Hi everyone and welcome back to episode 545 here on The Daily Grind. In today's episode we sit down with Joe Desina. Joe's the founder and CEO of Spartan, the world's largest obstacle race and endurance brand. Joe is an amazing person, you absolutely love today's episode and without further ado let's jump right in.
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Terms and conditions apply. Just before we start today's episode, everyone, I will let you know that I recorded half this episode with my mic off and half the episode with my mic on. So the first 15 minutes or so of this podcast is with my computer. So you can still hear everything clearly, but it's not as crisp as what you're hearing right now.
And then the last portion of this podcast is what you're normally hearing. So just thought I'd pop on and let you know, but without further ado, please meet Mr. Joe DeSina. Well, Joe DeSina, welcome to the daily grind.
How are you today? I'm grinding. I've been grinding since 4.30. Yeah, 4.30.
You always get up at 4.30? It has to be before five. So it's somewhere between 4.30 and I would say 4.50. And this morning was on the earlier end because I heard the alarm.
Some days I don't hear the alarm for 10 minutes. Why do you have to get up to 4.5? Is that just something that you said for yourself? I can't figure out any other way to fit everything else in.
Gotcha. It takes me 20, 25 minutes to get my act together. I like to swish around coconut oil in my mouth. I take a bunch of tinctures of stuff.
I make some hot water. And then I got to do my exercises. I have to wake the kids up at 5.30. That takes, got minimum 15 minutes to rip before them out of bed.
The dogs got to be walked. The parrots got to be fed. They got to wipe up. And then I got to get my workout in.
I got to get their workout in. I got to do a conference call. It just goes. Fair enough.
So for people listening to this, Joe, who kind of the first introduced you, if you wouldn't mind just kind of providing some context and explaining a little bit more who you are and what you do. Yeah. So I'm just a neighborhood guy. I grew up in Queens, New York in the neighborhood.
And I ended up somehow miraculously in a finance job on Wall Street. I did pretty well for myself, not come with thanks to some great friends. And then from there, I stumbled upon adventure racing and doing crazy races around the globe. And I just fell in love with it.
It felt like I was alive. While I was sitting on a trading desk on Wall Street, I just didn't feel alive. And then I just fell in love with it. And I turned into a business.
I turned my passion into a business, which a lot of people don't get to do. So I'm really thankful to be doing this. And I'm thankful to be on the podcast. And I'm thankful for being alive right now because a lot of people aren't alive.
I'm happy to be alive. So true. And I think that we kind of forget that. And I think it's refreshing here just to be thankful to even just be able to wake up today.
Exactly. So when did you start in Wall Street? I started on Wall Street. So my first business, let's go back.
My first business, I was born in 69. My first business, I started around 1980. I was obviously a very young boy. But I built it up pretty substantially.
I paid my way through college. And I came out of college. And the best job offers I had were 30, 35,000 a year. And I was already making close to 200 a year.
So what were you doing then? So when I was around, you know, 10, 11 years old, my neighbor, my parents got the worst. And my neighbor turned out to be the boss of the banana organized crime family. He took a liking to me because he had three daughters.
And I was a red-headed kid in a neighborhood where everybody looked Italian. Italian. I just don't look Italian. And he took me in under his wing.
And he had me clean and swimming pool for 35 hours a week. And he taught me some great lessons. And then he gave me bicamusos who still alive, who is the head of the LeCazie crime family. And then it just kept going from there.
And I, before you know it, I had 700 customers. They trusted me. I worked hard. I didn't get into anybody's business.
I did my job. And yeah. And so I had no, I had an ambition to get through college. And I had an ambition to get through college.
Yeah. But I didn't have an ambition to get a job. A regular job. I already had it.
I mean, imagine being in your low 20s, making that kind of money, graduating in Ivy League school, which was a miracle in and of itself. And all your customers are bosses. Yeah. Or like, why would you get a job?
Like, it just seemed like I'd be going backwards. But anyway, I met another Italian guy in Ithaca, New York. And I was in college who said you're wasting your time. You need to get out of the neighborhood.
You need to sell that business and you need to go to Wall Street. And I didn't want to let go. Because again, by then I had my own building. I had heavy equipment and backhose, excavators, bobcats, trucks.
And I felt like I had arrived. I made it. But he pushed me. He pushed me.
And so I sold the business to my employees, who were great. These two guys who still run the business today. I actually just saw them recently. It was pretty awesome to see them.
And they've done incredibly well. And I went and took a $35,000 a year job on Wall Street. I went backwards. I took 10 steps backwards.
And I ended up on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I remember leaving the floor of the New York Stock Exchange crying one day. I was like, fuck. I can't do the math fast enough.
Maybe this isn't good after me. I can't believe I sold my business. I just questioned everything. And then bounced back and took 25 weeks forward.
So yeah, that's my story. Wow, that's crazy. So what age did you leave Wall Street? So I had a run on Wall Street from the time I was like 26, 25, 26.
To the time I was like 36, 37. I got my gorgeous awesome wife and sold the business and convinced her to move to Vermont to buy a farm, buy some chickens and some cows and make babies. And so we bought the farm. We got the chickens.
We got the cows and we made four babies. And in that new place, in that new zone in Vermont is where Spartan was really born. So how did the idea for Spartan come about talk through sort of how you went from just thought, like thinking of the idea to actually conception? Yeah, so I was doing races.
When I was on Wall Street, I was feeling overweight. I was feeling unhealthy. And I didn't feel that way when I was doing physical labor, physical work for the prior decade. So I was seeking something, but I didn't know why because we were making a lot of money at the time.
I thought like I was achieving everything I would set out to achieve. And one day, serendipitously, the elevator was busted. And so I was taking the stairs and sure enough, I run into a guy who changed my life because he was walking up and down the stairs with dumbbells. And he started talking to me about his daily routine and his adventure racing.
Anyway, we became friends and started working out together. And next thing I know, I fell in love with these races. These events that would bring me outside and in the wild and doing really cool shit. And then, like I said, I'm an entrepreneur, so I'm doing these events.
And I'm like, I want to put on or that like this. I think it'd be great. And so funny enough, the first event we ever put on was right after September 11th. Oh wow.
So, you know, 19 years ago, I guess. And, you know, after September 11th, all the sponsors pulled out. And I had already committed to spend close to half a million dollars on this thing. But I was going to get covered by the sponsors who are now walking away because of September 11th.
And I just, I'm just such a gritty, won't take note for an answer or lunatic. And it just felt like a wrong thing to do because I was very close to the towers falling and that whole thing. It felt wrong for me to walk away and not put on the event. And so I put on the event, lost half a million bucks.
Wow. But now I was so pregnant, now I was so invested that I wasn't let go. And so for the next, god, it's been, like I said, it's been 19 years, right? 2020's been the last 20 years and it's been a journey because of 15 of those years.
I lost money from, all the way from September 11th forward, 15 years I lost money. Why did you continuously do it if you were losing money? I'm not that smart. But I mean it when I say that, I'm really a fire ready aim kind of guy.
I think if I've had any success in life, it's because I actually move, I take action. Yeah. I think a lot of people just are stuck. Of course.
They're not moving. And there's probably much more efficient, strategic, better ways to get to end results that I've gotten to. I've gone the long way, the hard way. But I think I kind of like it.
I like the grind. And I don't like saying it's still, you know, my wife says I'm more like a comet where I'm just blaming, I'm just constantly on fire moving. I'm just going to break up in the morning. I don't lay in bed for five seconds.
I get up and get going. And I just didn't want to quit. I don't like to quit. And you know, there are times in life I've learned now, I'm 50 years old.
I learned now that there are times we're supposed to quit. We're supposed to pivot. But I'm not good at that. So I stuck with it.
I kept putting more money in. I was begging and borrowing and stealing and I invested most of my life savings and eventually it worked. But that doesn't always have to happen. But I think when I think about it, I look at youngsters now that have the drive and the ambition to go after it.
I think that's part of it. I think the other part of it is just stick to it. It's like not quitting. It's probably the biggest reason.
Now, you know, if you've got a shitty business idea with a shitty product and the wrong location, it's not going to work. However, if you stick to it long enough, you probably pivot, you change your product, you move it, you just keep doing it and tweaking it until you figure it out. But most people, they just tap out. Yeah.
So where do you think you got that muscle from? Like where do you get that rip from? That no quit sort of attitude that you had. What do you think that comes from?
Well, it definitely can be developed. I'm attempting to develop it with our children now. It's got to be rewarded and praised and presented to the kids. I was really lucky and the neighborhood I grew up in was a very gritty neighborhood.
I mean, the four of the five organized crime families lived there. Everybody was either going into jail or coming out of jail or shot dead. So at a young age, you're the narrative you're playing in your head is are you tough enough? At least I was.
Am I tough enough? I used to take cold showers before it was cool or Wim Hof even existed. Really? Yeah, and it wasn't because I was looking at health benefits.
I just wanted to know, could I do the time because that just seemed like the route everybody was going? You had to do your time to prove that you were tough enough to move. That's what I mean. Sounds silly, but that's what I think.
And so we all thought as kids, we want to, you know, the Cadillac and the rolls of cash in our pockets. So I grew up in the other population and that neighborhood in the Brooklyn, Queens area is really hard working, really industrious. They wake up early in the morning, usually a family business, whether it's concrete or toe trucking or pizza places, whatever it is. And you're seeing second, third generation and it just becomes part of your fabric.
And then you layer on top of that, you know, hearing your grandfather say, I want that man, that kid's a hard worker. And he probably said it just loud enough for me to hear it, right? And then you start to define yourself that way. And then you have a little success in life and you realize, holy smokes, the reason I got that success is because I grinded it out.
And so then it just perpetuates itself with my kids because they're growing up in a fancy neighborhood. They don't have the background I had. I make them do wrestling. They got to learn Mandarin, which is a hard language.
They got to wake up every morning, five, 30 and work out. You know, I make them do tough things. And I do pat them on the back when they achieve things and I try to let them know that they're hard workers. And so I'm trying to kind of stage it, if you will.
It's not perfect because we're not in India or the favela in Brazil where the kids are legitimately just going to be gritty because that's where they go. So I got to kind of fake it. But I make them, I make it, you know, well, no, no, no, 18 year. I'm in the middle of writing a parenting book, actually.
Oh, wow. What the hell do I know? But, but, but I do know one thing. I do know one thing.
More, more grit is better. Period on the story. Yes. How can say someone listening right now, maybe a young entrepreneur or someone who is aspiring to develop their own business has this idea but maybe doesn't have the level of grit that they eat.
What are some things they can practice in order to start to develop that skill? Well, you got to change your frame of reference. So we all have the tools to be extremely gritty. How do I know that?
We've lasted on this planet a long time as human beings and we are animals. However, we are all learning helplessness. So if we don't activate those tools, you know, it's use it or lose it, right? And so how do you use it?
Well, we're going to have to fake it in our environment because we just have it too good. We've got climate controlled buildings, we've got temperature controlled showers, we've got. So it was at this moment where my mic, I realized it was not on. So I turned it on.
So we're back to Joe talking about purposefully suffering and the benefits of that. What you have to do is do some purposeful suffering. So you got to get out your comfort zone. You got to talk to people that you're maybe a little shy talking to.
You got to do verpies early in the morning. You got to take hold of showers. You got to park the car and extra seven blocks from the grocery store. The obstacle is the way, right?
How they talk about the obstacle is the way that's been our philosophy for 2,600 years over here. So just make life a little harder. And what starts to happen, and what happens for me is it changes your frame of reference. It changes the glasses you wear through life.
Like when shit hits the fan, when you can't make payroll, when you're out of money, when 9,11 strikes, when grandma gets cancer, whatever it is, because we're all going to go through tough times, you have a reference point now. And you start to say, okay, that's tough, but thank God I'm not doing 4,000 verpies right now. But thank God I'm not frozen in Alaska crossing the I Did It Right Trail. So you need some reference points that are tough.
Because if your only reference point is living in a park avenue apartment where everything's catered to, well then you're going to snap. You're going to break when times get tough. So true. You've never used the tools.
Like you practice piano, you practice math, you practice basketball, right? Why not practice adversity? Yeah, I think that's such a valuable tool because I think people who haven't faced adversity, I know we're going through a time right now where the economy is great and everyone has the ability to do whatever they want, but there is going to be another point where things crash and people are going to start to have to refocus where they are, and they're going to have to practice quickly getting over adversity. But I think people even knowing that and hearing that, they don't do it and it's interesting.
No doubt about it. And by the way, it sounds awful maybe if you're listening, I have some friends that are really well to do. They're great friends. They change my life and they wanted to go to Japan and they organize this wonderful trip for all of us, our family, their family.
And I can't even tell you how awesome it was. Great hotels, the whole thing, right? However, in the trip, I said we're going to see the waterfall monks and we're going to see the marathon monks. And I took them on a journey 20 mile hike with the kids were under ice cold water were freezing at the end of that trip that eight day trip.
They and their children said that was the best part of the whole trip, which again, if we were academics and we put that on paper, there's no way you would say that that's going to be the best part was terrible. Totally. But they loved it. Wow.
So going back to your business, you know, you had mentioned for 15 years, you hadn't made any money, but you stuck with it, kept going, you believed in it. What do you think changed for you in year six? Like was there something that you realized like, wow, I'm not doing this or I was missing this and you started to do it and that's when it became profitable? Or it was just you did it for long enough, it became popular and that's when it became profitable.
I had I not pivoted it. The first decade was the wrong product. Gotcha. Very long distance races.
I was half ass execution because I was very busy with finance. It was a hobby on the side. The world hadn't caught up to what I was presenting in 2000 making up numbers, but just to give you an idea of the size in 2000, there was like a couple hundred million dollars spent on people attending endurance events today. It's like, again, don't hold me exactly for these not making up like three billion dollars.
Wow. 10, 10, 20 times the size marketplace. So there's more people attending events. There's more people interested in part events.
There's a ton of retired and active military that are in the population now because of the last 15 years plus of war. There's a huge crossfit community weighting thousand gyms around the globe. There's a combat and UFC hasn't heard its help. Facebook showed up.
Right. So people could share this experience. So the world changed and came my way. I changed the product to go get away a little bit.
I saw it a little bit. I went from putting on 350 mile distance races, which no longer to probably still doesn't want to do to three mile, eight mile and 13 mile. I changed the name. Don't discount the value of a name.
The name Spartan is a pretty unbelievable name. Right. 2600 years of history. And then everything else in between, you just figured out.
So if I didn't pivot, the world didn't come my way and let's not forget the most important thing. I was able to continue to fund it. I was able to continue to find money a week after week to keep this thing going. So how did you, like where does that skill come from?
Like how were you able to do that? You know, my kid, we have four, my second boy has been playing around with this idea of having a landscaping business. He's just turned 12. And I'm letting him play around.
I gave him a push more. And it really brings back a lot of memories to the pool business when I had it. And so I think that pool business in that neighborhood, the customers I had, it was like a triple Harvard education. Like you can't, like can you imagine being pre-teens and having customers that screamed at you, wouldn't pay you teaching you lessons?
Like my neighbor said to me, I was pre-teens. If you're going to show up at 8 o'clock, you show up at 7.45. Right? You're going to clean pool.
You make sure you also straighten up the shed, straighten up the lawn for a bunch of clean around. Even though I'm not paying, you go above and beyond. You never ask for money. You get paid with like little lessons that, and I was getting those all day long.
I was getting feedback. What worked? What didn't, had a really take like customers always first. And whenever that's not the case, customers always like customers always write period on the story.
So I had tons of screw ups. I had tons of fights. I couldn't make payroll. I lost employee.
Everything I could go wrong with any business. And all happening at a very young age, so it's rewiring my brain. But then, then I have the opportunity to be in college while this is going on. So everybody else is sitting in college and they're taking classes that are like this very academic, very, you know, theory based.
Well, I'm applying the theories real time to my business in every class. That's just the way my brain is gone because I'm running a business. So, yeah, hard to replicate. And I wonder, I think about every day I say with our kids, with our children, our four.
Am I better off like as much as I want them to wrestle or my neighbors want their kids to be great skiers or whatever? Is that a bit selfish? The thing that they really should be doing is probably waitressing and starting that little landscaping business and doing brick work, right? Because like, unless they're going to be an Olympian, unless they're going to be an Olympian, what, like, yeah, wrestling is going to give them some resiliency, but like, waitressing is pretty tough at a young age.
Doing dishes is pretty tough, right? Anything is pretty tough. So, I'm wrestling with that in my mind. I don't know if I answered the question.
No, that's, that's. No, you definitely did. For people out there who want to learn about Spartan, who want to learn more about you, maybe grab a copy, could you just came out with your third book? Is that right?
I just came out with a third book called the Spartan Way. First book was Spartan Up. Second book was Spartan Fit. You start to see a theme here.
It was a Spartan Way. Basically, 10 principles that if you hold in on these principles, they're, again, they're thousands of years old. I didn't invent them. You will crush life.
And now the fourth book I'm working on is a parenting book, which my wife loved recently, chimed in on the last few days, which is great, because she's definitely got the softer side to my very sharp edges. I love that. So for people out there who want to grab a copy, learn more about you, where's the best place they can go? It's true, meaning.
I'm going to go. This is not, for me, my dream would be that the government would pay us, and this would be a public service. This is like, anybody needs a book or a free entry or just shoot me an email, jowithpartan.com. I'm happy to help anybody out there.
Or you just go to spartan.com and navigate around, but you'll, we got podcasts, we got books, all the things you would expect. Two hundred and seventy five events in forty five countries, one point three million people here do the events. It's awesome. It's all in the stories coming out every year from people, talking about grit and resilience and just motivational stories.
Like, they're just unbelievable. People missing legs, arms back with their husbands back with their wife was 200 pounds, gave up drugs. It's just every day of stories just roll in. So I get to do this.
It's unbelievable. That is unbelievable. And anytime someone like Joe is willing to provide an email address for you to reach out, first of all, respect his time and second of all take advantage of it because it doesn't happen too often. So I do appreciate it, Joe.
And now Joe, the way we're on the show here on the Daily Grind is we're going to give you the floor and you have the opportunity today to share with our audience the thought of the day. So one thing or one thought we can all go home with today. All right. Well, I'm going to give one thought, but it's going to comprise three things.
Here's what I want everybody to do every day. You do this your whole life will change. Okay. Every morning I want you to 30 burpees.
Do them as fast as you can. Make sure you stretch before and after. Every morning I want to take a cold shower. 30 burpees, take a cold shower.
And every day, every night I want you to go to bed early. You do those three things. Your whole life will change. We're going to early.
Take a cold shower. Do 30 burpees in the morning. That's simple. Love it.
What's early to you? Give us a time. Well, your eyes should be shot before 10 p.m. Got you.
Okay. Love it. Well, I'm going to share this little routine. I'm going to practice this routine myself.
So feel free to jump in with me on this. And Joe, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule and coming on the show here and sharing your wisdom with the daily grand listeners today. Awesome. And as you can see from this interview, everyone's success is driven by passion, hunger, and today's suffering.
Everyone has to overcome obstacles. Everyone has a story. Start building yours today. I truly hope you found today's episode super impactful and you're going to start to incorporate some of what Joe said in your life.
But we'll be back here tomorrow with another amazing episode. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Be sure you're subscribed to the podcast. Share this up with a friend.
Drop a comment. I appreciate everything. Thank you so much for the support. And always remember everyone to keep on grinding.