Welcome to another episode of In Search of Excellence! My guest today is Joe de Sena, a serial entrepreneur, ultra-marathoner, endurance athlete, motivational speaker, and self-described maniac. For the past 17 years, Joe has been the CEO of the global fitness and wellness brand Spartan, which has a community of more than 10 million athletes around the world.
He is a host of the CNBC primetime show, No Retreat business boot camp, and a New York Times bestselling author of four books, Spartan Up, Spartan Fit, The Spartan Way, and his latest, 10 Rules for Resilience.
Time stamps:
01:46 Joe De Sena’s background and childhood
- He grew up in Howard Beach, the organized crime capital of the world
- Mom was a long-distance runner, vegan, and yoga practitioner
- Dad was a workaholic entrepreneur
- The story about his dad and the missing package in the warehouse
- The story about moving bricks all night
- An unbelievable BMX ride to Greene, New York
11:33 Working for Joe Bananno as a kid
- Lessons from the head of the organized crime family
- Became a trusting kid and gained a lot of customers
- The attractiveness of the mafia lifestyle and his dad’s advice
- Joe Bananno as Joe’s friend and mentor
- The best thing we can do in life is help people
18:15 What’s wrong with the mentality of today’s interns
- Human beings are naturally lazy and wired for comfort
- The story about Shaun and moving artworks
- Make yourself invaluable and irreplaceable
26:48 Never ask for money
- A story about a car dealer from Vermont
- A risk worth getting numerous customers
- Get your foot in the door first and provide value
29:23 How rejections can fuel you
- Applied to Cornell and was rejected
- Learned hard to prove worthy of Cornell but kept being rejected
- Finally, enrolled in The Textile Department of Human Ecology
- If you just keep doing it, you eventually break through
35:05 The ability to hang in there and finish is changing your biology
- If the obstacle you face is not fatal, it’s just a lesson
- Failure can be our greatest asset if we use it right
- Finishing hard things creates tracks in the brain
- Quitting creates gaps and more quitting
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