How Jesse Cole Turned Baseball Into a Billion Dollar Show

Jesse Cole, founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas, author of Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out, discusses building Banana Ball from a wooden bat league into a billion dollar entertainment brand inspired by Walt Disney and P. T. Barnum. Cole details the Fans First Playbook philosophy, his family's foster care and adoption journey with wife Emily, and scaling from 100,000 to 3.4 million fans annually across six touring teams.

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

• 0:02Lewis Howes?

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• 0:46Speaker 01

  We thought it was a very good decision for my wife and I to get married and then go into over a million dollars in debt. Sleeping on an air bed, only selling two tickets, down to our last dollar was brutal. We ran out of money. Emily turned to me and said, Jesse, we have to sell our house.

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  How did you continue to believe in yourself when everyone said no?

• 1:01Speaker 01

  It was chaos.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  He is an entrepreneur, author, and the creator of Banana Ball.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Transforming traditional baseball into a fast-paced entertainment experience.

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  Please welcome Jesse Cole. Almost everyone said you're the craziest person ever.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  I still do. This is me and I'm not going to hide away from this. Everyone said, stay with that because that was the safe bet. I was born and I was like, why isn't there non-stop action? Why isn't there entertainment? Why aren't there things happening? How can you bring entertainment to it? How we do everything. Start small, dream big. We're not going to fail. We're going to find a way and we're going to do it the same way we've done it from day one.

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  Final question, Jesse, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Such a tough question because I'm going to get criticism on that one.

• 1:39Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to The School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Jesse Cole in the house. My man, good to see you.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  It's many years coming, man. I'm glad to be with you.

• 1:49Lewis Howes?

  We, we met eight years ago at a social media blogging conference, I think it was. And I remember vividly you coming up in this outfit and saying hello to me and you sent me the photo of us. Cause we took a photo that day, so there's a photo proof of this.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  You must have thought this guy's a lunatic at that point, you must.

• 2:07Lewis Howes?

  My original thought was this guy has a lot of passion, a lot of excitement. And it reminded me, not of me, but it reminded me the energy of like going for a dream so big. You even told me right then, like I took over this like wooden bat league, this like semi-pro thing. And I'm trying to make it this new experience. And I was just like, maybe we only had like two minutes together. So I really didn't get the full context. But I remember thinking, this is going to be extremely challenging. I remember thinking like, this is going to be very hard to do what you were thinking about doing. But at the same time, like if you're willing to show up every single day and believe in your dream and believe in yourself, even when everyone says no to you, that is like the true testament of someone who's able to do something great.

• 2:52Lewis Howes?

  And I think, and that's the first thing I want to ask you about because I know a hundred percent that almost everyone said you're the craziest person ever.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  They still do.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  To take over, to take over essentially a wooden bat league that makes no money and try to make it this brand that it is today, where you reinvent a game that has been around for hundreds of years or whatever, that people have stayed true to it in a certain way for so long that nothing's really changed or evolved and innovated in it. And you wanted to do something completely different and create an experience for people that they've never had in their lives. And I bet most people said like, don't do it. It's too much work. You're crazy. You can't do this. It's going to be too hard. How did you, how did you learn to believe in a vision that you were, had never seen been done before in this sport?

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  When everyone said no, and also you're, you're living on an air mattress with your wife. You've got no money. You sell everything to like, go after this and everyone's saying you're crazy. Just stick to like the safe sales ticketing job, baseball. How did you continue to believe in yourself when everyone said no?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Well, I think if you go back and I think a lot of the, the greatest creators, they're creating something that they would love. And so, you know, I played baseball my whole life, just like you, an athlete. And you know, there's a difference when you're playing the game, you know, when you're in the action, when you're in the arena. You know, I was on the mound and you could control the game and impact the game and you know, every pitch mattered. And then I tore my shoulder when I was in college and that dream, you know, and I was talking to professional teams and I was, I was like, it's going to happen. Like just believe, just like you, you know, this is going to happen. I'm going to have this dream fulfilled and then it was gone, right? Like that. And I had no idea what I was going to do. And you know, everyone said I'd go into coaching and, and I tried coaching, but when I was coaching, I realized something. You know, I'm sitting in the dugout and you know, I have an idea of what's going on in the game. I know the players, I know a little bit of strategy, I know what we're trying to do.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  And I realized, wow, I am bored out of my mind.

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  And because

• 4:53Lewis Howes?

  You're not in the game.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Not in the game, I'm not playing and I'm just sitting there and I'm like, and I even know what's going to happen. I know, all right, we're going to hit and run here. All right, we're putting in our closer in the eighth inning early. We're going to do this, we're going to move our outfielders. We, I know what's happening, but I'm still not in the game and even on board. And I'm thinking, I remember looking around, this was in the Kid Cod League and you know, one of the old historic college summer baseball leagues, but one of the best ones. And people are all sitting on these, you know, wooden bleachers.

• 5:15Lewis Howes?

  This is, this is not even semi-pro or is it?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's the same, what we ended up going into, college summer baseball.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  But you don't want to get in hate or what?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  No, you can't. It's, it was, well, that man, Hensley has changed a lot, but yeah, it was just, it was college players.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  College ball.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Played during the summer and I was just in there and I'm like,

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  Everyone's bored.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Everyone's bored. Well, you know, baseball traditionalists, they're fine, but I'm like, there's not a lot of families. People are sitting, kids are trying to play catch up because they're, they're not watching the game. Kids are running around trying to do things and the actual game isn't as exciting. Now, baseball tradition is that you're kidding me, you know, and that's fine. But for me, I was bored and I was like, why isn't there non-stop action? Why isn't there entertainment? Why aren't there things happening? Why isn't there music playing non-stop? Why isn't all this? And you know, maybe it's my crazy ADHD, you know, mind, but I was like, I needed more. And so I was very fortunate, you know, I got offered an opportunity to be a GM at 23 years old. And it was the worst team in the entire country. It was a team, you don't get offered that job unless it's, it was a team in North Carolina. And basically our, the owner there, which, you know, so fortunate, he gave me that opportunity.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  He said, Jesse, you know, we really have nothing to lose.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  And go do something.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  There was $268 in the bank account my first day. The team was losing, you know, a hundred, over a hundred thousand dollars a year, 200 fans coming to the game. So I just, I started learning everything in Walt Disney, P T Barnum. I studied, studied Cirque du Soleil, WWE, SNL. I just looked at all the entertainment and I was like, how can you bring entertainment to it? And then I just started trying things and testing things and Grandma Beauty pageants and, you know, flatulence fun nights and dancing players. And we started testing things, but what I realized is like, it was fun. There was an excitement because you were about to try something out on the field. It might work, it might not, but it was in the spirit of fun and trying to get people in the crowd to pay attention. And you know, when you say, how did I believe in it?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  It's because every day, I spent 10 years, 10 years in Gastonia, North Carolina, before Savannah even started going.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you're the GM for 10 years?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, GM and then I became the manager partner, then I bought the team and you know, I built up in there. But like, we had one media story in 10 years. I was, you know, we were outside, we're suburb of Charlotte, Charlotte got all the media. They had the professional teams. We were this little tiny team. I had a laboratory of 10 years of testing things and trying to get fans to care about a small college summer baseball team. People don't, people forget that story and, and things were failing every night, but we were growing. People are saying, what are they going to do tonight? What are they going to do tonight? Oh yeah. I mean, we started in 2,000 fans a game.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  We were fourth in the country in attendance.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Out of college summer baseball, but still, you know, team became profitable and I was like, this is fun. And then that's when that led to the opportunities. So I had 10 years of going from nothing to seeing a fan base built from just experimentation and fun and letting the players have fun and let them celebrate and let them dance and let them get in the crowd and deliver roses to little girls. And let them do things people hadn't seen before, break down the barriers between the fans and the players. So 10 years.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so why didn't that take off into something like it is today from that team?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Well, again, you think about, uh, there was an already, it was the Gastonia Grizzlies.

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  Is it the league? Is that why?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  There's a few things. I mean, it was in a regular college summer baseball league. And so we had to play traditional baseball.

• 8:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you can't do all this.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  You can't, we, and that, that was again, watching the fans over and over again, when they were leaving, when they were getting up, when they weren't paying attention, studying the fans to realize, we got to change the actual game. You know, and I realized it's like a hot dog stand, you know? We had unbelievable condiments, you know, the mustard, the relish, the ketchup, the sauerkraut, whatever. That was all the promotions, the entertainment, but the hot dogs still need to work. And that was the game of baseball.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  The main product.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  The main product, the hot dog.

• 8:49Lewis Howes?

  So there's only so much you could do around the product. Around, we still had to play within the rules. You had to win, you had to try to win.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, and we still try to win. It's just based on entertainment first.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  And so, so yeah, it was a, it was just a regular traditional baseball. And so how did I get that belief? It was 10 years of building.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  And when you go to away games, you can't implement a lot of this stuff, I'm assuming.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  That was the before.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Could you?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  We started Banana Ball. We started testing, we did a one city world tour. Mindset, start small, dream big. You know, I love that, just that's how we do everything. Start small, dream big. So we called it a one city world tour, which is ridiculous, but we still call it a world tour today.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  So it was an experiment, one game.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but world tour, because that's where we're going. It'll be all over the world. We believe in no, no doubt about it. So we're, we're setting that mindset of where we're going, but we're starting small. And we did a one city world tour, but we also at that same point, still had the college summer baseball team. And so we started creating all this attention. People say, what are they doing with this game Banana Ball? Fans catching foul balls for outs? What is happening? This game is crazy. And then we did seven cities and we started playing around the country and we started getting a lot more national attention. We had the first ESPN show, but we were still playing traditional baseball.

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  This is, okay. So this is when you took over Savannah Bananas, right?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yes, this is later with Savannah Bananas. And so good context. And so you were asking what

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  So you're still playing wooden bat.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  We're still playing wooden.

• 9:58Lewis Howes?

  Normal baseball.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  So, but then you're like, all right, let's do this one night only.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, one night only and do it.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  And we'll do this.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Tried this whole, this lab, this experiment.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  We tested it all.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  That was when it first started. When was that first night?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  2021. So, yeah.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah. The first, the first game of actual Banana Ball was 2020 during COVID in our, in Savannah. We had the bananas, play the bananas. We actually had, we actually had a split squad team and we did it and fans had no idea what was going on. It was absolute chaos.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Cause it wasn't a normal baseball game.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  No, it was just, we wanted to test this. It was during COVID, we could only have a thousand fans at the stadium. It was like, might as well test it.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  So we tested it then, but to answer, go back to your full circle. So we were doing both for years. And so 2022, we would go to play in these other little towns and they were expecting Banana Ball. And we were the way team. We had to play traditional baseball fan. These stadiums were all selling out in Ashboro, in Forest City, in Thomas.

• 10:50Lewis Howes?

  They were upset that they weren't playing.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  The owners was, the owners, the teams were pumped. The fans were like, what, what I get in? I was like, we got it, we got to make the clean break and we left. And Louis, the criticism we received. You're leaving traditional baseball. We had consultants, high-paid consultants saying, no matter what you do, you need to keep playing traditional baseball. Everyone said, stay with that because that was the safe bet. We were selling out every game playing traditional.

• 11:13Lewis Howes?

  How much were you making for the Savannah Bananas in normal wooden bat league?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  Was this wooden bat league?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a little bit, but you play 30 games during the summer. We were selling out 4,000 seats.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  How much can a team make?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Like three to four million.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Three, four.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  We were three to four million. It was very profitable. It was a very healthy team.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  But it's never been about money for us. I was like, we are bringing this joy to only 100,000 fans.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  For the whole season.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the whole season. There are people around the country that we believe in this. How do we go one city at a time, one fan at a time? And so that lab that was 10 years in Gastonia, we turned that lab into Savannah after, like you mentioned, sleeping on an airbed, only selling two tickets, down to our last dollar. Grocery shop was just $30 a week. I mean, it was brutal. We went through, when we first came to Savannah, everyone doubted us because they're like, you're college summer baseball. We had minor league baseball here. We had professional baseball.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  Savannah was minor league baseball?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  For 90 years.

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, so did it go down to?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  No, they left because they left and the, the.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  So you took over, there was still an arena there.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  It was a stadium.

• 12:15Lewis Howes?

  The team left and you're like, I'm going to go start this wooden.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  I love how you said arena too. It goes back to your background. I love that. Yeah, no, it was a, it was, it was an old stadium. And, um, you know, when we got there.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  So you acquired the, the.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  We, we, we thought it was a very good decision for my wife and I to get married and then go into over a million dollars in debt. We thought that was a very good decision.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Not on the wedding itself, on a team.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  The wedding was, the wedding was the wedding. But, uh, uh, yeah, no, we had, we had bought the team from the league. We had to make payments over many years to buy that. Then we had to put money in to star up and all that. I mean, it was, it was a lot and it was myself, my wife, our 24-year-old team president, Jared, who's still our president today and leading us, and three 22-year-olds straight out of college. And, um, yeah, we showed up, the phone lines were cut, the internet lines were cut. The former team took everything out of the stadium. There was nothing left.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  What year was this?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  This was in October of 2015 when we came.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So really six years after that, you, you did the one night only.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so three years later, I first started writing down the ideas. Cause we, you know, we went from, we sold two tickets in our first few months. January 15th, 2016, we got the call, we ran out of money. And Emily turned to me and said, Jess, we have, we have to sell our house. So we sold our house, empty our savings account, put that money in, go in more debt. And, uh, we had to get people excited to coming to a college summer baseball game.

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  Did you think about this, what you're doing now, back then in 2015, where you're like, I'm going to do this?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  No, Banana Ball wasn't even a, it wasn't even a thought. What I thought was, what if we could start from scratch and create a whole entertainment product? That's not just the Gastonia Grizzlies that we had seven years and all this built-in thoughts. What if we could build a new team, a new identity? A new story, a new circus, a new show, all of that.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  But a new sport also?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  But within baseball?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, and that's why.

• 14:02Lewis Howes?

  So that's what you did for five years, essentially.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Because you, you, we did that and then by watching our fans. So, you know, we sold a couple of tickets and then we said, all right, we got to get our fans excited. So we said, we made every ticket all-inclusive. So we said, you come to Savannah, our games, all your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, dessert, everything, $15 total.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  No ticket fees, no convenient fees, no service.

• 14:25Lewis Howes?

  That'll start selling out.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Well, they got, we, we had to get them into this experience it. But we didn't know how to do it.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  The first night, we went through 10,000 pieces of meat in an hour.

• 14:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my God.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Fans waited almost three hours. So we, we made mistakes, but we just kept going. And, and so, you know, when they, they first came out, they were like, wow, you know, we had a banana baby. We put a baby in a banana costume and lifted the baby up and sang, nah, Savannah, you know, uh, to start the game, which makes no sense. Yeah, but we had the Banana Nanas, we had Senior Citizen Dance Team. You know, we had the Man Anas, a male cheerleading team. We had a banana band. I, I thought of, you know, putting all these things into a brand to make it non-stop entertainment.

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  But it was, but it was also, you had limitations back then because you could only do it in the beginning of the game, the end of the game, in the arena, you know, stadium.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  Before the stadium, you know, before the game.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  We used to get fined, I mean, for playing music during the games.

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  But you didn't care.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  No, we just wrote bigger, we just wrote more checks.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  So when did Savannah Bananas, the, the, the brand it is now, like, when did you realize, I have to try this one night? Inter scrimmage?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  With each other?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  And see what we can recreate because you weren't even thinking about that when you took over this team.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you're always thinking about plus-ing. You know, I think I learned from Walt Disney and he was obsessed. He said, you know, Disneyland's a living, breathing thing. It'll never be complete. We will always plus the show. They called it a show, you know, a performance. And, you know, Disney's the kind of guy that, you know, literally they were at capacity at Disneyland three, four years. And I mean, they were dominating and, uh, and he wanted to put a Christmas parade and he said, it's going to cost $350,000. And all the accountants, everyone in his business was like, no, Walt, you can't do this. We're already at capacity. Why would we spend another $350,000? It makes no sense. He goes, nah, we got to give them a reason to want to come back. And that obsession, he goes, to continue to invest, to continue to put things in, he was always plus-ing the show. So, yeah, we were selling out every single game.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  You know, you went from sleeping on an airbed and $30 a week grocery shopping to having a very healthy business, um, successful. But.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Like you'd maxed out, you got to the top of the league of what you could make.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, top college summer baseball.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  Three to four million a year.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, yeah.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  Maybe can make a little more every year, but it's like.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  It kind of, then you, then you got to take from your fans and you got to, you can't, you got to, it's incremental. So then we, as we were watching, we kept thinking, how do we make it better for fans? How do you plus the show? How do you plus the show? So I wasn't thinking about how do we make this global or make this, you know, all over the country? I was thinking, how do we make it better? And I just kept watching our fans, watching, watching. And this is what Walt Disney did better than anyone else. I mean, he literally put an apartment above the fire station in Disneyland just so he could walk the park. And Walt said, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking what's wrong with this thing and how it can be improved. And so I was like, all right, how do we improve this? How to make it better? How to make it better for fans? And I realized that even with our big show, players dancing, the celebrations, all the promotions, fans were still leaving games early.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  So we start taking pictures and videotaping every 30 minutes. First 5:30 when they get in, 6 o'clock, 6:30, 7 o'clock, 7:30. And I realized something. At 9 o'clock, you'd have your first influx of fans. No matter what, even if we had a fireworks show or something at the end of the night, 9 o'clock, two hours in, fans would start leaving. And 9:15, 9:30, double up more. By 10 o'clock, you'd have 50% of your crap, no matter what. That told me right there, there's a fundamental problem with the game of baseball.

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  It needs to be two hours.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I always say this before, it's like, you know, you go to a movie and it's like, how, you know, you go, oh, the movie was great. Yeah, I left in the middle. No one leaves a great movie in the middle, but baseball's, yeah, I had a good time. Left in the sixth inning or so, you know, got out early. You should never create something where people want to leave early. So how do you create something that's so good they want more? And so I said, all right, let's look at all the parts of a baseball game that are too long, too slow, too boring. So I remember I wrote down and, um.

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  That's most of the game. Most of the game is too long, too slow, too boring.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Other than, you know, if you ask baseball traditional.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Unless you're watching the playoffs or something, yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And so I started writing down and what I'm so blown away by right now. So I started an idea book in 2018 and I realized if you want to have good ideas, you got to come up with more ideas. I mentioned you earlier about the great podcast episode you had with Andy Grammer and about how many songs he wrote. He was just constantly writing songs and performing them out in the streets over and over and over again. Quantity leads to quality. So I was like, I gotta have more ideas. So I started writing down all these ideas and in 2018, um, you know, I was like, all right, what are all the boring parts of baseball? Mound visits, stepping out of the box, walks, bunting's boring. I did all these things. I started just writing all these down. And then one of our big premises of everything is whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. No one gets excited about normal.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  When we first started in Savannah, we were doing normal social media, normal ads, normal radio, normal all that. We're getting terrible results. So I wrote down all these ideas and, um, I said, why don't we just try them? Just see what happens. And so the first time we went to a college, we went to my old school, Wofford College and, uh, the coach said, yeah, we'll try this in practice. No one's there, we'll try it. So we got rained out. So the first ever intentional Banana Ball game, it got rained out on. As I learned at my wedding, they say the rain is good luck. So I'll take that as good luck. So I went to my old, other former coach at Lander and, uh, so we played with these guys. I said, guys, hey, we're playing a crazy game today. The goal is we just want you to have fun. Have fun, enjoy, let us know how it is.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  But this was not inner squad. This is a different.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  This is a different team. We're testing it at a college.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  And they're thinking, we're trying to just play baseball.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  What do we do it? Yes. We went to it, played nine innings in 99 minutes. And the guys at the end of the season, the most fun they've ever had playing. And there was, actually there were a few girlfriends that like came in and they were doing their homework as they go to practicing. And they put their homework down, they were at the seat watching. Cause it was just boom, there were walk-off hits, you know, you could walk off every inning. There was outs, it was fast, the pitches were thrown every six seconds. It was just exciting. I was like, we got something here. And so, yeah, in 2020, in the middle of COVID.

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  This was like a scrimmage game.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  It was a scrimmage, no one knew about it.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  But, you know, we filmed it. We, we were, we filmed it, we knew that.

• 20:10Lewis Howes?

  This is what, 20?

• 20:11Speaker 01

  This is 2018.

• 20:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  So this is, this was right after we met and, uh, so then 2019, we just kept doing our thing. And finally it was like 2020.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Did you be rehearsing it?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Well, we just, I kept iterating. So it was like talking about ideas. We were still in a league, we were, you know, we're set in a contract. We can't get out of the league, all those things.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  But you were trying to do a scrimmage every now and then.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, so COVID happened and like, you know.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  And baseball shuts down.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Everything shuts down. And so we were allowed to have a thousand fans, but we had to spread them all out. And I was like, all right.

• 20:39Lewis Howes?

  Screw it, let's just try it.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  And so we did it and it was chaos. I mean, the first, one of the, one of the first hitters, he walked and it ended up being a home run. Cause no one knew what to do with the ball. So a ball four sprint is, you get ball four sprint, the hitter takes off full speed. And the, the fielding team has to throw the ball to every guy in the field before it's live.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  But they didn't know what to do at that point because it never happened. So they're like throwing a ball sealed, they're throwing a center field, the guy's running around the bases like home run. Everyone's like, what is happening? It's just chaos. But we played and the guys had fun and we realized a few things, a few rules, iterations and we're like, okay, what if we go do this on the road one time and then one city roll four in 2021? And then sounding to go out, there were so many issues, fans were confused again, but they stayed till the end. And I was like, all right, there's something here. Let's do it further. Let's keep going. And 2022, we do seven cities. And then you keep iterating. 2023, we did 33 around the country. Then we added new teams and 24, our first major league stadium. 25, we started adding football stadiums. And we build a league and it's just the constant iteration, just like Walt. It's like plus and improve constantly.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, I want to be the fastest learning organization.

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  This has created me because essentially in five years, you went from a three to four million dollar wooden bat league to a billion dollar brand. Now, do you think-

• 21:56Speaker 01

  That makes me uncomfortable when you say that. So I hear that you saw I look away. I just, I don't, I don't like thinking. I don't, that's not how I think.

• 22:03Lewis Howes?

  Well, you could say, okay, three to four million to a billion dollar brand that impacts, you know, how many people?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm proud we play in front of 3.4 million fans this year and, you know, we're impacting so many more online and social, millions of people and billions. I love that. I want to bring joy to billions of people. That fires me. That's, that's a different-

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  You think Walt Disney was intimidated by the numbers?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Walt hated talking about money. He hated it. He was, Roy, you handle all the money. I mean, he didn't want to. He said, money doesn't excite me. My ideas excite me. He was fascinated and like, he was terrible with money. He was like, ah, this, this movie, Snow White, this will cost a couple hundred thousands, cost millions. Or, or, you know, Disneyland, it's gonna be a couple million, it's 17 million. Like, he was, because he told, he told his team, it's like, you know, hey, I'll let you know when I'm done. Like, I'll let you know when I'm done how much this is gonna cost. We're innovating here. We're innovating. You know, the multi-plane camera, which was never invented, and, and sound, and the first, you know, animated with color, the full, full-length animated in Snow White, in Disneyland. I mean, he was constantly doing things that never happened before. The animatronics, are you kidding me? He was so far ahead of his time. How can you put a price tag on something that's never been done before?

• 23:11Speaker 01

  And luckily, Roy, which deserves so much more credit than he, than he got, you know, he said, okay, we're gonna keep going. We're gonna keep going. And he found a way to keep the business stable enough. When they were ups and downs, I mean, they were almost out of business numerous times. I mean, there were strikes, there was, it was, but Walt said, we're gonna keep going because it's best. It's best. He believed in it. So when you ask me, how do I believe in it when I'm sleeping on an airbed? You know, I saw something. We bring joy. We bring fun and we can see, we create something that people have never seen before, never experienced before. Every single night, it'll work. And I just, Walt has built in me this trait. It's in my DNA. I will never doubt anything. And doesn't mean we don't fail. We fail every step of the way. But we're gonna keep getting up and go to the next step.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So if COVID doesn't happen, where would you be? Do you think you would have eventually done this?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Because in 2018, we tested it before. Oh, I was, I was ready. It was, how do we get out of the league? How do we, you know, our people in Savannah, at first, you know, they were, they hated our name. They hated who we were. They hated what we were about until we actually delivered and we brought joy. They didn't want this. As Steve Jobs says, no one knows what they want until you show it to them. We hadn't shown them anything. When our first, that's what, no reason why we sold two tickets. We're talking about, there's gonna be dancing players and there's gonna be entertainment and banana names. They hadn't seen it. They had every right not to believe in it. And so when I'm talking about this new game, where fans are catching foul balls for outs and, you know, there's non-stops celebrating and non-stop entertainment and there's trick plays and guys catching backflips, they're like, I don't get it. What are you talking about?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  As, as Bezos said, Jeff Bezos, you need, you need to be willing to be misunderstood. Anybody that innovated or truly invented something that's ever been done before, they are misunderstood in the beginning. They are always misunderstood.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing you misunderstand about yourself still?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Hmm, it's a good question.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Misunderstand about myself. I know, I, I want to cut that back at you. Like, what are some of you think that-

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  Well, I'd say that you're, you're so passionate about the brand, the mission, fans first,

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  not caring about the money, you know, and the experience of bringing joy to millions of people around the world.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  And you've been going non-stop for what it seems like five, six years since you did the first show, the first kind of live show. And it is only, obviously you've had lots of mistakes and challenges you've had to face. But you have been non-stop like a machine of innovating. It's gotta be better. It's gotta be bigger. It's gotta be more fans, more, better for the fans. It's been non-stop for five, six years for you.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  For 20 years, almost 20.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  20 years, but since you launched this new version, it's been non-stop. And it has grown from an uncomfortable three million to a billion dollar valuation. And you're getting offers left and right from every TV network deal, players wanna play, you know, everyone, now everyone understands it.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Not everyone.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Not everyone, but the fans understand it now.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  The fans have been there, yes.

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything you misunderstand about yourself or you don't understand about yourself at where you currently are from where you were five years ago?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it's tough. I think, you know, I'd have to go back. I think, you know, when you first start and, you know, you're trying to think about growing yourself and, and growing your own, you know, you wanna get, you think about everyone, they wanna have a bigger promotion, bigger title, they wanna be all this. And, you know, people that see me in a yellow tuxedo, you know, oh, he's just, you know, maybe he's about himself. He's got an ego. And, you know, what I've realized with this and inspired from P T Barnum back in the day, it was like, this actually is the, I believe is the best version of myself. Energy, fun, give permission to have people to have fun. You know, how many owners are, they're dressed in their suits and they're up in the suite. Like, I wanna be out with the fans having fun. That says you can dress up, you can be a little silly, you can be goofy, you can let loose. You don't need to take yourself too seriously.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I think, you know, um, you know, I think there's always a little bit of an imposter syndrome. You know, I'll tell you, when I came up to you in 2018, I was a little nervous. I was, you were dominating. I mean, you were showing up every week in a huge audience and making an impact. And I was like, he's probably looking at this guy like he's crazy. But I was like, this is me and I'm not gonna hide away from this. And it was, there were a lot of awkward, uncomfortable moments. When you go into a different room and a bigger room with people that are accomplished, you know, I know there's the perception, who does this guy think he is? And so I think there's always a, you know, misunderstanding or, you know, people that look at me and, you know, we can't always just talk about the fans. He has to be about money. I mean, yeah, I wanna make sure we have a healthy business because I wanna take care of our people.

• 27:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  But when I was sitting on the airbed, it was like, yeah, we gotta get out of this. But like, I learned in my wife, how to be okay with not having a lot. And so, you know, I think the people that get to the point where they have so much, you were asking before, when are you gonna fly private? I'm like, I don't know, I have my 2018 Honda Accord. I drive it. I'm fine with it. Like, it is what it is. So it's tough for me to ask that question because I guess I know, I heard someone say on a podcast recently, they're like, some of the greatest entrepreneurs, they aren't introspective. And which was really interesting to me.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  I saw that too.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I remember the whole thesis behind it.

• 28:08Lewis Howes?

  Introspection is more of like a modern day thing.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yes. Back in the, you talk about Henry Ford back in the day and Rockefeller. It's not like Walt Disney was thinking, oh, I wonder how I'm being right now. He was just trying to create something that he loved and that gave him energy. I think everyone should just chase things that give them energy. What fires you up every day?

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  And yeah, I think it's important to know who you are and what you stand for. But if you focus so much, focus internally and not actually just focusing on actually doing things and doing things that fire you up, you might get stuck holding yourself back. And I don't ever wanna hold myself back.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  So you were 15 years then, working in teams, smaller teams, until this kind of took off, right? Maybe, maybe you're playing in front of three, 4,000 people.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got 4,000. A great night. It was a great night back in the day.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  So what is it like going from 4,000 to 100,000 within a couple of years?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  And what shifted within you energetically to be able to take on that energy? Of 4,000 being like, this is our biggest night of the year, to 100,000 every week? How do you energetically hold that space and not feel like an imposter?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's hard. And, you know, the first major league stadium, I'll never forget it. So that's a big jump for us. So we do a minor league stadium, it's 15,000, which was big. But then we went to our first major league stadium and we went to Houston.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  The big boys. Big boy arenas.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was in 2024 and I remember it vividly. And I took our whole team and our staff up to the upper deck.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  That's two years ago. It's not that long ago.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, 2024, right. It feels like decades ago. So what happened? So we took everyone to the upper deck, the furthest seat away. And now, what people don't realize is, is we travel with 200 plus people.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  You know, we get carried out of the Globetrotters. And again, I have respect for them, but we are completely different. In the sense where in a league, every game counts, we're doing 10 to 15 things every night. The Globetrotters travel with 20 to 30. We travel with 200. Now we have three tours going on, 16, 150 to 200 plus people. So we had 200 people at first major league stadium. And everyone is, you know, big eye looking around like, what are we doing? Do we belong here? Like, what are we doing? And I said, guys, we're up in the upper deck. I said, everyone's expecting us to fail. We are too big for our britches. Everyone says, you know, you can do the smallest stadiums, but this is too big. And I go, I go,

• 30:13Speaker 01

  we're not gonna fail. I go, we're gonna find a way and we're gonna do it the same way we've done it from day one. And it's one fan at a time. I go, we're right here in the upper deck. How are we gonna make sure these people, that are the furthest away are gonna have the best experience? What's it just be the people behind home plate and the people up here? What are we gonna do differently? Remember our head coach, Tyler Gillum, who's been with us since 2018, he's amazing, amazing individual. And he started writing thank you letters and signing them and putting them in different seats all throughout the upper deck. Then our players started doing it too. It's like, what can we do? Can we put a, a card up here or put something up here? How can we make sure we get up here in the middle of the, the middle of the game? And I said, I'm gonna be up here. I'm gonna spend two innings in the upper deck every single game. I do it. Now, we put on a great show. Ironically, we did fail. Our ticket system shut down. Completely went out. Chaos ensued.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And so we put on a show, we delivered the show, but it's just chaos. And, but we got through it. We got through it and we got to the next major league stadium. But, um, yeah, I, I think, I knew, I tried to put myself in those people's shoes all the way up there. And so when we go to 40,000, now to 100,000 seat stadiums, which when you walk into a 100,000 seat stadium, you know, I just, I can't believe that us, this little small college summer team that had to perform there. But I also know no one obsesses like we do about every single seat around that stadium. And so, you know, now if you come to one of our shows, you know, most people say you're going to a sporting event, seven o'clock game, what time you come to the game? 6:30? You know, maybe I could get there early. There's some major league teams. 50% of their fans come after first pitch.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  So I said, all right, well, we gotta deliver a lot more. We gotta plus the experience. So one step at a time, we started doing a bigger pre-show and then we started adding a little bit to it. So now at a football stadium, 100,000, our show starts at two o'clock. We do a rope drop. The first thing you see when you come in, rope drop, we have all characters cast, we do a big opening number.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, the first thing you see is our players. Our players greet you. For the first hour, they sign autographs.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  Before the game?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Before the game, from two to three o'clock. Then from three to four thirty, we do a huge stage show.

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Two to three? The game is at seven?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Players are signing. So players are signing.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  People are there at two o'clock?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Thousands.

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  So like at Texas A&M, 100,000, there were 45,000 people there three hours before the show.

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  So we do a whole performance show. Then we have a march and our players go through the crowd and we high five every single fan. So we know who we play for. These people have come from all over the country. You know, as an athlete, often you're in your own world, how are you gonna win this game? But when you realize that all those people all around that came five hours before the game, seven hours before the game, that stay an hour and a half after the game, that flew in from all over the country for that. And you either get to high five them, you get to see them, you have different sense of purpose of playing.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  100%.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  And so we know that. And so when I talk about winning the upper deck, we put ourselves in their shoes. We said, we're gonna get up here. And so we actually have activation stations. People realize, we have all of our players, we have activation stations throughout 100,000 seat stadium, where our cast and our players, this is your zone. This is where you're throwing deeds. This is where you're throwing t-shirts. This is where you're getting up and doing selfies. This is where we're doing a sing-off. And so-

• 33:06Speaker 01

  I knew it was gonna be hard and we still, you know, some people we probably don't get to touch as much as we'd like to. But I knew if we just had a focus on it, like put ourselves in their shoes and do it and give them so much more than they expected, we'll continue to find a way.

• 33:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's interesting because when I got into kind of online business, I guess 16 years ago, 17, 18 years ago, I guess. I went to my first Cirque du Soleil show.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Not to compare you guys with that.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  No, I have a lot of respect to them, a lot of admiration. What year was this?

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  Probably 20.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  20, uh, 2009.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  From Vegas or?

• 33:40Lewis Howes?

  Vegas.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I can't remember which one I saw, but I saw, I saw a bunch of them.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  But I remember getting there, I don't know, 30, 60 minutes earlier or something and the cast being out in the lobby and even out of the tickets area too. And I was like, and it made me apply what I learned from Cirque du Soleil into webinars, into online marketing, into live events. Where I was like, oh, and into the podcast as well, where I was like, oh, it's not about the show, the pre-show is the show. The, you know, it's just like the pre-show is the show, like our conversation out there for 30, whatever minutes. That is the show.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  In my mind. And it's not, obviously you gotta make a great show too, but

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  the show can be a thousand times better based on what happens before the show.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  You know, they're going.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  It's intentional.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  You set the tone.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  And so I was like, oh, how do you create that experience, that vibe, that energy, that joy?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Lewis Howes?

  Before people enter your arena.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  Whatever that arena is for you. And, um, it seems like you guys are just plus that.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  We've learned and you just, and you put yourself in the shoes. I, I just, I'm in a world where I want to be entertained all the time. I wa, I don't want to be bored. Like I am so scared of boredom. I don't know what it is in my mind. I have this fear of boredom, a fear of settling, a fear of irrelevance, that I want to have something going on. And so again, I don't need to go back to Walt Disney, but he's like, we're gonna create a berm around Disneyland. When you first come in, you're gonna see the train, you're gonna see the fly, the landscaping, then you're gonna go through this little tunnel and you're gonna start smelling, then you're gonna start hearing sounds and it's gonna open up to mainstream, you're saying mainstream, then you're gonna have the castle there. And it's just, everything was intentional. And this is, that, that's, I mean, anyways, the pre-show.

• 35:18Lewis Howes?

  It is a pre-show.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  No one has gone on a ride yet, no one has experienced.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  Pre-show is the show.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Exactly. So we think about that same, you know, we, you know, you gotta do the unscalable, do the scalable too.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  People realize our first seven years, we called every single fan that bought a ticket and thanked them. Hundreds of thousands of fans.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Now during Christmas time, we'll get our players, we'll, we'll do surprises and do like, now we serve millions, it's kind of hard to do that, but, but you're pre-show. We send an email, what to expect or what expecting. You know, we set the tone there and then when they show up, you know, we're ready to go at two o'clock and then it's, and then your last impression leaves a lasting impression. Every night, every show I'm at, I will say.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  Again, you're, you're what?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Your last impression leaves a lasting impression. And so like every night, no matter where I'm at, I will sign to the last fan leaves. And it is a full day. We start rehearsing.

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  And you're a midnight baby, it's like.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Every, all that, some, yeah, if we're a hundred thousand seat stay, it'll be two, three hours after the game and, and we, you know, we start rehearsals, seven, eight in the morning, we're going through all of our programming, our tech, right? And it's, it's a.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  This is why you're gonna need a private jet. Cause at midnight, you're gonna wanna jump to the next city.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  But if you want to be successful, you gotta do what others won't do.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  And, and to me, I'm so grateful. I, I remember, you know, that kid who dreamed playing at Fenway Park and getting an opportunity. I remember the kid just hoped to meet a player. I remember.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Catch a foul ball or something.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Foul ball. I remember sleeping on the air bed and having nothing. And I think a lot of people, you know, business that becomes successful, if you haven't gone from, starting from nothing and to get to that level, it's hard, it's very easy to take it for granted.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  And just say, you know what, I don't need to do this anymore. I've made it. And I don't want that to ever happen. I want when I'm 70, 80 years old to still be at the end of the night, I want to be up at the upper deck with the fans, singing with them, you know? And I think if myself, my wife and our team sets that tone, all of us will continue to do that. And so when people say we're a fad and you look at the graveyard of all the leagues that have failed over the years, there's hundreds. They start up, they fail. You know, I think a lot of people have put us that we're destined to fail because we're just this, you know, new kind of fad that's, you know, this quirky little thing. But they don't know our passion, they don't know our purpose, they don't know how we put ourselves in the fan's shoes every single day. And so, and our, how our obsession is so much different than trying to make money or trying to drive revenue.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And so, um, I want to have this conversation in 50, 60 years, when people say banana ball, it's just this fad, it's whatever, they said that back in the day, because I think our obsession is gonna continue to grow and our ability to plus the show and plus the experience. That's what fires me up.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  Where does the fear of irrelevance come from?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Uh, geez, you wanna go, now we're gonna deep, this is right up your alley.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Why do you, why do you have a fear of being irrelevant or being, being bored or sitting?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Say, I mean, yeah, well, the board is just, I just enjoy feeling alive. I love feeling alive, but, but the, you know, the relevance, I was an only child when I grew up and, um, you know, I, I didn't have a lot of friends when I was really young. And I remember, I mean, you know, my dad would come home from work and we'd play and stuff and play baseball, but you know, I'd say, Jess, you know, in the summer, what'd you do today? I'd say, you know, I run my bike to Alex's and then I went to Bobby's and I didn't, I didn't do that.

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, I, I didn't have a lot of, I, you know, again, I was, you know, there's, I'm not gonna make excuses, I just didn't have a lot of friends.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  You're just kind of like a quirky kid or you just didn't fit?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Anything, I was, it's so, what I learned was, uh, when I had opportunities around people to try to make the most of them. And so when I was around my, my teammates, I would try to, try to get like, hey, let's hop on, let's do this. And I started, so I started building friends, but like when I was young, I was just, you know, I just wasn't around a lot of people. I, I was in a neighborhood, there were no kids in it and I just, I didn't, I don't know, I wasn't great at it, but I learned cause I was, I didn't want to feel like I didn't matter, you know, like I was just, so I started really working hard to create attention, to get excited. I mean, I, I think I got 26 detentions in the seventh grade, you know, I did, I did, I did anything to try to.

• 39:09Lewis Howes?

  Were you like the Joker kid then?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I joked, I was trying to have fun, I was just always trying to have fun.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  And so I, I think what I realized is I felt alive when I felt seen, heard, and then I mattered. And so what the opposite of that is feeling irrelevant. And so when I think about, uh, now what we create, I want every single fan, everyone to feel loved, to feel seen, to feel heard. You know, my dad, who I have the closest relationship in the world with and, um, you know, he didn't use the word love when I was a kid. So I never really received that.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  He didn't say, I love you.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  He didn't say, I love you. And now we say every day, uh, we have a different.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But I didn't get that. And so, and you know, my birth mother wasn't in the picture as well. So I just didn't, I didn't, didn't have that. And so I think I've always searched for feeling that love. And so at the end of the night, being around fans, being around our team, coming back in and having our fans first talk with all of our closest people, I feel alive then, cause I feel.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  A lot of love.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  I feel a lot of love of what we just did and how we did it together. And so that feeling of irrelevance or feeling like you didn't do anything that matters. Yeah, uh, that's, that's gonna be, uh, something that drives me. And I think I've channelled it to be a very positive, uh, positive motivation.

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  Your, uh, your mom wasn't around?

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, my birth, my birth mother, I've had an amazing stepmother who's been tremendous in my, in my life, but my, you know, my birth mother, she had some challenges and, and, and she, my parents got divorced when I was eight years old. And so my dad, you know.

• 40:36Lewis Howes?

  Was she around before then, before I grew up?

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Yeah, sporadically or just emotionally not available?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  I don't want it to, I mean, again, I, I don't want it to go too much, but yeah, I, I think, you know, she did her best and, and, you know, my dad helped raise me, we had the bond of baseball and then amazingly my stepmother came in and we, you know, we, we built from there. But yeah, it was my dad was going to the park and playing every day. And so that was it, it was playing ball, me and him.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  And so when I got to take him, you know, to Fenway, our first game at Fenway, and I took him out on the field and we got to play catch at Fenway. You know, that's, those are some moments that.

• 41:10Lewis Howes?

  Feel the dreams right there.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Well, I grew up wanting to play for the Red Sox, that was my dream. And so to be able to now, because of what we built with banana ball, to now sell our Fenway Park, be able to take my dad and take my son out there and play catch, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a full circle.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  You have a video of that, playing catch with him?

• 41:22Speaker 01

  You better believe I do. I, it was crazy, there were, there were fans on tours and they were coming to our games and they were up around and they, they were taking videos and they saw, you know, me playing catch and like.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Pretty special.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:36Lewis Howes?

  Uh, biological mom still in the picture? He's talked to her or?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  She's, yeah.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  You talk to her every now and then or?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Here and there, yes.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  Here and there. You're closer with your stepmom?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Oh, she's, she's been tremendously supportive. She was the first one literally videotaping, you know, when I was pitching, when I was 10 and 11 years old, she was filming all my games.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was special.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Do you feel like any of that relationship is also what drives you to wanna be relevant or, or create a, a deeper love or deeper experience?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  I think we all want to feel loved. We all want to feel loved to an extent. And I think that was it. I, I didn't understand love too much when I was a kid, it just wasn't, you know, my, my, my birth mother, she said it to me, but I didn't understand that as much, my dad didn't. So I just didn't understand it, it just wasn't part. And now, you know, I literally say it to my kids every day, numerous times a day. I just, I'm probably giving them what I always wanted. You know, if you look deep into it. And so, uh, yeah, I think it's, I think what we've built and how I've built this whole world, it's all built on spreading love and spreading joy. And so.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  What's your relationship like with your wife? Because I know she's obviously

• 42:42Speaker 01

  She's

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  owner with you. She's been, you know, on the air mattresses with you going for this crazy dream. Baseball wasn't her first love, I'm assuming. It wasn't like, I want to go start a baseball team when I'm an adult, you know? She's really kind of supported you on this journey.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, well, and yeah, she's supported everyone. She's the heart of our organization.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Four in many ways.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  But what is your? And I know she does a lot of, you guys have foster kids. I know every game she's a big part of. Giving back in a big way.

• 43:14Lewis Howes?

  How have you fallen in love with her more since you guys have been on this journey? From taking over in 2015 to taking over and recreating and reinventing in 2020 to where it is now? How is your relationship with love or your wife evolved over the years with all the different levels and layers? You're on adoption to having your own kid to giving back to the charities that you guys support.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  We'll go back to, you know, 2015, we took over this team. We got married and we're taking over a brand new team. That's a huge venture, scary venture. And when we got the phone call, we were out of money. The first thing she said, we need to sell our house. So we were living in Charlotte, her whole family had moved down. So she grew up in New York, her whole family, her three brothers who she's extremely close with, her mother, her dad, all live in Charlotte. And she's like, we got to sell our house there and we got to go into Savannah and be there full time. So immediately she says, I'm here, like we're married, I'm going to do this. Leave, you know, the family because we got to take on this.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  You had a house in Charlotte.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we still had the team in Gastoni, North Carolina.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you were kind of going back and forth.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Back and forth, but we need to get down there.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  He needs to be all in.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  I had to be all in because we had nothing left. And so

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  Sold the house.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Sold the house, found an absolute, it was an old garage that was turned into a studio. We, we put an air bed there and it was so gross. Like it was, the floor was so nasty, like we slept in our socks. Like you should never sleep in your socks. Not only lunatics sleep in their socks. Like I would probably upset some pair of, you gotta be crazy to sleep in your socks. It's, we're sleeping in our socks because we don't know where we're gonna step on. You could never clean the floor because it's an old garage. It was brutal. And so we went through that and she was, she was there. And then during COVID, we're down there and again, not around family, just trying to figure out how to get out of this. Our business, live entertainment business is shut down, all this is just there. And it was amazing at that point, she started learning about foster care and just studying. It's like

• 45:04Lewis Howes?

  2020.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  2020 in the middle of COVID. She read the book, Everything is Figureoutable.

• 45:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And Yeah, and she said, Jesse, there's 400,000 kids in the US that don't have a permanent home. We got to do something. And she's like, will you, you know, join me in this? And I'm like, are you kidding me? You've supported me like crazy to coming down here with nothing. I go, I'm all in. She's like, will we become foster parents? I go

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  During COVID.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  I go, hi.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  You're trying to launch this event.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Like again, we just started this big vision. We are like, yeah, yeah. Let's do it. And so we started, we got our first call.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  Why does she want to foster?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Because again, there's 400,000 kids in the US that don't have a permanent home. We got to do something.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  But where did that, where did that spark this?

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Her, her family.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Kids that don't have water, kids that don't have education. Why foster kids?

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Her family, so she, her family was the one of the closest families. Her three brothers, they were just always together. You know, they went through challenges and everything, but they were always together. And she just realized the power of family. She's always been family, family, family. And then when she started learning about this, she's like, no one's talking about it. It's one of these things that's out there and just there's kids and like, she heard stories. She's starting listening to every podcast. She went deep, like, like how I go and Walt, she was learning everything about it. And so I went to, we went to like an online class, I was like, we gotta do it. And so, uh, yeah, so we said yes, and we got the first call and a two and a half year old girl joined us and gashes and cuts on her all over and she was nonverbal and it was

• 46:23Lewis Howes?

  Really? Two and a half.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Two and a half.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  And you guys had a son already?

• 46:26Speaker 01

  We had a biological son who was a little, uh, four months older, three months older.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  So three years old roughly almost.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so she joined us and immediately we learned, started learning what foster care is like. You know, the challenges of DSS, they're understaffed, you know, being able to have visits every week. And then sometimes the parents don't show up, the kids are devastated, all this, just the emotions and the pain of it. It's like, wow. And so we went through it and then about a year later, we get another call. We're going on date night and we get a call from, uh, uh, there's a six day old who's in the NICU, who's battling every drug imaginable.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  Six day old?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Six day old battling every drug imaginable in her system.

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  He did not bring her in.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  So we took her in and she joined us and, uh, and, you know, we didn't know what was going to happen with her. And you know, the goal in foster care is always reunification. You want to get the kids back to their family. That's the best thing and that was the goal.

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  Six months or a year.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  We always thought that's what, hey, we're just going to be it and we're going to be foster parents again. Just help, help these kids in their journey when they need it the most. But, um, yeah, on Mother's Day, uh, that year of our baby that, or the

• 47:25Lewis Howes?

  Six day old.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Six day old who had us, um, we're traveling, this is active 2022. And so it's our final stop of our banana ball tour. Seven cities is all we did. We're in Kansas City, it was unbelievable. We played another professional team, we beat them. It was covered on ESPN, it was unbelievable. And we're in, we're traveling and it's, you know, me and, uh, we got seats. It's Emily up there with Maverick, our son and me and with Kenna and Addie. And, uh, Emily turns to me on her phone and she turns around and she's bawling her eyes out. It's Mother's Day. And she shows me the text and it was from the birth mother of the baby. And it said, I, you know, I think a lot of this on Mother's Day today, I couldn't imagine a better gift than for you to be the mother. Wow. My daughter.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  She just had this kid six days prior.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  She had, no, this is a full year later.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  So it's a whole year later.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  So it's a whole year later and she realized the maturity of that birth mother. And so at that point, we realized that now was the goal to, you know, help

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  She said, I want you to be the mother.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  I want you, I want you to be able to take care of the maturity of that. And so then Addie, you know, we went on a, on a path towards, uh, towards adoption. And then the same thing with Kenna, we went on a path towards adoption. So we adopted them on the same day, on January of 2024. So they joined our life and, you know, we still continued foster care, but, uh, you know, doing respite fostering from now and from time to time, like for weekends when families needed. But we still realized there's more to do. And so Emily, uh, we started talking, we got to do something more. And so that's when I realized, well, what if we honor families every single night? We're playing all over the country. We honor a family that's, you know, had 60 kids in their home or helped adopted three or helped 20 go back to reunification, whatever. It's make them the heroes, celebrate them. And so we said, we might as well call, call it bananas foster. And so we came up with the name and we started doing it.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  And so now, yeah, it's been, to answer this long about question, it's like, I think we just have so much purpose when we're doing something that, you know, really matters. And I will always support her in this, in the family, and she will always support me with the business. And now we've brought those two together.

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  And so now with our family, literally those two worlds are together with everything we do. We have two that came out of foster care and a biological, we have the world, we have bananas foster, we have banana ball. Our worlds work together and doing something that gives us a lot of purpose and fulfillment. And so for me and Emily, it's just, it's a support system. And it's very hard right now with three kids under eight years old. It's extremely hard, but

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  She traveled to all the events?

• 49:43Speaker 01

  She goes to a lot of them, but this year she's like, you know what? The kids right now, this season, they need me.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  They need her.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  And so she stepped off a little bit, which was really hard for her. And again, I had to support her in that. And she counted me like a couple of months, she was like, we gotta, we gotta get these kids to experience new things. And so she came up with world schooling. And so literally we, we took the kids to Greece to experience that. So full circle is, and I flew there and then I fly back to a game, then I'll fly there. And it's just, it's all part of, you know, uh, we're figuring this out. But when you have clarity on what matters, Emily right now is, I'm going to make sure this family is strong as we can. I'm going to make sure I can do everything I can to keep the family and the business as strong as we can. And we just try to, to figure it out, man. It's hard.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  Well, how is your relationship as a married couple evolved over the last five years with? Again, you've taken on so much more, she's taken on so much more. You're, you're, you're pulling a lot of directions. It's all exciting.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:34Lewis Howes?

  But it's also a lot of time and energy. How has your definition of love evolved?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And, and there could be, there can be resentment in different ways. Like I'm like, you know,

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  She's out having fun.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Where she's right now with the kids in, in Greece experiences. And I was there for the first week, but I had to fly back for the ESPs and do all these things. And it's like, and, and then she's seeing me, you know, play, do all these things. And so there can be that, but, but what happens is, um, when you, it's how you view things is how you do things. I believe that more than anything. And so every night, uh, we send our roses and our, and our buds. So the roses is something great that happened during the day and a bud is something that, uh, you're looking forward to. And so normally we'll FaceTime or call, but if we're in completely different time, which we are now, 10 hours different, um, you know, we'll text it to each other. And we're constantly sharing the good in the day. We're constantly sharing what we're looking forward to. And I believe that so much. So many people talk about all the negative things and you see it all over social media. Em was, Em's like, I love social media because all she gets is positive. That's what we look for.

• 51:27Lewis Howes?

  I mean, too.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  It's what you seek out. I love it. I'm not getting negative politics, I'm getting positive stuff.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  And so how do we keep the connection? You know, we really focus on the good. We talk about the joy. We don't hide away from things that are hard. We talk about it. But then when we get together, we really lean in. You know, when I went with Greece to the kids, I literally shut down work for a little bit. I was like, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be fully present.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  Do you have to miss a game?

• 51:50Speaker 01

  I, I miss games. We have six teams playing, Louis. I miss

• 51:54Lewis Howes?

  Running the production to make sure that your vision is being executed at the highest level without you there.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  We have hundreds. I mean, so, so like we have show callers for every team. We have lead vice marketing, we have video, we have creative. We've, we've had a team that we've been working together, like a core team for six, seven, eight years. And so, yeah, it might not be a hundred percent at the level that I would see it, but if you're getting 90% Yeah. You gotta keep learning and growing. So yeah, so I, I miss a lot of games. I miss, you know, more than sometimes I like, but if you're, if you're with your family and you're growing that together, I don't want my kids to, this is where I get, can get emotional, get tough for me and my kids to feel like, you know, daddy's just at another game. And, you know, I remember when you're outside of Greece and, you know, Maverick goes, daddy, when are you coming back?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Because you know, I planned what's going on right when they came back is meet them. So.

• 52:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  But they don't know this right now, but I planned to plan a surprise trip.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  And so, uh, so they'll surprise trip and I'm not telling them, I'll turn my location services off for 12 hours and, and show up and because those, those are the moments that really matter. And so I will miss more games to go be there for them. And so my kids can know that. They do matter most.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man. Because you're probably away from them a lot right now, right? Especially in the growth phase, but do you get to bring them with you also?

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they, they like all the last few years, they traveled like crazy, but when they travel with us, man, it's, we, we get one hotel room. We're all in a hotel room. Yeah. We've got, you know, Addie's four now, but she's wild.

• 53:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  And Kenna and Maverick. And so, yeah, it's tough. And then, you know, in the morning, we start, we start rehearsals at seven, eight, nine in the morning. We have our promo meetings, rehearsals, our tech director meetings, our, I mean, every show is a brand new show. We're not, this isn't, you know, I have so much respect for Broadway, so much respect for what they do, but they are executing the same show eight times a week.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  In the same location?

• 53:40Speaker 01

  In the same location.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Not going to new?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  We're going to a brand new facility, brand new stadium, brand new video boards, brand new plazas, had a brand new everything with a brand new show. And with huge performances we've never done every single night. It is extremely hard. And so the time that we have to put in every week, like on Tuesdays. Today, like we spend all day creative. I spent three hours before this, a part of all of our OTT meetings, talking with the clowns and what they're going to do, talking with the bananas and the party animals. We had a, a host meeting, talking about all our new promos, all of this, because this is brand new for this weekend coming up. I love it, but it's a lot. So when the family travels, you know, they get some of their dad, but probably not as much as they should. And that hurts me. I still love it. The kids, Emily, this is how great Emily is. Just we'll get naps. At the end of the night, when I'm done signing.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  The best feeling in the world at midnight, 11 o'clock, I come back, we're all having dinner, and you know, Kenna will put on my yellow jacket. She'll put on my hat. She'll come over and give me a big hug. It's those feelings that the kids get to be hard there for that. So we're trying our best, but it is hard.

• 54:40Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now. And you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, my twins are nine months now.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  And I'm starting to see, you know, they're not talking yet. They're just, they're just starting to crawl. They're, they're saying some Papa, Mama, Kana. But every time I come back, whether from the office or on a trip and they see me, they just light up now.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  It's gotta be crazy when they start talking.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  It's gotta be the craziest thing when they can start interacting with you in a different way.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  It's a different level of love. And you know what my biggest fear is?

• 55:32Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 55:34Speaker 01

  The day I come home and they don't run out.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, oh, girl.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  The day I come home.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  And they're just still playing and it's not their dad's home. And so to make sure that doesn't happen, I have to make sure I'm there for them and I'm their best friend when I'm there.

• 55:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  And I'm their best friend. So their best friend is coming home.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Because right now, when I see them, they will sprint up and hug me and they won't let go. And I'll hold, I'll hold on until they let go.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  You're like Disney.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  You're like Disney character, man.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Disney character until they let go.

• 56:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  And so I'm still fortunate, you know, eight year old, seven year old and a four year old, I still have that.

• 56:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  I don't want to lose that.

• 56:09Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, man, that would suck. That would really be scary, I think. It's kind of like the beginning, it's like the beginning of the end. It's like you're always trying to get back to that feeling. And maybe when they're 20, they're not going to be.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  It's evolving, but you don't want them to have, lose the spark in their eye when they see.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  When they're excited. And it's because, and the key for that is when you are there, are you there? Are you there with them? You know, I try whenever I'm with them. If they ask me something, I say yes. If I'm exhausted and they want to play a game, which is not the most fun game, I say, I try to say yes. And, uh, you know, a lot of times when we come home, we have a pool in the backyard and, you know, I'll, I'll just jump in my full clothes, like all pants on, all of a shirt on, I'll just jump on because like they're in the pool or we're getting like, I'm going. Let's go. They come out, run, dad, we're going swimming. Let's go. And you just, those are the moments. And I think about the moments, like everything I do, everything we do is all about moments. Creating moments to feel alive. You know, I think now more than ever, AI, technology, you think about this.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Connectivity that's happening in the world and everyone's, you know, connected in their own world. But it's the shared moments, the shared experiences. It's the human to human connection. I am betting all in on that. And so we gotta be able to do it the best with our family and make sure that we provide those. And so I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that in 10, 15 years, they remember the time that dads jumping in the pool with them and they're creating these moments and, you know, dad's dancing in the middle of the night in places they never imagined, like with them. That's what I think they're going to remember. Because when I was a kid, I remember the moments playing catch with my dad. I remember the moments playing until, you know, literally it was almost dark and you couldn't see, but we were still out there hitting. It's those moments and, uh, you know, going to the Disney trip and just feeling things with it. It's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm working on.

• 57:50Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like you're a different person? In the yellow suit versus outside of the yellow suit? Like, do you put on a different identity almost?

• 58:00Speaker 01

  It's a good question. Yeah. It's kind of the alter ego, uh, uh, mindset. Uh, yeah. I mean, uh, I'm a dad, you know, I'm a dad when I'm, when I'm off, like, this is usually when I'm working. So when I'm in this and I'm going, I'm with you, I'm at stadiums, I'm in this.

• 58:14Lewis Howes?

  When you're doing business meetings, you're in this too?

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I'm.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  Pretty much every day you're in this.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Every day that I'm working, weekends, when I'm with the kid or from Greece, I'm like, no, I'm a dad.

• 58:22Lewis Howes?

  Unless you're at a game though on a weekend, but yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Yes, weekends, if there's not a game in the fall and the winter, yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, this is me. And, and again, after a game, when I'm coming from signing and the kids are there, I, I can go into dad mode as well. But no, I mean, this is me, man. I, I just like, I like bringing energy. I like having fun. I like bringing joy and.

• 58:41Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like you have more confidence when you're in this outfit than when you're in normal clothes?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  That's a good question. People would say like, yeah, you, you would say, no, I sometimes I could actually less because if I get into a room that's a little different and like, you know,

• 58:55Speaker 01

  I don't really think about that, but it's not.

• 58:57Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that switches on though? Like when you button up jacket, hat?

• 59:00Speaker 01

  On, on, on a show night, you better believe it. On a show night. So like, I'll be in, if I'm like, all right, it's time to meet the fans. Let's do this. And so like, there's a, oh.

• 59:09Lewis Howes?

  It's a switch.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  When we do our march, you know, at four 15, and we know there's 30, 40, 50,000 people outside.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  It's going to.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Hours. We got our band playing, bands playing the music. Everyone's hyped up. We're jumping around. I mean, we play, they play, we're bouncing, we're doing like, it's crazy. Like people say in videos, they're like, what? Like that gets me fired up. Cause then when you're going through the crowd and that we do a march that goes all the way around the state, there's just fans lined and you're feeling this. I'm like, are you kidding me? I can't imagine, you know, how the Beatles felt back in the day or Michael Jackson, but I'll tell you, I feel in 20, 30, 40,000 and going through it. And every time you get close to their yelling and screaming and yelling your names and myself and our players. Man, how, how could you get very perfect? Like, let's go. We're going to put on a show and we owe it to them. They're sitting out here in the sun for three hours.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  We gotta give them something that's unbelievable. That fires me up. And that's why, even when I'm tired at the end of the night, even after a tough show, we make mistakes, things don't go our way. I will go out there and I'll sign for them because they showed up for us. We need to show up for them. And that's what fires me up. And that, that starts at the top. You know, once companies get bought by shareholders and, you know, they get investors, private equity, that all changes. They try to make more money. From the top, you're not thinking about how do you care about that one fan, that single mom that showed up with their kid that been waiting for four years on the watery list, the waitlist to get tickets. And they show up that one night, they flew from all over to get there. They deserve something special. They earn the best of you.

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  I know you've been asked this a lot about would you ever sell or something like that? What would it take for you? Would there ever be a world where you'd sell, go public or take a minority sale? Like let someone buy a piece of it?

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Never. What would it, what would have to happen?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  There's nothing. There's nothing. And again, like, I, I know that's crazy and, and people will say that's BS because well, they're, they're playing on a different system. They're playing a different game.

• 1:01:02Lewis Howes?

  They're playing for money.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  They're playing for money. You know, we're fortunate. We, we built our business to be healthy. We're healthy. We're able to take care of our people at a level that I never even imagined. But like, I love this so much. There's a different purpose. There's a joy. We show up every day. I get to do what I love and so does hundreds of people. When you see the joy of our staff, you watch some of our sideline staff, they're dancing throughout the game. They're having fun. You get to dance in your job and just have fun and be with people that appreciate you. And so we sell it. What happens? All that changes. Their goals change. They want to make money. They will take away all the things that really matter to our team, matter to our fans, trying to make a little bit more money.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  You'll start adding sponsorships everywhere, doing TV rights. Hey, Jesse, there's no reason you're doing, you're paying everyone's taxes. Everyone charges taxes. Just, just do that. No, no. You just charge shipping, Jesse. Everyone charges shipping. Just do it. No. Ticket fees, convenience fees, just do it. Hey, it doesn't matter. People, the fans are used to it. Just do it. They'd keep saying that over and over again because it's hundreds of millions of dollars. But it's not what best are fans. You want your people to be fired up every day for who they work for and what they stand for. And our business is fans first entertainment. That's who we are. We live by that decision. As soon as you start making decisions that aren't for your fans, you lose all that. You lose the people that helped build this from nothing, from selling two tickets. And so the

• 1:02:27Lewis Howes?

  You lose the mission. You lose

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  The mission, the purpose, the drive, everything. And it happens. Look at the amount of companies that have gone private equity and they change. An unbelievable book, Incorruptible by Eric Ries. He shared it. He shared all these companies. You can just look at it. They were this company and then they sold. And this is what happened. There's very few. There's very few out there. And so I just, there's not one model in my world. I hope that I can have this till the day I die. I hope our family, I hope the people that understand what matters the most. I want to put some kind of structure that no matter what you do, you have to do it for the fans. I want to figure out that I'll probably try to lock it up in a crazy way to keep control. So someone, whoever does try to say, you know, well, just, hey, that's a hundred million dollars here. I don't care. Keep us healthy.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  But if you run a business for the right reasons and do the right, right things, your fans will repay you. And our fans have taken care of us more than imagined. The merchandise, the tickets, we have a waitlist that's now approaching five million.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Where can you have that in the world?

• 1:03:26Lewis Howes?

  Let's go.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  And so like, that's, that's what fires me up. I know it's like crazy. You sound like, I know people say this, you're not real, like it's not real. And I'm like, I'm sleeping on airbed with nothing. We were good.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  It's so interesting because I lived in a two bedroom apartment until three years ago, you know? And until I hit 40, I was, I mean, I was in a studio in a one bedroom apartment and a two bedroom apartment for like, I don't know, 12 or 13 years. And I was happy. I didn't need more than a two bedroom apartment.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  I was pretty, pretty happy. Like I didn't need more space or this.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  You're sometimes happier with less. Our place that we have right now, it's a little one apartment. The more you, the more you own, the more it owns you. And so I love like, just like, hey, this is what we have. And again, like I mentioned before, like, look at the graveyard of past leagues that have failed. The ABA, you know, they had Dr. J, they had the three point line. They had everything. The World Hockey Association, you had Brett Holt, Wayne Gretzky. You look at the XFL, the USFL, you know, they had, they had, you know, Steve Young and Jim Kelly. World Team Tennis, Billy G, they had all these, all these competitor leagues. But they're playing the same game. They were competing on the same thing. And they were chasing sponsors, TV rights. They weren't obsessed about creating fans and creating something brand new and special.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  And, you know, I, I think about that, you know, and one, you could just keep going. All the leagues over the last 30, 40, 50 years.

• 1:04:49Lewis Howes?

  Isn't Liv going out of business now too?

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Arena football. And they got more recent, like all these, like a live and all these, they put all the resources into it. But they're doing it for different reasons. When you obsess over the right reasons and do it for the fans and build something truly special, you can be unstoppable and you can be an enduring company. And so that's why when people say you want to sell out or you want to do this, like just study history. Study history. Look at everyone else and what they've done.

• 1:05:14Lewis Howes?

  With everything you've studied around Walt Disney, what do you think Walt would think about where his vision is at today? They've had some, obviously some amazing CEOs that we know. But also they've gone through some phases where they probably made a lot of mistakes. Where do you think he, you think he would be proud of what Disney has become? Or what do you think if Walt was around today? That he would be saying

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  That's a loaded question.

• 1:05:39Lewis Howes?

  Guys, we're missing this. We've got to hear more of this. Like, what do you think that his original vision that he would be more obsessed about than anything today? That would take Disney to a whole new level?

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, again, you got to look at the history of Disney. So obviously they had 20 or 30 extremely challenging years after Walt went down. Everyone said, what would Walt do? And they weren't actually just doing things and they were just kind of working on their past. And Walt always said, you can't top pigs with pigs because they, you know, did the first three little pigs and they tried to not want, and he was always against sequels, which is ironic because now, now Disney's doing tons of sequels, but they were successful.

• 1:06:10Lewis Howes?

  So the question, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Things change. And then, then Mike Eisner came in and Mike, boy, when he started, he went at it. He was so innovative. He started building new parks. He started, you know, focusing on animation. He started focusing on creating and he did some things that didn't work. But he was innovating and trying things and experimenting. I mean, he was made to say he was the next Walt and boy, he did it for a while. And then there was challenge. There was some turmoil, stagnant. And then Iger came in and Iger said, you know what? We're missing animation. What's our last? It's been years since we have it. And it's like, all right, we've got to find it. Pixar, Marvel starts bringing it in and then starts creating new and completely revitalized Disney Animation and Frozen and everything they did. It comes to a different level. Disney has amazing years. And then they had a couple of challenging years during COVID and everything else. And, and now they're back on creative.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  You know, Josh tomorrow, I think is a tremendous lead for them because he is going to be obsessed on creative. That's where he comes from. And so when you look at Walt

• 1:07:03Lewis Howes?

  And he cares about the fans.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Well, he

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  He would walk the parks every day, Josh. And shake people's hand and be like, what is it that we're missing? How do we make it better for you?

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  He's obsessing about that constantly. So if you look at, you know, his first shareholder call, for instance, he, he used the word fans like over 10 times. And I told him this. I said, I said, Josh, I go, that's how you're going to be different than anyone else. Because everyone's also talking about their clients, their customers, their product. You're talking about your fans.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  No, no matter what happens with AI, no matter what happens with all these things, you know, and everyone's chasing customers, customers are transactional. They come and go, but fans never leave. There's something different about fans and especially Disney fans, but like I have fans that get tattoos of every one of our teams. And one guy, he's like, Jesse, you got to stop adding teams.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  That's a you problem. But, uh, you know, again, there's different sort of fans. So to answer your question, I think, I think Walt, if you look back, what did Walt want to do? He wanted to keep creating. He wanted to innovate. He wanted to keep moving forward, opening new doors, he would say. If you look at what Disney has done, the amount of new theme parks, the amount of new animation, the amount of new movies, overall in a scheme of things, how could Walt not be, not be proud of it? Now, I think when you look at some of the challenges that they have, you know, pricing, you know, I mean, Walt is quite, it is, but you know, again,

• 1:08:17Lewis Howes?

  There's demand, there's demand.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Eisner increased the price and their, their attendance was going up. I mean, there was, when they started doing, they were realizing and, and the value, they put so much into it. You can't just charge nothing. So there's

• 1:08:27Lewis Howes?

  They also have to make money because they are, they're a public company. They have shareholders now. So they're a different model.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  They have to, have to respond every quarter to people. This is one of the reasons why you go back to me, why I will never sell and I'll never be public. I work for the fans. And so what Josh and the team and all the CEOs have that challenge is every three months, Jay got to report to the shareholders, how are they growing revenue? So how, not how are they growing fans? That's not the question.

• 1:08:49Lewis Howes?

  How can they do both? How can they?

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  They do a lot. So like, I mean, they're, they're investing, what 60 billion on new enhancements, uh, in parks, adding new cruise ships. They're adding all these new experiences and you know, so

• 1:09:01Lewis Howes?

  How can anyone, not even Disney, but how can any business owner, entrepreneur, CEO think, yeah, I need to think about revenue because

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  You need to, yeah, we

• 1:09:10Lewis Howes?

  They're not a full owner like you. They've got all the people that are invested and they got to make a return. How can they think about financial growth, but also fan growth?

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Well, it goes hand in hand. You know, the, the thing is like, every day we're constantly trying to think, how can we provide something that's unforgettable for fans? And then how can we continue to provide new products, new services, new experiences? So yes, we're playing one game. But you know, we obsess over our merchandise, which we all, all in-house. We obsess of our team, Jared and Corey and the team. I mean, they are obsessed. And we are coming up with new things and we do it all in-house. We're building our own everything. And so like, that's exciting for us. Um, when we think about, you know, we're playing at football stadiums, we, we're selling out cruise ships, which makes no sense. But again, constraints foster creativity. We had to learn five days on how can we entertain for five straight days about playing an animal. Great constraint for us. And so we added that to pants and our fans loved it. And that was a whole nother level. Like you can't sell a cruise ship here.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  Yet we did like eat all the fees and we, we made it so it's very minimal profit, but like, that was a new service. So what are these new services that we can build the banana ball universe? You know, where could we could we play at beaches, aircraft carriers? Could we do new innovative games at football stadiums people never seen before? Do you know, all these ideas that we think about constantly, which is a whole new thing that can, if you do it well, it'll drive fans, it'll also drive revenue. Every day we're looking at how can we serve more fans? A few years ago, we sold only a hundred thousand tickets. Then we went to five hundred thousand.

• 1:10:35Lewis Howes?

  The whole year.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  The whole year. Then we went to five hundred thousand in twenty twenty three, then a million in twenty twenty four, then two point two billion in twenty twenty five, now three point four million in twenty twenty six.

• 1:10:45Lewis Howes?

  Already in the first half or the whole year?

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  But it's all the whole season sold out. So yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:49Lewis Howes?

  Three point four million.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Three point four, but in next year we'll go to four, but it's gonna be hard. So what are we gonna have to do? Biggest challenge, because you have so many teams, they're backing out their games, they're saying, selling their football stadiums, we're selling that everywhere we go. So it's gonna be hard. Our team team knows this. So where do we have to look? Do you look international? Do you look at new opportunities? Do you look at different seasons to play? You have to look at all these other things on when you can provide something for fans that fans want. That's a great challenge. It's very hard. You know, WWE, they maxed out at two point five million fans one year. That was it.

• 1:11:17Lewis Howes?

  Tickets sold.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Tickets sold. So what do they have to do? They gotta start doing more TV rights, sell more sponsorship. That's the only way they can really grow their business because they maxed out on how many fans they can. MLB did eighty million fans fifteen years ago. They're on seventy, seventy two now. They maxed out. So what are you gonna do? Hire TV rights, hire sponsorship, all that.

• 1:11:34Lewis Howes?

  More expensive merch.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. We gotta find out how to serve more fans. That's a hard proposition because every single league maxes out.

• 1:11:40Lewis Howes?

  And your ticket prices are like very minimal.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Forty, fifty and sixty dollars with no ticket fees, no convenience.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Sixty bucks is the most you can.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, I mean, we have a VIP behind package that's more and we're gonna, and to answer your question, we're gonna offer more of those because fans want those.

• 1:11:54Lewis Howes?

  The VIP.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. But we're still gonna keep that low, low price. But we're gonna offer more of those because fans are creating for those. Those, the first tickets we sell are the hundred, hundred and twenty five dollar tickets, the backstage tickets. They go faster than anything else because people want that. So we have to offer more of that.

• 1:12:07Lewis Howes?

  So you offer more or do you increase the price?

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  We try to go.

• 1:12:10Lewis Howes?

  And when do you increase the price?

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  That's the biggest challenge. We try to go many, perennial, we're going about three plus years without raising prices, which I'm proud of. And then we do a very small. And I always fight back with our team. I was like, how do we not? And you know, that's, that's, that's a constant challenge.

• 1:12:24Lewis Howes?

  Then you have a million people on the waitlist still.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  Five million.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  Or five million that can't go to a game.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Correct. So, so what, so what, so what, back in the day, Eisner would say, well, just charge more. And I think that that makes sense.

• 1:12:34Lewis Howes?

  Supply and demand.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Supply and demand, do that. But like, I don't feel good about that. I'm that fan, that single mom, that family that's been waiting forever. Like, why? Just because you're successful, now you gotta charge more? We try to picture a fan with us. Would a fan want that? Now, we have to at some point. You know, we might have to do a little bit here and there. We've done it throughout.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  Five, ten bucks here, there's.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to at some point, just because of, of as much as we fight back, you know, costs continue to grow. And we wanna make sure we take care of our players and take.

• 1:12:58Lewis Howes?

  And your expenses are gonna grow. And so, yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  My point is, every other league, what they have to do is they gotta find revenue on how to extract value from their fans. They gotta extract ads, sponsors, TV rights, separate things. They gotta, they gotta extract. Well, we gotta figure out is how to serve more fans and how to do it in a unique way. So what the challenge is, yeah. So you gotta look at all other top opportunities throughout a year, or international, or at different venues, to serve more fans. And that's a hard, hard challenge. And I love it. It fires me up because it's very, very difficult. But our whole team's in on it. We're gonna find a way. And so we'll go to four million, maybe we'll go to five million, maybe we'll start doing international.

• 1:13:34Lewis Howes?

  Let me ask you this question. In two years, if you had to sell ten million tickets.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  By twenty twenty eight.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Lewis Howes?

  In one year.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:42Lewis Howes?

  Without raising the price.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Lewis Howes?

  How would you do it?

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  I wouldn't do it. And here's why. Because you would, you would dilute your product. You'd water down. So what, what happens is, so we have six teams now. And I'm proud of these shows. They've sold out everywhere. But they're not at the level that the bananas, we've built that for eleven years. And so, you know, they're getting very cheap. Yeah, but, but like, the party animals, they're selling out major league stadiums without the bananas. They have more followers.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  Who do they play against then?

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Well, we've got the firefighters, the tailgaters, the coconuts and the clowns. We got six teams in a league.

• 1:14:11Lewis Howes?

  They play those.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  They play out of teams.

• 1:14:12Lewis Howes?

  They play you guys too.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a league. We play a sixty game schedule. So the question would be, if you try to go to ten million in two years, what you would have to do is you would have to dilute and you take away your focus and you would water down. You'd have to add some more teams. You have to play at bigger venues.

• 1:14:26Lewis Howes?

  The product would be worse. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  I would not do that. You know, you look at Costco, you look at Chick-fil-A, you look at some of these companies that have grown, you know, they're very strategic. They'd make sure when they go, they're gonna do it the best possible for their customers.

• 1:14:39Lewis Howes?

  So you're not trying to get to that many.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  No, well, we'll eventually. I, I believe we're gonna create a billion fans. But I'm not saying we're gonna do it in two, three, four, five years. I wanna try to do it in a hundred years. That excites me. I like doing it. Yeah, yes, to go from a hundred thousand to three million in five years is crazy. All right. It's crazy. But we're not gonna try to go, jump to ten million. We'll probably do four, and then maybe we'll find a way to get five, and then we'll start over here in this country, and we'll do this over here. Like, that, that fires me up. Because it's, it's, it's really hard. And it's a way to build something that you can make sure the fans get a great show and a great experience. And if you go too fast, most companies, Boston Market, Quiznos, I could keep going. There's a huge list of all the companies, like, we got something good. Let's go. And then what happens? And then their quality goes down. They try to do too much. Boston Market tried to serve all these other things. They just wanted the chicken. Stay Boston Chicken, you

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  probably would've been more successful. Do one thing, do a few things.

• 1:15:27Lewis Howes?

  Sweet potato with Boston.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Sweet potato. Yeah, you had that. That's pretty good. But, but, but, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I think that's the mindset. So, so I think the question is, continue to grow with fans every year without taking away from the fan experience.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you're not trying to grow as fast as you can?

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  No, I wish, I wanna, I wanna continue to create fans and make sure we grow and stay healthy. I wanna make sure I take care of everybody. I want our players to continue to pay more, our staff to continue to lay more. Like, the average bonus for our, our front office staff is like thirty to forty thousand dollars. Like, that's just everybody. Like, that's from when you start, like, that's our average bonus or something. Like, that makes me happy. I wanna continue, we have to continue to do that. So we have to continue to serve more fans.

• 1:16:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's your biggest internal challenge with all the success you've had?

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Uh, the, the, the standard of the, uh, the standard of the show and the experience. So I think that's the biggest, that the biggest challenge.

• 1:16:13Lewis Howes?

  Because when it's smaller, and.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  I'm everywhere. We're everywhere.

• 1:16:15Lewis Howes?

  You can do it all. You can be there at each game, but now it's so many movie parts.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  So look about, so go back to Walt, you know, he spent three years on Snow White. Three years.

• 1:16:25Lewis Howes?

  Obsessive. One project.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  And they had so much excitement. Then they went to, they went to Pinocchio, they went to Fantasia. They had, uh, they had three movies going on at once. And all those, you know, while now they've, you know, critically acclaimed, but they all did not succeed. They actually lost money. They were failed. He couldn't have put his whole focus in it. And then when Walt solely focused on Disneyland, every single day, he was walking it. He was setting up, he was visioning it.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Focus is everything. And so when people say, why don't you grow so? It's like, we've learned this. Going from one team to six teams is hard.

• 1:16:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  And so I think that's the one thing that internally, I just try to, how do we make sure the show and the experience at the highest level? And we're gonna have to be very strategic.

• 1:17:05Lewis Howes?

  How are you gonna keep your focus when you're only gonna expand, though? You have so many cool projects happening and so many ideas and you're creative and you're writing down a hundred ideas.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  You sound like my wife right now, by the way. She asks this question. She's like, how are you gonna do it? There, you got a cruise ship here and you got thirty games over here and you got these teams and this and project, uh, Disney. And it's like, you have so many cool, I'm on the ESPs now. I'm doing this thing. I'm doing this project. This is. You gotta, how many people on your team right now?

• 1:17:28Lewis Howes?

  We've got ten full time, but we got about thirty.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  They're doing cyber. You have to build your team.

• 1:17:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  You, how, when you just started, who, tell me your first podcast. What was it?

• 1:17:35Lewis Howes?

  Me and Robert Green. Yeah.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  It's two, it's two, yeah. And you just started.

• 1:17:39Lewis Howes?

  That was just it.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  It was just it. And so.

• 1:17:40Lewis Howes?

  The iPhone. Yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  And so you built your team. And they've been, I mean, just in my time here, it's, it's a different level. So like, I have to spend as much time as I can with the core people that can have the most impact on each show. And I have to do that. And we have to obsess. And I have to not be afraid to coach when it's hard. Hey, like, you know, we're at the ESPs and there were certain things that were missed. Like, they were, it was like, it was missed. And like, our team delivered. I was so proud. But there were camera.

• 1:18:03Lewis Howes?

  You guys miss it, but not everyone else misses.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Well, no, yeah, yeah, it was like, camera shots and details and things, not even out of our control. So this is one of the reasons why Louis is like, I think you've learned this here. You can control everything.

• 1:18:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  People like, oh, you're a control freak. That's not a bad thing. When you can control everything, we control our tickets, our merchandise, our show, our experience.

• 1:18:19Lewis Howes?

  It's about a product.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Deal points, because we care at a different level.

• 1:18:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  And we obsess over it. And so that's where I gotta make sure when we go to other places, we can't lose control. If we lose control, we're in trouble. So you got me going today, man.

• 1:18:33Lewis Howes?

  What do you think will be your biggest downfall? If you do what? Or if you don't, if you don't do what?

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be, it'd be the, it would be taking an opportunity for the wrong reasons. So.

• 1:18:45Lewis Howes?

  Going against your values.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Going against your values. You know, as like I said, what Roy said when, when.

• 1:18:49Lewis Howes?

  What if it's such a big opportunity? What if it's like, man, this is a big number. This is something I never thought I could imagine.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Steve Jobs with Johnny Ive, you know, his, his creative director. And he said, you know, focus is when you wake up and you so badly wanna do something and you're willing to say no.

• 1:19:06Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's crazy. He's like, there were so many things that Apple had the opportunity to do. But if you look at what they did, they would, they're, hey, for two years, I'm gonna focus on, you know, the, the iPod. For two years now, I'm gonna focus on the iPhone. Three years along, like, they would spend just constant, you know, they innovated more than us, but they spent obsessive focus for years on one main product. They had their other ones going, but their A-team, their best of their best was only focusing on one thing. And so, yes, we could get the biggest opportunity. We have, we've got some crazy opportunities. I could run and say yes to it. And then what happens to the rest of it? And so, you know, where your focus goes, what does Tony Robbins say, where your energy goes, your focus goes, something like that. And say, where your, where attention goes, your energy goes, or something like that.

• 1:19:46Lewis Howes?

  Something like that. Yeah.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  It makes sense in my head. But, but I mean, yeah, that's, that's, the downfall would be, we take something like, you know, we have some movies coming up, we have some ideas, we have some things that we're working on and some shows. And I have to remember that, hey, keep the main thing, the main thing. And I believe we can be the best in the world at creating the greatest show and greatest live experience than any other sport. And so I gotta remember to keep that the main thing. That's what drives us, all of us, everything we do.

• 1:20:11Lewis Howes?

  What's your three favorite baseball movies?

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Ooh, ooh, that's good. Um, ooh, that's such a tough question, because I'm gonna get criticism on that one.

• 1:20:21Lewis Howes?

  Just what comes to your mind?

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, what comes to my mind? I mean, you go, you go back to, uh, the Sandlot was obviously, Sandlot just, and again, I've been able to connect with those guys. And we've had Patrick Renner with us, the great Hambino, he's amazing. And so, yeah, that was.

• 1:20:34Lewis Howes?

  That's a great movie.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  You know what one that I watched like religiously, uh, which no one will ever pick as one of the greatest baseball movies? For Love of the Game with Kevin Costner. I was just obsessed with that one, uh, because I was a pitcher. But I mean, yeah, I mean, Field of Dreams, The Moment with the Dad is special. Bull Durham was so funny there moments. I mean, Major League, they're, they're, geez, I'm listing literally all the baseball movies. Top three. What am I missing?

• 1:20:55Lewis Howes?

  What's your, what's a movie that inspires you the most with the vision that you have? What's a movie that you watch, whether it be now or when you're a kid, that you're like, this, this feels like me, what I'm going after?

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Inspires me the most.

• 1:21:08Lewis Howes?

  The Greatest Showman or just?

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I love The Greatest Showman because of what they're doing, but I don't know if it's the most inspiring movie.

• 1:21:14Lewis Howes?

  Rocky. I don't know. What's your?

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  No, I mean, again, I, it's so crazy, Louis. And I mean this, I am so focused on what we're doing. And even my family in the business, that like, I, my mind doesn't go to movies. Like, I, the realest reason when I saw was Michael. And Michael Jackson.

• 1:21:28Lewis Howes?

  What'd you think of that?

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  It was, there was a lot more to be told.

• 1:21:34Lewis Howes?

  Hey, of course.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  A lot more to be told. As someone, I studied Michael, I was obsessed with Michael as a kid, one of the greatest performers.

• 1:21:39Lewis Howes?

  You perform Michael Jackson a lot.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:21:41Lewis Howes?

  Do you have like all these videos of you dancing?

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  That's bad that you know that, but yes.

• 1:21:44Lewis Howes?

  I've seen those videos.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Um, I was obsessed with Michael. Great, it's more, I mean, I think, you know, there was moments in there, he goes, he goes, you know, if you, if you see Haley's comment every year, it won't matter anymore.

• 1:21:52Lewis Howes?

  Not special, right?

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Not special. And so I think about that often. I think about a lot of those things and he goes, I want to be the best. I want to sell this. I want, you know, I remember seeing a documentary about Chris Martin and Coldplay. When he was a kid, he was young. He's like, we're going to sell out the biggest stadiums in the world. He was like, just his band just started. I love people that go out and say what they're going to do and they dream big and they go out and do it. And so like, yeah, you know, Michael and some of those documentaries, I just, I love that.

• 1:22:19Lewis Howes?

  What was it about Michael Ja, obviously he's got a, you know, interesting past too, but what was it about him as a performer? That inspired you so much to be obsessed about him as a performer?

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Well, watch This Is It or watch, uh, the MJ The Musical, uh, on Broadway, which is great. It's just talking about his tour. It was such an obsession over every moment, every beat, everything that comes in, every sound effect, every, everything. And even right before he died, he was challenged with a lot of medical issues. You see that tour, he's like, no, we're going to hit it here. No, right here. We have to hit here. It was every moment. And I watched that. You know, I've been fortunate to work with Passick and Paul, the writers of The Greatest Showman, and I've been able to sit in the room with them. And the obsession over every syllable, every piece, I mean, we've been, we've been writing together, we're writing songs.

• 1:23:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. And we just released our first song, Show Starts Now.

• 1:23:05Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  But when you're in rooms with people like, like Michael, Passick and Paul, Manny Moore, choreographer, who did the Taylor Swift tour, did La La Land and jazz was there. It's every single detail matters. The greatest performers, the greatest achievers ever, they have that same thing in common. And so I think Michael was probably the best at it. And so when you watch a tour, there was a reason why people were fainting, like my, it was just, everything was perfection. How he'd come up on the toaster lift, how he would stand there for two minutes, like he did during the Super Bowl, two minutes. Just the glass and he's waiting because he understands, he's building.

• 1:23:38Lewis Howes?

  I love that video of the producer behind the scenes.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 1:23:41Lewis Howes?

  Who's like, come on, Michael, come on, Michael, let's do it. And he's, and he knows, he says.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Holds it. He's sizzling and because he, because he's feeling the moment. And I tell our people all the time, it's you build the moment, you build the moment, you build the moment. It's that obsession to detail. So like Michael or any of the greatest performers, they all have that in common. Taylor Swift, another one, you watch her, you're like, it's every moment, her and Manny, that's why they work so well together. I just, that's what excites me because when you nail it, which doesn't happen often, there's no other feeling. You feel, you do come alive. Like our first football stadium at Clemson, we had a halftime show in the middle of the game. We had singers up in the top decks. We had the whole Clemson band come together. We had both teams into a full performance. This is happening in the middle of the game with the clock still running and they're all dancing. And I wish there was a clip somewhere. I'm jumping on the side up and down because I'm feeling it. I'm literally jumping up and down.

• 1:24:26Lewis Howes?

  This is happening.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Going nuts because I'm watching the vision of like, we're hitting that upper deck, we're hitting that upper deck, we're hitting here. Now the whole, the band comes in 200 people, now 60 performers and you nail it, you nail. Those moments, I feel alive.

• 1:24:38Lewis Howes?

  For something like that, how, how much do you rehearse that big halftime?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  An outrageous amount.

• 1:24:42Lewis Howes?

  So you're rehearsing it where? At the stadium?

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  So, so every show starts, it's exactly like Saturday Night Live and I've taken so much inspiration.

• 1:24:48Lewis Howes?

  All week you're rehearsing.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  You start, you, you start on Tuesday.

• 1:24:52Lewis Howes?

  Tuesday ideas.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Well, the idea is you start, then you have your table read.

• 1:24:55Lewis Howes?

  You probably have some set things that you're going to do. You're like, all right, we have.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  No, you start from scratch.

• 1:24:59Lewis Howes?

  It's all new.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So you have, so.

• 1:25:01Lewis Howes?

  You have like guys walk off songs, right? You have different.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  You have your regular hits. Like we, we do Hey Baby, it's a banana land. We do that every game. So you have some remants, but all of the.

• 1:25:08Lewis Howes?

  Fifty percent is standard.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Tuesday is all brand new.

• 1:25:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  And so for instance, we have six shows. And so.

• 1:25:15Lewis Howes?

  Every weekend? Any season.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so if you have, if you have two games a weekend, you have six shows. If we have three games a weekend, I have nine shows. And you're doing 10 to 15 brand new every night. So we do a hundred brand new things. So Tuesday, all the idea sessions, all day. Then we start writing the scripts, the blocking, the choreography, start doing rehearsal in Savannah for a bit that Wednesday, then we fly.

• 1:25:35Lewis Howes?

  Everyone's in Savannah.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Oh, all six teams are in Savannah.

• 1:25:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had to figure that one out too. That was hard.

• 1:25:40Lewis Howes?

  So they're all rehearsing and practicing during?

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, on one field. We had to figure that one out. Yeah.

• 1:25:44Lewis Howes?

  Do they have different times?

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. And it's crazy. Our days, like literally from like nine AM, they're going, and then we have a little side field that we built of like.

• 1:25:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  We figure it out. Uh, because now we're all there and we understand.

• 1:25:53Lewis Howes?

  That's cool that you're all there though.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. You understand what it's all about. So we know the heart of who we are and what we stand for. You don't separate it. So yeah, then we travel and then saw that at Clemson, uh, the day before, we start a little bit of rehearsals, the blocking.

• 1:26:04Lewis Howes?

  It's Savannah though, right?

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Well, we start that, yeah, start in Savannah. But then you go there and then you're going to bring the Clemson band. Then you're going to bring the performers in. Then you do it in the morning, then you do it during the day. You do it three, four, five times. And then you just hope with 81,000 fans there and in the middle of the game, you hope.

• 1:26:18Lewis Howes?

  The last, that's where it all comes together.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  You hope that it hits. And most times for me, it's hard because I know I see all the things that don't hit.

• 1:26:25Lewis Howes?

  No, you have a hundred percent. You're always going to see things that don't hit.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  So like, well, well, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking what's wrong with things, how it's.

• 1:26:31Lewis Howes?

  So funny because I was at a, you know, we do a, we do a big event every year called the Summit of Greatness and.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Lewis Howes?

  And we do some smaller kind of mastermind events or whatever, but we're not an event company, but we like to put on a show when we do it. We want to go big.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 1:26:46Lewis Howes?

  We've never made any money because we overspent on production and the experience.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  The wall philosophy.

• 1:26:50Lewis Howes?

  Dance and art. We make it an artistic expression of life. And when you spend money on art, you don't make money unless it's like a long-term investment. So, and we don't sell anything at our event.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:01Lewis Howes?

  There's no upsell, there's no nothing. It's all fans.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:27:04Lewis Howes?

  The worst business model.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're creating a community. You're, there's a purpose for it. You're creating.

• 1:27:08Lewis Howes?

  Give back.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

• 1:27:10Lewis Howes?

  And, um, it's so funny because, you know, uh, so I relate to this because we're rehearsing for two days before, but we're really rehearsing all year round. And then we only have like two days on location. While you're building the set and the production and there's tons of moving parts to try to get the essence of the feeling you want to create.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:30Lewis Howes?

  And you hope that when it starts at nine AM, like the music cues hit, the, the, the performance, like everything works with all those rehearsals. So I understand that feeling. And I was in Australia last week, had a little speaking tour.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Lewis Howes?

  And I wasn't putting on the event, but the, the guy who was putting on the event, it's just so funny because I notice when something's not working also from behind the scenes.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:27:52Lewis Howes?

  And we were doing like this little kind of VIP meet and greet Q and A at the end. And I could see, because at one point we were given the mics to like do Q and A.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:02Lewis Howes?

  And the mic wasn't on and I could just see him scratching the mic, like without anyone noticing, I could just, I looked over, I see him scratching it and just kind of.

• 1:28:12Lewis Howes?

  Tapping and then looking over and I go, I just laugh and I look at him, I go, you're obsessive like me about the little details. Yeah. The mic has not turned on like right when you need it to be turned on. And I could just see it and we just kind of had this laughing moment of like the production mind, you know?

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  You always see it. But I think what you said, what you said earlier was really brilliant. He said, uh, you know, you have this feeling that you want to mind. I think most people like, they're like, I want to build this, I want to create this, I want to do this. But it's, it's, it's working backwards from that feeling. Like what's that feeling that you, like, if you work backwards, I, I, I had, when I was struggling, I was. You know, starting in Gastonia and it was just me. It was like a few of, like we were just, I was burnt out almost every night.

• 1:28:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Oh man, I was just, I was doing everything. I was doing sales, I was doing sponsorship, I was doing finance, I was burnt out. And finally I was, I was like, all right, what days are the days that I feel good? And I looked at my schedule and it was days that I was coming up with ideas or I was out sharing what we're doing, talking to people or, you know, I was promoting, I was doing all that. Or I was learning, I was doing that. And so I created, you know, uh, my energy list. And it's all things that are creating, sharing and growing. And what I realized, what you just said there, it's like, work backwards from that and work backwards from the feeling that you want to have.

• 1:29:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  And like, I can, I vividly can remember that feeling at Clemson, jumping up and down. And I feel, I can feel it right now because it, everything came together. And it's like, okay, why? How do you work backwards from that? What are you trying to create? I was like, what I felt was everyone together was doing something together. We were building something together. It wasn't just one person doing this, one person doing this. It was hundreds of people on the field, people up in the stands, everyone in this moment together. And it's like, okay, I always want to create those shared emotional, powerful moments where you feel alive. And so that's what I work backwards from because if I can have one of those a day, one of those a week, it's a great week. It's a great day.

• 1:29:50Lewis Howes?

  That's big. Yeah. Wow. So everyone, there's what hundreds of players now and.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Hundred and sixty players, hundred and fifty cast members.

• 1:29:57Lewis Howes?

  How does this work then? Do you pay their rent or do they, they have to move, they have to move there and then they find an apartment, they find a house and they just, they live their life, they're getting a salary.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:06Lewis Howes?

  So you're not paying for.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we, we pay them, we pay them year round, which most leagues don't. We pay them year round, they have full health insurance, they have all the, you know, the benefits, all that stuff. But yeah, we're a. Yeah, we're really proud of where it's come because you know, you look at where baseball leagues and minor leagues and everything else. I mean, it's just at such a low level. And we're continuing to grow at a higher level than we ever imagined. And I'm very grateful for that.

• 1:30:25Lewis Howes?

  Now I'm, I'm interested, I'm curious about this because most people think of it as obviously they're coming to watch baseball, but you look at it more as entertainment, I'm assuming.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes, baseball is the, the game we're playing, I guess.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Well, banana ball. We don't use the term baseball. It's not baseball.

• 1:30:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, it's banana ball.

• 1:30:41Lewis Howes?

  But are you trying to get your guys to be better at dancing and entertaining and performing? Or trying to have them better at banana ball with playing baseball within your level of banana ball?

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  D, all of the above.

• 1:30:56Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  So like, yes, I mean.

• 1:30:57Lewis Howes?

  As of right now, I'm assuming they're better baseball players within banana ball rather than.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  They, they all start as baseball players.

• 1:31:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  They become banana ball players. And what we hope is they all obsess over, uh, putting on the greatest performance, the greatest show and creating fans. And so we're very intentional. I mean, we, and during our spring training, we spend days going through who we are, what we stand for, what great banana balls. In the middle of the season, I meet with them, I talk. We literally have everything timed, how long the games are, how many trick plays we're doing, all of this. I mean, it's a constant metric of how do we make the game better? I mean, we're having, we're having games over 30 trick plays. That's backflip catches behind, we have first baseman catching the ball behind her on, on a ball thrown like this. We've had double plays where a guy catches it barehand at first base on a 90 mile, it's crazy.

• 1:31:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Barehand backflip catches. They're doing things every night I've never seen before on a baseball field. I love that. Because that's how you, we can't get bored, you know, going back to the feeling of boredom. If, if we've seen it all.

• 1:31:48Lewis Howes?

  We're going to, you want to watch to see what's happening.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I don't want to miss something.

• 1:31:51Lewis Howes?

  What's going to happen?

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  If, if me and our team who's been, we don't want to miss anything, good luck for the fans, their first time coming.

• 1:31:56Lewis Howes?

  What do you think will happen when all of your players?

• 1:32:04Lewis Howes?

  Get better at dancing and performing and the entertainment side. Just as good as they are at the baseball side.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Well, well, you plus so.

• 1:32:13Lewis Howes?

  Or better.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so here's a, here's a good thing that I learned and bring on. We talk a lot about raising the bar. And we talk about who's going to be the bar raisers. And so like, for instance, we had Ziggy, Alex Ziegler. And so he was a bat trickster. I found it. He was on the internet doing bat trick.

• 1:32:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he balanced and he can do all these things. And so he's a bat trickster.

• 1:32:31Lewis Howes?

  But can he hit the ball?

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he played baseball. So he could, yeah, he could, yeah. He had a home run at Clemson, I think, last year, which was awesome. So we won't say how short the fence was because it was a football stadium, but he had a home run. So my, my point was, uh, he, I watched, I said, guys, just continue to try things and show things. Again, go ahead and see draws. People don't know what they want until you show it to them. So he was in the off season and he was just catching balls like this and catching balls like this. So I said, Ziggy, what is that? He goes, I've just been working on it. So I call our coach. I go, let's put Ziggy at first. Goes Ziggy first? And I go, yeah.

• 1:33:02Lewis Howes?

  Let's catch from behind and back.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Catch him back. So he goes over there. And he's just practicing over and over and over again. And the first time a guy throws a ball over and he immediately turns and catches it like that against Alex. We were all like, what? And then the next day he catches ball like this. He's now our regular first baseman.

• 1:33:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  But professionally, he's doing it. He raised the bar.

• 1:33:23Lewis Howes?

  And now everyone else needs to learn how to do that.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  D R Meadows, our center fielder. First guy's like, I can do a backflip. I'm gonna try to catch a ball doing a backflip. Start doing it. Then he's like, I want to try it without a glove to the bear hat. Then he's like, I saw the Saquon Barkley, where a guy jumped over backwards. I'm gonna jump backwards and catch the ball between my legs. He did the Saquon Barkley. Raises the bar in the outfield. Rack raises the bar. He's trying to do aerial catches and all these other things. So for instance, everyone you look at, at raising the bar. Derek Clenna, I don't know if you know the name, but Derek Clenna was a Broadway A-lister. Is a Broadway A-lister and passing and Paul, we were writing and coming up with ideas. He goes, have you heard of Derek Clenna? I go, no. Starts showing me. I'm like, he was on Wicked, literally, and Moulin Rouge and like A-lister. But he played baseball at UCLA.

• 1:34:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  13 years ago. And I was like, Derek. And we, we, we connected. I go, crazy idea. Why don't you come down to a tryout?

• 1:34:10Lewis Howes?

  Come sing.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  He comes down to a tryout.

• 1:34:11Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  And he takes a mic out, sings, and it's the best I've ever heard singing on a field because it's Broadway, full, unbelievable. And then he pitches. I was like, your arm works. And he's not throwing 90 miles an hour, but the arm works.

• 1:34:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  So we talked, we said, want to give it a shot?

• 1:34:26Lewis Howes?

  Is he playing now?

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  It's a full-time player with the.

• 1:34:27Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  And so when.

• 1:34:29Lewis Howes?

  He was on Broadway, now he's with you guys?

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  He left Broadway. Now he's a full-time.

• 1:34:32Lewis Howes?

  He's a pitcher?

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:34Lewis Howes?

  Does he sing like in the middle of innings or something?

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Derek, Derek has generated hundreds of millions of views. He has gone from thousands of balls to hundreds of thousands of followers. He, we wrote our song, show starts now. He's saying, clap the ESPs live.

• 1:34:51Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  And it's.

• 1:34:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  He raised the bar. So now that we have a singer player, what's next?

• 1:34:58Lewis Howes?

  You mean a dancer player?

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, we have, we have breakdancing coaches. We have other things that we have, uh, we have cast that's unbelievable that are doing things that, you know, I've never seen before. And we've got two, uh, Broadway type guys that are hosts for the Indianapolis Clowns. We've got the number one juggler in the world, Spencer, who's with us juggling for the Indianapolis Clowns, which was the former Negro lead team that was all about entertainment. We've got an acrobat who was from Circus Soleil. We've got one of the best contortionists in the world that's with us that. We're going to give him his first at bat this week. So he's got to come up to bat and hopefully he'll be like.

• 1:35:25Lewis Howes?

  Enter something.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Hopefully he'll be completely flat on the ground with no strikes. So we'll see what happens. And so you keep pushing the envelope and raising the bar. And that's, so who's going to raise the bar in your position? Who's going to raise the bar here? And that's, that's what excites me.

• 1:35:37Lewis Howes?

  This is cool, man.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  That's why you got to say.

• 1:35:40Lewis Howes?

  I gotta bring out, you just have to shout out. Yeah, I gotta come out. This has been powerful, Jesse. I've got a couple of final questions for you.

• 1:35:47Lewis Howes?

  This one's called the three truths. Imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:52Lewis Howes?

  And you get to create and manifest everything you want in this life. From personal to, to banana ball, to everything. It comes true. Beyond your wildest dreams. Imagine six years ago, when you did your first game to where it is now, how much it's grown. And imagine 50 years from now where it could be.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Lewis Howes?

  But on your last day, you have to take all of your information with you.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:18Lewis Howes?

  This conversation, your books, anything you ever say, video is gone.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:22Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  Oh, jeez. Yeah, you've asked.

• 1:36:27Lewis Howes?

  You only get to leave behind three lessons that we would get to remember of your content. What would those three truths be for you?

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I go back to, you know, the first thing we ever put on our fans first playbook. I wrote, be patient in what you want for yourself, but be impatient in how much you give to others. And so I think that's something that I've really learned that has been powerful for us.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Again, this isn't so elegant, but do what gives you energy. You know, I think that's just something that I've.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  And, you know, again, there's lots of all these sayings that I, I think our staff could all say are my sayings, but you know, I, I don't want to use those. I just like to keep things simple and, and spread joy. Just spread joy, man. And it's, it's, you know, it's how you show up. How you do anything is how you do everything. And if you spread joy, you bring energy and you give to others, I think anything is possible.

• 1:37:20Lewis Howes?

  Good things happen. Good things happen. You've got, um, Banana Bowl, I believe. Is it on ESPN in October? Do we know where it's?

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Disney, the Banana Bowl. Yes.

• 1:37:28Lewis Howes?

  What is this Banana Bowl?

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  It's the biggest event in Banana Bowl history.

• 1:37:32Lewis Howes?

  Have you done this before?

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  It's our WrestleMania, no.

• 1:37:35Lewis Howes?

  So what is it going to be? What can people expect when they watch it?

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  What can? So we're gonna, we're gonna do, we're bringing all six teams, all of our cast. There'll be hundreds of people. It's going to be the biggest performance of our lives. We're gonna, we're gonna picture a Super Bowl halftime show, but we're gonna do the final inning show with all original music. And it is going to be over the top and it's going to be larger than life. And, uh, it is the scariest thing I've ever done, um, because it's the biggest stakes. And if you go back to first WrestleMania, the first Super Bowl, all those moments, this is it for us. And to show that it's so much more than just one team. So much more than just one person. It's a, it's a movement. And the Banana Bowl universe is, is here to stay. That's our first night. We're going to go out and prove.

• 1:38:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Where's it gonna be? Do we know yet? Do we?

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Uh, we, we, we, we, we can't share. Uh, it is something that has changed.

• 1:38:23Lewis Howes?

  It's not public yet.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  It's not public and it's changed a lot over time.

• 1:38:26Lewis Howes?

  Maybe he's on nowhere.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of things that have changed. Um, and there's intentionality on where, where it's going to be. And we're pretty close to be able to announce that.

• 1:38:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:35Lewis Howes?

  But it'll be televised or it'll be.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  Oh, it'll be all over Disney. It'll be all global. It'll be Disney and there'll be, uh, there'll be things that we've never done before, bigger than we've ever done them before. And I'm hoping for that feeling that I had at Clemson, that I'm jumping up and down. But, uh, it's going to be extremely hard. Uh, and if we deliver, it'll be something people will never forget.

• 1:38:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow. It'd be cool if it was at Disney, huh?

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. Uh, well, we, we play games of the wide world of sports, but yeah, you can't, you can't have it at, uh, uh, I don't think Magic Kingdom there. We could fit, we could fit the fields and all that stuff there. Maybe one day.

• 1:39:03Lewis Howes?

  What, um, by the end of Banana Bowl, what is the, the feeling you want to have after you, after it's midnight, all the fans leave? And you've accomplished your first ever Banana Bowl. What do you want to feel? And. Yeah. What do you want to feel?

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  I'm gonna hug my dad. And hug Emily, hug the kids.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  I've had these feelings before. So when you do something that's really hard and you work really hard for it and you get to feel it and you get to feel how far you've come. And, you know, we've come from nothing. We've come from a wild journey, a lot of criticism every step of the way. People told us that we couldn't do it. And when you do something that is, um, beyond anything you ever imagined and you, the key is to not, you know, be at the top of that mountain, be by yourself. And to be with my dad, my family, and then all the people that have worked so hard on this. As much as it's going to be amazing seeing the thousands of fans at the end of the night. It's going to be coming back to have our final fans first chat. Cheersing everyone, being around everyone and saying, look at what we just did.

• 1:40:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  That's going to be. And the song that we wrote was, look what we made. Dream it up. It could look something like this. Long ago, we said we'd make it someday. Hey, hey, look what we made.

• 1:40:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  And that's the song we're going to perform, the final song.

• 1:40:26Lewis Howes?

  That is cool.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna be pretty special.

• 1:40:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man. This is amazing.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:30Lewis Howes?

  I want to acknowledge you, Jesse, for the journey you've been on, man. It's been crazy, you know, since. Well, I met you in 2018 for a few minutes. We've been connected over the years on social media and texts and things like that, just seeing what you've been up to. But it's inspiring to see you've stuck true to your values and you've just gone for it. You've gone for it and you've been riding the wave and you haven't allowed outside forces to get you off path. And I think a lot of people get caught up in shiny objects for the wrong reasons. You've been, you know, caught up in your own shiny object for the right reasons and stuck true to yourself. So I want to acknowledge you for staying true to yourself, for not doing it for the money, but doing it for people.

• 1:41:13Lewis Howes?

  And bringing as much joy to as many people as possible. And I cannot wait to get to a game one day. So.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  We're gonna have some fun. You better be ready. You're gonna, we're gonna get you going.

• 1:41:21Lewis Howes?

  I'm in, man. Put me in, put me in.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Singing.

• 1:41:23Lewis Howes?

  We may go on board. Let's go. You know, I'm in for this.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  We're gonna have some fun.

• 1:41:28Lewis Howes?

  For people that haven't seen Banana Ball yet, how can they follow the journey, get on a waitlist? Social media, where should they go to experience what you're talking about if they've never seen it? And then how can they come to a game or be a part of the universe?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I appreciate you using the Banana Ball universe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're easy to find. You search Banana Ball, search Savannah Manas. And you know, even I think my phone number, my email's still out there everywhere. It's crazy. But uh, yeah, I mean, we post every day. You know, one of the things I believe is you learn by doing. And so when we first started social media, we didn't know what we're doing. We said we're gonna post every day, try to spread joy, try to make baseball fun and show what we're doing. And now, you know, fortunate over 40 million followers that have been following us on this journey. And so, uh, yeah, we are very visible. We're very out there. I think that's one of the biggest things that is our differentiator. You know, when many people put barriers between people, we try to, you know, break down those barriers and allow our fans to be around us and interact.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  And we love it. It gives us joy and purpose. So, um, very accessible, uh, probably too much to an extent, but, uh, I love it. And the joy I feel when fans come up to me and, you know, think about this, how many people in their life? Someone, you get to feel it. I know because of what you do, but how many people come up and just say, thank you? You know, just to come up, I wish everyone in the world could get thanked every day for what they do. And we get to feel that. So I'm very grateful.

• 1:42:42Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, man, it's a, it's a blessing. Anytime I, I don't really leave much. Like I, you know, I work out at home, my trainer comes to me, I come to the office, I go home with my kids. I don't go out as much anymore, but anytime I travel or go out and someone comes up to me and tells me how the shows impact.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  The impact their life? Yeah.

• 1:43:00Lewis Howes?

  There's no better feeling to meet someone that you've made a difference in their life. There's no better feeling. And so if you get to this every week and high five thousands of people who are having the best time ever, there's nothing else you'd rather do.

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. It's fuel.

• 1:43:14Lewis Howes?

  If someone gave you a billion dollars right now to sell it, you'd be like, I don't know what else I would do. I would go redo this whole thing again.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:43:21Lewis Howes?

  Cause it's not about the money. It's about the impact.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And that's what helps me when there's constant criticism, because we still get criticism. You know, every day we get criticism because, you know, the only people that get criticized are the people that actually do something.

• 1:43:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  And so we're gonna keep doing, I'm gonna have that fuel from those people. And you know, that's, that drives us. If you don't want to, you know, I just, I so believe in just showing up constantly for people that believe in what you believe in. And I realize that we're gonna continue to get criticized. The bigger the stage, the bigger the criticism. But the people that believe in you and you feel that every day that come and thank you, that's who we're worked for. That's who it is.

• 1:43:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I'm just curious, how many followers does all of MLB or MLB teams have combined? Do you know?

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  It's not a.

• 1:43:59Lewis Howes?

  I was curious.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. I honestly like, I think a lot of people, they spend a lot of time focusing on their competitors. You know, I'm just obsessed over our fans or what we say are customers, but like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they, it's, they probably, they probably have a lot, but I know we, I know our party animals have, I was told more than every major league baseball team on TikTok and they're our second team. So like, it shows you we've been able to grow by giving something that fans, you know, want.

• 1:44:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's amazing, man. Um, well, they can follow you, Yellow Tux Jesse, all over social media. You got a lot of great content. And the thing I love about your content, you tell a lot of great stories.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:44:32Lewis Howes?

  So you're in the stadiums, you're on locations, sharing stories, which I think is just.

• 1:44:38Speaker 01

  Think about this, who's, who's, if you were to look back, who's the biggest inspiration for you like in your, like maybe not just personal, but maybe even someone big like, like for me, it's Walt Disney. Like, yeah. Is there anybody that like?

• 1:44:48Lewis Howes?

  I mean, like, you know, LeBron James, I liked as an athlete.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Anyone from way back, anyone like anyone that.

• 1:44:53Lewis Howes?

  Michael Jordan was like, you know, when I was growing up, he was the guy.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  And you got to see it a little bit with The Last Dance, but think about this.

• 1:44:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, The Last Dance was good.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Think about.

• 1:45:00Lewis Howes?

  We didn't tell many stories though during.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:45:02Lewis Howes?

  Just saw him play.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  If Walt Disney and his journey of building Snow White, Disneyland was sharing the ups and the downs and when they mess up.

• 1:45:09Lewis Howes?

  Incredible.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  That's what I said. So I, I realized like, I had such a great gift to be able to read a lot, but wine on this journey, like it's hard. We're going through it. I just love, I think it's something I love sharing it because I know other people are going through some things.

• 1:45:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  And so that's like, gives me, it inspires me. I'm like, I think back, man, if Walt shared everything about the day.

• 1:45:25Lewis Howes?

  Incredible. Yeah. You're a great storyteller.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  Well, that's awesome. Thank you.

• 1:45:29Lewis Howes?

  Find your yellow tux.com. You can learn more about you and what you're building as well, but, uh, yellow tux Jesse on socials. Final question, Jesse, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny. I think about, I've watched so many of your shows and I probably, I know some people probably prepare on these. Like I was just like, I want to be here with you. I, the way I, greatness is someone being the best version themselves. And truly being able to give and go all out and just really.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  I, I think about what we do and I think about, I'm surrounded by a lot of greatness and they are, they've been in tune with everything that lights them up, that makes them feel alive and they give everything they got at the best version of themselves. And I think that's something that, um, you know, you could look at greatness as, you know, success, fulfillment, joy. And I think all that comes to, but someone that's truly great is able to put in tune, everything that they have, everything that they can give to the world. And they give their best. I think that's what, that's what greatness can be. So I probably should have thought of that more in detail. It's funny. No, it's so funny. Like I know you asked those questions, but I was like, I'm just gonna be present with you and I'm not gonna like think about stuff, but.

• 1:46:46Lewis Howes?

  It's beautiful, man.

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  Well, what do you, what do you define greatness as?

• 1:46:49Lewis Howes?

  My current definition.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  Cause it has a change?

• 1:46:52Lewis Howes?

  It probably has.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  That's where I figure where you are in your world.

• 1:46:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. It is. And for me, it's discovering your unique, the aunts and gifts.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:01Lewis Howes?

  To pursue your dreams and in that pursuit, making the maximum impact on the people around you.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Lewis Howes?

  For me, that's what it is. Cause I feel like you were born to discover what our gifts are. And I feel like it's a waste if we don't pursue those gifts.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  But I think it's a similarity in what we, because I said to you, the best version of yourself, you have to have your unique gifts.

• 1:47:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I think it's a waste if you just do it for selfish reasons for you to like look good rather than impact, help people around you.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:26Lewis Howes?

  So that's the current, but who knows? Maybe in 30 years I'll be like.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting. Well, I wrote my, in my first book, I wrote my, um, obituary and I was 30 years old or whatever I was.

• 1:47:35Lewis Howes?

  It's different.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  That's completely different. Cause you know, at 30, your different mindset is you grow and you evolve. And I was like, how do you, how will you be remembered? And so like greatness, like right now, I'm just talking with you. I'm like, all right, what's the best version of yourself? But like, you know, if you think about it in five years, I'd be like, ooh, this is greatness.

• 1:47:47Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  But again, when I surround myself with greatness, I see it unbelievable obsession and obsession with how to make something truly special and different and unique. It's an obsession and I don't, I don't find anybody that's truly great that is not obsessed. And people look at obsession as a bad thing. I think it's a beautiful thing. I think if you can find something that you're truly obsessed with, boy, what a gift.

• 1:48:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Now, how many people have that? And so that's, you know, it's, I think that's a really good point. I think in five, 10 years, we definitely how you evolve and how you define things.

• 1:48:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Sorry, man. Man, we jam, man. Appreciate you, man. Appreciate you, man. So good.

• 1:48:23Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:49:02Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.