that are uncomfortable, that people would say you shouldn't be doing? And do what others won't do. And if you do any level of those, you'll start creating more fans. We obsess over all five of those.

• 37:15Ryan Hawk?

  You're one of the most grateful people I know. I think I got my first yellow thank you note handwritten. It was like this long from you eight years ago now.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  You made such an impact.

• 37:25Ryan Hawk?

  Which is wild to think. It's been eight years since I got that in the mail. I'm like, what is this? Yellow thank you card. You send those videos to me all the time after you work out about, hey, I listened to this episode and it was great. And so I imagine you do this to everybody. So I, I am-

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Not everybody, Ryan.

• 37:40Ryan Hawk?

  Well, but I mean, towards lots of people, but the, the idea of being perpetually grateful. And then telling other people by sending them those videos or writing them those notes. What's your, do you have a process for that? Or it's just whenever you feel like it, you're just saying, hey, I should send him a video because I like that podcast. Or I should write him a note or her a note because she impacted me in this way. I'd be curious to hear how you think about gratitude.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Put yourself in their shoes. It comes down to empathy. Again, it means so much that after a night that I've worked from all day. And it's 11 o'clock and signing autographs and a fan will come up or a kid will come up and the best of the kids, the kids, thank you for creating this. You know, this was the best day. This is the best day. I love your teams. Thank you for- The way I feel when someone tells me that on the first cruise, a, a woman came up to me and, and she was emotional and just came up to me and said, I'm, I'm here on this cruise because of you. Can I give you a hug? And I said, yes. And I go, what do you mean you're here? She's like, I'll never forget. I went to a game in, in Sacramento and I was kind of wandering around aimlessly. And you came up and asked if you're okay and you're like, I'm okay. Just kind of going through something.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And you said, can I give you a hug? And I gave her a hug. Uh, she had lost her sister the day before. And her sister was a big fan and wanted to go to the game. And instead she said, she lost her sister. She's like, I'm going to go contribute to my sister. And she was just walking around aimlessly. She didn't know what to do. And I guess I saw her in that moment. I don't really unbelievably vividly remember that. And she said, you gave me that hug and I came on this cruise so I could give you a hug back. And so when you think about those moments, you think about those, which happened to every one of our players, every one of our staff, there's moments like that.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  It feels so good. It feels like you have such purpose and meaning that if I can find a way, if I see something, whether it is just a podcast or something, and just send a quick video and say, man, thank you. Like, that was awesome. That inspired me. You've made my day. I'm pumped. You try to give it back. And so, again, by because of how powerful it feels for me, how much joy, how much, you know, energy it gives me, I want to just give it back. And I can do a lot more. Be honest with you. I can do a lot more. And I think about that, like, I'm doing a lot more videos than I used to do letters. You know, videos are the one I do because I don't want people to feel the tone and the energy and they don't always get my letters. Like, I can send a letter and you never, you never hear back. I like to try to hear that immediate, like, hey, I hopefully you made your day because you made my day.

• 39:56Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, it's contagious, too. It makes me want to do it for others. So I love that. One more question. Let's fast forward one year from now. You're, again, a forward resume type guy. So it's 2027. You and Emily are hanging out, maybe after a long day of work.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  What month are we in?

• 40:12Ryan Hawk?

  We're in February 2027.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:16Ryan Hawk?

  Okay. And, and, and I don't, I don't know if you drink champagne, but for the purpose of the question, I'm gonna use it. Okay, the Jason Gaynard champagne question. Okay. What are you and Emily celebrating? What are you celebrating a year from now?

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Uh, I know exactly where we're gonna be. And I can't, um.

• 40:33Ryan Hawk?

  You can't say?

• 40:34Speaker 01

  It's, uh.

• 40:36Ryan Hawk?

  Do you know Taylor?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  She has an idea.

• 40:38Ryan Hawk?

  I would love for you to share. Why not?

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Because everything we do is very intentional. And so, and how we announce things and how we share things is very intentional and to be right for the fans. I know you don't want a political answer, but we will have just done something that we've never done in history. And it will be one of the biggest things we've ever done and the most challenging and the hardest. And it's been years in the making and fans have been asking us this for years. And in February of next year, we will look around after doing it and we will say, look at what we just did. And we will celebrate and it'll be something that shows that we can do anything.

• 41:12Ryan Hawk?

  Wow. Thank you, man. Thank you for having us, man. Thank you for being so accommodating in the tour, the whole deal. I love you, man. You're, you're super, super inspirational for me and make me think bigger. And there's not a ton of people in the world who do that. So I really, really appreciate the way that you make others, like, it's contagious, your enthusiasm. So I appreciate it, man.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  And this was the third time. So the third show, third, third time's a charm here in Savannah.

• 41:34Ryan Hawk?

  Uh, won't be the last. Won't be the last.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  I appreciate that, brother. Thanks so much.

• 41:42Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of the Podcast Club. Thank you for being a member of the End of the Podcast Club. If you are, send me a note, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jesse Cole. A few takeaways from my notes. Actually, go to YouTube, youtube.com/RyanHawk to see this one in person. We filmed it in the new Savannah Bananas locker room. It was so cool. We'll also be releasing a vlog soon of the tour that Jesse gave me. We went all over Savannah and it was so cool to see him talk through it. A few takeaways from my notes. I loved watching them practice. Every single repetition, they practiced some

• 42:26Ryan Hawk?

  sort of trick, a backflip, bouncing the ball through their legs, a behind the back catch. Why do they do this? So that on game day, it is just their default setting. They don't even think. They automatically do trick plays. It's all about entertaining the fans. And I love, also, they make their values visible. They are all over the place in the locker room. The sign, Fans First, is on every single player's locker. It's leading out to the field. It also says, Tonight is someone's first time seeing our show. Not game, not a game. It's a show. Jesse was adamant that it says that. Your team cannot execute on principles they cannot see.

• 43:07Ryan Hawk?

  I think it's worth it to put the reminders where the work actually happens. And I thought it was really cool about being so transparent with their profit and loss statements. Revenue, expenses, player salaries. When I asked why, he said quickly, Fans First. They deserve to know everything. Transparency builds trust faster than any marketing campaign. And then, we talked a lot, both on air and off, about his time spent with Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson, trying to learn everything he can about YouTube. Jesse regularly puts himself in the rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do. Also, Bob Iger at Disney, he spent quite a bit of time with him to learn how he's built.

• 43:50Ryan Hawk?

  That business. So I think that that's inspiring for all of us to learn. How can we put ourselves in the rooms with people who are the best in the world at what they do, or at least who are excellent at what they do. I think that will make us all better. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Jesse Cole. I think it will help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, rate it, hopefully five stars, write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to take these amazing trips to Savannah, learn from

• 44:31Ryan Hawk?

  the best in the world, and do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.