The Deal Dash Webinar: Rules to Live By

Hello and thank you for joining the first episode of the SS&C Intralinks Dealdash webinar series, Rules to Live By with Jesse Itzler being presented in partnership with the All Day Running Company. We hope you enjoy the session and please stay tuned for a fun swag bag giveaway and to hear about a special offer for Running Man 2024 at the end of the session. I'll now turn you over to Mr. Ken Visconti, Co Head of SS&C Intralinks, who will be your moderator for the session. Ken, over to you. Thanks, Todd.

Good afternoon everyone. I am Ken Visconti, Co Head of the Interlinks business along with Bob Petraki. Thank you all for joining. You know, many of you know that Interlinks sits really at the forefront of the deal making ecosystem. You know this very exclusive and interconnected ecosystem of banks, corporates, private equity firms, BC's hedge funds, law firms, accountants and and others and really deals of all shapes and sizes. We have roughly five and a half million active users on our platform today at any one time we have over 20,000, you know deals in motion and we have 800,000, you know, unique domains.

Our products and services are suite of products and services are really you know, a core deal making platform used by many of you. Our core focus is certainly on creating value for customers. Connecting, you know, capital with opportunities and people to help drive economic growth is at the center of what we do. And whether you are a, you know, deal stakeholder or even an Interlink employee, you know, we know that deal making when it's happening is highly competitive. It's a 24/7 business. It's 150% activity for all of you and all of us.

And so, you know, with that, we know that before, during and during deals, you know, it's easy to forget the significance of this, this deal making community. And that's, you know, really what, what community means. We wanted to, as Todd was saying, you know, step back and, and and focus on this partnership with Jesse's all day running company and to create the interlinks yield dash series, which is designed not only to connect our market in a more meaningful and fun manner, but also to show appreciation to, you know, to to our people as well as our customers. This Dealdash series will consist of virtual webinars and keynote speakers, monthly newsletters, a step competition on Strava, as well as in person meetups, prizes, and great giveaways.

So if you're looking to network, learn something new, or just experience something fun and different, we hope this program is for you. Thank you for your trust and confidence in working with us and for your interest in in participation in the series. So without further ado, I'm honored to introduce today's keynote speaker. He is a serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, Emmy winner, ultra runner, husband and father. Some of you know him as the founder of Marquee Jet, which is sold to William Buffett and Zinco coconut water sold to Coca-Cola.

He wrote Living with a Seal where he spent 31 days with David Goggins adopting the practices of the toughest man on the planet. To sports fans on the call, Jesse is many of you know, he's a co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks and even wrote the theme song for the New York Knicks, Go, New York Go. Early in his career, he served as manager to run DMC, and it's hard to believe that $0.50 was actually an intern of his at one point. Most importantly, Jesse's a father. For some of you know, he's a husband to Sarah Blakely, who of course is a founder of Spanx and she's a Shark Tank moonlighter as well.

Please join me in welcoming founder and CEO of All Day Running Company, Jesse Itzler. Ken, I'm I'm done. You didn't said it all. You gave the whole story. That was a great introduction. I appreciate it and I'm so excited to be the first speaker in the Dealdash series. You guys have put together an incredible lineup of speakers and events and I'm just glad that I'm part of it. So thanks for having me. You mentioned run the MC that's run the MC right behind me.

This is I'm in my Home Office. This is my wall of fame that reminds me of my days in hip hop. I started out in hip hop right after college. I was signed to a record label called Delicious Final act at the time. Some of you, some of you guys, guys and girls might remember they had a guy named Tone Lowe with the songs Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina and is nodding his hand nodding his head. And the other was a guy named Young MC who won a Grammy for his song called Bust a Move. I was the next artist signed to Delicious Vinyl.

And right before my album came out, I got a call from the owner of the record company who told me that they're having this huge concert in Atlanta, GA, where I live now at the Georgia Dome. And they were bussing in 36,000 inner city kids from all over the state of Georgia for this concert that they called Increase the Peace. Because they were going to have black artists and white artists come together in this community bonding event that they called Increase the Peace. The day before the concert, Vanilla Ice canceled and they needed a white rapper. They volunteer me to be the white act.

So as soon as I get to the venue, I recognize like immediately, like this place is unruled. It's fist fights going on in the stands and they got the house lights on. Police are everywhere, crazy. And the kids were booing every act that came on stage. They booed him off stage. So the first guy up was LL Cool J in his prime. The kids are booing LL Cool J. I'm in the green room about to go on next backstage to sing my song, which was called Shake It Like a White Girl.

So I called my mother and I'm like, mom, I got a 21 years old. I'm like, I got a really big problem. They're booing LL and she was like, sweetie, just be yourself and they're going to love you. I'm like, mom, it doesn't work like that at all. So the MC gets up and he's like, ladies and gentlemen, you know, all the way from California, give it up for my main man, Jesse James, which is my stage name. Don't look it up. It's it's terrible. And I'm about to go on stage and the record company to give any of these promotional T-shirts.

So I grab them and I walk on stage and I'm looking at the kids in the front row and they're pissed that I'm even invited to the venue. They're pissed, but I got these T-shirts. So I come on stage and I'm like, this is section over here to my left, want some T-shirts? And the kids start going crazy. I throw out the T-shirts. I'm like to my right, you want some T from T-shirts? They went middle section all the way in the back. You want some T-shirts, they're going crazy. I threw them out.

I said thank you very much. Salt and Peppers up next. I got the fuck out of there. Never let them Boo you as the first rule of business. That was my first entree into into troubleshooting. I had another entree into troubleshooting recently. I want to share it with you. I thought about it today and I figured before we get into today's talk, I bring it up and then we'll start what I want to talk about. But today was the first day of school for my kids.

And every day on the first day of school, I'm reminded of this story and we'll jump into what I want to get into. One of my children had four at the time, suffered from really debilitating anxiety. So we had to send them to a school 40 minutes away that could accommodate some of his needs. So my wife and I, there's a bus, but like, he wasn't going to take the bus. It's the first day. You know, he's younger, older kids on the bus. He's really intimidated. We're we're switching off back and forth of of who's going to drive my son to school.

So my son comes back after the first day and I asked him how it was. And you know, he said, he said it was good, it was OK. I said, well, tell me about it. You know what you have for lunch? You know, what would you would you have first period? He's like, I'm math. I'm like, well, you like math. That's good. Would you have, would you have second period? He's like, I had history. I'm like, you like history?

I'm like, well, did they have lunch today, the first day of school? And he said, yes, well, who, who'd you sit with at lunch? And he said, no, nobody, Dad, I didn't sit with anybody. I sat by myself. So my wife got really upset afterwards. I'm like, it's, you know, it's going to be fine. You know, he just needs to make a friend. He's going to be fine. The next day, my wife takes my son to school or flip flopping.

I'm going to pick them up. So she drives 40 minutes. My phone rings, 7:30. It's my wife. She's like, we have a problem. I'm like, what's the problem? She's like, you know, our son won't get out of the car. He's grabbing the front seat like this, crying, and he's refusing to get out of the car. I said, OK, we'll put me on speaker. So my wife put me on speaker. I got my son.

I said, buddy, what's going on? You know, And he said, dad, I can't do it. I can't do it. And as soon as he said those words, I said, OK, put mommy on. And I said, he's not going to get out of the car. There's nothing you can say that will get him out of the car. Pull over. Let's get an administrator. That's why we're here, that can accommodate this and deal with it.

So finally an administrator comes over. They get my son out of the car. I get a call from the school at 11:30. You get a call, a call from the school. It's never a good thing. Mr. Itzler, Principal, I'm so and so. I have your son with me and I've made a deal with your son. If your son can get through the 1st periods today and get through lunch, you can pick him up today at lunch and then tomorrow we'll go one more class. You'll pick him up and slowly we'll introduce him to different classes, etcetera, etcetera.

I said, Sir, take me off speaker. Under no circumstances does my son come home today. Under no circumstances did he come home today because I knew if we give my son an out and he can negotiate that all year, anytime something goes wrong, there's a tough situation. I'm going to get a phone call and we're and we're going to be at the short end of this day. Put him on speaker, please. Name is laser slays to dad. I know it's hard for you. I know it's, it's the first day of school, but everyone's going to go to school today till the end of the day and I know you can do it.

I'll be the first person there at carpool line to pick you up. I'll be the first one online, but I know you can do it. You hang up the phone, 2:00 I get a call from the school. Never a good thing. It's the principal. I said, he said, is this Mr. Itzler? I said this Mr. Itzler, he said, you know your son just wanted to let you know that he's going to be taking the bus home today.

I said the bus, what happened? He said, oh, he made a friend. So I'm reminded of that story every year on the first day of school of, you know, that I have much bigger issues and things to think about. But also that we don't negotiate our goals. We don't negotiate with ourselves and give ourselves out because when we give ourselves an out in business and a running race and anything or you know, it just it's way harder to achieve your goal. And as I dropped my son off today and he ran out to see your dad, I'll see at the end of school.

I'm reminded of the importance of grit and resilience around kids, which the number one indicator of future success. If you all raised grittier kids, they have a much better chance of being successful. It's really hard to do. Those are very hard decisions. But that was my morning today and I want to share with you before we get started anyway, I want to share a little bit about my journey as an entrepreneur. It was very unconventional, completely unorthodox, but I think by sharing some of the stories and things I went through, there'll be little lessons here that everybody can apply to your own individual journey, both in business and in personal development.

Before I jump into this, I want to use this platform to talk about something that's very rarely spoken about on webinars. I don't know how many people here have elderly parents. If you don't, you will. But as my parents were getting older, I did a lot of research around senior facilities. If I was going to put my parents in a senior facility, I wanted to learn about like filling all that. I learned about an acronym that a lot of senior facilities used to grade the overall health, Wellness and happiness, arguably the most important things in our lives of the seniors coming into the facility.

And that acronym is SIPS. And SIPS stands for social, intellectual, physical, purposeful, and spiritual. That's the five criteria that they use to grade the most important thing, your health, Wellness and happiness of the seniors coming into the facility. What's interesting about that is nowhere in that criteria do they talk about Instagram followers, the watch you wear, the car you drive. In fact, financial wasn't even a category. Now that's a far cry from what I hear when I listen to webinars and people come on and say, oh, just do what I do and you to follow these rules that I'm going to share with you in a minute.

And you too can be a billionaire. Really, Really. You know how many billionaires are in this country? There's about 750 billionaires in the United States of America. So if you live here, you have a one in 11,000,000 chance of becoming a billionaire. If you're a female, you got better odds playing Powerball. And if you're African American, as of last year, there are approximately 8 black billionaires in this country. There's 8 billion people in the world. That's a one in a billion chance of becoming a billionaire. I was lucky.

I was raised by a billionaire. My dad owned the plumbing supply house and I was raised by a billionaire. My dad was a spiritual billionaire. Follow me on this. There's two sides of business. There's the financial side, which we all want and we spend so much energy on and we tend to over index and how much energy we put into the financial side of business. But then there's the spiritual side of business. What kind of culture did you build? Were you kind to your customers?

Were you philanthropic? Like how did you go about that? And sometimes we neglect this side of the equation. If you have a billion dollars and your spirit is 0, a billion times zero is 0. The name of the game that we're playing, all of us on this call is to get enough of this, whatever enough is for you without sacrificing or compromising this. And that's what I want to talk about today. So here we go. My dad was a simple man. My dad was an example of how simple can be extraordinary.

To my father. His family was his treasure. When my dad was young, he when I was young, my dad invented something that became really popular years later. It's called Random Acts of kindness. My dad grew up in Brooklyn. He lived in a house with three generations, his grandfather, his dad, and my dad 3 generations in a tiny apartment underneath. They built a paint shop and my dad played checkers. He was an amazing checker player. My dad never let me beat him in checkers. I never beat my thought.

My dad was the checker champ of Brooklyn. Self-proclaimed checkers. She never let me win. When I was four, he taught me how to play the game with me. No mercy. When I was seven, I got much better. We started heckling me. I can't even beat your old man. Beat me every time. Never let me win. When I was 13, I mastered the game. My dad took the entire back row, the most important role in the checkerboard off his table, and he still beat me.

He never let me win. I never beat my father in checkers in my life until about two years ago. I got him pen. I was at my parents house and out of nowhere my dad turned to me and said, Jesse, my son, you want to play checkers. And I was like, sure, I beat him first time. Big moment in my life. I've been thinking about this a lot that my dad taught me a lot about business and personal development through the game of checkers. I don't know how many parents are here on the call, but I'm a parent of four disappointments been stripped from kids.

Kids make every team. There's participation trophies. Where I live, you have to invite every child to your kids birthday party. Like disappointments a part of life. As entrepreneurs, how we deal with this appointment can be a great asset to us. It can also destroy us. My dad gave me that gift early. He showed. He put a flag in the ground and said, Jesse, nothing's going to be handed to you. And if you want something really bad, you made me hungry.

Even if it takes you 55 years to get that, that's what it's going to take. As it became an entrepreneur, those lessons became very valuable. Between the ages of 18 to 24, I slept on 20 different couches. 20 different friends put me up couch to couch to couch as I tried to figure out how I could make it as an entrepreneur. I was a kiddie pool attendant. Fail. I sold carrot and celery sticks door to door in the financial community in New York City. Failed.

T-shirt company failed. Marketing company failed, record label failed. Kicked off my record, everything. Until one day when I was 28, I was a guest on a private plane. And when I walked onto the private plane, it was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when everything in life goes from black and white to color. I was like, people fly like this. I want to fly like this. I turned to my partner like, let's start a private jet company. So when we travel, we can fly on private planes.

He was like, we're like death. Of course we're going to do that. Except we had no airplanes and we had no experience and we had no money. But we had an idea. Everybody on this calls, one idea, one meeting, one referral away from changing the entire trajectory of your life. What happened to me? And our idea was simple. What if I could provide everybody on this call with the benefit of owning your own private jet for the fraction of the cost? You put down $50,000 hundred grand for 25 hours of jet time and it works like a debit card.

If you fly from Atlanta to New York, 2 hours, you have 23 hours of flight time. We call that idea Marquee Jet. We took that business from and literally an idea with no experience, no airplanes to a company that went on to do $5 billion in sales and ultimately, as Ken said, sold it to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's next Jets division. I went from a kiddie pool attendant to a guy that had a business that went on to do $5 billion of sales in a six year window. And I want to share some of the rules and lessons that I've lived by during that time and since then.

That got me enough of this without sacrificing or compromising any of this. Nobody here has to take any notes in this web. This isn't a note taking session. I want you to feel the journey of an entrepreneur. And if one or two of the rules that I'm about to share with you resonate over the next 30 minutes before we do some Q&A and the next 30 minutes will be very well worth your time. So for starters, at the beginning of every year, I pick a word that defines where I'm going directionally for the year. I don't get it like tattooed on me.

But like this year, what does it represent for me to be newness, spontaneity, change, adventure, family, whatever. For the last five years, I've had the same word, and that word is soul. Soul. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to pour my soul into it. Soul doesn't live on a spreadsheet. Soul. Does customers feel soul? Only one person listening here could be the best looking. Only one person on this call can be the funniest or the smartest or the richest.

But anybody on this call can care the most. I built entire businesses based on foundationally, based on enthusiasm and soul. If you're not going to pour your soul into everything you do, don't even waste your time, man. The competition is going to do it. Your customers are going to feel it. If I'm going to go to my kids soccer game, I'm going to put my phone down, be where my feet are and pour my soul into that moment. If I'm going to come here from 12:00 to 1:00, I'm going to empty the tank and give you guys everything I can.

Or I shouldn't even show up. If you're not going to empty the tank, don't even do it because your competition will a little business rule. When I started out in business, I had a company called Marquee Jet. Back then, we didn't have a sophisticated way in the 90s to get leads. I had to go to where wealthy people congregated. And I heard about a conference in Monterey, CA called Ted, the Ted talks. And I heard that a lot of wealthy people, qualified buyers from Silicon Valley, go to the Ted talks. So I got on a commercial flight in New York, connected in Chicago, flew to LA, went to the car, drove 5 hours to Monterey, CA, 16 hour trip around door to door.

I get to the conference and I recognize like everybody there is a credential like this, huge, like you need a credential to get into the Ted Talk. It's ridiculous. But I did not lend me anywhere near the room where everybody is, where all the qualified leads are. I also know my dad taught me. I don't negotiate my goals, man. Like I did that with my son. I'm leaving with the sale no matter what. So I go to this coffee shop next door and I'm thinking, like, how am I going to sneak into the room where all the leads are, what Usher looks vulnerable that I can pay off, that I can get into the room?

Who's badged? Can I buy so I can get into the damn room where the money is? About an hour and a half in trying to figure it out, a wave of people come into the coffee shop with their credentials. They're all doing lattes and muffins, lattes and muffins, lattes and muffins. I'm like, this is where they go on the break. They come to this coffee shop on the break. So the next morning, true story, I wake up at 5:00, I go to the store and I buy all the muffins, and I now control all the muffin inventory in Monterey, CA And I wait about an hour and a half later, the first lady people come in.

Sure enough, the first guy in line, he's got a big, a big credential. He orders a latte and a muffin. The lady behind the counter says, Sir, I can give you a latte, but we're all out of muffins. He's like, out of muffins. Yeah, we're getting another ship. He starts to walk out. I said, excuse me, I overheard you, Sorry. I actually, I happen to have an extra muffin. If you want a muffin, he's like, you got an extra muffin. I'm thinking I was like, I got fucking 180 muffins underneath this table.

You want a muffin? He says. He says, what are you doing here? I said, I'm here for the Ted Talk. He goes, so am I, he says. He says, well, what do you do? I said, I have a private check card company called Marquee Check. He said, you got kidding me? I'm in the market for a private jet cart. He goes, do you mind if I sit down and learn more about your company? I look at his tag.

It says Josh Koppelman. I recognize the name because he had just been in the Wall Street Journal. He sold his company about a month ago, app.com to eBay for a bazillion dollars. I said, do I mind? Absolutely not. Sit right here. Mr. Qualified. He was my first sale. Now that's not a story of me being good sales Rep.

I'm back of the pack sales and I'm back of the pack everything. That's the story of me as an entrepreneur, as a business person, putting myself rule in a situation where I can attract luck. Luck is part of the equation. Luck doesn't happen Sunday night watching the Kardashians on your couch. Luck happens when you put yourself in a in a situation where the universe can reward you for being there and then you got to be really good at what you do. That's not why I'm sharing the story.

The reason why I'm showing the stories what happened after I did what everybody on this call would do for compliment. I did what everybody in my industry would do for compliment. He expected me to return every text. He said he expected me to return every phone call. He expected me to carry his luggage at the airport to the airplane. But while everybody in my industry this side was playing a nine inning game, I played A10 inning game. The rule of the 10 inning game. I played A10 inning game.

I did the unexpected 2 you didn't expect when he went to Mexico on spring break. Hey Josh, man, here's a list of 10 pediatricians. I know your kids with you. I vetted them all. If anything happens, God forbid to one of your kids, call any one of these doctors. They're expecting your call if something happens. I made a reservation at every hot restaurant for two months. And Josh, I know it's spring break, man, but anywhere you want to go with your wife, 8:00 anywhere. I got you, man.

I did the three things on this side of the equation that I've done my entire life to build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships with everybody in my inner circle, my clients, my prospects, my friends, my employees, my kids. I compliment, I congratulate, and I can stole them. Ken is Jesse Itzler good to see you, man. I just want to let you know, man, I've known you for a long, Ken. I've known you for 11 years, Wink. I've known you for 11 years. I love the way you parent. I love the way you're raising your kids, man. As a father of four, it's so inspiring to see what you're doing with those kids.

I just want to let you know, man, I really, I know you got into, I know what you guys are doing. I really look up to you for this. Ken. He wasn't on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. I cop him and he knew when the Super Bowl like Tom Brady and everyone's texting him at he's just like, thank you. Thank. I authentically reached out to somebody in my inner circle and I complimented it as something that really matters to me at a time where nobody else is doing it.

Just don't remember that I congratulate Kenneth Jesse it's but I heard your kids got a son get into Duke University. If my kid gets into Duke, I'll be on Sarah and I, my wife and I are on cloud 9 for you and your family and you can soul. I one of the worst things man happened that could happen to a parent. The next day I get a knock on my on my doors. My friend Dougie Fresh there he is the rapper. I said, Doug, what are you doing here, man? He said, oh, when you get news like that, you don't call, you show up.

You don't call, you show up. If you have somebody in your life that's breathing and you don't reach out to them, they'll never forget it. Ever. Ever. So a crazy thing happened, Ken. I I started complimenting, congratulating and consoling compliment. And after a couple of months, he gave me the magic word. He gave me a referral. And when my business took a down tick, he stuck with me. He rooted for me.

Business can be transactional relationships can. And when you build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships with the people in your inner circle, the floodgates open. They you operate with soul. You put yourself in situations where you can track luck. You're really good at what you do, and you build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships. How many people on this on this in this webinar think they're going to die? Sure you do, Ken, I do. If you don't, you're wrong. We all know we're going to die. How many people on this webinar, and I can't see anybody, but I'm going to assume it's low, have their graveyard plop picked out?

Well, if you don't, you know you're going to die. But then you don't think it could happen anytime soon. No, because if you did, you'd be responsible. You'd have your graveyard plot picked out. You give your pass codes to your significant others. You be prepared. Your relationship with time is out of whack. You think, oh, I have all the time in the world. I'll go on the sales call. Next year, we'll launch this product next year. I'll train for the marathon next year. Life doesn't care about next year.

I'm at the age now where my friends are waking up, getting diagnosed with stuff. Until you realize that you can walk out of your your office on Park Ave. in New York City and someone could be texting and bam, you could get hit by a truck. You're not operating with true urgency. The way I think about time is like this. The day you're born, you go on this bus ride, the keys go in, you get the steep, the bus just starts going. You're driving and it's moving. The bus doesn't care if you're lazy or broke or divorced, overweight.

It's just moving. And then you're in high school. You did like you better enjoy it, Jesse, if Ken is going to go fast at your senior year, you're in college, you meet somebody, you get married, you have a 10 year old and like me, in eight years, you're going to be an empty nester the butt. It's just going and then it's just moving. There's no brakes on the bus. You can't slow it down. It's it's always going. And then one day all of a sudden out of nowhere, the bus stops.

It's over. You can't go back or I wish I did this, I should. It's over and no one signed up to be the 80% version of yourself. It's just over. I don't care if you guys had a good year last year or a bad year at work, things are good at home or I don't, I don't, neither should you. All you should care about is from this moment on where you can troll to the end of the journey. How do you squeeze the most out of life in this amount, whatever it is of time?

I don't know how many people know how many hours there are in a year, but this will be relevant. There's 8760 hours in a year. I'll break it down. The average American works 50 weeks, 40 hours. That's 2000 of the 8700 hours. You all have to sleep six hours. 7 hours a day is 25 hours, 100 hours. So that's 4500 of the 8700. You got to eat 30 minutes a meal, 3 minutes, three meals a day, maybe take one. That's 500 hours. That's 5000 of the 8700 hours.

The average person on this webinar will spend about four hours a day of screen time, Netflix, social media, phone, etcetera. That's 1500 hours. So that's 6500 of the 8700 available hours. That's 75% of your available time. And all you did was work, eat, sleep, and be on the phone. You better be really diligent with the other 25% of your time while you're building your empire. You better be really diligent with the other 25% of your time while you're building your empire. I have a rule that I made when I turned 50 that I was going to put more on my plate of the things I love to do with the people I love to do them with.

More on my plate of the things I love to do with the people I love to do them with. I stuck to that rule. The reason is in my in my 20s, my mom had a dream. She wanted to go to a castle in London. I'm like, mom, I got a record deal. I can't go to London. My 30s, my mom's like, let's go to. I'm like, mom, I got marquee jet. I'm working 21 hours a day. I can't go to London. Cats in the cradle stuff, 40s, let's go to mom.

I got four kids. I can't bring the little kids to London, and in my 50s, my mom can't, couldn't go, and she died. She passed away. I can never do it. When you have a chance to create a memory or a moment while you're building your empire, take it. Take it. The reason why people listen to webinars goes to sales conferences. They want one thing. At the end of the day, we all do. We want mindset and I learned one of the greatest mindset hacks rules a couple of years ago and I'm going to share with you right now.

You can master it in 5 minutes or less. You can teach it to your kids in 5 minutes or less. You can leave this webinar and use it immediately. And when I'm about to tell you right now, you'll learn it like that. If they would have told me 10 years ago, I would have said hokey, ridiculous, no way. But nothing's had a bigger impact on my kids and me. And what I'm going to share with you right now, everybody here can learn it in 5 minutes or less. So I'm an endurance, I'm an endurance runner, hence all they running company.

And a couple of years ago, I ran a race called The Last Man Standing. Here's the format of the race. It's a 4.2 mile loop. You have an hour to complete it. So if you finish it earlier, like 15 minutes, you have a 10 minute break because they line you up again at the top of the hour to run the 4.2 mile loop again. And they repeat that process over and over until one person is left standing, the last man standing. So the race can go on for days. So during my training, I did 10 training runs of 38 miles.

That was like my training room. But every time I got the 38 miles, I stopped. Like, that's my limit, 38 miles. It's not bad for a guy in his 50s, but it's not going to get you very far in a race like this. And then I heard a podcast. I heard a guy named about a Navy SEAL on a podcast, a guy by the name of Chad Wright talking about how he met this guy at the starting line of 100 mile weeks, would only run 5 miles as his longest run in his life and took them all the way to the finish line by having a repeat over and over.

I will not quit. I will not quit, I will not quit. And I'm like that's impossible. Nobody can 20X their longest run by saying I won't quit. I've been running my whole life. But this guy's a Navy SEAL on a highly reputable podcast. There's no way he's lying. So I cold call him. Create your own luck. I get him on the phone, I tell him my problem.

He says, brother, I can solve this for you in two days, man. See Chad as a Navy SEAL from the backwoods in North Georgia. He's got a beard down to here like he's in Zizi top. He's covered head to toe in violent tattoos, and he has a look in his eye like he's seen some stuff in the military nobody on this webinar wants to see. So he comes to my house. My friends are calling me up like a week later. Like, did you change your cadence?

Are you eating differently? I'm like, no, he hasn't said a word to me. I'm like, I'm like, he's sitting in the corner of the room stroking his beard, staring at me all day, hysterically laughing. I'm like, what? I'm like, yes. And he's spooky. They're like spooky. I'm like, yeah, this is Chad, right? So my wife comes down. She goes, I'm just, can I talk to you for a second?

I go, sure. She goes, I'm sweetie. Where did you meet Chad? And I told her, told her the truth on the Internet. She's like, oh, my God. So finally we go to dinner and he finally speaks to me. He says, Jesse, tomorrow we're going to start at O 500, man, but we're going to meet in the kitchen at 4:45 and go over the game plan. I'm like, we're going to meet for 15 minutes. This is a joke.

The next morning we get to my breakfast table, Jazz says, Jesse, today we're going to do three things and three things only, man. And if you do these three things, you're going to shatter your 38 miles, He said. The first thing we're going to do is we're never going to give our pain a voice. What does that mean, Chad? He said, Man, I know you're going to have these thoughts like, oh, I'm tired, I got blisters, this stinks. Or maybe in your case, sales are tough, competition's tough, the economy's struggling. I'm not good at whatever.

We're going to have those thoughts, but we're never going to speak those words because once we speak those words, we give them power. He said, If I ask you how you feel today, your only answer is outstanding #2 I'm never going to die in the chair. I said, what does that mean, Chad? He said, man, I know it's going to be hard out there. It's hard in the field. Whatever your field is, it's hard. But we're never going to come back after one of these loops.

Sit down in the chair and be like, I quit. It's hard today. We're taking quitting off the table. Either you pour your soul into this, you empty the tank and exhaust every resource you have and it doesn't work. That's OK, Not everything is going to work or we shatter the 38 miles. Either one is acceptable. But sitting down and be like it's hard, I quit. Unacceptable. We're never going to die in the chair. And #3 he said.

It's going to be hard, man. Everything is. No one's cruising through life. No one on this webinar is cruising through life like this. But even though it's going to be hard, every time we come back and we sit in this chair after one loop, I want you to remember one thing you're grateful for. You've got to keep that in mind. So even if it's tough out there, we're having a tough year. Things are, things are tough with your kids, whatever.

You got a lot to be grateful for, man, Don't forget that. So I did those three things that day. I shattered my 38 miles. Fast forward 30 days later, I'm at the start of the Hennepin 100 mile race. Chad's running it with me. We get to mile 74 and I'm broken. I got 6 toenails floating around in my shoe. I have hypothermia. I'm shivering. I'm it's it's I start walking and Chad can sense the end his ear.

He starts walking with me. He says, Jess, I'm going to tell you something about me, man that nobody know, man. It's a miracle, dude. I never get tired, he says. No man. I can't explain it either. It's the craziest thing in the world. I never get tired. I want you to say it, but I was so broken I couldn't say it. Not Chad, not now. He says no man, Go ahead and say it.

Fine, Chad. I never get tired, he says. No, man. Say it like you mean it. Fine, Chad. I never get tired, he said. I'll tell you what, I'll let you walk a quarter mile to the aid station. But when we get to the aid station, you tell him the miracle of Jesse and Chad. I stumble into the eight station. I said, I'm the volunteers are there. They give me a little soup.

They can chat, something to drink. I said, ma'am, I'm Jesse. This is my good friend Chad. This might sound crazy, but Chad and I never get tired. I look like I just got hit by a Mack truck. She was like, excuse me. I'm like, I know it's crazy Chad and I never get tired. He grabs me by my shirt like this. He looks at me in the face. He goes, let's go.

We take off mile 75. He's like, how do you feel, my Chad? I feel outstanding. 77980 eighty two it's pitch dark. There's no one around us. He's like man, we don't get tired. 8587 how you feeling? I'm like Chad, I feel outstanding. 909395979923 hours 25 minutes all the way to the finish line of 100 mile race. The words that we speak matter and the words that our kids speak matter. When my son said that I can't do this, oh, give me mom, it's over this week.

Be mindful of the people in your inner circle to say, oh what? We don't. We don't run marriage. We're not right, but we're not good at sales. We don't come from money. Be mindful of the people in your inner circle and the words that they speak. When I was sleeping on those 20 couches, I used to walk into my office every day and turn to my partner. I was like, whatever, 20. I would turn to him and say, Kenny, we're millionaires.

They just haven't paid us yet. You got to believe in the end of your story. You have to believe in the end of the story this week, man. Think about the words that you speak in your house, what your kids say. I'm not good at football, No. We're getting better at football. We're putting energy in to get better at football. I'm not a good reader. No. We're working hard to become a better reader. That stuff matters, man.

It matters now. We covered a lot. We talked about sex, social, intellectual, physical, purposeful, and spiritual. We talked about the importance of pointing the tank into whatever you do, emptying, pouring your soul into whatever you do, and emptying the tank. We talked about the importance of relationships and how business can be transactional, but relationships can. And when you build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships, the floodgates open. We talked about urgency and you have to have to be really diligent with a 25% of your available time while you're building your empire.

And why have you? You have a chance to create a memory or a moment. You take it. And we talked about the power of the spoken word, how the words that we speak, they matter, they really matter. And the words that our kids speak, even more important, really matter at an early age. But I want to talk about the most important rule, the reason why I actually decided I wanted to talk on this webinar about entrepreneur and business, the rule that's really never talked about.

So I told you guys, when I say guys, I mean guys and girls that I beat my father in checkers, right? Ken, I told you yes. So what I didn't tell you is that when I beat my father in checkers, he had no idea who I was. So my dad had Alzheimer's. This is a picture of me holding up a sign that I would hold up every day that I went to my parents house to visit. When I saw my dad. It says I'm your son Jesse.

And one of the last times I was at my parents house, out of nowhere, my dad turned to me and said, Jesse, my son, out of nowhere, you want to play checkers? And I was like, Jesse. Yeah. So I got out of checkerboard. And for the first time in my life, there it is. I beat my dad in checkers. And it was a big moment. And while I had him in this, in this, in this moment of clarity, I said, dad, what else you want to do?

He said, son, I'll do anything else you want to do. So my mom had a little swimming pool. I put my dad in a chair. We carried him into the swimming pool and put him down. Like the first time in 10 years. My dad went to a swimming pool. He went swimming. If you have a chance to create a memory or a moment, you take it. They interviewed the wealthiest families in America, liquid net worth of $30 million or more, and they asked him what was their biggest regret in creating all the money.

And overwhelmingly, almost every single family said the same thing. They gave up what they already had, their kids, their health, their family chasing what they wanted. They gave up what they already had chasing what they wanted. And that was their regret. Don't give up what you already have chasing what you want. You can have both. My dad was in Hospice. It was like a a time glass man where they flipped the sand glass upside down because my dad wasn't eating or drinking.

I never been close to death in my life. So we took turns 7 days around the clock holding my dad's hand, my mom at the morning shift, my sister lunch, my other sister afternoon, my brother early evening. I had the late night shift seven days. And as I sat in this moment literally just staring at my dad thinking about everything, two thoughts went through my head. The first thing was my dad never had my dad never had this. Well, first of all, actually, the first thing that went through my head is I poured my soul into this relationship and I had no regrets about that.

When you empty the tank, you don't have any regrets. And I know everybody here doesn't necessarily have a chance to do that, but if you do, you'll never have any regrets when you over index in that pocket. So I felt really good about that. And then the second thought was that my dad never had this. He never, not even close. But he mastered this. And like I said in the beginning of the of the talk, if you have a billion dollars and your spirit is 0, a billion times 00, but if you have $1.00 one dollar and your spirit's a billion, a dollar times a billion is a billion.

My dad was a spiritual billionaire. He had everything on this side. Not everybody on this webinar is going to get this, but everybody and their children can master this. And at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. So I feel really lucky and honored to be part of the Deal Dash series to be the lead off speaker. Ken, thank you for the opportunity. You know, I was lucky. I was lucky. I had nothing to do with the parents that I was born into at all, but I was able to learn a lot of lessons.

Hey, Charlie, he's my son. I was able to learn a lot of lessons and hopefully pass them on to my children and to people that were closest to me. And I just, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to share some of the lessons and rules that have inspired both my business career, but also my personal, my personal journey, which is equally, if not way more important to. Me that's great Jesse, thank you so much. This was I know you said don't take notes and just listen but I I have 5 pages of notes. I love that. And I figured we could open this up to any questions and I know we have a couple of giveaways and you know, Ken, I just want to just commend you.

You know, I've I've Privy to the speakers that are joining me in this series and what you guys have put into this to for your team, for, you know, those that you work with and and others. And you know, I just love. I just want to say like you didn't culture so important, you know, and investing in in stuff outside of traditional webinars from industry leaders. I'm certainly not an industry leader is a great opportunity for people. And I hope that a lot of people take you up on, you know, on the upcoming speakers because they're going to learn a lot about themselves and other things.

100% appreciate that. And, and in fact, I've already heard from our team that both we've we've had some early engagement with, with clients meetups already, you know, shared runs and, and even internally, you know, we've, we've seen people and, and parts of the team, you know, interacting with, with parts that had not, you know, even before we we began to dealdash. I do, I do want to make sure we get to a few questions. You know, one of the things that, and there's a bunch in here, one of the sort of general questions here is, you know, you and Sarah are both extreme deal makers and you've talked about balance, but how, how do the two of you balance work and life together and, and, and coordinate that?

Yeah, well, you know, it's we spend a lot of time on it. You know, as you get older, it's really, it's really hard to create newness in your life. Like where does newness come from? We actually have the planet. You know, we're really aggressive planners. And I like to map out as much of of I like to plan my life before my meetings. So like I'm really aggressive. And so is Sarah on getting together on like when are our family trips? What are our priorities for 2025?

Like we'll actually start that late this year. And just to give you an idea, this is, I mean, this is a selfish plug, but this is my entire calendar laid out. So like, I'm not, I don't in one year, my trips, my travel, this is a product I made, but I lay everything out and I just follow the script. I'm not big on winging it. I'm not big on just waking up and winging it. So we're really aggressive planners. We try to take, we try to, our strategy is, you know, we check in regularly Sarah and not transactional trekking.

It's not you take out the garbage, you do the laundry. It's like what's going on, how you feel like. You know, we check, we try to have a date night a week. We try to go away as a family as much as we can. And Sarah and I once a quarter do something together and then everything else flows around that. But that's the framework that we try to use and we spend a lot of time planning. We really do. Yeah, a bunch of random ones in here.

What one I thought, you know, maybe a lot of people might run into any advice for someone who feels like they're stagnating in their. Career yeah, I'm a big believer in in momentum and I feel like anytime someone stuck like you got to stop that curve and generate momentum and this is going to be maybe not this might be an answer that might sound not what you expected. But I feel like when I put things on my calendar that get me excited for me, that's a race, a bike ride, a trip, something challenging and I prioritize myself. I show up way better at work.

I get re energized because I know that like I have something to look forward to If I check the me box can every day, like let me back it up. I love to run. If my wife said to me, you can't Jesse, you can't run. We're going to the ballet tonight. I like the ballet. You can't run today. We got to go to the ballet. I'm going to resent my wife if I get my running and now she wants to go to the ballet, I can do it.

It's the same thing with work and being stagnant. If I'm checking things that I like to do for me, then usually I find opportunities and things that work better for me at work. So that's one, one bucket, but I always ask myself a lot of questions, you know, like what do I like to do? What am I good at? They usually say that you find your purpose at the intersection of these three things. What it is you love to do, what you're really good at, and it's providing a product or service that helps people.

So if you, if you're doing something that you know you're really good at, you really like and like at the end of the day, it's providing a service, making deal, making easier access to data easier. So it's helping people and you love sales and you're in that. There you go. So I asked myself a lot of questions. Here's another thing that I ask a great question for everybody to ask for any category. I asked myself, would you recommend yourself as would you recommend yourself as ACEO? Would you recommend yourself as a husband?

Would you recommend yourself as a workout partner? Would you recommend yourself as a friend? And if the answer is no, well then why? You know what, what would you want to do differently? So you can get a lot of answers, you know, to these kind of questions by asking yourself specific questions to get more clarity. That's great. Maybe related to that, I know a lot of people here, you know, like it or not, end up working a lot of hours, a lot of days, a lot of late night hours on these deal making teams. And, you know, there were a couple questions either around how do you deal with burnout or maybe related, you know, you were talking about the 8700 hours, you know, and how do I, how do I balance if I have a job that's, you know, that, that that's much, you know, more intensive and, and long running than than a lot of others.

It probably squishes that 25% into 12% like so maybe, you know, both of those things around burnout and you know, long hour, you know, day jobs. I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about morning routines and I think morning routines are really important, but I personally have found that I'm a bigger believer evening routine. So my day starts the night before where I map out what my day the next day looks like. And I always try to incorporate, if it's not there, things that are important to me. So and then I follow the script. A lot of people, as surprising as it sounds, can you know, and I know we have Zoom calls and meetings and overload, but they just wake up and like they're spending time on things that don't move the needle in the most important buckets or or whatever.

So I think having a strategy is really important. Like I said, I think it's time to, I think it's important to spend time alone. I think that our number one superpower is our intuition and we're bombarded with inputs, podcasts and social media, news, movies, Netflix, and the only way to really be in touch with our our intuition is to spend some time alone. For me, that's been running. I don't listen to music. It's not even the physical side of running. It's just that alone time. Even just taking a walk, breathing for 15 minutes, like there's so in today's world, there's so many apps, 15 minutes of Wim Hof breathing.

You could go to take a sauna, you can go for a walk. There's so many ways to get reinvigorated. Jump in a coal plant for 30 for two seconds. Jesse, so much of this discussion was about not quitting, but you also mentioned a number of failed ventures, you know, early in your career, how do you know to pull the plug on a venture that failed? Because a lot of people just want to keep giving, want to keep, want to never give up. How do you know when is the right time to maybe pull the plug on something? That's such a good question and there's no silver bullet.

I don't think on that because I've stayed into ventures longer than I should have because of ego, failed ventures that I just couldn't deal with. I had investors and I didn't want to call it quits. So I kept putting money and energy and effort in when I knew in my soul that it wasn't right. But my ego, you know, there's a lot of ego in business can especially in your in your young, especially in your 20s and 30s, maybe a little bit less when you get older, but definitely in your younger years. Obvious answer is if it's putting you in unhealthy, you know, it's impacting your health, it's impacting your finances to a point that's dangerous.

It's impacting relationships. Those are all the obvious ones. Because it's hard is not a reason, because there's competition is not a reason. Because it's taking a long time is not a reason. The reason why I think I've been successful, I've had I've had five exits and a lot of egg on my face. The reason why I think I've had a lot of those exits and even just things like getting getting a record deal, getting a book deal. I went, I took my demo to 15 record companies. They all said no until the 16th delicious vinyl signing.

I took my book Living with the Steal to 13 publishers. They all said no until a small imprint called Center St. signed it and it became a New York Times bestseller. I could have quit after 11 no's or after 16 no's in the record company. But my dad taught me about that. He made me wait 55 years to beat him in checkers, So that's not a reason. But you have to believe in the end of your story. If you ever lose that belief, it's time to quit.

Because if you don't believe it, nobody will. Absolutely. Go ahead. Sorry. At the end of the day, you're the business plan and if you're the business plan and if you, if you're not talking with conviction, believing in it and fully like wholeheartedly every ounce of your DNA into it, it's not going to work. I want to say one thing. I know we're ahead of time. I want to say one more thing. When I wrote my book, living with this deal, I, I went through it.

I'm not even kidding, 500 times hover to cover. Now that's hundreds of times cover to cover. I handed it in. The publisher said, you know, we're going to give you one last read on it. I read it through and I go and then deadlines. It's in the I need two more weeks. They're like two more weeks. You can be ready 500 to be talking about. I'm like, I have to make a 10% better. I'm never going to get a chance to write another book like this. It has to be the best book I could possibly write.

I'm going to be mad at myself. That kind of conviction, enthusiasm and passion into the product you put into the universe is the, is the difference. Like I said, Seoul doesn't live on a spreadsheet. Your customers feel that when they read the book. They feel that when you're presenting a sale. They feel that when they get your thank you letter, handwritten verse e-mail, like all those things are important. And, and the, the, the margin of error, it's like an Olympic race. It's, it's a 10th of a second. So you have to do all those things. Yeah.

Great. Thank you Look, we promised a giveaway at the end for three lucky winners. I I don't know if you can see the names Jesse in the window on the right. We're. Giving away this, yeah, fever travel bag, which is this all day running company bag. They come with this kind of memorable these all these stickers to commemorate some of your accomplishments. So this is like my wall of thing and it's loaded with gear. I think we have some interlink here, some run all day running company hats and stuff that we're loading in here.

So these are what the lucky winners are going to get. Awesome, awesome. You have the names. Yeah, can you see that? If you can't, I will read them. I just can't do anything and then I end up in. Why don't I? Why don't I go ahead and read them? The first one is from Jeffries, Lawrence Laporta from Jeffries, congratulations, Lawrence. The next is Josephine Shalok from IBM.

Josephine, congratulations. And and our final swag bag winner is Rob Jury from Chevron. Rob, congratulations. Thank you so much. I know you have one other promotion I think you were going to share with the gang. Yeah. So if anybody you know is inspired to join us on one of our events and it puts something memorable on your calendar, we have an event called Running Man, which is a festival for walkers, runners, health enthusiasts, September 13th through 15th in Georgia.

It's amazing, one-of-a-kind of event and we're giving away a 20% just for this group discount. The tickets start as low as $300.00, but we're doing it a discount of 20%. And you just to reach out to your sales Rep for the link, correct, correct. So you contact your sales Rep for the link and we'd love to see you there. I'll be there, Sarah will be there. She'll be walking, I'll be running if speakers. I posed as performing with amazing speakers. So can you have an open invite as well if you want to join?

Thank you, thank you, thank you. There's thirty more questions, but we're going to have to call it now. One of the questions that came up a lot was is there a replay? And I've been told the answer is yes. So I would say there will be a follow up e-mail to everybody who's attended or registered. And I'm sure the replay information will be in there as well as more information on the on the series. Jesse, thank you so much for your you're putting your heart and soul into this hour and really appreciate the the advice.

There's a million comments here about how how terrific this was. So thank you, Jeff. Thank you guys for the for the opportunity. Thank you, Ken, for thinking of me. Absolutely. OK gang. Thank you. We'll see you on our on our next webinar. Thanks Ken. Have fun.