699 Stop Being Comfortable with Jesse Itzler

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

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  I'm so pumped for this episode because it's with my new friend Jesse Itzler. Now, for those that don't know who Jesse is, extremely impressive human being, an incredible entrepreneur. He is the original partner of Zico Coconut Water, which is coconut water I used to drink all the time and still do. He's also a co-founder of Marquis Jets. He's an Emmy Award winner and a bestselling rapper and also the co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks NBA basketball team.

• 0:42Jesse Itzler?

  We went down to the gym five minutes into our 31-day journey. And he said, "I want to see how many pull-ups you can do." So I said, "All right." So I guess to kind of get a level of like where I was at, and I am not a strong guy. So I did maybe eight pull-ups and then I dropped down and he said, "All right, wait 30 seconds and do it again, do it again." So I waited 30 seconds, got back up on the bar, I did like six. He said, "All right, one more time." And now like I'm starting to feel it, you know, like I don't think I can even get back up on the bar. And I get, I get three, but three like, you know, kicking, getting my chin over like whatever I could do to get over the bar. So I said, "All right, what's next?" He said, "What's next is we're going to stay here until you do 100 more."

• 1:25Speaker 00

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

• 1:28Jesse Itzler?

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

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03Jesse Itzler?

  So that was a really good, good lesson for me. Every day was a lesson like that. He has this thing called the 40% rule, which is basically when your brain tells you you're done,

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 2:14Jesse Itzler?

  You're really only 40% done.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 2:16Jesse Itzler?

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

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Enough's enough.

• 2:25Jesse Itzler?

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

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27Jesse Itzler?

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

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:32Jesse Itzler?

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

• 2:35Speaker 02

  But when's the limit to limit? Like once you put that, you know, 60% more or 40% more.

• 2:40Jesse Itzler?

  You gotta find out.

• 2:41Speaker 02

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

• 2:45Jesse Itzler?

  Depends on who you are.

• 2:46Speaker 02

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

• 2:49Jesse Itzler?

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

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:05Jesse Itzler?

  But um.

• 3:05Speaker 02

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

• 3:08Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we went into the, we went into the steam room once because some of it was just psychological stuff. So we went in the steam room one day and he set the uh, maxed out on the, on the steam to the highest temperature.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:19Jesse Itzler?

  It's like 130, but it felt like it was 180 because it was, had to be a broken, you know. It was definitely hotter than 130.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  How long were we in there for?

• 3:28Jesse Itzler?

  Well, we, he said, we're gonna go in for 30 minutes with one glass of water. And at about 19 minutes, he's like in the corner, like literally like whistling to himself.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Shut up.

• 3:37Jesse Itzler?

  And I'm like, I said to him like, I gotta get out of here. He's like, we got 11 more minutes. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. And before he could answer, I opened up the door and he came in, he came out and he grabbed me and he goes, get the [__] back in.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 3:50Jesse Itzler?

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

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:57Jesse Itzler?

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

• 4:00Speaker 02

  A boarding?

• 4:01Jesse Itzler?

  We're boarding?

• 4:02Speaker 02

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

• 4:05Jesse Itzler?

  He didn't put me back in.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  So he kind of saw the limit?

• 4:07Jesse Itzler?

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

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Afterwards to recover.

• 4:11Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Drinking coconut water.

• 4:12Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. I mean, we had just ran, we just ran. I was so out of whack from everything we were doing. I wasn't sleeping and then we went into this heat. I was dehydrated already. The steam, it was like, it was gross. There was, I couldn't breathe, it was just...

• 4:26Speaker 02

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

• 4:31Jesse Itzler?

  No, I was working full-time.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Working full-time on multiple businesses, right?

• 4:36Jesse Itzler?

  12-hour day, like full-time.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Then you're full-time with your, your son, right?

• 4:40Jesse Itzler?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  And your wife, so it's not like you're just...

• 4:41Jesse Itzler?

  And traveling. And at the time, and building a house, it was crazy, but, but, one lesson that he taught me was so important is, I was able to take on all that he was putting on my plate and do more without getting rid of anything, because what I did was, he basically, after a week, looked at my life. He was like a life coach in a weird way.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:02Jesse Itzler?

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

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Yes, non-productive things.

• 5:08Jesse Itzler?

  Because I felt obligated to say yes to lunch meetings. Will you meet this guy for 15 minutes? Will you take this call? And I just didn't want to be like, oh, Jesse's an asshole, he won't take this meeting. So I would just do it. And I realized, like, I was losing control of my own time.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:21Jesse Itzler?

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

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:30Jesse Itzler?

  There was other people putting demands on me.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:32Jesse Itzler?

  And I really started focusing on me. I mean, I think so much of business is a reflection of you, and so many of us don't, don't invest in ourselves.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:43Jesse Itzler?

  So I drew a little pie chart of my time, of how I want to spend my time. In my 24 hours, I broke it up into four different sections, and I make sure that every day I have three hours for me. So I can, because I think it's just so important that we put ourselves first.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:59Jesse Itzler?

  And we really don't, so many of us don't. And you get all these arrows shot at you every day, bills, problems, friends need this, work, the plumber has to come because this is broken, this thing won't start. It's like, you're always dodging arrows.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:14Jesse Itzler?

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

• 6:22Speaker 02

  You go crazy, yeah.

• 6:23Jesse Itzler?

  Bonkers.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:24Jesse Itzler?

  So, you know...

• 6:25Speaker 02

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

• 6:29Jesse Itzler?

  Right.