Jesse Itzler's Exact Playbook For Creating HIT AFTER HIT

Episode 504: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) talk to Jesse Itzler (https://twitter.com/jesseitzler) about how he turned $118 into massive businesses including Marquis Jet and ZICO coconut water. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here. Want MFM Merch? Check out our store here. Want to see the best clips from MFM? Subscribe to our clips channel here. — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com/ Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (4:30) $10K for 10% of your life (7:30) Can vs Will (13:30) Going from Jingles to Jets (17:30) Jesse’s underdog mentality (23:00) Marquis Jet: The craziest origin story of all time (32:30) How Marquis Jets worked (36:30) Getting celebrities as first customers (43:00) Zico: Finding profitable super niches (50:00) Business Idea 1: Private travel experience for commercial travelers (54:00) Business Idea 2: Pickles! (58:00) Business Idea 3: Quickies-Ready-made 8oz Drinks (1:02:00) Jesse Itzler's Philosophy on Money (1:08:00) Jesse Itzler's Philosophy on Relationships: Compliment, Congratulate, and Console (1:08:00) Jesse Itzler's Philosophy on Defining a Year — Links: • Jesse Itzler’s website - https://jesseitzler.com/ • New York Knicks theme song "Go NY Go" - https://tinyurl.com/9yfach3r • Living with a Seal - https://tinyurl.com/wdjkj2je • Marquis Jet - https://www.marquisjetset.com/ • All Day Running Co. - https://www.alldayrunningco.com/ • Big A## Calendar - https://tinyurl.com/22ujummp • ZICO - https://zico.com/ • Sara Blakely - https://tinyurl.com/6ye642w4 • SPANX - https://spanx.com/ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

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

• 0:00Jesse Itzler?

  Go rent the countertops of all the liquor stores and then go to Nabisco or one of the big boys and be like, hey, guess what? I own 10,000 countertops. You want to put your widget there? You want to put your fucking widget there? Keep the money, Sean. Yeah, keep the money, Sean.

• 0:34Sam Parr?

  Okay, everyone. What's going on? This is Sam. We have Jesse Itzler on the pod today. Very fascinating guy. Started a bunch of different companies. The biggest one being Marquis Jets, which we got into some of the economics of that business. And then he's done a bunch of other things. You see him on social media. He's done a lot of stuff, but like his life advice was actually really amazing. We went deep into some of the numbers behind some of his businesses. We learned about his early career and there's like a ton of takeaways. The pod was only supposed to be 60 minutes long, but Sean and I were like so into it that we went over. I think we went like 90 minutes, something like that because his story is super fascinating. If you liked the Rob Dyrdek episode, which a lot of people did, it's I think our most listened to episode of all time. I think you're

• 1:16Sam Parr?

  really gonna like this one. It was pretty spectacular. I left feeling good about it. And if you're watching this on YouTube, do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button and make a comment because we've had a ton of people comment on our videos lately and a ton of people subscribe. We see the data behind it. So it's awesome that you guys are doing this and it means a ton to us. We actually text each other all the time when someone makes a funny comment. So let us know. And if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, hit that download or the subscribe button, whatever it is on those platforms because we get notifications about those too. And it's awesome. We're killing it. We're growing a ton and we appreciate the army of people who are supporting us. All right. Enjoy the episode. Let us know in the YouTube comments what you think.

• 1:56Shaan Puri?

  All right. Well, welcome. We got Jesse Itzler here, also known as, I think he might be the richest runner, white rapper in the country. So congratulations, my friend.

• 2:08Shaan Puri?

  We are excited to have you here.

• 2:11Jesse Itzler?

  I love that. If you keep adding categories, I could be the richest in the world. If you start adding like, you know, then have four kids that eat plant-based, et cetera, et cetera. So.

• 2:22Shaan Puri?

  Right on. So, you know, I'm excited to talk to you because you've done a bunch of amazing things. We've talked about you on the pod. And we sort of spoke it into existence. I think we talked about it. Somebody might have sent you a clip. I'm not sure. But you, you reached out and said, hey, I'd love to come on. You have, I'm just going to read a couple of these things. So I'm going to flatter you real quick, just so that the audience understands kind of just your background. So like we said, started out trying to make it as a rapper and ended up creating a jingles company. So you were making jingles for, for sports teams, ended up selling that, then created Marky Jets, a fractional jet owning company, sold that to Berkshire Hathaway, which Warren Buffett obviously runs and owns.

• 3:02Shaan Puri?

  You're married to Sarah Blakely, founder of Spanx. You are an epic sort of fitness athlete yourself. So prolific runner. I read your book. The day I got really into you is when I read Living with a Seal, which is the story of you living with David Goggins for 30 days. I can't even really listen. I gave David Goggins for 30 minutes on a podcast. So living with him for 30 days, respect. And yeah, you've created a bunch of companies outside of that, partner with Zico Coconut Water and doing a bunch of prolific things. So you have a, a very prolific career, but the start was like anybody. It was humble, humble beginning. So talk about the early days when you were, you were trying to do the, let's start with the jingle company. You,

• 3:48Shaan Puri?

  you told me you were, you were sleeping on couches at the time, trying to make it and describe kind of what was going on at that time in your life. What was the plan? And what were you going through and how did you come out of that?

• 3:59Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I grew up in New York in the eighties when rap and hip hop was starting to emerge in a bigger way. And that it, that was the intersection of that happening and me going to college. So I was really into music early on. And while all of my friends in college were writing resumes and going on job interviews, I was like, I'm making a rap record. Like I'm, why would I waste my time making a resume? I want to make an album. So it was like, kind of that's the direction I wanted to go in right away. I ended up signing with a record company called Delicious Vinyl. Everybody passed on me and this one little record company gave me a shot. And I didn't have met, like, I wasn't super connected. I didn't have like a lawyer. I know I did it all. I shopped it myself.

• 4:45Jesse Itzler?

  But I ended up getting dropped from the label shortly after. And I got into writing jingles or for companies and theme songs for sports teams. And that was kind of my first entree into, you know, I pivoted. It didn't work out for me in the music business, but I still loved music. So I stayed in there and I started doing jingles and um, yeah, that's how I kind of started out early on.

• 5:10Shaan Puri?

  You told me you were sleeping on couches, trying to make it, and somebody offered you a tempting deal. They said, I'll give you $10,000 if I can get 10% of everything you'll ever make. How did that happen? And what was your answer?

• 5:28Jesse Itzler?

  Right. So I was, I was writing theme songs for sports teams. I was 22, 23 years old. And my business model was to write a song on spec and then cold call a professional sports team, try to get a meeting with them, try to like, you know, get in there. And then if I was able to get that meeting, convince them that they needed a theme song. And that was my business model. And at the time I was, I was, I was bouncing around from couch to couch. I wasn't homeless, but my friends were, I just moved to New York from Los Angeles. And my friends were putting me up as I tried to figure out how to do it. I had no money to go in the studio to write any more songs on spec. So I needed money to fund that production. So a music manager said, you know, hey, I believe in you.

• 6:13Jesse Itzler?

  I'll give you 10 grand for 10%, but I want to own you for the rest of your life, basically 10% of anything you make. And I was like, I'll take it because I needed the money to go in the studio. I thought it was a deal of the century. You're going to give me 10 grand? And all I'm gonna do is pay you if I make it? Like, that sounded amazing to me. At the time, I was living on my friend Melissa Katz's couch. I met her actually at a bar, and she had given me her number on a napkin and said, if you're in an emerg-- she asked me where I lived, and I said, as of Monday, I have nowhere to live. I was getting kicked out of my friend's house on Monday. She said, if it's an emergency, you can come live with my roommate and I. Monday, my friend kicked me out because his parents were coming for a week, and I'm like, this is an emergency.

• 6:55Jesse Itzler?

  So I was living at Melissa's house, and I told her about this opportunity. And she said, well, why don't you go talk to my father before you give away 10% of your future earnings? And as it turned out, her father was a very successful entrepreneur. He owned a company called Kenny Parking, Parking Garages in New York, and was, I think, the second-largest shareholder of the New York Yankees. You're like, Melissa, your apartment is really nice.

• 7:20Jesse Itzler?

  What was amazing about that was it really wasn't, and that's why I really was taken aback by-- I knew her dad was an entrepreneur. I didn't know the extent. And, you know, she sent me on-- by the way, his name is Lou Katz. He passed away a couple of years ago. He was an incredibly influential guy in my life. And this was my first encounter with him. So I went to-- not to belabor this, but I went to see him, and it's really relevant for anyone listening, what he said to me as a 22-year-old. He-- I told him my dilemma. I'm gonna take 10 grand for 10% of my life. And he said to me, he is exactly what he said to me. He said, Jesse, you know, will you make this business work without the 10 grand? I said, Lou, I'm on to something. I know I can make it work.

• 8:04Jesse Itzler?

  There's a-- I know I can-- and he took his notebook, and he literally threw it on the ground, and he said, I didn't ask you that. I didn't ask you, can you? I said, will you? There's a big difference between can and will. I know you can start a podcast. I know you can be a millionaire. I know you can run a marathon. I said, will you, son? And I said, yeah, well, Lou, I will. He said, well, tell him to take the $10,000 and shove it up his ass. Go make it work. And I did, you know, like, it was a really powerful lesson and like, you know what? I signed up for this journey as an entrepreneur. Let me go figure it out. Let me go. That's what I want to do.

• 8:43Jesse Itzler?

  Let me go figure this out. And he, he blew that flame into me at an early age. And it's really been a theme throughout my life and all the buckets of my life, the whole will versus can notion, you know?

• 8:58Shaan Puri?

  And why, why is that so powerful, the will versus can?

• 9:01Jesse Itzler?

  Well, because it's, it really puts the pressure, you know, Billie Jean King had a book, Pressure's a Privilege. And it is. Like, we play for pressure, Sean, like as entrepreneurs, that's what we want, man. And, you know, I recently did a race called Ultraman. It's a 6.2 mile open water swim, a 265 mile bike and a 52.4 mile run. And I thought to myself before the race, that exact thing, like, I think I can do it. But I'm never going to know unless I sign up for the race, put myself in a position where something incredible can happen or not, but I got to put myself in that situation. And now it's up to me, like, will I get it done?

• 9:45Jesse Itzler?

  You know, will, what am I willing to do? Am I willing to suffer for that one day? For, to have the next three decades, have that in my memory bank and have that on my resume? And, and I am, and I am willing to do that. And, and I did.

• 10:01Shaan Puri?

  So you know what's really funny? After you told me that, so I did a call with you the other day to just prep for the, for the pod. Say, hey, you know, we're going to talk about, I'm thinking about talking about this, this and this. You have any good stories? And you told me this, this will versus can thing. And the next day, my wife was literally like, she's like, hey, can you take out the trash? And I was like, no, no, no, baby. It's not about can I take out the trash? I will take out the trash and she has no idea what I'm doing and I've been doing it all weekend. I've been, cause it's, once you see it, it's actually everywhere. Ben texted Ben, who's listening on this thing right now, he texted me this morning, he's like, um, he's like, hey, how'd you eat this weekend? We're both like on a fitness kick. He's like, can you stay locked in from now till Thanksgiving? And I just, I was like, oh, Ben, you asking me can? We don't ask canned questions anymore.

• 10:46Shaan Puri?

  As of meeting Jesse Itzler, I no longer ask can I? It's will I or won't I? That's it.

• 10:52Jesse Itzler?

  Well, think about how many times in your life someone said, you, you say something that you've done like, you know, I did, you know, rim to rim. I'll take physical activities or I climb Kilimanjaro and you explain to someone like, oh, I can, I can do that. And I, you're like, in the back of your head, you're like, yeah, you probably can, but you know, will you do it? You know, there's just like, it's a huge difference between like, oh, just checking the box because you said to yourself, I can. First actually going through and doing it.

• 11:19Shaan Puri?

  By the way, Jesse, I have one other story that you, you don't know about. So you used to go to something, at least you went once, called Coach K's Fantasy Camp. Is that correct?

• 11:30Jesse Itzler?

  I've been there for 18 straight years.

• 11:32Shaan Puri?

  Okay, okay, perfect.

• 11:33Jesse Itzler?

  That's hilarious.

• 11:34Shaan Puri?

  So you went to this thing. So for those who don't know, Coach K, he was the, the greatest college basketball coach at Duke. I went to Duke and my roommate, Trevor, used to volunteer at Coach K's Fantasy Camp. And volunteer was literally volunteering. I was like, so what do you, you're staying over from break? Cause it's like during some break and he's like, yeah, I'm not going home. I'm going to work this thing. I'm like, cool. How much are you getting paid? And he's like, I don't think we really get paid, but uh, you know, whatever. Like you just said, put himself in a position for something good to happen. And so, and what I, what he didn't know and what I didn't know was the only people who go to this camp that costs like 10 grand to go to are basically like business ballers trying to like live out their dream of like, oh, as if I was an athlete.

• 12:16Shaan Puri?

  He's he so he all he was doing was driving the shuttle back and forth between where y'all were staying and the thing and he's like dude it's amazing he's like just hearing these conversations what they're talking about in this like nine minute shuttle ride he's like every night he would debrief with me ideas that he heard he's like oh this guy said that he does this this thing over here this guy said he does this and he told me he goes I met this guy super charismatic like this guy he loved this guy's energy he goes and he tipped me a hundred bucks for this like 10 minute shuttle ride and he late I told him he I told I was mentioning to him that you're coming on the pod he goes that was the guy who tipped me so I don't know if you remember this or not but we took that tip and we had a business idea at the time and we needed to convince this

• 12:58Shaan Puri?

  famous chef in LA to come fly out and partner with us we had no money and so you you plus a little like side job that I had became the money we paid for for the ticket to fly that guy out which definitely into the trajectory of our life so little did you know

• 13:12Jesse Itzler?

  I love that and yeah I've been going there for since I'm 35 it's for guys 35 and older and it's not to chase some some crazy dream it's a combination of you know meeting amazing people and also kind of like there's not a lot of times I'm 55 so I'm older than you guys and I can't stop that clock you know time's undefeated it's always ticking it's it's the six days a year the five days I go there that I get to feel like an eight year old again and it's really one of the few times in my life that I get that chance and I love it

• 13:50Speaker 03

  I don't know man I follow you on Instagram it seems like you live like an eight year old a lot of times I'm pretty sure I just

• 13:55Jesse Itzler?

  I do I do I do I shouldn't say that

• 13:56Speaker 03

  I'm pretty I'm pretty sure I just saw you like in an RV with like eight friends just like running around the country it seems like you yeah it seems like you got the eight year old life kind of nailed down

• 14:06Jesse Itzler?

  I like to give myself that excuse Sam I guess you put you're right it's more than once more than five days a year

• 14:12Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think you've done that all right. You, uh, was your first, um, kind of major business, marquee jet? So you went from, did you go from jingles to jets?

• 14:22Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, so interestingly, I had, so the jingle thing turned into a real business. I found an opportunity. I started out doing jingles just for anyone that would pay me anything to do anything. So, um, I was doing jingles for like, honestly, like Turbo Bubble Gum is like bubble book gum company that no one ever heard of, like just anything that would pay me.

• 14:43Sam Parr?

  Our podcast intro needs a little sprucing up if you wanna, if you wanna dust it off, yeah.

• 14:47Jesse Itzler?

  I, I, I got you guys. And, um, and then I start, and then one of those jingles gave me an opportunity to write a theme song for the New York Knicks. I had done a, a commercial, a radio ad for a company called In the, In the Pain Clothing. It was owned by, um, Nancy Grunfeld, Ernie Grunfeld, the GM of the Knicks wife. And she really liked what we, what I had done. And she said, um, yeah, if you have any other ideas, you know, let me know. I said, well, I'd love to do something for the Knicks, you know, like write a theme song and we can shoot a video, they can sing it in the arena. So I approached the Knicks to do this song called Go New York Go. And, um, the Knicks paid me $4,000 to buy the song outright. I'll never forget it.

• 15:32Jesse Itzler?

  Like, um, I actually borrowed money to go in the studio to do this, to do the song. I didn't have enough money to go in the studio and record it because they were paying me 30 or 60 days later. And by the time I paid the studio, the engineer, the lawyer that I had, the singer, the producer, it cost me $4,800 to actually deliver the song that they were paying me $4,000 for. And when I look back on it, you know, for most people, they'd be like, that's a terrible business model. It was the best business model in the world for me because when you start out, you know, people buy into stories, momentum and people very often more than the products. Like I was the business plan and I would have paid the Knicks 10 grand to say they were my customer because once I had the Knicks.

• 16:17Jesse Itzler?

  Those phone calls to get onto the other sports teams became very easy. And that became my calling card. So I built a business around that, Sean, that actually I ended up doing theme songs for almost every professional sports team. And turned it into a business where we were selling CDs, like I would take the songs they play in the arena. Add my original song with great moments in the team history and sell them at retail. I sold that company to a public company called SFX. And that was my first, I was 27. We sold it for four million bucks and then we had, there was an earn out for another 12 or 16 or something, which we earned out. And that was my first kind of like, get off the couch moment.

• 16:59Jesse Itzler?

  I was no longer on Melissa's couch and I moved into my own space. What was your take home after that? I had a partner and at the end of the day, I think on the first four million, I made like a million and a half. But wait, a million and a half dollars to me. All the money. I was Elon Musk. Before Musk was born, I was walking around like I was Musk. A million and a half dollars. I would go to the, wake up at the ATM, go to the ATM. I would get my printout of my balance, swear to God. Then I would wake up the next morning and be like, are you fucking kidding me? I have 300 more dollars than I had yesterday and I was sleeping. I'm like, I'm going back to bed. I'm going back to bed.

• 17:49Jesse Itzler?

  My partner convinced me to take all 1.3 million dollars that we both cleared after taxes or whatever it was. And reinvested to get like exclusive deals in all this. Like we made the business, we reinvested it in the business. And actually made the business a lot bigger and we got our earn out. And then, then everything changed a little bit for me. But you know, I had no idea how to manage money. My parents never talked about money. My dad owned the plumbing supply house. Uh, my mom raised four kids. The, the thing, the, I had no relationship with money. That might sound weird, but like. People talk about relationships with, in terms of their relationship with their kids or their significant other, but not in terms of their relationship with time,

• 18:34Jesse Itzler?

  which is very important, and your relationship with money, which is equally as important. I had no relationship with money. So when I got money, I didn't know how to save it, how to spend it, how to use it, how to act around it. I was very immature around new money. And you know what happened to me then? I lost it because I didn't know anything about it. And fortunately, I was able to bounce back through having other successful businesses and failures, but no one ever told me about it. How'd you lose it? Just overspending or what'd you do? Overspending, thinking like, oh, that was pretty easy, man. I could just, I could do that again, you know?

• 19:18Sam Parr?

  What did you buy?

• 19:19Jesse Itzler?

  It wasn't like so much what I bought. It was just, you know, helping my parents, spreading it out. I wasn't abusive with it, like, but just I didn't know how to really handle that.

• 19:31Sam Parr?

  And that's pretty common, right? Like, you know, Sean and I have a bunch of friends that, you know, we're both about 34, 35, and we have a bunch of friends and ourselves as well, who had exits at a young age. And the thing about selling a company, it's different than, there's usually two types of people I've noticed is people who have cash flow businesses or they're like a lawyer or something like that, or they own a law firm, something where your like income is going up a nice amount every year and you get used to having that cash flow. And then the other group of people are typically young folks who sell their company. And typically those people are like me, where I paid myself $20,000 year one, $20,000 year two, year three was $50,000. Year four, I sell it and make a lot of money. And you're like, this is just overwhelming. I don't know what to do with this. And that's like a pretty, that's like a pretty common thing is I, I don't think,

• 20:15Sam Parr?

  I don't know if most people blow it, but I think it takes about two or three years to accumulate and kind of get used to and learn what to do. But there's no one to teach you.

• 20:23Jesse Itzler?

  The problem is I had always been taught. Oh, if you're a mil- like a millionaire was-

• 20:29Sam Parr?

  That ain't shit.

• 20:30Jesse Itzler?

  Was the- no, but I didn't know, I've been thought the opposite. Like if I saw a millionaire, that was like the pinnacle. Like he's a millionaire man. So I always thought like, oh, I have a million dollars. That's all I need to have for the rest of my life. I'm a millionaire at 27. And that's, that was the relationship that was wrong.

• 20:47Sam Parr?

  Right. Yeah, you could spend that, you could spend that easy.

• 20:50Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, you go out and you have a $4,000 dinner when you were eating, when I was basically eating a 99 cent bagel for 17 years, you know? Things change quick.

• 21:00Shaan Puri?

  You, um, I'm, I'm a big believer that most of life, uh, most of your life kind of is a result of this, the conversation you have with yourself in your head. Do you remember after you kind of had that first hit and you see the money and you still have, you're only 27, you've still got all your life ahead of you? Do you at all remember like the conversation you had with yourself? Like, all right, Jesse, so like now X and whether X was a good, a good, a good conversation with yourself or misleading one? Do you remember what, what the conversation you had with yourself at that point in time was?

• 21:29Jesse Itzler?

  You know, it was interesting because Sean, I was living in New York and most of my friends were working on Wall Street. They were working at hedge funds. They were making, they were making a lot of money. There was a lot of money around me and you know, it's very easy to get caught up in what's he making versus what am I making? And it's very easy to like, you start having those conversations with yourself. You can go down and spiral downward very quickly. And you know, what I was making, what it took me years to make and build and sell and my journey to get to that point was crazy. I was selling carrot and celery sticks door to door. That didn't work. I had a T-shirt company. That didn't work. I got dropped from a record label.

• 22:10Jesse Itzler?

  That didn't work. I cleaned meat traps. That didn't work. I sold chicken, shrimp and meat door to door. That didn't work. I mean, Jingle Company, it went on and on. So, you know, I had really worked so hard and, and at the same time, like I had invested so much, not for the money, but just like- I just wanted to get a record deal, man. I didn't care about the money. I just want, everyone said, "You can't do it." Everybody. And it was, it was such a driver. If I remember, I listened to a podcast where one of you guys, with Laird Hamilton, and you were saying how that, he was saying how that, you know, one of you guys was saying you need that anger to inspire you, like, some kind of fuel,

• 22:53Jesse Itzler?

  you know? So, um, I had that. I still have that. Don't get me wrong. I still have that. And I never want to lose that underdog mentality. I never want to be like, "I'm at the top of the mountain." I'm not. I consider myself back of the pack, everything. Back of the pack sales, back of the pack entrepreneur. There's so many better entrepreneurs than me, um, so many better salesmen than me. But I, I, but I love that feeling of, "I gotta prove myself." So, when the money happened, it was just like, "Oh, Steve Stark is making so much more than me. We're in the same basketball run. Like, I gotta catch Stark." You know?

• 23:32Sam Parr?

  The, um, the Marquis Jet thing, that's interesting, though, because that's like, totally out of left field. So, and that seemed like a way bigger win than the Jingle business.

• 23:41Jesse Itzler?

  Same partner, right? Same co-founder? Yeah, same partner. Um, it was a much bigger win. And it was like, most things in my life,

• 23:50Jesse Itzler?

  they, most of the businesses that have, that I've been involved with, weren't planned, you know? And most of my successes in life haven't been in my business plan. They've been opportunities that presented themselves. You know, my whole life, I've been taught, "When opportunity knocks", you know? And I'm not, I don't want to sit around waiting for opportunity to knock. I like to create my own, my own opportunity. And I was a guest on a private jet with my partner, and I was like, "People fly, like, what is this? What is this that I'm on?" And we, it led to some research, like, there's only really two or three ways to fly privately back in the 90s when we started

• 24:33Jesse Itzler?

  Marquis Jet. You can buy your own airplane if you have $50 million, you know, or something like that. Well, that's out of the question. You could get a fractional... Being a fractional program like NetJets, but even that is a really big commitment, both in capital and time. It's a five-year commitment, lot of money upfront. That wasn't, I mean, that wasn't an option for us. Or you could charter, and there were a lot of questions around, well, who owns the plane? Who are the pilots? You know, do I feel comfortable on that? What if the plane doesn't show up? So we found a little white space there and said, you know, we only want to fly like 25 hours a year. And I bet there's a lot of people like us that don't want to own an airplane, don't want the responsibility, but they just want to be able to have the,

• 25:17Jesse Itzler?

  have a plane available on short notice. And that was the idea around selling a 25-hour jet card that were work like a debit card. So if you and, if you and Sam Sean flew two hours, you'd have 23 hours left. And then we partnered with NetJet. Again, part of being an entrepreneur is figuring out how to get from A to B the fastest. And for us, for me and my life, many times it's been through partnership. We partnered with NetJets. They ended up buying us to use their airplanes. Partnered with Coca-Cola, it's Zico, it's Zico Coke in order. They ended up buying us. So, but anyway, that was, that's what happened. We were a guest on the plane and, you know,

• 25:58Jesse Itzler?

  walking around, eyes wide open, looking for opportunities and said, wow, this could be really interesting. And, and then started the journey of figuring out how we could pull this off because we had no aviation experience, very little money. And, you know, I was younger than you guys. I was 28, 29 years old. And figuring out like, man, we need a lot of airplanes. Where do we go for airplanes? And, and then started that journey of, of building this company.

• 26:25Shaan Puri?

  So you walk in, you walk into NetJets and you're like, hey, I'm Jesse, former rapper, jinglepreneur. And I would like for you to give me your most valuable assets, your planes for this new membership program. How did you convince them to do that?

• 26:42Jesse Itzler?

  Well, at first we didn't. They kicked us out of the office in the first meeting after about 12 minutes. And backing that up, the bigger question is how we even get in the room? Forget like what happened at the meeting. How in the world did a multi-billion dollar company let two kids that didn't break a thousand on their SATs into a room to pitch them the idea? A year before that, I was a yes guy my whole life. I was, I've kind of, and I still try to pride myself when people ask me for things to deliver if I can, but never ask for anything in return. You know, like, I'm not like, oh, Sam, I'll do this for you, Sean, but like, can you do this for, like, I don't know, that's not the MO.

• 27:27Jesse Itzler?

  I got a call a year before that from someone that said that their daughter, this is a true story and it's the craziest story ever. This guy was having a, his daughter was having a sweet 16 and a famous singer was performing in his hometown. His daughter wanted to bring his sweet 16 to the event. The guy says, I know you know the manager, can you help this guy get some tickets and do anything special? Turns out, I get the guy's daughter as a backup singer for one song with the mic off. Everyone in school the next day is, she's like the hero of this, like, what happened? Oh my God, they're freaking out. The guy calls me up, he goes, I don't know who you are, I don't know what you do, but you lit my daughter up and if you ever need anything, let me know.

• 28:10Jesse Itzler?

  Like, turns out, he, I can't make this up, he's the president of that jets. A year later, I need 650 airplanes. I call my, like, Jim, you're never gonna believe this. The guy who got your daughter, I have an idea for a thing. He gets me the meeting. We get thrown out of a meeting 12 minutes in because they're like, we're not giving two kids access to our 650 airplanes. And this guy, Jim Jacobs, comes up to me after the meeting, goes, you know what? That was amazing. I said, we got thrown out in 12 minutes. What do you mean amazing? He goes, Rich Santulli, my partner, he doesn't give anyone 12 minutes. He goes, this is something, come back next week and bring this thing to life. Repitch it. I need more information. So we came back the next week and we realized we can never sell them in a PowerPoint,

• 28:55Jesse Itzler?

  which was like what every guy sees a hundred PowerPoints every year. We brought in our own focus group. We had eight people in the lobby and they walked in one by one. And they stood up and said that they would never buy a fraction of an airplane, what NetJets was selling, but they would buy a 25 hour jet card. And at the end of the meeting, they literally said, if you guys raise money or put up your own money, if you can figure it out, we'll give you a shot. And a couple of years later, we had more customers than NetJets.

• 29:21Shaan Puri?

  That's crazy. You showed him the market. You were like, I could either put up a chart or a pie chart right here, or I could literally walk the market into the room and have them say, I need this product. And it turns out that eight people saying, I need this product to your face, makes a bigger impact than a pie chart that says 11% of the market needs this.

• 29:41Jesse Itzler?

  When I think back on this moment at 28 years old, and we had like Carl Banks from the New York Giants. I think Run from Run DMC was there, was right behind me on the wall. You know, when these guys-

• 29:51Shaan Puri?

  At that meeting?

• 29:52Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, we brought him in. We brought him in. And when we said, when they got up one by one and explained why this card would work. And, you know, I think what they realized was they had been pitching to a much older corporate client. And what they realized, I think in the meeting was, here are these two 27 year old kids. And by the way, remember I said, people buy into people's stories and momentum? This had nothing to do with our product. The decision maker looked us in the eye and said, I see enthusiasm. I see someone that's no matter what, even though they have no aviation experience, is going to make this work. And I'm willing to bet on these two guys. It wasn't, there was no PowerPoint. It was us. Like you're the business plan.

• 30:38Jesse Itzler?

  You are the business plan. So at the end of the meeting, he literally said to us, after we got the deal, and you know, like year one, we did, I think we did like close to 200 million in sales, year one. And I remember going into his office and asking, I said, Rich Santulli, who is like, he knighted me, man. He knighted me. I said, Rich, how do we, how do we end up here, man? And he looked me dead in the eye and he goes, you guys remind me of me when I was 27. And bringing in this focus group, yes, they came in and they explained why they would buy a card. And yes, they saw a much younger demo that someone could be a lifetime customer now at 25

• 31:20Jesse Itzler?

  versus a lifetime customer at 50. So they saw the lifetime value of what we were bringing in, this younger generation of athlete entertainer, you know, young mogul, et cetera. That they wanted that because that's incredibly valuable to get that person on their plane at a young age. But at the end of the day, they, he saw something in my Penny and I, my partner and I, that he wanted to bet on. And, you know, I just want to say this for, for anyone listening here, because I know this is primarily a business podcast. By the way, it took me 37 minutes to warm up, but now I'm fully here.

• 31:57Jesse Itzler?

  He's here. I'm slow, I'm slow today, but I got it now. Um, you know, like I said, that was never in our business plan. Oh, we're going to bring in our own focus group to start a company that does 5 billion in sales. It's like, it's the things that live off the, the business plan that make the biggest difference. And when you have a chance, you know, you don't get a lot of big meetings like that. And I remember at 27, walking in there and saying to my partner, like, this is as big as it gets. Because you know what? There is no one else that has 650 airplanes. This is it. And, um, you have to bring that meeting to life. You have to stand out.

• 32:37Jesse Itzler?

  You have to, you know, not in a gimmicky way, but you have to make that memorable, man. And, and fortunately, we were able to do that and it worked. And then we had an amazing, amazingly fruitful relationship and partnership with NetJets until we exited.

• 32:54Sam Parr?

  Are you, um, so like I, I, I think that all three of us might be a, a bit similar in, in business relationships where we're like, we bring the passion and some of the creativity and the zero to one stuff. Were you good at running that company or were you, or did you have a good partner who was running it? And you were great at kind of bringing some of the deals to fruition?

• 33:13Jesse Itzler?

  I can only run marathons. I can't run any business. I'm not good at running anything. No, I'm a terrible operator. I'm a terrible manager, but I'm really good at knowing that I'm terrible at that and being okay with it. So. You know, we were able to hire a CEO right away. And then, which allowed me to focus on sales, which I was, which I was better at. Buzz, which I was really good before the, before Instagram. I'm not so good at the, now with Instagram, but back when there was no Instagram. I was good at creating PR-able opportunities and, and talk-worthy events. And for my era, that was really important. So, no. I have never, I've never been the CEO of a business.

• 33:56Jesse Itzler?

  I've never ran or operated a business, but I've been a founder, I think, five times.

• 34:01Shaan Puri?

  And how'd that model work? Is it like a Costco model where you were breaking even on the 200 million in sales? But you made money off the, uh, a membership?

• 34:09Jesse Itzler?

  No. So, we, the original deal with NetJets was we were leasing time on their planes. But I wouldn't have to, we wouldn't have to enter into a long-term lease until we sold it. So, we had no risk. They were carrying all the paper. So, if I bought, if you and, if Sam, Sean, you guys bought 100 hours, we'd go buy 100 hours. And it was marked up. So, we were just a marketing organization. They owned and operated the planes. And we were leasing it. As we got big, all of a sudden, we have 4,000 members. We're doing a billion dollars a year. Then the model changed and we had to start buying our airplanes. But by that time, we had, you know, significant cash and we were able to do that.

• 34:52Jesse Itzler?

  So, it started off with, literally, it was an incredible deal for us and for them. It was a true no-lose for both parties.

• 35:04Shaan Puri?

  And that, those headline numbers are really big. How big was that exit? I mean, that's a, that's a pretty big thing. How big is NetJets? I don't even know.

• 35:12Jesse Itzler?

  Uh, I don't even remember what NetJets sold to Berkshire for. I'm sure it's public.

• 35:16Shaan Puri?

  This was before Berkshire owned it? Is that right?

• 35:19Jesse Itzler?

  NetJets sold it to Berkshire prior to us. And then, and then we went to, now we're part of Net, Mount Hejet's now part of NetJets.

• 35:26Shaan Puri?

  Did you own Berkshire stock? Cause that would've been a good stock to just get in the deal.

• 35:31Jesse Itzler?

  I know, right? No, we didn't.

• 35:32Sam Parr?

  NetJets sold for 725, 725 million in 98. And half of it was paid in stock. So that was, if, if that was a good deal for NetJets, depending on, I don't know what the revenue was, but that's a lot of money.

• 35:46Shaan Puri?

  You, you snapped your fingers and you were like, we did, first year, we did whatever. I forgot what you said, 200 million or something.

• 35:53Sam Parr?

  200.

• 35:54Shaan Puri?

  I don't know what that means. What is 200 million there? That's not, that can't be membership dues. That's, that would be insane.

• 35:58Jesse Itzler?

  No, it didn't. Yeah, no, because our, our average, our average customer spent close, I think it was 250 or 235,000 dollars a year.

• 36:07Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha, okay. But it's more like GMV. So, because you have to, so your take is some spread between that and then whatever. Okay, gotcha. So.

• 36:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I guess like on, on that model, what's the income on 200? Let's just say 100 million. What, what can your profit be on that?

• 36:21Jesse Itzler?

  Well, this is 30 years ago. So how about, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was enough that I was now off the couch and living a very good life. And, and by the way, the best ROI in that deal is I met my wife there. She was a customer of ours and that's how I met my wife.

• 36:39Shaan Puri?

  You, you said, you told me something which was about getting the first customer. So before your wife was even a customer, you know, you're like, I'm on this plane. I'm like, holy shit, this is an amazing way to fly. I'd love to do this. I'm sure other people would love to do this. You come up with the idea, cool. Now, how do you go get those first people to give you 200,000 dollars to be a part of this, right? That's like a huge, like, where did you go find those customers? And, and tell the story of kind of how you got it off the ground.

• 37:07Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we were start, we started out, you know, I think the first thing that any entrepreneur, most entrepreneurs, at least in our position, and at Marquis Jet is we had to establish credibility. Because if I was going to sell you time on a plane and you said, who flies with, who flies with you guys? That would be my first question or one of them. And I said, oh, my dad and my next door neighbor, you probably would leave. But if I was like, you know, Oprah, Bill Clinton, you'd be like, wow, they must have vetted this, you know? So we started out looking for athletes, entertainers and, and high profile people, which was not easy for me. But I had to go where wealthy people congregated. And I heard about this, you know, that could afford time on a jet. I heard about a conference in Monterey, California that was just getting some traction called TED.

• 37:52Jesse Itzler?

  So I flew out to Monterey and, you know, I told the guys like, hey, I'm going to go get my first sale. I'm going to the thing called a TED Talk. They were like, what?

• 38:02Sam Parr?

  Who's Ted?

• 38:03Jesse Itzler?

  And it's in Monterey, California. You gotta like, you can't even get there. You have to like, I connected through Chicago into whatever, rented a car five hours in Monterey. I get to the Ted. It's like Fort Knox, man. Everybody has a credential. Like this, like huge. And I'm like, you need a credential to get in here? There's no credentials to be found. So I'm thinking like, how am I gonna sneak in, buy someone's pass? Like go into the room where all the qualified leads are. I'm in this coffee shop plotting, like, you know, my, my, my entrance or how I'm gonna do it. And every two hours, a wave of people come in and they're buying, they have these credentials. I'm like, oh, this is where they come on their break. And they're all buying lattes and muffins and these lattes and muffins and whatever.

• 38:46Jesse Itzler?

  Lattes and muffins. So the next morning I got up at five and I bought all the muffins from this. I controlled all the muffin inventory in Monterey, California. And I literally just waited and this is a true story, by the way. And it's, it's been verified. You can walk. So two hours later, this guy, uh, the first wave of people on the break walking. And the guy orders a latte and a muffin. I stop him. They tell him that, that they could give him a latte, but they're all out of muffins. It's like fucking nine in the morning. He's like, you're out of muffins? The guy starts walking. I stop him. I'm like, sorry, I overheard you. I actually have an extra muffin if you want a muffin. And uh, he's like, you got an extra muffin? I'm thinking like, I got every single fucking muffin under the table, man. What do you need?

• 39:30Jesse Itzler?

  And um, I started talking to him. He's like, you know, what are you here? I'm here for the conference. I'm like, me too. What do you do? I tell him what I do. He said, you gotta be kidding me. I'm in the market for a private jet card. And his name was Josh Koppleman. He owned a company called half.com.

• 39:43Sam Parr?

  Famous VC, right?

• 39:44Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, he's amazing.

• 39:45Sam Parr?

  Now he is.

• 39:45Jesse Itzler?

  I bumped into him like three years ago at a, at a retreat. And, and we were, we were talking about this. And anyway, he was my first sale.

• 39:55Jesse Itzler?

  He was my first sale. And, and that is not a story of me being a good sales rep. Because like I said, I am truly back of the pack. But it is an example of me putting myself in a situation, will versus can. Of putting myself in a situ- situation where I could attract that kind of luck, you know? And, and um, he was my first sale though, Sean, to answer your question. And, and you know what happened after that?

• 40:23Jesse Itzler?

  I'm gonna tell you what happened after that. I serviced the hell out of him. I did what everybody listening would do, but I did 30% more. So when he went to Mexico, he expected me to return his call and every EM, DM and all that. Of course, I did what everyone here would do. But he went to Mexico, he didn't expect the list of pediatricians that I vetted in case his kids got sick. He didn't expect me to make reservations every Wednesday at, every night at 8 o'clock during spring break in Mexico in case he and his wife wanted to go to dinner. And, and, and after a couple of months of doing that, what he didn't expect me to do, he gave me the magic word. He gave me referral. And that was rinse and repeat for, for five years until we grew this.

• 41:07Jesse Itzler?

  So no, I was never the CEO. I was never the, the operator. I was never the COO. I was, I wasn't even, I don't even think I was on the org chart.

• 41:17Sam Parr?

  So I'm, I'm, I'm looking at your, check this out. Well, you're on the website. I'm looking at, I use Web Archive. I'm looking at the, uh, the 2005 version of marqueejet.com. And I'm looking at your about page. And what's interesting, it looks like your senior executive team was not only awesome, it was like amazing, cause Ken Austin, I see, was your executive VP. Is that the same Ken Austin that went and started, is it Avion, the tequila company? And most recently started Proper 12 with Conor McGregor? Is, is that the same Ken Austin?

• 41:45Jesse Itzler?

  And the tequila company with The Rock. Yes.

• 41:48Sam Parr?

  You've done a good job of hiring.

• 41:50Jesse Itzler?

  No, we were the Boston Celtics, man. We were the Boston Celtics. We, from like the old, we, we, the talent at this company was exceptional. Ken Austin is an exceptionally, I don't, he could be the, is such a talented guy.

• 42:13Jesse Itzler?

  And I learned so much from Ken and you know, we had great sales reps and we attracted really good talent because we built a really good culture.

• 42:22Sam Parr?

  Well, it's also a sick product. I mean, you said you met your wife there. It's like, that's like the greatest line ever. Like, oh, you're here at this jet company. So I know like you're of someone, I know you're someone interesting.

• 42:31Jesse Itzler?

  Definitely.

• 42:32Sam Parr?

  Just so happens I work here or I own the company. I mean, it's like, that's, it's a pretty wonderful experience, I imagine, to work at a private jet company.

• 42:41Jesse Itzler?

  It really was and you nailed it. But the only thing I would say to that is I think there were like 65 private jet companies that put a flag in the ground from when we started to when we sold. And I think we were the only one that made money. I might be wrong about that, but it was something, some.

• 42:57Shaan Puri?

  Including Garrett Camp, the guy from Uber. He created, he tried to do an Uber for jets. That didn't work out, right?

• 43:03Jesse Itzler?

  It's very, very difficult. And if we didn't have NetJets as a partner, you know, it wouldn't, I'm sure it wouldn't have worked as well. So a lot, a lot of things lined up for us.

• 43:13Shaan Puri?

  The business you did a partnership on was Zico coconut water. And I think this is interesting because now we're seeing a pattern. The first is you're picking businesses in like categories that they're not in the NBA curriculum. Nobody's thinking about, oh, sports teams need slogans and CDs that will increase their fandom. Nobody even realizes that that's a niche that you can go into. Or to do, you know, this membership model for private jets. Nobody's even looking in that area at the time, right? It's very few people are even thinking about that niche. It's not common. Then you go coconut water. So now you're consumer packaged goods in a beverage category that's non-existent really at the time. And I think Zico was pretty small when you founded. It's not like it had

• 43:56Shaan Puri?

  like, you know, tons of momentum. So talk about two things. Number one, finding these niches. Like, what, what is it that you, what is your operating philosophy that leads, that seems to consistently lead you to these? That's the first question. And the second is the key partnership that got it off the ground. I heard an amazing Matt Damon story. I want to hear the full version of it.

• 44:18Jesse Itzler?

  What was Zika?

• 44:19Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. I spent a year trying to figure out how to have my own coconut water company. I went to Brazil, I went to Jamaica, try to figure out, this is, there were no, there was no coconut water in the stores at the time. This is, I'm, so let me back it up even further. I was running a hundred mile race. And I did a lot of trick, when I was doing my training, I did a lot of research around hydration and nutrition. If I'm going to run for arguably 24 hours, how many calories do I need to eat, drink an hour?

• 44:51Jesse Itzler?

  How many calories do I need to take in an hour? How much fluid ounces do I need to drink an hour? How much salt do I need an hour? And my research led me to coconut water. So I ran this race powered by coconut water and I finished it in 22 hours and 30 minutes. When I was done, I'm like, this is going to be, this is the new Gatorade. No one knows about this. I'm the human guinea pig. I'm bringing this to market. You know, it's a better option. It's all natural, one ingredient, you know, it rains, God sends it up a tree. We crack it open and we drink it. Like this is, I mean, are you kidding me? So I spent a year trying to figure it out, how to import it. And I realized like, I did get an IED on my SAT because I couldn't figure it out.

• 45:37Jesse Itzler?

  But I knew I could market and sell it. I knew I could. So again, same model, same formula. I took it, the idea to Coca-Cola. The president of Coke's emerging brands division was friends with one of my customers at Marquee Jack. He got me a meeting. I pitched the meeting. Uh, in the meeting, I pitched this idea of coconut water. He takes the liking to me, but he says, we don't buy PowerPoints or Coca-Cola. We buy brands. He goes, but if you partner with another company or something, you know, maybe we can then out, that's, that's out there. That's prove that they can make the product, ship the product, get it in stores or whatever. We'll come in, we'll partner with you.

• 46:22Jesse Itzler?

  So I went to Zico and that's how we formed the partnership. During the meeting. About a week before, I was at Matt Damon's house. And Matt was also a customer of Markiejet. And I did the things that I did for Josh Koppelman with Matt, and we became friends. And I said to Matt, you know, he'd asked me if I wanted to spend the night. They were going out. And I said, I'm going to Brazil in a day or two. I can't see, he goes, what are you doing in Brazil? I said, I'm starting a coconut water business. He's like, you gotta be kidding me. He's like, I love coconut. I have a coconut tree in my backyard. He's like, I drink. He goes, if anything happens, what, you know, with this company, let me know. I may want to get involved.

• 47:06Jesse Itzler?

  A month later, in the meeting at Coke, like, the meeting is going so bad. I'm showing him this PowerPoint, you know, like, and out of nowhere, I know I had achieved the whole Energy. feel of the meeting. I just turned to the president, the guy at Coke, and I'm like, you know, my partner, Matt Damon and I. And the guy's like, Matt Damon is your partner? I said, I didn't mention that? What are you talking about? We go all the way to the one yard line. I leave and I call Matt. I'm like, Matt, I need a favor. He's like, I'm like, can I come over with the, can we climb up your tree? Get a coconut, chop it open, you know, go in the kitchen, put a straw in it, you know, turn to the camera and say, Mutar, Mutar Kent, the CEO of Coke. There's gotta be a better way than this. He's like, alright.

• 47:50Jesse Itzler?

  And I filmed this, he filmed this award-winning friggin' 35-second short film of him getting a coconut, chopping it open, and saying, there's gotta be a better way. And, and we got the deal. And the, you know, what's interesting about that is, obviously, who's gonna get, you know, a mega star to come? That's not the point. It's, it goes back to what I said. Will you make it work? Putting yourself in a situation where you can get lucky. Here's the other pattern, Sean, you're talking about patterns. And making me, making yourself stand out and be memorable in a meeting. Now, I stretched it a little bit, this one. But, but, but it ended up, it ended up working out.

• 48:31Shaan Puri?

  That's an amazing story.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  That's amazing. That's a good one.

• 48:34Shaan Puri?

  I love that story. I love that story. You.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  That's wild.

• 48:38Jesse Itzler?

  By the way, Coke bought it two years later. Hundred percent.

• 48:41Shaan Puri?

  Did you, uh, when you bought, did you buy into Zico at the time? Like, did you, uh, was that like a?

• 48:46Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Shaan Puri?

  And have you made bets that you felt like financial bets that were risky? Like, you know, Elon does this thing where he sort of rolls all the proceeds into the next business? And sort of regoes all in each time, which is, you know, probably not advisable to most, but like, what's your strategy been now that you have some chips to play with? Do you, do you make big financial bets? Are you saying, no, no, I'm going to add value strategically? Do you start things from scratch? What do you, what do you like to do with the chips that, as you accumulate them? How do you, how have you used that to, to your advantage?

• 49:16Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I've, I've realized that I've got, as I've gotten older, that more isn't better, better's better. And I really don't make a lot of bets. I have four kids. What I'm most proud of, Sean, in my journey at 55 is that I've been, I've, I've exited five businesses. But I've been able to keep, build a family, keep my health, you know, be a really good son to my parents.

• 49:40Jesse Itzler?

  I have great friends, so I really, I'm not, uh, and I'm not using Elon as an example. You, you brought him up, not me. But I'm not trying to roll everything in, or, um, I'm really proud of what I've been able to do, and I, I'm really proud of the life that I built. So I really don't, I really say no to most. I have this thing. At this point in my life, if it's high aggravation for high reward, I'm not doing it. If it's, and that goes for anything, money, friends. I don't want high aggravating friends. I'm on friend reduction right now. I'm on friend reduction, man. I want low aggravation.

• 50:15Shaan Puri?

  You're doing layoffs? You do Zoom calls with people? Let them know, hey, I'm sorry, we had to make a reduction in, in, in friendship.

• 50:22Jesse Itzler?

  We're doing layoffs, man.

• 50:23Speaker 03

  Excuse me, Mr. David, can you step on my office?

• 50:27Shaan Puri?

  There's a severance package. We'll hang out three more times, but then that's it.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  We need to have a discussion.

• 50:34Jesse Itzler?

  That's great. That's so funny. But I'm not trying to, you know, push you really. It's like, it's based on my enthusiasm for something. How's it going to impact my life? Meaning like day to day. I walked away from several ideas that I think could be really good. Just because you have a good idea doesn't mean you should do it. And I've, um, Sarah said that to me. I had an idea.

• 51:02Jesse Itzler?

  Now I see people are doing it now. About eight years ago, I said, Sarah, I have an idea that's bigger than Marquis Jet. Like Marquis Jet was the biggest thing I'd done, you know? And, um,

• 51:15Jesse Itzler?

  I walked you through it and she goes, that's an incredible idea. Don't do it. What was it? I wanted to take, this is going back eight years ago. So now it might sound like, oh, well, people are doing it now. I actually pitched this to a major airline now, um, that's doing it. But I wanted to make commercial travel feel like private travel for people. I felt like there was a bit, and there still is an opportunity for people that would pay up to fly commercial. But they want an experience that's more private. So for example, if I'm flying from New York to California and I'm by myself

• 51:55Jesse Itzler?

  and I'm on a global or a Gulfstream and I'm going on a round trip, that's an expensive flight, man. That is an expensive flight. Where I could just buy a first class ticket for maybe 1,500 bucks. So instead of, let's say that that flight cost me, if you chartered it, maybe it's going to cost you, let's just say $50,000. It might be more, it might be, I don't even know today what it is. But I could spend $50,000 on a private flight, which is amazing. Or I could buy a first class ticket for 1,500 bucks. I, as a $1,500 ticket holder, would gladly give you another $1,500 United, American, Delta, whoever, if you could walk me through a back door

• 52:38Jesse Itzler?

  and make me feel like Mick Jagger and escort me onto the airplane through the back door. And no one was doing it. No one was doing it. And now they are doing stuff like that.

• 52:50Shaan Puri?

  That's smart. It's like you like unbundled the private experience. It's like, okay, there's the jet part of it, but then there's the walk onto the plane, walk off the plane.

• 53:00Jesse Itzler?

  Because what should you do on an airplane? Do you really care?

• 53:03Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it doesn't matter.

• 53:04Jesse Itzler?

  I'm in 1A. No one's bothering me in 1A.

• 53:06Sam Parr?

  And in some regard, the commercial jet is safer. You have more amenities. So yeah, like, but I've been on a, I flew first class from New York to LA one time for like some meeting. I had never flown first class, but I did it because it was overnight and I had to be ready for a meeting. And I get on, I was 1A, and 1B or sitting right next to me was Stephen A. Smith. And I was like, how the fuck did you get on the plane before me? And I like looked it up and apparently there is like a private door, I guess if you're famous. What is that?

• 53:35Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I think now several airlines have it and there's services that do it outside of the airlines as independent services. But my point is, so I had the idea, but I also felt like I had the buy side that I could deliver to the airline. Because, you know, I'm involved with some NBA players and I'm part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. And I, so I have, I have, and my friends are all doing really well, that are all doing really well. I thought would want to have this service. So I had the idea and a significant part of the buy side to package together to an airline to bring private flyers onto their mothership, which is the domestic part of their travel.

• 54:15Jesse Itzler?

  But, um, but anyway, to answer your question, so things like that, good ideas, lucrative, but does, but for me at that point in my life, to put, I feel, I don't know if I have the energy to do it. It's gonna take away from Tuesday's flag football game. I'm not doing it. And I don't know if I had that, if I still have, I don't, I don't still have that.

• 54:35Shaan Puri?

  Well, you, but you can't turn that switch off, right? Because I saw you on Instagram, like, you know, I don't know, a year ago or six months ago or something like that. And you were like, Pickles. It's, you're like, uh, guys, pickles. And you know, it seemed like, you know, the guy who was saying coconut water when nobody was talking about coconut water, he's talking about pickles. So me and Ben started paying attention. We're like, hey, what's Jesse, it's a deal with pickles. Well, okay, he's kind of right. There's no brand in pickle. And so describe this pickles opportunity that you see now, currently, this is present day now, right? We're done with the past. Now we're talking present and future. Um, what do you see in the pickle market?

• 55:11Jesse Itzler?

  Well, like 245 million Americans eat pickles every year. It's like 75% of our population eat pickles. And again, it goes back to the, to our running conversation. I'm starting to see at races, pickles at the, at the, at the aid stations. They never existed 10 years ago. Pickle juice never existed 10 years ago at, at the aid stations of marathas in your local 5K.

• 55:36Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. So that made my antennas.

• 55:38Sam Parr?

  Was that, it has a lot of salt in it. When I grew up, all my black friends would say that they would drink pickle juice in order to avoid a hangover.

• 55:44Jesse Itzler?

  Oh yeah. Russia, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a big remedy for hangovers, but my point is like, it put my antennas up. Like what is this? You know, just like when I saw the first thing of coconut water on a shelf, I'm like, what the hell is this? I just ran a hundred, I'm gonna, so, so I started doing, so I started thinking about it. And I'm like, you know what? I can't even name three pickle companies. I, I love pickles. I don't even know.

• 56:12Shaan Puri?

  By the way, this is the part where he's going to bring in a focus group of 10 people and he's going to say, name a pickle company and nobody could do it. And he's going to be like, that's the business plan.

• 56:20Jesse Itzler?

  Well, listen, so I, I researched like the seven best tasting pickles. And of the seven best tasting pickles, I think it was like, uh, the Today Show did or something. You know, it's like, it's like someone credible did it. I only knew one cup, one of the companies. So I'm like, if I only know one of this top seven best tasting pickles, there's a problem in the marketing of pickles. It's a marketing problem and I'm a good marketer. So that's where it started. And I'm like, this is a category with no innovation, no fun. You know, 75% of Americans eat pickles. The average American eats like 10 pounds a year. That's more than cereal. And I'm like,

• 57:06Jesse Itzler?

  I like it here. I like this space.

• 57:09Sam Parr?

  I'm a pickle guy too, Jesse. Same.

• 57:11Shaan Puri?

  Is it Clausen, like the big brand? Is that right?

• 57:13Sam Parr?

  I like Clausen. I like Mount Olive. Is it called Valsik or Vlasic? I like that company. But I think Mount Olive's is the biggest ones. I always get the little ones that look like a witch's toe.

• 57:24Jesse Itzler?

  You were wearing a metal on the pickle shirt?

• 57:26Sam Parr?

  I'm not. Look, I'm not. I'm not big. This is a big pickle.

• 57:30Jesse Itzler?

  Around with a Cloterson. Won't just respect to that company or I don't even know. But I'm just saying like, have you ever seen anyone wearing a hat? They're like, oh my God, it's like.

• 57:38Shaan Puri?

  I'm convinced. In fact, we're texting Mr. Beast right now. We're gonna come into this market too. You just made a mistake, my friend. You're, we're bringing our influencers into this market. I believe you on this opportunity.

• 57:50Jesse Itzler?

  Why do that? Let's just get the beast on the phone. Let's partner with the beast. Beast Pickles.

• 57:53Shaan Puri?

  That's right. That's right. Who needs Matt Damon? We got Jimmy now.

• 57:57Sam Parr?

  Mount Olive. Yeah. Where's David? I need to, go get Ben Affleck. He seems like a good pickle guy.

• 58:02Jesse Itzler?

  I need to know about Beast's low aggravation though. I only want the low aggravation partners.

• 58:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, well, I don't know about that one.

• 58:08Sam Parr?

  Mount Olive does 220 million in revenue a year. Privately owned.

• 58:12Jesse Itzler?

  It sounds, it sounds doable, man.

• 58:13Shaan Puri?

  Sounds like our money. Right, guys?

• 58:15Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Jesse Itzler?

  I want to thank them very much.

• 58:19Shaan Puri?

  For holding it for us.

• 58:24Jesse Itzler?

  Shoot a text over to CEO of Olive and just let them know to keep that money warm for us, all right?

• 58:29Shaan Puri?

  We'll be there soon.

• 58:32Shaan Puri?

  What other ideas you got? Cause I told you, I said, you know, you'll get this cause you know, you're a, you're a rap guy. When you go on certain shows like The Breakfast Club or Sway in the Morning, there's like an expectation, like, okay, if you come on here, you gotta freestyle. And we're trying to do that of the business realm where it's like, you come on here, you gotta bring fresh ideas. You can't just only talk about your history and you go, you tell me, you go, I got 50 ideas in my top drawer. And I said, all right, say no more. But you hinted at me.

• 58:59Sam Parr?

  By the way, the pickle names sound like a rap name. Sweet Gurkin, Bread and Butter, Kosher Dill. Like, these are all rap names, man.

• 59:07Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 59:08Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. We're about to have Migos Pickles. All right. Tell me, tell me about this idea. You gave me three words. I don't know what the idea is, but you said, ready-made eight-ounce drinks. What you got in mind?

• 59:21Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, so I mean, I I've been accumulating ideas in my in my top drawer for thirty five years.

• 59:29Jesse Itzler?

  I love starting things, Sean, you know, but um, yeah, I mean, I don't I don't mind. By the way, if you guys want to run, anyone wants to run with this, you can. I'll take a one penny royalty, I'll give it to charity.

• 59:43Jesse Itzler?

  No, I think like I go back to five hour energy. The brilliance of five hour energy is they took a, you know, twelve ounce uh, energy drink. They shrugged it down to two and a half ounces, right? That's what five hour energy was. And why did it work? They they only, I believe, I believe they only have predominantly sold stores that would put it on the countertop when they started out. So like, it wasn't buried at GNC on the bottom shelf. And it was like on the countertop at checkout impulse buy. They were selling ten million two and a half bottle ounce bottles every week. Ten million. When I look, when you look around retail at the counter at checkout of retail,

• 1:00:28Jesse Itzler?

  the countertop is incredibly crowded. And you go to Whole Foods, there's gum, there's mints, there's this, there's that, there's chocolates. Everywhere you go, gas stations, there's lottery tickets and da, da, da, da. The only place that I found like where there's open area are liquor stores. If you go into a liquor store, you don't see the the the the self standing, the stands and the crowded space and all the tchotchkes and stuff that you see at gas stations and at at grocery and and other retailers. And um, I think there's a tremendous opportunity, I was gonna call them quickies,

• 1:01:05Jesse Itzler?

  to have like ready made shots. Same thing as as five like of your woo woo lemon drop, whatever your favorite kamikaze ready made drinks are, right at the countertop that are already made, fresh ingredients, you know, where people could just come and grab and go and have a ready made cocktail that they could bring to tailgates, parties, et cetera. I'm not saying it's gonna, it's gonna be great goose vodka, but I see an opportunity. And if not that, someone should go make a deal and and in a very fragmented. Hey, now you got me thinking, Sean. Now I went, this was on my radar, but here we go. Like the freestyling shit you were talking about, I was playing that. Really, even a better idea would be to go.

• 1:01:48Jesse Itzler?

  Liquor stores are, that is the most fragmented market out there. They're all mom and pops. There's no like chain of liquor, I mean, you know, you go to your local liquor stores, like the guy, my neighbor owns a liquor store. I go there, I get the wine and this and that. Do a roll up, go pay someone for, go rent

• 1:02:08Jesse Itzler?

  the countertops of all the liquor stores and then go to Nabisco, one of the big boys and be like, hey, guess what? I own 10,000 countertops. You want to put your widget there? You want to put your fucking widget there? Keep the money warm, Sean.

• 1:02:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, keep the money warm.

• 1:02:31Shaan Puri?

  Oh, I love it. Yeah, the real estate.

• 1:02:33Jesse Itzler?

  Probably, we could probably talk for 15 minutes about the opportunity and come up with 10 ideas around that. You know, that's where it starts. It starts with just like bad idea or better idea, the idea.

• 1:02:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you're kind of like, I think the background of rap, I'm not, I'm not joking about this. I, I think the, the way the brain can sort of like, not censor itself and wait till it has a fully formed, perfect idea, but actually just start to go and then know that, oh, I'm going to hop from this to this to this to this. And there, that'll be the line. And that's all I need to do is get to that one, that one line.

• 1:03:10Jesse Itzler?

  I'm gonna show you this too. This is, this is something I'm selling now. This is, I don't know, are we on, are we just?

• 1:03:15Shaan Puri?

  I saw this.

• 1:03:15Jesse Itzler?

  It's on YouTube too. Are we on, yeah, only here? No, we're video, video, video. This is by 2024, all planned out. This is next year, fully, almost fully baked. What my year looks like, my races, my.

• 1:03:29Shaan Puri?

  What's orange? There's a lot of orange on that. What does orange stand for?

• 1:03:31Jesse Itzler?

  Orange, orange of, so when Sarah sold Spanx, she wanted to do a lot of traveling. So this year we committed as a family to go on the road. So all the orange, as crazy as this looks, is all travel. We're going to Africa, we're going to New Zealand, but it's all mapped out.

• 1:03:48Shaan Puri?

  Yellow, what's, what's yellow and what's, what's green or, or blue, whatever that is?

• 1:03:51Jesse Itzler?

  Yellow are my races and events. Green is my speaking, uh, green is, oh, birthdays and stuff.

• 1:03:59Shaan Puri?

  This thing's dope. Now, I wanted to ask you about this, because you are super legit as far as like what you've actually been able to accomplish, your level of success. And you do stuff like this. You have like the big ass calendar club or whatever. It's like that thing is called big ass calendar. That's a product you make. It's like a course you have. And I'm always surprised that you're doing those things and you know, what's your thought process on like? Or the running club. Or the running club. Like, how do you pick projects?

• 1:04:28Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, I mean, I think this goes back to the earlier question you asked me about reinvesting in other businesses and stuff like that. How old are you guys? How old are you, Sam?

• 1:04:38Shaan Puri?

  Thirty-four. I'm thirty-five.

• 1:04:41Jesse Itzler?

  So I got, I got two decades on you guys. And, but I got, I got the most experiential decades, I believe, on you guys. The forties and fifties, thirties, forties, fifties.

• 1:04:55Jesse Itzler?

  You know, for me, there's, I'm in, I'm in a coaching space, you know?

• 1:05:05Jesse Itzler?

  I speak a lot. I have coaching programs, the calendar, but even the events that I do, the running races and this kind of stuff. It all has an element of getting people to do more than they thought, to inspire people to do more than they thought they could. But, but to answer your question, and the reason why I just said that is,

• 1:05:25Jesse Itzler?

  the gal who works with us in our family office was looking at all the businesses and, and asking me, like, I don't have a sales rep on my payroll. I don't, I'm not going crazy on the marketing and this and that. And it's really word of mouth. And she looked at the numbers and she's like, you know, do you want to scale this? And what are you doing? Why don't you just go do the liquor idea or the airplane idea or this idea or that idea or any of the ideas in your draw? And I pulled out my phone and I said, Kendall, all of these are from today. All of these messages are for today. Pick one. Read it. I said, I can't. And it was like, you changed my life, or this has really inspired me, or you, you know, I did this, or I saw my parents. I haven't seen my parents in a

• 1:06:09Jesse Itzler?

  long time. And you know, I talk about the importance of that very often, you know, about not losing sight of what you already have while you're chasing your entrepreneurial dream, your health, your family, your friends. There's no business in the world that would give me the return on investment that I'm getting right now. There's nothing I could do. What? Build another marquee jet, work 20 hour days? I mean, like, that's not going to give me that sense of impact, legacy for my kids. And just the feeling, quite honestly, that I have. I mean, like, it's indescribable. A wire is a wire. You get the wire, and it's like, the same feeling you get when, when you sell a business, is the same feeling

• 1:06:54Jesse Itzler?

  you get when you finish the marathon, you walk an old lady across the street, or you do anything that makes you feel good about yourself. I swear to God, and I have the right to say that, because I sold five of them. I have the right to say that. It's the same feeling. And for the, for, for very, very, for a lot of people chasing that, waiting 20 years to sell a business or something to have that feeling, when I feel like I get that every single day. And that's a really powerful place to be in your life at 55. And, and that's the reason, man. And, and so you're right, I have these businesses, and, you know, there's no real plan around them. People like, what you would, I don't, I don't know. I'm just enjoying how it's making me feel right now. And what's wrong

• 1:07:38Jesse Itzler?

  with that? I got to scale just to scale? Because everyone told me I had to scale? I don't want to do that, man. I did that.

• 1:07:45Sam Parr?

  So a question that we like to ask people is, it's a really simple question, but we, we learn a lot, which is like, What do you do with your money? So like you have a really interesting lifestyle. I agree with you. I'm not, I, I don't like the Elon Musk path of all these sacrifices and doing things for the sake of humanity. I'm like, I'd rather have a fun life and you have a really sick life. I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm a former college athlete runner. So I, I like watching what you're doing.

• 1:08:13Sam Parr?

  And I like to work out and do these podcasts and have a lot more fun than just work. What do you do with your money? And when you're financing this, are you just, are you using your speaking fees to finance it? And then you have your marquee jet money and just one big account in the, in the markets? How's your portfolio set up and what are you doing with your money?

• 1:08:35Jesse Itzler?

  Well, just, you know, it's, um,

• 1:08:38Jesse Itzler?

  I don't know, man, like we, we, we never

• 1:08:42Jesse Itzler?

  really think about it that much. I know that's, I don't want to delittle it or sound in any way obnoxious. In fact, I'm incredibly grateful, but like it goes back to the relationship with money from the beginning of the conversation.

• 1:08:55Jesse Itzler?

  We're not trying to triple it or quadruple our money. Like, we don't really think about it. It's like, it's spread out strategically and we live our life.

• 1:09:04Sam Parr?

  What's your monthly burn? I mean, what, what does one need to spend per month to, to do that?

• 1:09:10Jesse Itzler?

  I like to ride my bike. I like to run. I like to swim. I like to speak in public. I like to be around my family and friends. What, whatever that costs me, Sam, is what I'm going to spend on it.

• 1:09:26Jesse Itzler?

  How's that for an answer?

• 1:09:28Sam Parr?

  Yes, Sam.

• 1:09:33Shaan Puri?

  I want to ask you about something that you have talked about that I really liked, which is around your life philosophy. So you have a few of these that have made an impact on me. You, um, I don't know where I saw it, some Tik Tok clip or something. You were talking about like this three minute daily thing. You go three minutes and I forgot exactly how you phrase it, but it was like complete, you go, I, I can network in three minutes, right? I, I can, I can invest in my friends, my, my network in, in just three minutes a day. And I'm always interested in anything that's like, you know, the six minute abs. I, I, I tend to be interested in the like, you know, shorter timeframe type things. And you go compliments? What was the other ones? You go compliments?

• 1:10:14Jesse Itzler?

  Complimenting, congratulating, consoling.

• 1:10:17Shaan Puri?

  Explain that philosophy because I've been doing that now where I basically go through my text list and I'm like, who's somebody I could compliment? Boom, send it out. And they love it because they're like, you know, I'm thinking of them. We haven't talked in a little while. It's really simple for me to do. This is like, kind of like, actually like a very effective little tip. I want you to share it with here.

• 1:10:36Jesse Itzler?

  Well, in my twenties, I didn't have a way to, I had no, I was really on a super tight budget. I was writing 10 handwritten letters. I went a year. Not every single day, but pretty much. Writing about 10 handwritten letters a day. And that was my entire marketing strategy. And I realized that, you know, it's a great way to get through the clutter of email, DM, social, you know, all this stuff. Because a lot of people don't check their emails or their assistant does or whatever, but everyone reads a handwritten letter. So I, the three minutes a day is, you know, I have sent a text, you mentioned the K Academy, Coach K. I sent a, flew it to Carolina, not too long ago. And I sent Coach a text thanking

• 1:11:21Jesse Itzler?

  him for having the event. And I said, you don't even have to respond. I just want to let you know, like, it makes me feel like an eight-year-old for five days a year. I want to thank you for doing this. I know you don't have to do it. And it took, and like, I realized, like, he might share that with his team, like, we're having an impact. Like, look at, look at this note, or tell his wife. He might do nothing. But now, if I see Coach K, I have permission to go over and I'm gonna say, Coach, I sent you a text. Like, I don't know if you got it, but like, I have that permission to do it. I'm not coming out of left field. Like, oh, hey, Coach. You know, like, whoa, you just, so that took me 45 seconds to hit send, write it and hit send. So I was like, okay, if I did three of those a day, and just took three minutes, and just started

• 1:12:03Jesse Itzler?

  hitting friends, suppliers, manufacturers, influencer, whatever, over the course of a year, I sent a thousand. I will plant a thousand permission slips.

• 1:12:15Jesse Itzler?

  All over the country and world, three minutes a day. So in carpool line, when I take my kids to school or pick them up, I just fire off a couple of emails or call them or whatever. So that was that theory. The compliment congratulated consoling is really just kind of three things that I like to, to remind myself to do to maintain and build authentic relationships. Authentic relationships, not relationships. Authentic relationships. So for example, if you have somebody in your life that's grieving, and you don't reach out to them, and you guys are young, but you'll see in the next 10 years, friends will start to get diagnosed with stuff, parents, grandparents are going to pass away. Like, your life's going to change, man.

• 1:13:00Jesse Itzler?

  If you have someone that's grieving and you don't reach out to them, they will never forget it. They'll never, oh, you can't, human nature, you can't even help but take inventory. Who reached out and who didn't? You're just aware. I just lost my father. I know everybody that called me. I know everybody that didn't call me. And the people that didn't call me don't get a pass. They don't get a pass. So you always want to console. The people that, you know, something happens to a friend in your life that's great, you want to congratulate them, you know? And then you want to compliment, you know, Sean, man, Sam, listen, you guys have an amazing podcast, you did it yourself.

• 1:13:43Jesse Itzler?

  You know, you guys decided to like sold some businesses and here you are, you know, bringing on inspiring people to inspire entrepreneurs all over the world. And I just want to congratulate you on your success, man. I'm, you know, you just call someone out of nowhere. You default to calls or texts? Either way, I just think, I personally like handwritten letters.

• 1:14:06Jesse Itzler?

  Here's one, because I feel like the intent, it takes a little longer, but to actually get a stamp, lick it, go to the mailbox, put it in the mailbox, it's received completely different than just sent. But, you know, so by like in the pecking order, but you don't have the ability to do that. It takes too long, but at the end of the year, I do like to write 25 to 50 handwritten thank you letters every year. I have a whole close out the year process that I kind of teach people, but like, and that's one of them, you know, but you compliment, you congratulate and consult and you do that to people. And like if I, Sam, if I hit you up, God forbid you had something bad and, and, and I don't even know,

• 1:14:50Jesse Itzler?

  I just met you for the first time. Other than the question about my burn rate, I love you.

• 1:14:59Jesse Itzler?

  So if I, if I were to call you up after one meeting and say, Sam, man, I heard about XYZ. Man, I'm so sorry that happened to you. And then four months later, I call you up and say, Sam, man, you guys just hit five million downloads a day. Congratulations, man. And then I call you up again at the end of the year and say, Sam, I just want to let you know, man, that question you asked me about, about my burn rate, you know, I rethought it and I want to compliment you because you ask the tough questions and you know what? That's the seat that you're in and I give you credit for asking questions like that to people on the other end and I really admire you for that. I do those three things in that year. You're going to think differently about it.

• 1:15:39Shaan Puri?

  Oh, you'll be his hero. You'll be all of our heroes, to be honest with you. That'd be incredible.

• 1:15:45Jesse Itzler?

  All right.

• 1:15:46Shaan Puri?

  Dad?

• 1:15:50Jesse Itzler?

  Sean, you laugh about that and we're laughing about it, but let me ask you a question. Who doesn't want to be a hero?

• 1:15:56Shaan Puri?

  You're right.

• 1:15:57Jesse Itzler?

  Who doesn't want to be a hero? We like, if you're telling me I don't have to run into a building and save, save someone, I can just do that and I could be a quote unquote hero. You know what? I built my career doing that.

• 1:16:09Shaan Puri?

  Well, so this is about relationships. You also have others about skill building, life experiences. Explain some of your other kind of life rules because I think these are really worth sharing. You know, people I think will be entertained and inspired by the business stories. But my hope is that that actually was just buying the right to drop a little wisdom on them at the end here. Cause this is the stuff I've liked the most from you, from your story. So, so tell, talk about, you know, the sort of misog or the, the Kevin's rule. Like these are pretty foundational.

• 1:16:39Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, well, that goes into kind of the planning that I showed you on the calendar. And I really do, do two or three things every year. At the beginning of the year, this is actually perfect timing. I don't know when this is going to air, but like November, December, when you look into 2024 or the next year, I try to have one big year defining thing on my calendar every year. Last year was my bike ride across America. 2015 was living with the CL, the book I wrote. 2017, I lived on a monastery. 2016 or something, I started 29 or 29, this company with my partner. So there's an old Japanese ritual called the misog. And we took the liberty to kind of create our own version of what that means. But basically it means that every year you do one, or the way I've interpreted it

• 1:17:25Jesse Itzler?

  is you do one big year defining thing. And you had, you should have something to show for it every year. By the way, if you're 35 years old, I don't, I don't just rounding up here. And you live to be 85. So you had, that would be 50 year defining things between now and the end of your, and the end of your run that you have on your life resume. That's pretty damn incredible. The second thing I do is something I call Kevin's rule, named after my friend Kevin.

• 1:17:53Jesse Itzler?

  Which is every other weekend, I do something I normally wouldn't have done. It's like, instead of watching like a Georgia, the Georgia football game, I might take my kids fishing. I might go to a conference. I might, you know, um, watch, spend a couple of hours learning something I didn't know. I coined it Kevin's rule because Kevin and I were camping in Mount Washington with our kids. And it was like, I go, Kev, there's eight, it's like the winter, it's snowing. We're sleeping outside in a minus 40 sleeping bag, minus 20 sleeping bag. I'm like, Kev, there's eight billion people in the world, man. It's only us on this mountain. You know, how often do you do this? Cause he invited me. He's like, oh, every other week. He's a police officer. I do so every other month. I do something I normally wouldn't have done. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, so at the end of the year, I got six mini adventures.

• 1:18:37Jesse Itzler?

  If you're 35 and you live to be 55 and you have six mini adventures. That's 300 mini adventures and 30, 50, I'm sorry, 50 year defining things, you're a misogynist. And 300 mini adventures. Sean, I don't care how much money you have or how little money you have. At the end of your run, if I go to you and you're 85 years old on your deathbed and you're like, Jesse, man, thank you. I took your advice, listening to my podcast and I now have 50 unbelievable adventures. I've done the Grand Canyon. I've taken my family here and I have 300

• 1:19:16Jesse Itzler?

  mini adventures that I've done. And by the way, it only took six days of the 365 days of the year. Seven days of the 365 days of the year. It's a 2%. Is that 2%? 6%? What is that?

• 1:19:31Shaan Puri?

  We have a rule here. We don't do public math, so don't worry. You're off the hook.

• 1:19:34Jesse Itzler?

  Okay, there we go.

• 1:19:36Jesse Itzler?

  That's a great run. That's a great run.

• 1:19:40Sam Parr?

  Have you ever hung out with Rob Dyrdek? You, you guys are really similar. We had him on. And I, I think I've said publicly, he's one of my favorite people. Uh, and you have the similar quality where you just have a framework and you know what you like and you stick to it and you're really intentional and I appreciate that.

• 1:19:55Shaan Puri?

  You live life on your terms, which is what I think the highest calling thing we respect on the pod is somebody who defines their own terms and then lives on them, even if you don't, even if somebody doesn't agree on them.

• 1:20:05Sam Parr?

  Because even successful people don't do that. Like even people who are wealthy, they're like, I fucking hate my life because I'm tied to this. Job that I actually don't like doing and you're a great example. Your, your, your, your definition tends to be exciting and awesome because you do all these adventures, but it doesn't matter what your, your definition of, of like your framework is. You've done a cool job of defining it and sticking with it and I appreciate that.

• 1:20:28Shaan Puri?

  Well, one cool thing that's different is Rob's is all about maximizing. He's like efficiency, how much, how do I use my time? How do I allocate it and how do I get the most done in that time? Whereas I feel like Jesse's almost like it's a different relationship with time. It's like, how do I have the maximum number of, of incredible experiences? Um, and amazing relationships and moments, whether that moment took five seconds or, you know, five days or five weeks, it doesn't really matter. It's like maximizing, kind of like squeezing the juice out of, out of the fruit, you know, versus, versus, uh, you know, trying to optimize every moment.

• 1:21:05Jesse Itzler?

  In, in, in a generation of hustle and grind, which is so obvious, no shit. You gotta work hard. That message gets lost and you don't want to give up your twenties and your thirties and your forties, and certainly not your fifties. If you can avoid it, just grinding and chasing something that you can get the same feeling doing something else.

• 1:21:27Shaan Puri?

  Well, we feel lucky for having, having you on. Uh, very early on on the podcast, Sam introduced me to a guy, Mike Brown, and he said one line on the pod that changed my life. He goes, uh, he goes, yeah, my theory of life is find the people that you love and then do life with them. And I just thought, oh, there's a north star for me. Like that's the new north star, uh, you know, maybe something, maybe something more wise will come take its place, but that's it.

• 1:21:48Sam Parr?

  And, uh, that's the pod.