Jesse Itzler from Living With A Seal on "Crushing The Comfort Zone"

We all have this reserve tank and when we think we're done, we have so much more in us. And he would say three. He called it the 40% rule that when, you know, at the first time or indication of pain or discomfort, our brain immediately sends a signal for us to stop because it doesn't want us to get hurt or whatever. But that's really just a tap on the shoulder that we have 60% more in us.

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap them in bacon for business owners, marketing execs and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

Okay, that was just a taste of what you're going to hear today on this episode of Bacon Wrap Business. I'm Brad and that was Jesse Itzler. Billionaire, best selling author, endurance athlete, world class crazy man. You'll see why in a few minutes. And actually a world class entrepreneur. We are going to really cover some cool ground in this short, but one of my favorite episodes so far. It's not often you get a billionaire to jump on the phone with you and chat with you about the things that he's done. And before we jump into the full blown introduction to Jesse, let me tell you about a couple things. First of all, thank you to all my loyal listeners and welcome to anybody who's brand new. If you're not a subscriber to the show, hit subscribe. Got a lot ton of great content and every single one of these episodes is with somebody that I have a legitimate curiosity about and I am letting you listen in as I pick their brain and believe me, I try to pick their brain clean for very selfish reasons. That being said, I want to let you know about or actually unveil cool but secretive project that I've been alluding to on the show. And it is officially live. And that is our official new sponsor of bacon wrap business is Stiletto Coffee. You go to stiletto coffee.com you'll see what it's all about. And I have a very soft spot for, for the founder of this company. Her name is Kenya Costanzo. You may recognize the last name. Yes, it is my wife and the day we got back from our honeymoon she had this idea and we have since made it happen. She has been an amazing student and entrepreneur the entire way and she's really inspired me by what she's done and I've been with her every step of the way, helping. And we are building this brand of coffee that is for driven women with exquisite class and a touch of sass. So I invite you to any of my lady listeners, go over and check out stiletto coffee.com I think you'll absolutely love what you see. Take a look at the branding. All of my business and marketing students take a close look at everything we are doing. And by the way, I'm going to be doing some very other special training and case studies on this and how we built this. But you have to be on my newsletter and to do that. So if you're not on my newsletter, simply go over to baconratbusiness.com there's a link right there to subscribe or shoot me an email to askbradbaconratbusiness.com just use the subject line newsletter and I'll make.

Sure I add you.

That's askbradakenratbusiness.com what's really cool about this is that yes, the coffee is for the women. But fellas, you're going to, I mean, Valentine's Day is really just right around the corner. And I'm going to tell you, this makes the absolute perfect gift. It's it comes gift wrapped in a black satin gift bag. I think you'll love it. I could go on for days about it. All the information is over on the blog, I'm sorry, on the site stilettocoffee.com and since you're a listener to the show, if you use the coupon code bacon, obviously. What else would I use? Bacon. At checkout you'll get 25% off. So go to stiletto coffee.com and then shoot me some emails with any questions you have about it. We're going to go deep into this here real soon and it's obviously going to be the official sponsor of bacon wrap business. Okay, let's get to today's guest, Jesse Itzler. So I was first introduced to Jesse about five weeks ago when a friend of mine recommended that I read his book living with a 31 days training with the Toughest man on the Planet where the author decided to get out of his comfort zone and hire a Navy SEAL to live with he and his wife and child for 31 days and just put him through the wringer. It's a very inspirational book, very motivational and it's about much more than just beating yourself down physically. It is as much of a business book as it is a book about life and discipline and determination. I didn't realize this at the time. But Jesse is also a very impressive serial entrepreneur who has done everything from talk his way into a record deal by pretending to be somebody he's not. He, he, in essence, he created an industry called sports music. He then co founded Marquee Jet and sold it to Warren Buffett and NetJets. He then co founded Zico Coconut Water. Maybe you've tried that before. Before he sold it to Coca Cola, he married Spanx CEO Sara Blakely, who is also the world's youngest female billionaire. This summer they just purchased the Atlanta Hawks back basketball team and today he's talking to you and me. One of the things I like most about Jesse is his down to earth one of the guys Persona. I listened to the audiobook and the entire time I was just like, man, I really just want to kind of hang out with this guy. I want to meet him. He seems like somebody who would go get a beer with me. There's no pretension about him. So I was thrilled when I reached out to him and invited him to be on the show and he said, said yes. And I was thrilled to be able to bring you the interview. Now I do have to tell you, it gets a little bit crackly or fuzzy kind of around the end of it. We were having a little bit of Skype Internet issues, but you can still get it. I've edited out any of the bad parts, but please enjoy. Jesse Itzler on bacon Wrap Business.

All right, so Jesse, welcome to the show, man. It's great to have you here.

Thanks, Brad, man, I appreciate you thinking of me.

It was funny. So a friend of mine, this is how we met. A friend of mine, Ed o', Keefe, said he was interviewing you on his show and I just kind of commented on the Facebook comment and you saw that and I was really excited to hear that you would come on the show because literally just that day I had finished your book Living with a Seal. And I mean, it was hilarious, insightful, inspirational. And the next day, I got to tell you, when I was in the gym, I could hear both you and David Seal screaming in my ears. And I pumped out like a. I think I did 200 pushups that day, which is more than I've ever done in one day. Also made me think you are crazy.

For some of that stuff.

But I love it.

David would say if you did 200, you had 280 in you.

Exactly. So I want to get to the.

Book here in a second. But it's weird. There's so much I want to talk to you about. I could literally spend hours chatting with you because you brought up so many ideas and concepts. Tell me a little bit more about the journey.

Well, like a lot of things that have happened to me in my life, this particular thing where I live with this Navy seal was not planned. Yeah, you know, I saw him at a race. It was a relay race that I was doing, a 24 hour race. You run as many miles as you can in 24 hours. And I was part of a six person team. We were rotating who each guy would run a mile. And this guy to my left had no team. He was running the entire race himself. And the race was self supported, so you had to bring all your own supplies. The race didn't provide anything. And we had bananas and Gatorade and tents and chairs and everything. And this guy who was about £270, had a bottle of water, a bag of crackers, and a fold up chair. That's it. So I was so blown away by his size. And he just had nothing. He just sat there, he looked angry. And by mile 70, he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet because of his weight. And I watched this guy finish the last 30 miles. He ran 100 on just pure guts and just drive. I was so inspired and intrigued that I wanted to learn more about this guy. I googled him. I learned he was a Navy seal. I cold called him and. And I just flew out to meet him. And literally, Brett, I sat with him for like 10 minutes. And it just like a thought popped into my head like my life would be so much better. I'd be more disciplined, I could be more productive. I learned more about myself. Whatever. All the buckets in my life would be better if a little of what he had rubbed off on me. And I asked him out of nowhere to come live with me and my wife and my family for 31 days, for a month. And that's how it started.

Were you a little bit. Were you a little bit scared going.

What am I gonna. What am I getting myself into here?

Like, well, I mean, like, I didn't have time to be scared because three days later he was at my breakfast table.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And at, you know, to answer one of your questions in the beginning, you know, like, where was I in my life? I was in a great place in my life. I was happy. I was married. I still am. I'd sold a business, I had success, but I was in a routine, you know, like, we all tend to just kind of Go into autopilot at different times in our life. And, you know, I don't know what triggered it with me, but I was doing this and I had a great routine. I was doing it the same thing every day. Wake up, run, work out, go to work, family dinner, boom, repeat. And routines are great, but I wasn't getting better. I was just stuck. I was comfortable and I couldn't. I didn't have the power to get out of it. So I needed something like this to just completely shake up my life. And part of what, you know, part of it was I wanted to get in great shape and I wanted to be pushed physically, but that was obvious. He's a Navy seal and his backstory is unbelievable. I can share that. But, you know, he is an amazing, amazing endurance athlete. But he wasn't always like that. He weighed 300 pounds. He had low self esteem as a kid out of high school. He turned his life around. And so I wanted to get out of my routine and I wanted to get the psychological side of it. Like, what makes a guy like this tick? Where was that drive that I saw at mile 70? Like, where did that come from? And how do I incorporate that into business deals, into training, into my personal life? So that's what I signed up for. And I just went in with no expectation other than hoping to find some answers.

Yeah. So how did it, how has it.

Transpired, like, the stories and the journey that you took? I mean, I was, I was with you the whole time, but at the same time, I was so happy that I wasn't doing it with you.

I know.

I was like, you know, you actually.

Didn'T talk about as much. I thought you would have talked about more of, like, if it was my book, I would have complained a lot more going, oh, my God, I am going to die. I was like, man, this guy's got a pretty good attitude through all this when he's.

I know. Well, you know, he. It's. It's one thing to read about inspiration, I like to say, but, like, to live with inspiration is such a different thing. And, you know, again, going back to his backstory, Navy SEAL, 20 plus years, you know, he's done so much stuff for our country, been through so much, been through hell week, been through, been deployed, you know, been in the coldest water and the hottest temperatures and all that stuff. I'm going to complain, like, I can't do 100 push, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I just didn't have. There was no wiggle room for that.

Puts it into perspective. How has it affected you now? Because this was a few years ago that you did this, right?

It was. And you know, I got out of it what I. And that's why I wrote the book, because, you know, it started out as a blog. I wanted my friends to follow along what I thought would just be the training side of it. You know, like, here's the run we did today, here's the workout we did. Try to follow along or just laugh at it or whatever. But what really was interesting was that whole psychological side. And that was the takeaway for me. Like, you know, I got out of my routine, I learned. He gave me all these, all this wisdom and nuggets. But, but to me, I think the biggest takeaway was, you know, I thought I was operating at a really high level, Brad. You know, I was, I was running a lot. I was focused. My business life was, was, was great. Every, all, it was all good. But I, but I thought I was maxed out. High level, maxed out. And he taught me that we all have so much more in us. And the way he did it, it happened early on in our journey. Literally the first 10 minutes that he was there, we went down to the gym and he said he wanted to see how many pull ups I could do. And I did eight. And he said, all right, drop down, wait 30 seconds and try it again. And I got like maybe six. And he said, all right, wait 30 seconds and do it again. And I barely, you know, like kicking my legs, got like three or four and I was done. My arms hurt. I was just, I just, you know, this is done. And he said to me, all right, well, we're not leaving until you do a hundred more.

I remember that when you're talking about it.

And I said to him, like, you know, you're kidding, right? That's, that's physically impossible. And he said, you know what? You know, and he said, I'm going to show you how a lot of the limitations you're putting on yourself, you're setting those limitations and I'm going to prove to you that a lot of this stuff is self imposed. And I sat there and goes, I don't care if you do them one at a time, go do 102 hours later or whatever it was. I finished. And he proved to me that three things. One, God, I convinced myself I couldn't do it. It is self imposed. Two, we all have this reserve tank and when we think we're done, we have so much more in us. And he would say three. He called it the 40% rule that when at the first time or indication of pain or discomfort, our brain immediately sends a signal for us to stop because it doesn't want us to get hurt or whatever. But that's really just a tap on the shoulder that we have 60% more in us.

Yeah, man, that's a quote in there that really stuck with me both when I'm in the gym and when I'm working. And maybe it's midnight and my eyes are burning, but I have stuff I've got to do. And as an entrepreneur, sometimes you just have to. To push through and get things done.

And it works.

And it does.

It works. When I whisper that, that's a theme song that runs through my head. And it could be as simple as, like, I'm in traffic and I'm about to freak out because I just can't handle it. I'll just remind myself, I'm like, you know what? You have way more patience than this.

I guess it goes everywhere.

Right.

It's not just how much endurance you have. Yeah.

Physically.

It's emotionally too. How much.

Right. So I use that a lot. I am forcing myself to do things I don't want to do. So, like, I'm forcing myself to do things that make me uncomfortable in all areas of my life. And, you know, that's such an important element to getting to improving. You know, if you're not willing to get uncomfortable or experience pain or failure or whatever, you're never going to get better. And, you know, part of our routine was every day doing something that sucked. He would wake up and be like, every day we're going to do something that just sucks that you don't want to do. And what he was really doing was he was raising my, kind of resetting my set point. He was taking the baseline that I operated on as far as mental toughness or whatever. And every day he was raising it right.

And also redefining your definition of what sucks because you may think, oh man, I've got to sit down and do some taxes today. That doesn't suck. Running 10 miles and doing and 200 push ups. And that sucks.

Right? But, you know, they both suck. We procrastinate, we put stuff off, but you know, and that doesn't do us any good. So sometimes you just gotta just step up and be like, it sucks, but I'm gonna do it. And you feel better. And that's when you feel most alive. You know, the harder the challenge, the more you're doing stuff that you hate to do, the more rewarding it is.

You talked about some really interesting ways of getting your foot in the door in your career and I would love for you to share some of those stories a little bit more. Like you were talking about when you first got your first rap deal and when, you know. And I heard you talk about the Marquee jets deal a little bit.

Yep.

What is, what to you was the.

Biggest door you got your foot in in your life?

You know, early on, it's all been a process. Yeah. So it's all, it's all been like a ladder. One step leads to the next step leads to the next step. And so. And I'm still going through doors that lead to new adventures and new journeys. You know, the Marquee jet door was a big door for me financially and it was a bigger platform. I wouldn't have gotten there if I didn't, you know, finagle my way into the record executives room and get a record deal. So it's all been a process.

That is true. It's all interconnected, right?

It's all interconnected. And you know, I've never, I've always had a movie in my head about where I wanted to be at the end of the day, but I never had a script. I've always been filling in the script as I go along. Like, I always knew I wanted to have independence, have a house, kids, all that stuff. I've had some goals or whatever. I had no idea how I was going to get there. So I've always, you know, I knew the finish line. I just had to fill in the kind of the script to get to the finish line. And the common theme for me has just been that I've never had any past experience in anything that I've gone into. A lot of it hasn't been planned. So I experience in past experience in aviation or private or, you know, living with an abc, writing a book. Any of this has all been a process.

And it's all been, you know, kind of getting my foot in the door and calling audibles, figuring it out as.

I go to get to that finish line. And a lot, and a lot of it has been, you know, Brad, just like getting a tap on my shoulder from myself or from my gut and telling me that I'm a little bit off course. So a lot of times I've been in the like music. I got a record deal when I was 22 years old. I sent out 100 cassettes. When I grew up, it was cassettes.

Yeah. Same Here.

So I had sent out, like most people in those days, 100 cassettes to every record executive on the planet. I didn't get one single callback. And I realized I had to do something. Just do it differently if this was going to work for me. I really wanted to get into the music business. And I ended up calling a label out west called Delicious Vinyl. And I got the founder's assistant or secretary on the line. Through a lot of confusion. She thought I was an artist that was out a popular artist in hip hop and scheduled a meeting for me, thinking that I was this artist. So that's how I got my foot in the door. And then I went to. Met with this guy, and he was confused, and I continued to confuse him, but I ended up getting a deal.

Yeah, it sounds like you kind of live by the let's ask forgiveness rather than permission motto that so many of us do, right? Yeah, let's get in there and figure it out.

Get in there and figure it out. And I ended up becoming great friends with this guy, and that was my first foot in the door. But a lot of what's happened to me in my life has been getting my foot in the door and then getting a tap on my shoulder and saying, you know what? I didn't do great in the music world. My record didn't sell the way I thought it was. I couldn't retire after putting out a record. In fact, I needed a job. So, you know, I was just. I just realized that I was just off course a little bit, that I wanted to stay in music. But maybe it wasn't as a traditional artist. Maybe there's a different lane for me to go. And I changed course. I started doing jingles. I started doing sports theme songs for sports teams. And I opened up a whole new world of opportunity and ultimately the next chapter of my life, which was sports music, a category that I basically created and started a company around doing theme songs for teens, sold it to a public company. So you never know where it's going, but you got to get started. You got to get your foot in the.

I couldn't agree more with you. I've kind of thought of myself in the past, and I think I would.

Probably define you as this.

As kind of an opportune. So you realize and you see the opportunities abound, and then you bring your entrepreneurial skills to that, whether or not they, you know, you've got experience or, God forbid, credentials in that area. I've done a lot of the same things. I mean, I've been involved in so many different businesses now. Just. I'm not as motivated by money as I am by a challenge. And if I think it's going to be fun and exciting to work in, and if it's something that I can do, well, whether or not I have any skills in that area, I'll either develop them or I've come to realize that I don't need to know everything as long as I know the people who do. So. Relationships have been really important to me and building those and nurturing those. And one of the things I. I don't know if this was in your book, but I definitely read about it or heard about it in one of your podcasts, either with Jordan or another one where you talked about. You were pretty intentional, writing notes to people, handwritten notes, and just staying in contact with your circle of influence. Can you touch on that a little bit more about what you did there? Because it didn't just happen by accident.

It doesn't sound like in your 20s, when you come out of college or whatever, the people. But in your 30s, they're in positions of power. And it was so important for me to stay in contact with people in my 20s, because in my 30s, when I needed stuff, my friends were the decision makers. And, you know, the guys that worked.

In the mailroom are now the guys.

That control the boardroom. So for me, you know, I had.

A thing I would always write every day.

I was writing 10 personal letters that.

I would mail out to people to stay in contact, which is 3,000 people plus. And it could be anything from, you know, I appreciate what you did. It was just authentic. It could just be a friend. I appreciate, you know, what you did for me. I enjoyed going to the Knick game with you, whatever it was. But it just helped me build this amazing network, authentic network. And that became really important when we started Marquee Jet and we had to build our customer base. I had these, you know, 3,000 people times X amount of years that I could tap into to spread the word. A lot of the stuff that I've done, I've been able to do organically through this network cost.

Yeah, that's absolutely brilliant. But it just shows that success is intentionally. You didn't just luck into this stuff. You put a lot of the work behind the scenes in to make those relationships happen. And I think that's awesome. They come back to serve you. I remember you were talking about how, you know, your relationship with the story with 50 Cent kind of came back around.

Yeah, I mean, 50. 50 came into my office through a friend. He needed a job and I was doing sports, writing sports theme songs for sports teams. He was helping me because there was so much and you know, he had a partner named Ksan. They were doing rap stuff. And I love Ksan. I thought Ksan was super talented. I signed Ksan and then Curtis became 50 Cent. But fast forward.

But you didn't sign 50, did you?

Did not. Obviously I don't have a good ear for music talent, so I'm not, you know, that's why I got out of that business. But the cool part of the story is years later when he became, you know, a best selling artist and all that stuff, I got a list of people that every day at Marquis Jet we would get a manifest of who was flying on the planes. And so he was a guest on a plane. So I sent them a Note. I said 50, you're never going to believe this. It's Jesse from Alphabet City, which is the company that he interned with our company. And I said, you're on one of our planes. My partner and I started this company and da da da da. And it's super cool way just to kind of around this story. The next day he had in his rider that he was only going to fly with Marquis Jet. It just shows you the power of loyalty that you never know who's going to be who or what's going to be what and you know, do the right thing and the right thing comes back.

Switching tracks a little bit. I heard you say on or. Sorry, I read this on an interview that you did where you said that you know about you professionally, what you do. And you said we find information about a niche and whether we started ourselves or not, we're bringing our entrepreneurial spirit and marketing savvy to those brands. Is that something? And I know you've got your 100 mile group and a lot of the different businesses that you work in. Is that something you're doing right now with companies, whether it's incubating them, advising them, investing in them, I've seen a lot. But what can you tell me about what you're doing professionally now?

Yeah, I always have my eyes out for stuff that I like that, you know, and I look at the world.

I go into a supermarket, I study shells. I like to see what's trending, what's.

New, what's, you know, what's on the rise. So I'm always looking for opportunity. I'm doing less of it now. I got four kids and I'm trying to just invest in my own projects, like this book, stuff that I love to do. But, you know, if something comes along that I'm a customer of, I think I can help move the needle and accelerate it for the brand, and I can get involved early on. Then I'm always interested.

That's great.

So is there anything you're doing right now besides, you know, promoting the book and, you know, playing with the kids and the marriage and all that? Is there anything right now you're working on that you're particularly excited about or.

I am. Nothing that's launched. But, I mean, you know, one thing that I think I'm doing now is in the past, when I was younger, I dove into stuff, you know, foot in the door first, figured out later, and now I'm just trying to take a little bit more time. Just because I'm doing less, I have less time.

You know, there's so many other things that, you know, I would love to ask you and pick your brain on. One of them is, are you going to invite anybody else to live with you for a month and challenge like that?

I am. So I'm going to do this as a series, as a five book series, so I can live with other interesting people. Yeah. So I have a couple of ideas. I want to live with the Rolling Stones. They don't know that yet. That's something on my radar. And I want to live with a monk.

Nice.

I think it'd be really cool to not. He can look at me and I can look at him and see what I learned about myself. And so I'm open for other suggestions.

That would be so cool. It's very similar.

Almost like what Morgan Spurlock did when he did Super Size Me and then he did other things. I don't know if you paid attention to his TV series when he did that.

Of course.

Yeah. So that is really, really cool. Well, Jesse, this has been. This has been a blast. I can't tell you how much fun I've had, and I look forward to staying connected with you. And, you know, who knows, maybe there's something, you know, an opportunity that will turn up someday down the road between us. And we'll say it all started on this podcast because you never know.

That would be great, Brad. I appreciate it, man.

Absolutely. So for everybody listening, the link to Jesse's book will be in the show notes. Living with a seal. You absolutely have to go get it and then follow him on Twitter and Instagram also. Those will be in the show notes.

And.

And until Next time, keep on listening.

To the show, share it with your.

Friends and leave us a review on itunes. I read every single one of them. And Jesse, thank you very much.

Appreciate it, Brad. I'll be in touch.

All right, so that's the show and I hope you guys learned a lot. I hope that it was insightful for you. I hope you go get the book. Living with a seal, 31 days training with the toughest man on the planet. And I hope you let me know what you think or thought about it. By the way, if you have any books, send them to me@askbradankandratbusiness.com Once more, in the beginning of the show, I told you about Stiletto Coffee and it's amazing coffee. You don't have to be a woman to drink it. Every single woman will love it. But check out stiletto coffee.com, use the coupon code bacon. And now, if you want some extra insight on the business aspects of this, about how Kenya and I launched the coffee company and how we're already having some really good success, just make sure that you email me@askbradakenratbusiness.com just put stiletto in the in the subject line. I'll make sure you're added to the special list. I'm going to be doing a webinar where we break down the entire strategy of everything we did. But that's only for my newsletter subscribers. If you're not subscribed in the newsletter, you will not, you will not get that, but you can see, subscribe. Just send me an email to ask bradbanker@business.com and that'll take care of it. Till next time. See you later.