JOE DE SENA ｜ Rules for Resilience
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Summary
When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Joe DeSena, the founder of Spartan, has made a life of doing just that and helping millions of people do the same for themselves. Today, Joe and I talk about what true resilience looks like, how discipline breeds responsibility, when it s actually okay to quit based on your priorities, and why you should consider making things harder in life for yourself and those you care about.
Transcript
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Guys, life is hard. We're all dealt with hands we don't particularly appreciate, but that's really
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no reason at all and no excuse to crumble and shirk our responsibilities. In the wake of
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difficulty, however, I know it can be challenging to drive on and power through. My guest today,
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Joe DeSena, the founder of Spartan, has made a life of doing just that and helping millions
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of people do the same for themselves. Today, Joe and I talk about what true resilience looks like,
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how discipline breeds responsibility, when it's actually okay to quit based on your priorities,
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why you should consider making things harder in life for yourself and those you care about,
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and also the rules for resilience for yourself and your family.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your
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own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily
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deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is
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who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself
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a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder of the
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Order of Men podcast and movement. If you are new today, know that we are having conversations with
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absolutely incredible men. I think we've done at this point, 360 plus interviews and nearly 900
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total podcasts on this journey over the past six and a half years now. So we've got some great
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information out there. It's going to be hard, a little hard to catch up at this point, knowing
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we've been going for six and a half years, but we've had guys like Jocko Willink and David Goggins,
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Tim Kennedy, John Eldridge, Ben Shapiro, Dan Crenshaw, man, you name it. We've had some
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incredible, incredible men on the podcast. And my guest today, Joe DeSena is not only a repeat
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guest, but an incredible man himself. And you guys are going to hear a little bit about that
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All right, guys, let me introduce you to Mr. Joe DeSena. As I mentioned earlier, he is the founder
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of Spartan. He's also a former Wall Street broker, but he really turned his passion for physical fitness
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into, I think, what can only be described as a globally recognized movement, Spartan races.
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Uh, in fact, as I started my journey to improve my physical health, I actually started with Spartan
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races myself. I've completed, uh, two trifectas. That's all three Spartan races in a, in a single
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year. And then I capped that off with the Spartan-a-gogi, which is a 60 hour grueling, painstaking
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endurance event. So I am very, very familiar with what these guys do, but Joe is a New York
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Times bestselling author. And admittedly by him, he's a bit of a freak. Uh, at one point,
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I think he was known for carrying kettlebells around in the airport on trips. I'm not sure
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if he still does that or not. Uh, but his books, his work, his movement, they've all
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been instrumental on my own journey. And I know if you're not familiar with him, or even
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if you are, uh, what he teaches and what he preaches is going to be instrumental on
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Joe, what's up, man? It's been a couple of years, man. We did a podcast. Gosh, I want to
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say I should have looked. It's been probably four years or more. So, um, but it's good
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It's awesome to connect. I'm, I'm always excited when there's somebody willing to talk
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to me because nobody in my house wants to talk to me. My kids think I'm an idiot at
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times. Like my boys wrestle, my, my daughters play soccer. I did neither. So when I'm pushing
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them, uh, even this morning and now my boys, now they beat me up. How old are they? 16 and
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14. And I can't, I'm no longer able to muscle through. I just can't win. So, um, and then
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my wife's tougher than me. I'm my dog's even tougher than I am. So I've got a, uh, so I've
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got four kids. My oldest is 13 and he's hit puberty or starting to, and he's almost as tall
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as I am. He's already wearing my shoes and he's always, you know, I'm going to be able
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to take you dad. I'm like, nah, you'll never be able to take me. But the only thing I've
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been able to do to make sure I stay out ahead of it is, uh, is train jujitsu, which realize,
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you know, of course, less on strength and more of just cunning that old man strength. I'm going
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to need to acquire in order to keep up with the kid. I love it. I love it. Yeah, man.
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So, well, it, you know, you actually hit on something I wanted to talk with you about today.
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So let's just jump right into it. Um, I'm, I'm, I know a little bit about your, uh,
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your interaction with your kids, the way that you push and motivate and inspire them
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and lead as a father to some degree. Um, I did, I've done Spartan races. I did the Spartan
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and I know a little bit about that, you know, with, with the way that you push your kids,
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have you ever received any sort of bumping up against or frustrations where, you know,
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they, they, they get discouraged or they get rebellious in nature because of how hard you
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push. Well, you know, it's funny. I don't even know if you know this or not, but, um,
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but the rebellion that we're going to talk about here, not only from my kids, but from the outside
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world was the impetus. I wrote a book that came out probably three months ago, two, three months ago
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called, um, I don't know if you know it or not called the 10 rules of resilience. Um, you got it.
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Cool. Yep. Got it right here. Yeah. So, so, uh, the reason that book came about was for
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the exact question you asked, um, folks in the neighborhood were driving by while I was having
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the kids carry kettlebells, I don't know, mile, mile and a half. And, and this woman stopped and
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she got out and started yelling and wanted to know if the kids were okay. And I didn't, I wasn't going
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to get in a fight, right. Cause that would have been disrespectful, but I was trying to be as nice
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as I could. And, you know, ma'am, uh, they're my kids. Um, is he, is he hurting you in any way?
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Do you need water? And I realized, you know, it's not really her fault because she hasn't seen
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a child on a sidewalk in probably a decade. She hasn't seen a child on a sidewalk carrying a
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kettlebell ever. Right. And so like, we just don't see kids outside anymore. Um, and so this was,
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this was, this was like a foreign animal walking around and, and then internally that's external
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and that happens everywhere. And I, I got people giving my kids cookies and I'm scratching my head.
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Why did you just offer my kid a cookie? I'm, I'm in the middle of skiing with my, we don't need
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cookies. I don't understand. So lots of outside influence. That's, uh, bizarre to say the least.
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And then, um, internally, you know, I was pushing my oldest son really hard during COVID. I, I use the
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opportunity. We did a couple of things. I know, I know folks are going to be jealous of this because
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when I reflect back, it was awesome. But during COVID, we went to the farm for the first 100 days when the
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country got shut down and, um, we hiked the mountain in the backyard on the farm every day
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for a hundred days straight. Um, which was awesome. I can't even, I can't even imagine another time in,
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in our lives where we would get to do that. So, so that was awesome. We worked out every single day
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and my kids did live workouts. My little daughter got literally millions of views doing live workouts
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where she got to lead classes. Um, so yeah, so that was, um, amazing. And then from there I said,
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you know what, we're going to go on a tear with wrestling. My wife did it with soccer with the
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girls. I did it with wrestling with the boys. And, uh, because wrestlers are pretty right wing
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conservative folks, um, all the clubs were still open, no masks. I know people listening are going to
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say, Oh, Joe, you're so irresponsible. But my feeling, whether it was too many people listening
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to this, you'll be right on this one. Yeah. So I, my feeling with it was, um,
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this, and I said it very early on and I got slaughtered on social media. This is a, um,
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virus that you're not going to be able to run from. Like, I don't understand. Like my feeling was,
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let's just get it over with. And now that we know what we know, certainly if you were over 65 years old,
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whatever, or you had preexisting conditions, you should protect the hell out of those people.
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But otherwise let's just let it rip through the country as quick, as quickly as we can.
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That was my feeling, whether right or wrong, that was what I, and so when I found out all these
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wrestling rooms were open and there were still tournaments going on, oh my God, we jumped in
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our van and we worked, we wrestled twice a night. We, we went to every single tournament in the
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country. I zipzagged through the country. And, um, and so it was awesome. Right. Again, spending all
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that time with my family, but then it was, um, it was hard on my oldest son reflecting back. And
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there was a moment, there was one night where he was just like out of it. And he was like, I don't,
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I don't feel like wrestling. It was like our third practice that day or something. And I,
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and I realized looking back that I just became a psycho, like give the kid a break. Like,
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but I didn't, I was like, what, what the hell? We're already here. We drove an hour. Your brother's
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out there. And, you know, it was, it was stupid on my part. And, um, and I pushed them pretty hard
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only later that night to finally just have a talk with them, which was awesome. That said like,
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Hey man, you know, I love, you know, we had just a real emotional moment together.
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And I still, I just have to check myself because not that I'm living vicariously
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through them. I want like, we all parents do. I want the best for them. And, and I'm a psycho.
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I'm, I'm, everybody knows I'm a maniac. And do you know that firsthand actually?
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Yeah. If we, and you know, if, if there's a moment where we're doing nothing,
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like we should be doing something like, what are you guys doing right now? Let's like,
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let's go wrestle. Let's do this. Let's, let's right. Let's, let's, let's learn something.
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How come you're not doing Mandarin? So there was that day where it highlighted my insanity
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and I pushed a little too hard. Um, and I've had to just keep it in check.
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It doesn't appear that I've done it again or could do it again because now school is back.
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Life is back. That was a moment in time where I had like unfettered access 24 hours a day to the kid.
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And we were just like on it. So I don't know if I answered the question well or not, but it,
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it was a good chance for me to look in the mirror and say, I definitely went, I went too far that day
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and, and probably for a whole part of the year. I, you know, I, I'm glad you said that, but even
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still, and I think you'd agree that the greater risk is we don't go far enough. That that's the
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greater risk is not that we go too far. It's that we don't push hard enough. We have helicopter
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parenting. You talk about quite about in the book about bubble wrapping our kids and, and,
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and you see it. We just got back from a vacation and it was like this all inclusive,
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amazing trip in Mexico. And I just thought, man, we've gotten fat and lazy and pathetic over these
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past seven days. But that seems to be what I think most of society does, you know, 365 days a year,
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not seven days a year. Well, you just gave me a great idea. You and I have just invented a term
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on this podcast right here. We're going to call it B one bombing parenting, B one parenting,
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right? Where, where you, where you purposely drop bombs in their way and obstacles and just
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make their life much harder than it otherwise would be. And, and that's, you know, that's what
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I'm a believer in because, because my feeling is, um, they're going to have to get up early when we're
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not around, they're going to have to face like anytime my kids are complaining about something,
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I'm like, come to the office. Like, you know what I'm dealing with? I got to make payroll.
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I got shit going on in the middle of a desert in Abu Dhabi. It's all like,
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I got so much stuff I'm dealing with. You're complaining about what, you know, you know what
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I mean? So like, so we, we need to get them to, like, I walk around this office sometimes I'm
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thinking, gee, am I preparing them enough for what they would have to do when I'm not around?
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Um, my dad pushed me really hard and my mom pushed me hard in a different direction with
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health and wellness. And, and at the time they weren't making any friends with me, but later in
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life, they're both gone. I look back and I'm like, thank God, you know what? They could even
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pushed harder. Hmm. Right. Like how come they didn't make me learn another language? How come
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they didn't, you don't want to hear it at the time when you're 14 or 15 or sit like, but when you're
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30 something years old, you're like, oh, I get it now. And then when you have kids, you're like,
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oh, I really get it. Yeah, absolutely. That that's where I'm at. You know, with my kids,
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I've got four. And if we take the path of least resistance, the path that everybody else wants us
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to take, like you said, they'll be handing out cookies and everything else. Um, but I think you
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did a really good job in this, in this book about outlining just 10, well, you call them rules,
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factors, whatever you want to call them that are going to help you lead your children more
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effectively in this weak culture that we live in today. Do you see, I, the other day I posted, um,
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somebody tipped me off that the progressives had come up with this idea of a four day work week.
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And I, and I tried to be as, you know, um, politically correct as I could be. And I said,
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look, I don't care what political affiliation you have. I don't care what religious beliefs you have.
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Like, as long as you're a good person, but like, just think about this guys. Um,
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the number one motivator for our species is the avoidance of discomfort. We will avoid discomfort
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at all costs, subconsciously, consciously, we wake up in the morning to work out. All of a sudden,
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we're making coffee and trying to read news. The only reason we're making coffee and trying to read
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news is because our bodies and minds are saying, don't do it. Don't go work out. It's too hard.
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Right. And so we, we just take the easy route, any chance we get. And if you don't believe me,
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wake up at 5am in New York city, a city of 8 million people go to central park, a beautiful park
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on a sunny day, sunny morning, that's, you know, a warm day. And tell me how many people are out there.
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They are 8 million people out there working out. No, there's about eight if you're lucky.
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And so the point is we all look to avoid, um, discomfort. So I said, these progressives are
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coming out with this idea of a four day work week. Why not three day? Why, why don't we just
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work one day or none or none? Why do we have to work at all? I mean, we think about all the time
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we could spend with our families. I would love it. You would love it. Right. We could exercise more.
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We could do more Spartan races. But the reality is when I, I lived all over the world. I've lived in
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Japan. I've lived in China. I've lived in Vancouver, Singapore, everywhere. I were in 45
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countries. And when I, when I'm, I'm just thinking about my trip in China, for example,
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when I was there and I'm going to see these big companies with thousands of employees
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and I'm seeing people sleep at their desks. And I'm like, Oh, that's, that's weird. And you know,
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I go to the manager, what's going on here? Oh, those are the folks that work 20 hours straight.
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We let them nap for 15 minutes. Oh, what are those, what I'm not even kidding. What are those
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tents in the corner over there? Oh, those are the folks that stay three days in a row. We let them
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sleep in tents in like, and so on. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but what I'm saying is,
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um, how do you expect this country? Check this out. How do you expect this country to compete with that?
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Last week, I'm leaving this office and there's a 13 year old Chinese kid trying to come in the
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office. And I say, hi, could I help you? And he says, yeah, I'm looking for, um, Spartan. This is
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Joe. I'm, Oh, Mr. DeSena. I got my book. I got your book. I would love to get it signed. I came here
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from China. I did, I did a race in China and it changed my life. And so my mom was willing,
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we saved up money and we flew here to Boston. Whoa. And so I'm, and the kid is articulate.
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The kid was unbelievable. He's, he's going to go to a private school here in Boston to the mother
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basically sacrificed her whole life to get this to happen. And I'm like, my kids don't have a chance
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competing with this kid. Yeah. So you want to, you want a four day work week or a three day work week.
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Um, good luck. I mean, let me know how it goes 50 years from now. Let's look back and, and, and see
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what we look like. Well, you know, not even, I mean, yes, of course, but not to mention just the
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level of, I don't know if it's dissatisfaction, but I, you know, I find the most value in my life
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when I am working and that doesn't mean I'm here slaving away in front of a computer. That might be
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part of it. Maybe I'm cranking out words to write a book or doing a podcast like this, but even when I'm
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with my kids and we're at the gym or walking around the property and I'm working hard toward,
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towards a meaningful pursuit. But I think much of culture today is trying to drive us into a place
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of comfort. And it sounds really enticing, man. I can't go to the beach for an hour without being
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bored. I bring a shovel to the beach because if I don't have a shovel and I don't dig a hole and play
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king of the hole with my kids, I'll lose my damn mind. I don't know how these people do it.
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Well, you and I would be one of the five in Central Park at 5am, right? There's a few of us
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and that doesn't make us right or wrong. People say, Joe, you got to stop and smell the roses. I
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say, that's cool, but who's going to fertilize them, trim them, take care of them? Because of
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everybody smelling them, there would be no roses. So, you know, and then I see the comments when I
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posted this thing about the four-day work week. Funny enough, because I didn't expect it from the
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Spartan, you know, user base. But funny enough, 99% of the responses are like, Joe, you're out of
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touch with reality. Think about if it was a four-day work week, people would have more time to do Spartan
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races. They'd have more time with their kids. What are you like expecting to put 13-year-olds in coal
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mines? My response was, I've been working like 100 hours a week since I'm 13 years old. And then you get,
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oh, I'd like to see that. That means you're only sleeping a few hours a night. Well, clearly you
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don't know me because like you, I don't go to the beach without a shovel. I really don't. So I'm with
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you. But we're not going to get the rest of the world to live that way. They're just not going to
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do it. By the way, I got a question for you before then. Keep that thought.
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So on the fifth day, when we're supposedly going to spend all this time with our families,
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are our kids in school or are they going to four-day school week also? How's that work?
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Yeah, I think, I think actually what I think is they'd love to have our kids 24-7. So the kids are
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going to be at school. We're going to be out doing our thing, hoping big daddy government takes care of
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our kids in a way that's going to be best and most effective for them. And we know it isn't, obviously.
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I'm, I'm distraught over the, over the whole thing. I, I, I'm, we're moving to Florida. We're
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going down to Florida. January 2nd, we're moving to Florida and I'm hoping, you know, and then when
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I saw this news, I was like, man, I got to move to another country again. Because I just, I just,
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for me, selfishly, and probably for you, I want to be around. I just like being around people that
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are getting after it. Mm-hmm. It makes me drive even harder, you know? Yeah, I do know. And I was
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thinking about that. My son and I were actually talking about peer pressure. We were driving down
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the road the other day and, and his, he does some powerlifting. His coach, Sean Moore, it opened the
00:21:39.100
gym for, for these young men. And I said, hey, this is going to be awesome. You get to go. Coach
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wasn't going to be there, but I'm like, open gym. You get to go. I'm like, do you have your workout?
00:21:47.700
What are you doing? He's like, oh, he programmed a workout for me. So I just do that. I'm like,
00:21:51.000
awesome. We get there. And I'm like, what time did he say? He's like, he told me to be here at nine.
00:21:55.380
I'm like, well, okay. It's a little after nine. Like, where's everybody at? He's like, I don't
00:21:59.100
know. Just drop me off, dad. I'll go work out. I'm like, nobody's here. He's like, I'll go work out.
00:22:03.420
So I dropped him off and I had to run some, run some other errands. I drove by cause he's 13. You know,
00:22:08.080
I'm going to check on him. He's by himself. I'm going to check on him. So I drove by. I'm not
00:22:11.820
going to bother him. He's with his friends working out, not another car there. And I'm like, man,
00:22:15.500
this is strange. I go pick them up and I'm like, Hey, how was the workout? He's like, oh, it was
00:22:19.380
awesome. I got a good workout in. I did this and this and this and this. I'm like, oh, who'd you work
00:22:22.680
with? He's like, nobody. I'm like, are you kidding me? Nobody came. He's like, yeah. I'm like, well,
00:22:27.560
didn't he tell the other boys? He's like, yeah, he told the other, he told us all together. I'm like, you were the
00:22:31.280
only one there. He says, yes, I was. And this goes to what you were saying about like, we're not going to convince
00:22:37.420
the world, but it also creates some amazing opportunities. If we can develop this in our
00:22:42.580
children, because they're going to be Kings and Queens in this universe. Oh my God. Think about
00:22:47.080
the competition is so easy to beat these days. My, my, my 14 year old just turned 14. He won the mile
00:22:58.980
at school. And I'm thinking he's not really that fast, but it's because everybody else is so slow.
00:23:07.420
Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's, it's, it's hard, you know, it's, it's frustrating, but again,
00:23:13.500
I think that just gives, gives us the opportunity to really instill this. But the challenge I have is
00:23:19.900
they're just bombarded with school and with teachers and with social media and all sorts of,
00:23:26.420
you know, entertainers and musicians that are promoting this mediocrity. How do you make sure
00:23:32.800
that yours is the loudest voice with regards to everything else you have to contend with?
00:23:39.720
Well, actually I want your help on this. I don't even know what it's called, but we came up
00:23:43.560
with an anti-Spartan handle on social media because, um, we figured if you can't beat them,
00:23:50.460
join them. So you should help me do this. We're going to push mediocrity, uh, because I'm hoping that
00:23:56.820
by pushing mediocrity and just being so black today, we should all eat 12 donuts. No one should
00:24:03.780
exercise, no exercise. We're on strike from exercise. Maybe it would be so ridiculous that
00:24:09.580
it'll wake people up. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, sure. So, so the anti, um, Spartan channel and, and, um,
00:24:18.440
you know, listen, in the 1970s, my mother found yoga meditation. She became a vegan and she basically
00:24:28.500
got thrown out of our house. I mean, my parents got divorced. I didn't want any part of that nonsense
00:24:32.880
and branch sandwiches. And I wanted eggplant parm. My sister didn't want any part of it. My dad got us
00:24:38.660
an account at a Chinese restaurant so we could eat normal food. But I watched her from the seventies
00:24:46.240
through the nineties, I watched her fight the whole world, including her own family,
00:24:52.820
because she believed that this was the right way. This would help you live longer, healthier life.
00:24:57.360
And, and so I recognize that I'm just going to face this resistance. Like I'll tell you what this
00:25:05.660
morning, I'll show you this video. I had to go to the doctor this morning. My ears have been ringing
00:25:11.840
for 18 months. I had a cold 18 months ago. It was probably COVID the first time I think I got COVID
00:25:18.360
like two or three times. And, um, my ears have been ringing. And so I went to the doctor and I'm
00:25:23.800
trying to get, um, this, get the, my frigging ears to stop ringing. So he's basically in his lab
00:25:29.700
coat for those watching or listening, he's in his lab coat. He's got a stethoscope on and, and we're
00:25:36.140
talking and he doesn't know what Spartan is. He doesn't know Tough Mudder or anything. And all my vitals
00:25:40.500
knock on wood, everything's perfect. And he's like, Hey, I got a question for you. Um, I want
00:25:47.520
to be able to run two miles. So here's this doctor asking me, I got this whole list of questions from
00:25:54.300
a doctor and I'm like, Oh my God, what is the world come to when doctors are asking me how to get
00:26:01.660
healthy? All right, guys, let me take a break from the conversation very quickly. Um, in January of 2018,
00:26:08.300
I wrote a book called sovereignty and that has now been read hundreds of thousands of times by men all
00:26:15.320
across the planet. And I'm actually in the process right now of writing another book. Uh, I'm going to
00:26:19.820
be writing for a couple hours after the recording of this podcast. So I've been listening to sovereignty
00:26:24.640
to ensure that I touch on new subjects that I haven't previously covered in this next book. And as I was
00:26:30.060
listening, um, I was amazed at how relevant all the information is maybe even more so almost four years
00:26:35.720
later. So I'm not going to say that I, you know, predicted the future, but I'm also not going to
00:26:41.500
say I didn't either. So regardless, if you're looking for something to read this Christmas and
00:26:47.960
new year season, uh, I have 200 signed copies of sovereignty sitting on my desk right now.
00:26:54.420
So if you're interested for yourself or someone you love head to store.orderaman.com and pick one up
00:27:00.580
again, that's store.orderaman.com paperback signed copies. I'll ship it out as quickly as possible.
00:27:06.900
Can't guarantee at this point, I'll get there by Christmas, but I'll do everything I can as well
00:27:10.580
as my son who fulfills orders in our merchandise store. So again, that's store.orderaman.com pick
00:27:17.560
up a copy of sovereignty. And also if you're interested in my upcoming book to be released
00:27:21.800
in the fall of 2022, head to orderaman.com and make sure to be signed up, uh, to be notified by email.
00:27:29.360
So that, that book is going to be out in fall of 2022. All right, guys, those are your marching
00:27:34.360
orders for now. Let's get back to it with Joe. Yeah. It's a, it's a wild time, man. It really,
00:27:40.220
you will that, but that goes back to what you were saying and what we were talking about with,
00:27:43.600
you know, the school wanting, wanting our kids 24 seven, you know, they want to give out these
00:27:47.720
degrees and these credentials, which are basically appeals to authority that I don't recognize.
00:27:52.620
You know, like I don't, if a doctor can't run two miles and he's asking you, I can't acknowledge
00:27:57.920
him as a health expert. You know, you see some of these health ministers in foreign countries
00:28:01.840
and there's some of the most disgusting, uh, unhealthy people that you'd ever seen. It's
00:28:06.620
like, this is the person that we want to have us giving health advice.
00:28:10.920
Well, I'll even go one further. I don't know if you remember this or not, but I was saying
00:28:14.100
this earlier today. I was saying, um, if you're on social media and you're taking a stand on
00:28:21.260
something, even you or I, you're taking a stand on something you really need to look at. We all
00:28:26.240
need to look in the mirror and say, do we really know what we're talking about? Because our species
00:28:31.100
just like you and I in the 1960s and seventies was recommending baby, baby oil and mirrors and laying
00:28:40.360
in sun. It was recommending Marlboro cigarettes. It was recommending powdered baby food over breast
00:28:47.460
milk. Like we are a bunch of idiots, you know? Like, so, so to your point, um, doctors overweight,
00:28:58.920
smoking, giving it like, we got to get our shit together.
00:29:04.020
Well, one, so one of the things that you talk about in the book is this concept that discipline
00:29:08.520
breeds responsibility. And I think there's a direct correlation, but I'd love for you to talk
00:29:13.840
about that because I think when generally when people look at discipline, they think of, Oh,
00:29:18.120
I have to get up at five. I have to do this thing. I don't want to do. And also they don't look at
00:29:23.820
responsibility as something all that significant either. But I look at it and think, well,
00:29:28.000
responsibility gives you meaning, right? As a father, I'm responsible for my four children.
00:29:32.600
That gives me meaning and purpose as a business owner. I'm responsible for running this efficiently
00:29:38.300
and effectively. So I can continue to serve my clients and those people who are tuned into what
00:29:41.820
we're doing. I find meaning in that, but I think generally people have some negative connotation
00:29:46.600
about both discipline and responsibility. You know why? Because of what I said earlier,
00:29:52.800
we, we like to avoid, um, anything uncomfortable at all costs. Discipline is uncomfortable.
00:29:59.280
Responsibility is uncomfortable. You're in charge of something or someone when you're responsible,
00:30:03.940
right? If you're disciplined, you're getting up every, whatever those things are you're disciplined
00:30:09.000
about, you're on it. You're not taking the cookie. You're not taking the easy way. And, um,
00:30:16.280
I don't know. I found that when I got more organized and more disciplined, I became a lot
00:30:21.840
more responsible, not only, um, for myself, not only being more responsible as you, me, but,
00:30:27.760
but for those around me, for my business, like you suggested. And, um, well, how do I get more
00:30:33.640
disciplined, Joe? How do I, how do I get more? Well, it starts just what's starting. Just take
00:30:38.980
that first step. Like, and you don't have to, you don't have to, um, take on the whole world
00:30:43.880
at once. If we're talking about fitness or early mornings, it could just be like, Hey,
00:30:48.600
I'm going to walk a quarter mile every morning at five, whatever the thing is. And then tell
00:30:54.100
everybody, you know, that you're going to do it and make sure you post that picture every day that
00:31:00.200
you did it. Because if you tell everybody and you're held accountable just by, just because
00:31:06.500
you'd be embarrassed if you don't do it right, you've told everybody. Um, and then you start
00:31:11.100
narrating that that's who you are rather than how many people, um, do you know that? Well,
00:31:17.920
I'm not like that. I don't wake up early. Again, that's just a cop-out. That's just, well,
00:31:23.980
stop saying that. Start saying that this is who you are instead of that is who you are.
00:31:28.700
And if you do that and you start to become more disciplined, well, you gain momentum.
00:31:33.520
And then before you know it, you're disciplined in many areas of your life. And before you know
00:31:37.140
it, people are looking up to you and they're following you. And then you're feeling responsible
00:31:41.120
for them. I feel responsible for the Spartan community around the globe. I feel responsible
00:31:47.540
to motivate them, to get them going. Like, and then I really have to be disciplined about who I am
00:31:54.260
and what I do because that's the persona. That's the job I took on. I mean, I think about Shackleton,
00:32:00.060
right? That great story that Explorer who goes out and gets stuck in the ice in his boat for two
00:32:08.420
years with his men, two years, they're stuck in the ice. He does not lose a man. Talk about discipline.
00:32:16.140
Talk about being responsible. He then throws on his pack with one of the guys and they fight their
00:32:23.580
way out. They hike out. They don't know if they're going to make it or not so that they can go get
00:32:27.800
help after two years of being stuck. And they go and they bring somebody back and they rescue the
00:32:32.840
whole crew. Again, they don't lose a man. Still to today, still to today, no one has been able to do
00:32:39.900
what he did, that route. Even with the most advanced gear, even with the most advanced radio
00:32:45.620
equipment, no one has been able to recreate that, what he did. That's such, man, that book is so
00:32:52.260
great. So, I read that. Well, I read your recommendation before I did the Agogi. I read
00:32:56.860
the book and I was blown away with it. And then to your point, when I went and did that Agogi, I had,
00:33:01.900
if I remember correctly, I had, I told, or 15 guys said, yes, they were going to do it with me.
00:33:11.960
10 of them showed up, which I thought was actually pretty good numbers. I was like,
00:33:16.100
if two thirds, I thought it was going to be less than that. And then I think four of us finished it.
00:33:22.660
And I, but I told everybody, and I think I had like 10,000 people in our Facebook group. And I told
00:33:28.400
them I'm going to do this thing. And there are moments I'm like, I'm, I'm done. I'm going to,
00:33:32.760
I'm done. I'm not doing this. And then I remembered, Oh shit. I'm going to have to tell
00:33:37.200
those 10,000 people. I just told I was going to do this, that I came back and didn't do it.
00:33:41.480
But even more than that, it was my kids that I'd have to look my kids in the eye and say, Hey,
00:33:46.300
sorry, guys, dad told you he was going to get 60 hours. And I only did, you know, 43. Sorry.
00:33:54.780
But, and there's nothing embarrassing about admitting that that's the reason you hung in
00:33:59.840
there because that's, that's the reason I hang, we all hang in when, look, we're not all out there
00:34:06.720
on Shackleton ship where if you give up, you die. Right. It's pretty easy to give up on the stuff
00:34:12.400
we're talking about. There's no real consequence, but, but if the consequence is embarrassing,
00:34:18.660
if the consequence is to your point that the kids look up to their dad in a different way,
00:34:22.980
then it, then it keeps you on track. It keeps you from, from tapping out. I am. I would love it.
00:34:30.060
If you'd be willing, I would love it to round up a big crew, even though we might not have room,
00:34:37.220
I'll figure it out. A big crew for death race this year. Why don't you round, why don't you become the
00:34:42.800
leader? I'm going to throw this on your lap. I apologize. You did this to me last time. So I
00:34:47.540
figured it was coming. You become the leader. You're coming to death race on the farm this summer.
00:34:55.720
It's all, it's no charge. It's all on me. I'll give you, I'll give you 20 spots.
00:35:01.400
And just see, it'll be an interesting experiment. Just see if you can get 20 people to commit to
00:35:09.120
something like they've got enough time to train. You could even tell them by the way,
00:35:13.480
they only have to do a third of it. They don't even have to finish the whole thing. Just a third.
00:35:18.760
And see, and see if I can get those 20 guys. I'll see what I can do on that.
00:35:22.020
Yeah. See what you can do. 20 guys. It's on me. I'll feed you. I'll take care of you. I'll even
00:35:27.420
help them get through a third. All they got to do is a third. And, and, and we could make a big
00:35:31.800
announcement. They got through a third of it. All right. I'll see what we can do on that.
00:35:36.840
Yeah. But it, you know, it leads me to think about the other thing is, um, this concept of
00:35:43.180
resilience. Cause I know you've talked about that. And, um, it's interesting as I think about like
00:35:48.500
the death race or the Agogi or even just, you know, a Spartan race, a sprint, let's say, for example,
00:35:53.000
we've, we've bastardized, I think is the word you use the, the term resilience and, you know,
00:35:59.100
everything is resilience. Now every, everything is tough. Like, Oh, you went and, you know, did this,
00:36:03.900
uh, this workout, Oh, you're resilient. You're tough. Well, are you, I don't know if that's the
00:36:08.120
measurement of it. And so you say true resilience. So what do you mean by that? When you say that?
00:36:12.980
Well, I, when I think about resilience, it's more than just standing there and taking a pounding
00:36:17.220
and, you know, Shackleton was truly resilient. Uh, Sir Edmund Hillary's truly resilient. If you
00:36:24.420
haven't watched yet, there's a show called 14 peaks that documents, um, uh, a Gurkha, a Gurkha that
00:36:32.540
became part of the SAS is my understanding. And then went out to attack the 14 highest peaks,
00:36:38.200
um, in the world and did it in seven months. The previous record was 16 years. So it's pretty
00:36:45.860
unbelievable. True resilience. This guy is tough as nails. It's, it's pretty, pretty epic. I made my
00:36:51.360
kids watch it actually this weekend. So, so it's the ability to take the pounding, right. And, and
00:36:57.160
not quit when the easy way out is to quit, but it's also, and this is really important. It's also
00:37:02.520
this ability to pivot and to bend, uh, which is hard to do. And, and, and by the way, there's even
00:37:08.480
times when you should quit and people say, Oh, come on, Joe, I can't believe you're using the word
00:37:14.020
quit. Well, in the example of climbing a mountain, right? Like let's talk about Everest. Um, you,
00:37:21.160
you and I are, let's just say, um, you let's say I have no children and you have children.
00:37:26.560
And let's say your goal in life is to be the greatest family, man, greatest dad that ever
00:37:30.420
lived. My goal in life is to be the greatest mountain climber that ever lived. And you and
00:37:34.440
I are both climbing Everest and we're a hundred feet. We're a hundred feet from the top and bad
00:37:39.620
weather rolls in. And so it's risky. It's 50, 50. We're going to make it back. Well, I would argue
00:37:45.240
since your, your core values are to be the greatest dad and greatest family, man, you should
00:37:51.180
not take that risk. Right. Me, on the other hand, I got my one window to set the world record
00:37:57.380
mountain climbing. That's my lifelong dream. I probably go for it. So, so now the, now the trick
00:38:04.780
here, the trick here is, uh, because I've done this, I've had 10 million people do some Spartan
00:38:11.220
race or Tough Mudder around the world, right? 10, 10 million people. I've talked to 10,000
00:38:15.300
myself one-on-one. The trick is your mind going back to what we said earlier, where the, our
00:38:22.840
species avoids discomfort. Your mind is going to come up with bullshit excuses at that moment
00:38:30.000
as to why we should quit. And you really have to pressure, uh, pressure test it because I've
00:38:36.020
had people say, Oh, you know what? It's just not important to me anymore. The fuck?
00:38:41.200
Are you talking about? It's not important to you anymore. You trained for eight months to come
00:38:46.020
here and do this thing. All you're feeling is a little difficult. You're cold, tired, and hungry
00:38:51.440
right now. What are you talking about? If your mind says, look, it's, it's risky. The bad weather
00:38:57.560
is rolling in. I, I, I promised my wife, okay, that makes sense. But all the other excuses I've heard
00:39:03.480
over the last 22 years of doing this, 99% of them are BS. And that's the true resilience test is,
00:39:10.800
is, is, is, can you fight those crickets in your head when they're giving you a BS excuse
00:39:17.800
as to why you should, you should quit wrestling? You should give up, right. You haven't won
00:39:23.240
a match in two years. And so what, so what you got to lose a lot in life before. I mean,
00:39:29.200
Thomas Edison couldn't figure out how to make a light bulb for 992 times.
00:39:35.460
How do you, how do you filter that though? Because in the moment it does feel really,
00:39:40.100
it's feels very real, obviously. Right. So, you know, I'm thinking about this ago. He is like,
00:39:45.180
okay, there was time. I remember. And even since things that I've done where I'm like,
00:39:49.080
why the hell am I doing this? And I can't really come up with any good reason.
00:39:52.600
Well, well, you got to write it down. You got to write it down and you got to laminate it again.
00:39:56.800
I'm doing this for 20. I'm doing this for other people for 22 years, go back 30 years. I've been
00:40:02.420
doing this stuff myself too. Right. So you got to write it down. It's got to be almost laminated
00:40:07.340
somewhere on your person, somewhere in your body that you've got. What's the reason I'm doing this?
00:40:13.420
Right. What are my true values in life? Like you've got these three statements there under what
00:40:19.940
circumstances would I ever quit? And, and if there's a moment, and by the way, there's going
00:40:25.860
to be like 11,000 moments in a death race or something hard, right? You just have to pull
00:40:31.700
out that laminated piece of paper when your mind is not working clearly and just read it and get back
00:40:37.880
and put your head down. Now I tell all these knuckleheads, I say, do you trust me? Just listen
00:40:44.380
to what, like I have, I've been sleeping. I've been fed. My mind is clear. I don't have a dog
00:40:51.220
in the fight. What I say right now will help you get through this. And, and eight out of 10 times
00:40:56.780
people will listen to me and put one foot in front of the other and continue on. But two out of 10 times
00:41:01.120
they, they turn around, they quit and they regret it. I've, I've never had one instance. I've never had
00:41:08.460
one instance where somebody didn't quit and then reach out to me, whether it's a day, a month,
00:41:14.260
a year later and say, Oh my God, I'm so pissed. I should have listened to you. Right. Yeah. Because
00:41:18.600
again, by the way, in the stuff you and I are talking about, it's never life and death. It's not
00:41:23.820
like the example I gave on Mount Everest where there's a chance you don't come back. Right. This is,
00:41:28.740
this is, this is just hard. And, and, and by the way, if we didn't get to a point in doing these
00:41:36.460
hard things that we manufacture, these, these races, this crazy stuff, if we didn't get to hard
00:41:41.160
where we, where we want to quit, then, then we're doing something wrong. That's the whole reason we
00:41:45.760
signed. We want to go to that place. Well, it changes you, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's,
00:41:50.640
it's hard to know in this relative ease of modernity, how tough you actually are. Like everybody
00:41:57.640
talks a big game, like, Oh, you know, if I got into this altercation here, here's what I would do.
00:42:03.180
Or if I ever ran a marathon, here's how fast I would do it. Or if I've ever went and did this
00:42:07.340
thing, here's how I would deal with it. Would you, that sounds really good when you're an air
00:42:11.680
conditioned house with all your creature comforts and your amenities and you're full and slept and
00:42:17.400
everything else, but you don't actually really know until you're 60% into the thing. You're cold,
00:42:24.360
tired, hungry, miserable, and your mind is playing tricks on you.
00:42:28.360
There's no, there's no doubt about it. You've got, let's use the term. Let's agree on the term.
00:42:31.520
You've got to pressure test. Um, we all need, we all need, and by the way, pressure testing
00:42:37.080
yourself once is not enough. I do it on a, on a micro scale every morning when I get in that damn
00:42:43.120
cold shower. Um, it sucks, man. It never, it never gets better, you know?
00:42:50.160
Yeah, I do. I do know. But I also like what you're talking about with this one foot in front of the
00:42:54.420
other and the whole concept that it's been helpful to me anyways is, you know, you can make that decision
00:42:59.300
to quit after 10 more steps and you, or after two more minutes, like anybody can do anything for
00:43:05.020
two minutes, do it for two minutes and then make another determination as to whether or not you want
00:43:08.620
to quit. Yeah. I remember I had, um, I, we, you know, we have a lot of people that come up to the
00:43:13.780
farm. They want to change their life. And so the first few days we just torture them just to get rid
00:43:18.300
of them because most people, it's just a waste of our time. Um, but there was this one guy who had a
00:43:23.020
drinking issue and he just, he just wanted to clean up his life and he stayed and he stayed and
00:43:28.140
he stayed. And then I put him through the death race. And, um, it was the year that I put together
00:43:32.760
that barbed wire crawl that was 26.2 miles. And he was probably, I don't know, six or seven miles in.
00:43:38.720
It was a hot day. It was hard. It would have been hard for you or I to stick it out. And it was,
00:43:42.960
it was a tough day. And, um, and he was just broken. He wasn't going to continue. And I tried to talk
00:43:48.420
to him and I said, listen, I just need you to do another loop. Just do one more loop.
00:43:53.340
And he did one more loop. Now I need you to do one more. And I eventually, eventually tapped out
00:43:59.400
only a year later to come back and say, Hey, listen, I should have, because you could always
00:44:03.500
do it. You could always do the extra two minutes. You could always go more. And, and I've had so many
00:44:08.620
examples where, you know, a girlfriend or a parent or somebody, Oh my God, Joe, you're putting that
00:44:13.860
person in danger. And it's like, are they pissing blood? Hmm. They're not pissing blood. They keep
00:44:20.560
going. What are you talking about? Well, but, but there's another side of this, you know, you're
00:44:25.980
putting these people in danger. Okay. Well consider the alternative. I would suggest that the alternative
00:44:31.220
doing nothing, getting fat, being lazy, being mediocre, not getting the promotion, not leading
00:44:36.140
your family is significantly more dangerous than these other things that you're talking about.
00:44:40.440
Choose your hard. Right. I love that sentence. Yes. Right.
00:44:42.980
Choose your hard. Right. You want the hard right now, or do you want that hard to drag out for 80
00:44:48.120
years? Right. So I'm, I'm, listen, obviously I'm with you. I live this all day, every day. I'm,
00:44:56.160
I fight, I fight everybody in my family on it. I fight everybody, my in-law, everybody,
00:45:01.640
my company, everybody, like, yeah, I get it. Well, Joe, I want to be respectful of your time. I know
00:45:07.120
you got a hard stop, but guys like go pick up a copy of the book. It's called 10 rules for
00:45:11.200
resilience, mental toughness for families. I got a copy right here. Some of the other things that
00:45:15.580
he goes through is, uh, you can't until you can earn, not given into the wild, raw courage. We
00:45:21.240
talked about things like discipline breeds responsibility and living your values, but
00:45:25.240
such a tremendous book, a lot of great information here, Joe. I appreciate all that you do. Sometimes
00:45:30.260
when I'm in the midst of it, I don't appreciate it, but afterwards I sure as hell do. And, uh, glad we
00:45:34.700
could have this conversation. Yeah. Anybody, by the way, thanks for having me. Anybody want,
00:45:39.000
doesn't want to read the book, just get it and hold it over your head with your family for like
00:45:42.680
one hour, just straight arms over there. There you go. I like that. I like it. All right,
00:45:50.320
brother. Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate you keep fighting the good fight and, uh, we got your back
00:45:54.480
over here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, gentlemen, there you go. My conversation
00:46:00.040
with the one and only Joe DeSena. I hope you enjoyed that one. Joe and I always have some great
00:46:03.700
conversations and he always challenges me. I knew that was coming. So we're going to see if, uh,
00:46:08.120
I can step up to the challenge depending on the schedule and work some of that out. Uh,
00:46:12.000
so stay tuned on that with the death race. Um, outside of that, make sure you pick up a copy of
00:46:17.220
his book, 10 rules for resilience. Uh, he talks a lot about how to build resilience in yourself,
00:46:22.340
of course, but also, uh, with your family, with your kids, your wife, and you are the leader of
00:46:28.220
your family. You're the patriarch. And so building in resilience and teaching your family how to be more
00:46:32.540
resilient is obviously going to be something that is going to serve them throughout the rest of their
00:46:36.880
lives. So follow him on the socials, follow me on the socials, pick up a copy of 10 rules for
00:46:41.300
resilience, pick up a copy of sovereignty, sign copies there. Uh, and then take a screenshot right
00:46:46.600
now before you move on to the next podcast or book or whatever it is you're going to be doing,
00:46:51.140
take a screenshot, post it up, share it up. That goes a long way. We get shadow banned and I'm not
00:46:55.460
going to complain too bad about that. It's just part of the deal. Uh, but we do get throttled on our
00:46:59.500
accounts. And so the best way to overcome some of that is to have this grassroots movement of you
00:47:05.600
guys sharing what we're doing. And the reason is, is because when more and more men step up to the
00:47:10.720
plate and do what they're supposed to be doing as men, then everybody's life is better. Your
00:47:15.760
families, your communities, your employees, your employer, everybody's life is better. As, as it said,
00:47:22.020
the rising tide lifts all boats. So if you have something to share, share it. And I ask that you, uh,
00:47:28.100
do your part in sharing this. All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow for the, ask me anything with
00:47:32.440
my cohost, Kip Sorensen until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.
00:47:38.760
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
00:47:43.300
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.